Whatever happens going forward, I will always have a soft spot for Snuper. At their prime, the group delivered some of the best K-pop of this past decade. The frustrating irony is that most of that music has gone underappreciated and unknown, lost in the wake created by a-list acts with much bigger followings. But though they haven’t released a Korean song since 2018, Snuper have found refuge in Japan, where small but dedicated fan bases can keep an act going much longer than Korea’s more trend-happy climate.
Unfortunately, the move to Japan has also resulted in a fracture from production team Sweetune. As much as I love Snuper themselves, their biggest appeal was the incredible discography Sweetune produced for them. Without that unique touch, their work feels generic and extraneous, ticking off musical boxes without much idiosyncratic energy. Such is the case with new Japanese single Oxygen. The track hits all the expected tropes: deep house beat during the chorus, second verse tempo-shift. It does this with a certain amount of polish, but there’s nothing new here.
This is a problem, because J-pop has moved past these sounds. Even K-pop has begun exploring a new palette. Oxygen feels like a track from a year or two ago, and it lacks the kind of killer hook that might give it a fresh repainting. Its verses are moody boy group slop, neither here nor there. Things come into greater focus during the chorus, but even this melody feels familiar and overly repetitive. Snuper do a decent job selling the song. Unfortunately, there’s just not much here.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7 |
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The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
It makes me so angry and frustrated , we could have such a good discography in our hands if Snuper and Sweetune were still there together. They probably might have changed Kpop for the best!
But we are stuck in this murk but thankfully we are slowly getting out. But I seriously wish That Snuper was still teaming up with Sweetune
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I hope it won’t be another Black On Black
I hope it will how you describe , what you want if all members combined ” I imagined a giant chorus of vocals, an army of dancers. I imagined a song as immense and dramatic as the idea of NCT itself”
https://www.soompi.com/article/1425509wpp/sm-entertainment-confirms-nct-is-preparing-to-release-new-album
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The song’s pretty enjoyable, its energy giving out similarly like the jpop tracks that I know and love. But what makes this a less decent snuper track is how forgettable the song was, and that’s a bummer especially coming from snuper.
Their sweetune produced tracks are pretty amazing, so it still didn’t stuck to me why they stopped working with them. Oh and can I mention the absence of main vocalist suhyun in here? Like, his voice is the one that really stood out in every track. It’s sad he’s in the military for a while.
They seem to be fairing well in japan, so that’s nice i guess.
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It’s not bad but not memorable either, I can’t see myself revisiting it. For a group with such an immaculate Korean discog they’re punching way below their weight. Like everyone else here I crave some Sweetunes.
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Are they actually doing well in Japan? The MV looked so cheap. I’ve seen dance cover videos made by fandancers with more budget.
I don’t understand why they aren’t working with Sweetune anymore. Literally of their Sweetune songs are S+ material. I don’t think it has to do with the fact that they stopped making Korean songs since Sweetune also produced one of their songs from Japan iirc.
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I don’t know that they’re doing that well, just that there’s a lower threshold of success in Japan. You don’t have to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of your albums/singles to maintain a relatively long career — as long as you have your hardcore fan base.
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Hello I am swing, I always saw several of your reviews about Snuper but I never commented anything, today I decided to comment because I have been following them for a while and they are important to me. We swings, especially international ones, have been worried about Snuper for a long time. Since there have been some worrying things since they changed Korean companies, mainly because the official MV for Shall we dance was deleted.
As for sweetune he had a contract with widmay, however he did not renew the contract and that is why we did not find any more songs produced by him. The new Korean company is not known and no one knows for sure its origin, but what we do know is that Widmay is no more. I understand that the quality of their music declined a lot and without Suhyun they had to adapt and do their best, yes, there is all this problem with funds and that is why we see a very simple MV, but this is the total fault of the companies, which it is remarkable to be without many funds and that they only continue in Japan where they have profits.
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That’s all very sad to hear. I had no idea that they switched Korean comebacks. Their 2015-2017 material was SO SO good, and I would love nothing more than a return-to-form for them. I’m rooting for Snuper, but like you said, things don’t look good… 😦
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