Full music video is up! (for some reason it's "unlisted" at the time of this posting, which makes me wonder how people on Twitter found it)
The beats and rhythms are fine for most of it. But the A-gonna chorus rhythms aren't enough to merit being a chorus.
Strongly disagree; the beats and rhythms are precisely what makes this song so good and what makes everything about it work.
Pauses and empty spaces have to be placed appropriately within the structure.
And I'd say they've been placed appropriately.
I don't think there needs to be any pause between the pre-chorus and chorus, I think that would ruin the sense of flow going on (which the pause at the end of the instrumental dance break does I'd say).
Consider Take Off Is Now, where the chorus is furious and dense with the rhythms, and so are triumphant as a chorus. I don't mind a down-tempo chorus, but you have to earn it with either a god-tier melody or rhythm (see Ariana songs), and A-gonna is not that.
Another western comparison would be "I Slay" chorus from Beyonce's Formation, the finisher to Lemonade. Its arrangement and rhythms sound deceptively simple on first listen, but are actually very layered and always have a counter-rhythm and new shiny timbre filling every space. A-gonna is flaccid because it has way too much empty space, which works as a hook, but not a chorus, especially when the pre-chorus had way more interesting things going on. It really does build up to a disappointment. If they really wanted to justify that chorus, then the structure of the rest of the song needs to lead to that. Start furious in the verse and then build downwards. Instead, the structure is literally an increase in the rhythm density and the melody heading upwards.
Okay, to be honest, a lot of my initial hard fighting for this song is mainly in the hip-hop/trap stylings, but all this focus on structure and "normal" song building made me realize that this inverted approach actually makes this song even more interesting! Yes, the usual way of building a song is to "build up" during the verses and go super-layered during the main chorus, but I think doing that spaced-out chorus with a more "rich" traditional-build-up verse/pre-chorus is yet another way of helping this song stand out from the norm. I mean, it's Tsunku being Tsunku, and if he wants to switch it up like this I'd say he's done a great job here.
Again, I love this song because of how much of a refreshing change it is from idol music complacency, and ironically all these arguments against it made me realize even more ways that make it unique and fun to listen to.
Don't get me wrong, I think your expectations are valid, but I'm just trying to argue for another way to approach music that other H!P fans might not yet grasp.
If there's any actual weakness to "A Gonna" I'd say it's the instrumental break and the overall length of the song. The instrumental break, placed before the second verse this time (yet another break from pop music norm) is too much of a bland four-on-the-floor passage that the rest of the song successfully rebels against. And if there's any part of the song where "disappointing build up to nothing" applies, it's that outro, which sounds like it's a transition to more music but instead simply ends things. Clocking in at a disappointing 3 minutes and 37 (?) seconds, this song is way too short for what it brings to the table.
Hell, the perfect counter-example is already there in this single: Are You Happy is superior on the rhythms in every way.
Another strong disagreement; "Are You Happy" may start strong but it succumbs to the same four-on-the-floor drum beat once the music gets into full swing, so I'd say it's rhythmically inferior in that sense; at least with "A Gonna" such elements are restricted to transition sections rather than being the foundation.
(not to say "Are You Happy" is a bad song; it seems decent enough and I'll comment on it more when the full version comes)