A group that’s been taking the world by storm since the last two years is Stray Kids, an 8 member group signed under JYP entertainment. they got their debut through a tv program of boy groups vs JYP where a group was brought together and had to go through stages of self composing music. Starting out with 9 members during the filming they lost two of their members but ended up really debuting at 9 in the end.
From 2018 tot 2020 they released their EPs Mixtape, I Am Not, All In and Go Live. Multiple of their songs made it to the Gaon single charts. In 2019 one of the members left so they had to rerecord and distribute the album they were about to release. Following this in 2021 they joined a tv show with different other groups. They teamed up with ATEEZ, The Boyz. BToB, iKoN and SF9 also joined the tv show Kingdom: Legendary War, which Stray Kids won.
Since they have released 2 Korean albums and 1 Japanese album. Though in 2022 they released three different EP’s; Oddinary, Circus and Maxident. On June 2nd 2023 their latest, long awaited album released. After uploading a lot of teasers of music video clips and even spoiling bits of their new songs sneakily finally we could grace our ears with the wonderful tracks on 5-Star. I’ll admit it, I’ve been a STAY for a little over a year (Stay is what they call their fandom) so after jealously watching videos and photos of all the USA and Japan tours they have been doing in the last year I ordered three versions of the new album.
They released a limited edition and then A, B and C version as well as a Digipak. Each album is different with different inserts though the songs are identical on each. I ordered Limited, B and C but I haven’t received them yet but of course there is Spotify.
What makes me so attracted to with Stray Kids is that they write, record and compose all their music themselves. Of course they work together with others but in general they’ve been in charge of their own music. Therefor the three members in the group that created a unit way before Stray Kids came to live is 3Racha have around 150 songs each on their name; including from other artist. This unit consists of the rappers (but multitalented) Seo Changbin, Han Jisung and singer/rapper/group leader BangChan.
So when this album was announced I got so terribly excited; listening to it from home to work; I am not disappointed at all. It has two songs that we already knew but overal; OH MY GOD.
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Arrangement | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | “Hall of Fame” (위인전) |
|
|
| 2:51 |
| 2. | “S-Class” (특) |
|
|
| 3:16 |
| 3. | “Item” |
|
|
| 3:12 |
| 4. | “Super Bowl” |
|
|
| 3:03 |
| 5. | “Topline” (featuring Tiger JK) |
|
| Versachoi | 3:24 |
| 6. | “DLC” |
|
|
| 3:06 |
| 7. | “Get Lit” (죽어보자) | Han |
|
| 2:51 |
| 8. | “Collision” (충돌) | Han |
| Millionboy | 2:38 |
| 9. | “FNF” |
|
|
| 2:52 |
| 10. | “Youtiful” | Bang Chan |
| Nickko Young | 3:29 |
| 11. | “The Sound” (Korean version) |
|
|
| 2:58 |
| 12. | “Mixtape: Time Out“ |
|
|
| 2:55 |
| Total length: | 36:35 | ||||
First of all let’s start at 1 and go the first couple of songs, listen to the album yourself and tell us what you think!
Hall Of Fame starts with a little bit of an alien sound; which perfectly matches the first line of the song. It’s strong with beautiful singing and fast raps by Changbin and Han. It really shows how well this group plays in on each members strength. With Seungmin and I.N have beautiful singing voices, Hyunjin and Lee Know have very specific sounds and hold notes amazingly. Felix with his deep drumming voice and Bangchans beautiful sound in a lower but pure register. Hall Of Fame is in perfect balance and immediately makes me want to dance and move around; it really boosts my mood.
S-CLASS; Is just.. wow. It starts off with a subdued whistling then fulls into Felix’ rapping. Hyunjin and Lee Know’s higher sound followed by Han’s high pitched raps. It goes from slow to a fire song with a slight aggressive sound and the music video really shows this. I love the change into Changbin’s Hiphop verses before it goes right back into melodious singing and right back into the fire chorus. This song has everything you need; fast and slow. It had the perfect amount of arrogance I expect from Stray Kids. This song is also their first music video
ITEM; starts as a video game, mostly rap in the start; also sure to set you on fire and make you dance. Seungmin and I.N sound amazing right before the second verse. I’m interested to see what the dances will be for this song because it’s SO good. It got stuck in my head multiple times already.
SUPER BOWL; First named God’s Menu according to the guys; this song was supposed to come out much earlier but they changed the song to their other track that was supposed to be God’s Menu 2. they changed the name of SUPER BOWL to this and my gosh, Im so happy they released this. I love absolutely everything about this song. They sing together, there is whispering and oh my god! I just really love this song; if I could shake my behind like the cool kids I would do it to this song. 😉 It’s really so good and I wonder how other people think about it. So let me know yeah?
For me; this album is awesome and I’ll play it so much on Spotify. We’ll continue this when I receive my albums; so I’ll make a full review for everything including booklets and arts.
