I am a sucker for anything retro, so when J.Y. Park ‘The Asiansoul’ (founder of JYP Entertainment) released a duet with Sunmi titled ‘When We Disco’, as soon as I heard the first few seconds of the song, I knew I was sold.
It is no secret that J.Y. Park writes and composes music for many of the artists at JYP Entertainment and is an admired mentor. It is still impressive to see him hitting big high notes and outdancing many idols currently in the industry with his timeless talents. He makes it look so easy.
Part of J.Y. Park’s talents are also behind the scenes in the K-Pop industry, helping to kickstart Sunmi’s music career when she first began in 2007, within legendary girl group the Wonder Girls. The Wonder Girls also had their own retro vibe and sound, a sound which Sunmi continues to use and inject into her solo work to this day. As such, it is no surprise why J.Y. Park wanted to do this duet with her, both for old time’s sake (even though she’s under Makeus Entertainment now) and also because there is no other female artist in the K-Pop industry that reigns the retro style. Sunmi’s most recent solo comeback ‘Pporappippam’ is single-handedly proof of that.
‘When We Disco’ is a song that is nostalgic for the sake of being nostalgic, and I have zero complaints. J.Y. Park has shared that he was inspired by the Euro-disco scene, films Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever, as well as 70s and 80s vibes, which all inspired him to create the song. Although the comeback release isn’t getting a physical version, I really don’t think it matters.
‘When We Disco’ is infectiously fun, catchy, vibrant, the vocals are insanely impressive, the music video is colourful, Sunmi is stunning and J.Y. Park is silly and hilarious as per usual with his typical self-deprecating humour. I really wish that I could pull off all those cheesy dance moves shown in the music video, but alas, we can’t all be like J.Y. Park and Sunmi.
I do miss the Wonder Girls and I am kind of sad that the members didn’t really have a special reunion, but if you look carefully while watching the ‘When We Disco’ music video, you can see poster of the Wonder Girls as a sneaky ‘easter egg’, which is a nice little tribute.
Given the current social climate of the world being all miserable, stressful and dull, ‘When We Disco’ is the kind of song with fun positive vibes that will make you want to dance, no matter how hard you try to keep still, and I am here for it.
