Monotony can kill a quality pop song, but in the right circumstances, it can be used to cultivate a really spellbinding groove. The latter is true of the new single “Saturday Fun” from Whoaa, and if you’ve already heard this track or seen its vibrant music video, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Mightily melodic but also filled with an animated beat that could get anyone on their feet inside of just a couple of bars, “Saturday Fun” is what its name advertises, and its mechanics are just one of the reasons why people have been abuzz with this act’s name for a hot minute now.
In a particularly intense string of verses, Whoaa tells us “While everybody’s out having fun / I just can’t seem to find the hours / Time is steadily passing / And this job ain’t go no benefits,” with a rather resentful tone, but this doesn’t dampen the optimism of the music. The instrumentation is pulsating like a beating heart and even the more angst-ridden lyrics are prefacing a catharsis in the chorus that is far more powerful than any gray cloud you’ve encountered recently. This is where “Saturday Fun” really separates itself from the competition, but not where it peaks in terms of creative wit.
I love how acerbic this arrangement is, and because there’s nothing muddy to get in between the beats, there’s never a moment where it sounds like Whoaa are grasping at straws in the name of doing something, anything, that their rivals aren’t this season. They came into this performance with a game plan, and if they are by chance freestyling in this piece, you would never be able to guess as much just from listening to the searing work they’re laying down in “Saturday Fun” right now.
Energetic but not the demanding juggernaut that it could have been, this single is a testament to where its creators are going and, more importantly, what they have to share with the pop genre as a whole. They’ve got one of the toughest generations of talent to come up against right now, but if Whoaa is showing us an excerpt of who they are and what they can do in an ideal situation with the release of “Saturday Fun,” I would put some serious money on them making it into a mainstream, radio-friendly conversation before a lot of their indie peers score a hit on the charts.
