Review

Song Review: Stray Kids – God’s Menu

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I always get a little nervous when it’s time for another Stray Kids comeback. I adore so much of their material, but their hard-hitting hip-hop sound can also be pretty hit-or-miss when it comes to my personal taste. I tend to enjoy their songs best when they incorporate an additional instrumental element, from psy-trance to electric guitar. New single God’s Menu (神메뉴) adheres more closely to an expected rap template, and suffers because of this.

Production-wise, God’s Menu seems to borrow liberally from last year’s Double Knot. It’s certainly energetic, but the big, brassy trap-laced beat is something I’ve heard a million times before. In fact, this could have easily backdropped a Monsta X song. On first listen, I kept waiting for the instrumental to swerve in a new, interesting direction. But, apart from some nice synth in the pre-chorus, the track remains oddly faceless.

This is where Stray Kids come in. They always bring a lot of personality to their music, and that helps keep God’s Menu from feeling totally generic. Though melody is scarce in a song like this, the group’s variety of tones helps keep things interesting. I only wish they didn’t feel the need to include so many vocal effects. It’s needlessly trendy and just blends them together with every other “hard” boy group.

I don’t think the God’s Menu’s chorus is anything special, but I do like how their voices essentially become part of its percussion. This is a nice use of Felix’s booming tone, in particular. I also appreciate how the song never lets up. We’re deposited right into the middle of the chaos from the first second, and never given a chance to catch our breath. But when it comes down to it, this feels like a very slight entry in Stray Kids’ singles run. It will grow on me (their songs always do), but last year’s one-two punch of Miroh and Side Effects remains unbeatable.

 Hooks 7
 Production 8
 Longevity 9
 Bias 8
 RATING 8

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37 thoughts on “Song Review: Stray Kids – God’s Menu”

  1. I am digging it because it has an attitude, and knows what kind of song it wants to be. Its not just a song to release because four months have passed, but to release because its awesome. I appreciate the soupcon of novelty of being cool viz cooking up some cool stuff cool, which expands the flavor palette of coolness.

    But to be honest I am not loving it today because these days I am craving melody, and with the prechorus as the only real sung element its not satisfying my current hunger. I’ll probably buy it anyway and throw it onto my Stray Kids playlist but not seek it out on the ipod.

    Oooh, another liking it but not loving it on this year’s list.

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  3. Almost agree. I hate double knot at first because i used to put high expectation to that song because their previous songs miroh and side effect was too epic. But double knot grew on me a lot and became one of my most played song by them. God’s menu is better than double knot in a first listen, but yeah for me side effect still win. Anyway maybe this album is my least favorite album by them, there’s like only 1 b-side tracks that i found really interesting, the rest just ok. Their first mini album I am not still the best album by them, also miroh album is also good.

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    • It’s interesting that you’d say this is your least favorite album. On first listen, I thought it was one of their strongest, despite not liking the title track very much. I’ll have a buried treasure coming in the next couple of days (but I could have easily picked a few).

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  4. So my prediction was off, but there is room for it to grow! Onto the song I thought it was great! For me personally I agree with the fact that the instrumental could have been bolder, but for me Stray Kids did enough to sell me the track. The highlight of the track would have to be the crazy ad libs throughout the chorus and the consistency of the verses. I love how each rap verse felt special in its own way and that two-part chorus is killer! In the end its a pretty good Stray Kids track, it checked all my boxes, but it didn’t blow me away like their 2019 output. Additionally I’m extra positive towards this track because of how low my expectations were and the hilarious chef concept.
    Rating : 8.5
    Favorite Lyric: “Cookin’ like a chef I’m a 5 star Michelin”

    Also the album is pretty good! I won’t say anything definitive yet but overall I’m very happy with it. That one-two combo of Blueprint and Ta is amazing! Props to the music video director as well! This music video had great transitions, lighting, and editing!

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    • I went to the lyric video, and keep wondering if I am missing puns and play-on-words in the Korean that don’t translate well in a basic lyric video.

      For example, the third (fourth?) line is translated as this:
      “Even passing Travelers, pigeons, magpies, and crows”
      which has got to have something more clever about it then just being a list of birds that are possibly edible.

