Music Critics’ Reactions to Gee

You may not think it, but Gee wasn’t hailed as the juggernaut of a cultural phenomenon it would become when it was first released.

These are the first reactions as soon as Gee was released on January 5th. Before every man, woman, child, young and old were doing the crab leg dance. Just goes to show that they’re not always right.

1. This song really makes me cringe. I am completely disappointed.
2. Personally, I felt like it was not impressive at all for having waited 10 months for it. After hearing the teaser and then the full, the disappointment is definite.
3. SNSD’s first album itself was… I guess their title track [Gee] just can’t appeal to the general public, just like “Into the New World”.
4. They announced that this “Gee” was meant to specifically target the general public but it’s childish and clumsy. That makes it different from “ITNW”.
5. Why would they write lyrics like that? The “Gee gee gee gee baby baby” part is nice but it only comes a few times, and . This doesn’t seem like much to show for 10 months’ work. Bbanjjak Bbanjjak just sounds harsh to my ears.
6. This is worse than “Rock U” and “Pretty Girl”
7. Even if SNSD have a bad song, they’ll probably sell at least 50,000 albums since they have so many obsessed fans.
8. From the point of view of someone who thinks “Rock U” was better than “Pretty Girl”, this song is even worse than “Pretty Girl”. Especially when you think about how long they spent preparing this song.
9. As expected, Wonder Girls songs have a much better feel to them.. this song [Gee] doesn’t have that addictive sound..
10. It’s a simple difference in concept. JYP keeps innovating and SNSD has nothing but just acting cute.
11. I really liked how they [E-Tribe] wrote “U-Go-Girl” so why did they screw up SNSD’s song like this?
12. To be honest, all the songs sound the same.. and the reason behind that is Brave Bothers.. I’m getting sick that repetitiveness in songs..
13. Maybe it’s because songs these days only want to sound addictive.. I’m already sick of how they endlessly repeat the same words.
14. They’re just trying too hard to be “The Next Big Thing”

Results

Released January 7th 2009, number one within the next week… and thus began its reign of terror on every chart and measure imaginable.

Over 100,000 copies of the mini-album were shipped to stores. Sales analyst company Hanteo reported sales in excess of 30,000 copies within the first 10 days of its release.

It broke the record for longest-running #1 on KBS’s Music Bank, beating the 7-week record previously set by Jewelry in 2008. “Gee” achieved its ninth #1 on the show on March 13, 2009.

(c) oniontaker