I don't usually pay attention to the K-Pop world, but when I went on Billboard to see the few words, "nail Beyonce,"I knew I had to see what could be described as "nailing Beyonce." And let me be the first to say, this wasn't a mess, but it wasn't much of "nailing it" either.
Now, I probably wouldn't have much to say if I hadn't seen Beyonce perform the song in front of my very eyes at the Super Bowl in February (that performance blew my mind), this performance was clean, but it lacked energy and complexity. Hyroin looked tired with her dancing, sounded boring with the vocals, and no where near as appealing as Beyonce. There was hardly any stage presence, shocking for someone whose been described as Korea's Beyonce. When covering Beyonce, one must be spot on, as Beyonce works like clock work on 99% of performances. This was more like a 90 year old clock that's fallen a little slow.
Now, again I will reiterate, this is a bad performance in comparison to Beyonce. When considering that this is a singer who does not speak english and is a brand new solo artist, it's not that bad. In fact it shows a little promise. This shows a lot of potential, but it also illustrates areas of work. Not bad for someone as new to the solo game as Hyroin, but Beyonce would scoff at the comparisons.
Overall: C-