      (Gigi, “Today you will learn to eat Ortolans”)

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  7. this was a quick review! i agree with your thoughts, this sounds more like a monsta x than a stray kids one, with a focus on noise vs experimentalism 🤔

    I’m curious on your thoughts of their b-sides! phobia and blueprint are my favourites so far (less the overuse of trap hi hats and auto tune, but as a fan of stray kids, one has to grow accustomed to them eventually)

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    • also, this isn’t related to stray kids, but i am very excited for road to kingdom’s finale tomorrow! have fun watching it everyone! (though knowing mnet,, i doubt that would be the adjective to use)

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  9. I’m neither as enthusiastic nor as disappointed as I could be, but something is off with this song.

    It’s not bad by any means, but I was put off by the instrumental sounding underwhelming compared to Go生 (which I managed to convince myself was gonna be the feature track) and to the snippet in the trailer that led one to believe there was more to come than what we actually got here. It’s like the chorus’ energy is arrested mid-buildup, and since I’ve come to expect booming instrumentals from the non-angsty (think Levanter) SKZ feature tracks I can’t help but feel let down.

    Still, their individuality saves the song from being a throwaway, specially Felix’s parts. I can already see myself singing those in my creepy “mianhae eomma” voice around the house for a few days.

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  10. The vocal effects suck honestly but the raps and the confidence are A+!the chorus is not good but the variety of tones which are used to show the whole song as more Than just the typical trap sound. Yes it has it has it’s lo’s but there are it’s high’s and the high’s overpower easily! It’s not bombastic but it’s good enough for me.
    Hooks: 6
    Production: 9
    Longevity : 9
    Bias : 9
    Rating: 8.25

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    • I also heard what happened with TST’s Yohan and now only people are paying attention. Are U Kidding Me? There paying attention now and couldn’t have done it back then! I Really don’t understand K-pop stans they’ll call themselves K-pop fans but only know 3 groups or so and leave the underrated good ones behind. (Snuper and TST deserved More!)

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  11. I wonder if 5 years ago the title track could have been Haven (which is a much more inspired and inspiring song) instead of these annoying 3 minutes of noisy nothing that goes nowhere. Meh.

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  12. I’m not a fan of this type of drop chorus, I have never been a fan of this type of drop chorus, and I will never be a fan of this type of drop chorus. Pretty sure it’s genetic or something, as it’s one of the only musical opinions I’m completely solid about. It really doesn’t matter how technically good a track is at that point. I really enjoy the vocal parts of the song, but I’ve never been a huge rap person nor a drop person and the rapping isn’t done in a way that clicks with me here. Could definitely be much worse overall, but that’s mostly because I’m heavily biased in favor of Seungmin’s voice 😉

    As for the album, while I’ve only listened to it once (and at 2 AM to boot) and this is a bit of an oversimplification, I sort of found that it improved the further down the track list I got. That’s sort of unfortunate, seeing as the title track is right at the top, but it felt like each track was either an improvement on or on par with the last. Kind of a strange album experience and the inverse of what I’m used to.

    I did preorder this one before any track previews came out, and at this point I would have to say that I regret it. It’s not a bad album — Stray Kids’ songs are just very hit-or-miss for me and I’m usually pretty selective on which albums I buy physicals of. Hopefully my mind will change?

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  13. I wish “Go Live” would’ve been a full song and the single from the album, it’s easily the most interesting, arresting, and memorable moment, and features really skillful production with perhaps their most experimental instrumental yet.

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  14. Honestly when I first watched the mv teaster I was prepared for this to just be a Double Knot but slightly better. Boy, was I wrong. This is jam packed with energy and personality… and soup. Yeah, the whole food thing for me just makes it more interesting. At first I was put off by how short it was but I’ve gotten used to it now. Overall, I’d make it my 5th favourite korean single above the mixtapes and levanter.

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  16. It’s trendy, it’s very short so easy to stream. I think it shows how they were thinking when they chose this track to lead their new album.
    But Stray Kids is a chatismatic group and individualities are able to elevate what is probably their least inspiring title track. Changbin was great at the beginning, Felix has some strong parts, Seungmin is pretty good in the prechorus. But the song itself, I’m more doubtful.

    Not really convinced by the album either. It might be my least favorite Stray Kids project since their debut but time will tell if it really is.

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  18. I’m new to Stray Kids so their music is very new to me, too. Overall I enjoyed listening to their songs, to the whole full album. God’s menu caught my attention really, the song grew on me more and I am loving listening to it a lot of times, especially while watching their dance performance. It paved a way for me to listen to all their music from predebut.

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  20. Loved It. Extremely Talent. Everything about the songs we absolutely great. Performance, Vocals, Dance Moves, Rythm, and the idea behind it with message. It was awesome. They are outstandingly talented and I 💯 support them.

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