Written by Louis Pelingen

One thing worth discussing about novelty or meme songs is whether or not they succeed with what they’re specifically trying to joke about, especially if there is something notable to the punchlines and melodic construction for said meme song to work long-term. While there are cases when the memetic humor sadly tilt into corny and flimsy territory, there are times when the artist knows their strengths and then applies them to the song so the meme eventually becomes captivatingly silly and catchy at the end of the day. Fortunately, zaniel’s C2 NA RED! falls into the latter category.

What makes C2 NA RED! intriguingly stick is simply due to zaniel’s ability for composition and production, where his built-up experience of comfortably swooning over these cloud rap beats has a clarity that effectively shows up in spades for this song, showcasing the overall quality of his melodic crooning amidst the booming bass and chalky drums that’s well-blended in the mix. Said melodic crooning does add so much to the humor, adding an amount of kooky energy in simply embodying his favoritism of C2’s apple flavor over anything else and feeling exasperated when the store close to him doesn’t have the apple flavor in stock, just as he expected.

Short but sweet, C2 NA RED! is a meme song that has enough charm and polish to the melodic craft, eventually enhancing the succinctly silly humor on display. Even if there is a worry that the meme will overshadow zaniel’s future work – an unfortunate side-effect to acts that are slowly establishing their music but are somehow limited by that one big meme song – the strengths that he does share in this track are at least a good presentation for what he’s capable of doing more as an artist. In the meantime, take a sip of this drink, it is certainly a flavor that’s worth gulping from time to time.

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