The Singles Jukebox

Wins the award, if nothing else, for K-Pop Act With Most ’00s Hype Machine Baby-Blog-Band Name…

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[4.33]

Thomas Inskeep: Why so emo, guys? I dunno about you, but emo ain’t what I want from my K-pop boy bands, and neither is pneumatic EDM barrel-scraping production. A rare misstep from the JYP stable.
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: An attempt at an amped-up posse cut that sounds like the metal-step of Distance taken to the most obvious “guitars and dubstep distortion equal tough” cliche possible. The sentiment of “parents don’t understand and expectations of me suck” isn’t bad, but the formulaic approach by Stray Kids undermines any rebelliousness they’re going for. I get that it’s an illusion, but how does one come off as thumbing their nose at the system with such a cheap spectacle?
[2]

Alfred Soto: It sure is loud and fuzzy!
[4]

Iain Mew: It’s a lot of fun to hear the clear lines being drawn between nu-metal and something like “Wolf” and the fusion being used to power a gonzo, shuddering spectacle, complete with “adults don’t understand!” sentiment. The only reason I don’t rate it even higher is because with “Hellevator” they already did all of that and packed in an unexpectedly affecting narrative twist.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Exciting and kinetic, but the pose the boys strike doesn’t quite work. They can growl and stick out imaginary claws as much as they want, but it’s all a bit Google image search for “cute baby wolf” to quite succeed on that score. The beat thumps well enough, which saves it.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Exactly as menacing as a brostep boy-band track called “Grrr” was always going to turn out, i.e. nowhere near as menacing as they think, but exactly as much of a guilty pleasure.
[5]