Lipstick

Somewhere between bubblegum J-pop and Korean idol pop, this song sounds like it was designed in a laboratory dedicated exclusively to the color pink. The production is deliberately retro — bouncy synths, a melody that sounds like a toy box music box, choreography-ready percussion — and the trio of performers deploy a kind of heightened, theatrical cuteness that functions as its own form of camp. The conceit is a vintage glamour aesthetic filtered through absurdist kawaii sensibility, and the song commits fully to its own artifice. There's a winking quality to the whole thing, a sense that the performers are in on the joke without breaking character. Released as a subunit project, it gave its parent group members room to explore a niche personality distinct from their main act. The song is less about meaning and more about texture — the texture of something deliberately overdone, of maximum sweetness pushed to the point of surrealism. This is for getting ready with friends, for creating the right kind of ridiculous energy before something fun, for anyone who appreciates pop music that's aware of its own silliness.