How cute and great is this music video?
It’s easier to blame SM for giving Super Junior an “A-Cha” video that looks and feels almost exactly the same as “Mr. Simple” because both releases were of some importance to the group in building their musical resumes and progressing the group’s image. They were major releases, but were treated no differently, and it became obvious that the “do what we usually do” formula was being consistently employed.
In fairness to those who worked on TTS’ “Twinkle,” there was more variation. There was color, there was pop, there was something fresh. The closeups are the same ol’ closeups we’re used to getting with SNSD, but there was some attractive set design going on, and enough variation from scene to scene that it made the viewing experience much more interesting. How great was the jazz band scene? (The most black people together ever in K-pop. One tiny step…?)
The concept to “Twinkle” is not hard to lay out visually, so the music video mostly stayed true to the content of the song lyrics. There was a lot of frilly girlishness, lacy things, beauty salon scenes. The music video illustrated the theme well and could have been more stationery (rotating between dance sets and close-ups) but I’m glad SM exceeded my expectations on that front.
There wasn’t much of a story: it was mostly a montage of scenes built together around a theme, but that didn’t bother me. I liked the tongue-in-cheek appearances from the Exo boys. The Sehun, Kai, and Baekhyun appearances are negligible, but I enjoyed the self-referential mention of Chanyeol, who was in the exact reverse character position in the Japanese version of SNSD’s “Genie”:
The choreography to “Twinkle” isn’t anything super impressive, but we are working with two of the weaker dancers in SNSD, and I’m sure they’ll pull it off when it comes to their lives — it just won’t be very inspired dancing. The styling felt excessive — the outrageous curls, the overdone eye makeup, the way-too-showy dresses — but this seems like the kind of camp that can come off as intentional in order to portray a super glitzified and glamorized version of femininity and perception of being a “twinkling” individual.
I already very much enjoyed the song, and seeing a cutely packaged (fluffy white doggy included!) music video was a nice way to leave me a positive impression of this TTS subunit and mini-album. Also, seems like the ending of “Twinkle” is alluding to a “Goodbye, Hello” followup promotion?
So, what did you think of the “Twinkle” music video? Good? Bad? Too much winking and twinkling? Not enough?
(SM Entertainment)
