Kpop Appreciation: NCT, Treasure, Chancellor, Super Junior, aespa

NCT 2020 had a comeback with two new members, and their album has a lot of bops! In addition to their title song, "Make a Wish (Birthday Song)", which is super catchy, I really liked NCT U's song, "Misfit". 

This song has all of NCT's rappers, which made me realize how many rappers the group had in total lol. The song had a throwback vibe of early 2000 rap (I think), which I liked. I was also just so happy to see WayV members included because there's hardly any intersection between NCT and WayV since their in different countries.

I also really liked NCT U's "From Home", which had a Boyz II Men vibe. This song had a lot of NCT's main vocals and lead vocals in it, and it's so nice hearing their unique voices.  

The song is sung in four different languages with some of the Chinese and Japanese members there, and they say "thank you" in multiple languages! Like yes! Take advantage of your multilingual members! And give Yuta more lines in general! That boy has such a beautiful voice! 

Treasure has a new song called "Mmm" out! They're really been working hard this year. They've had a comeback every month, and this is their third comeback. This song is very different from their past title tracks. It's slower but sexier, which is hard to take seriously because I know that at least a third of them are still minors lol. But this time, they focused more on their choreography, which makes sense since they'll be using this song for the year end award shows in the following month.

Also, can we talk about Yoshi??? He looks so good! This is definitely his best look yet. And Asahi really looks like the protagonist in an anime lol. Mashi with short hair was a surprise. He looks less cute and more mature but still adorable lol. They all slimmed down again and look a lot more mature without the baby fat. But Doyoung has a headband again, so all is good in the world lol.

Chancellor made a remix of his song Automatic, which featured 4 artists. "Automic Remix", however, was ambitious enough to include over 20 popular KRnb singers on the track! I originally wondered why the song was 16 minutes long, but after I saw the artist list, I understood why lol. And I actually recognized at least a third of the artists like Jay Park, Lee Hi, Bibi, Jamie, Bumkey, and Hoody. It was a pleasant surprise to realize that I actually listened so many KRnb artists, and now I have a lot of other artists to look into because of this song.

Check it out! I'm sure you recognize at least one person in this remix lol.

Super Junior has a new song out called "The Melody". Compared to their typical hard hitting title songs, this song is softer and more sentimental. It reminds me of their softer B-side songs like "It's You". With lyrics like "We met with nothing in common / On the night we sang about eternity, not just about a moment / Do you remember the passionate voice? / This song only you and I know / The melody of the time that was our beginning", it makes me feel nostalgic as a longtime fan of Super Junior. 

The video is full of clips of them throughout their career from practice rooms to concerts to their every day lives. It's so heartwarming and wistful. I love it. Also, the whistling part is super catchy. If I knew how to whistle, I would whistle that part all of the time lol.

SM's just debuted their new girl group, aespa. SM was really ambitious with this group, which marked their first foray into AR and SM Culture Universe (SMCU). Apparently the girls all have matching AR alternate identities called ae's as shown in their music video below, and I think all SM Artists will have eventually one, too. SMCU is similar to Marvel's Cinematic Universe in that most of SM's recent artists will interconnect somehow in their music videos and future content. This was already shown as Easter eggs in some of SM's music videos. For example, the flowers in the train scene was shown in another group's recent music video.

Anyway, I'm really digging aespa's debut song, "Black Mamba." It's powerful and catchy! I'm glad they didn't debut with a cutesy song, since I'm not a huge fan of that type of music. Plus, there's only four members, so it shouldn't be hard to get into this group.