I swear, there was a time when the idea of “K-pop boy group” didn’t instantly conjure up images of dimly-lit “bad” boys. Or, maybe I’m just looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. After all, Bigbang are one of my all-time favorite idol groups, and they practically built a career on posturing! But the songs themselves didn’t always adopt this attitude, and the performances often had a sense of humor to cut through the self-serious braggadocio. Nowadays, you can hardly look in any direction without seeing a rookie boy group puffing up their chest to some noisy EDM beat.
To be fair, CRAVITY haven’t tackled this concept for every release. In fact, as far as I can tell their music doesn’t really have a concept beyond “hey, you liked us in Produce X 101, right?” And for many listeners, that’s more than enough. If the songs were uniformly stronger, that would be enough for me as well. I guess the positive spin here is that CRAVITY have proven themselves versatile – just as those concept evaluation stages on Produce test idols’ ability to fold into any genre given to them.
Bad Habits is a follow-up single to the dreaded “skrrt skrrt” of January’s My Turn. It’s a more cohesive song, but again feels like generic post-NCT boy group fare. The guys cast off the kind of sing-talk performance perched halfway between rap and melody. Even the chorus is more of a chant. Thankfully, this approach is consistent throughout the entire track, and gives Bad Habits a single-mindedness that feels especially welcome after My Turn’s aural whiplash. The lurching EDM beat has a few nice tricks, especially when the distorted synth comes at us like waves. But as with so many other CRAVITY tracks, Bad Habits feels like something we’ve heard dozens of times already.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
sometimes i groan when i see that NCT is releasing another brash bass house song with rap hooks but it’s songs like these that make me realize how ahead of their imitators they are
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They honestly peaked at Break All The Rules (which I quite enjoy) and just not done anything remotely good since.
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Yeah, but Break All The Rules had some super cringy English lyrics…
“It’s cool, breaking the rules!”
What are we, five years old?
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Cringe english is camp
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Adding “camp”, the order goes:
Intelligible English good lyrics > unintelligible English of any quality lyrics > mispronounced but decent lyrics > cringey but campy lyrics > intelligible well-pronounced lousy lyrics.
Although it may be a matter of taste whether Let’s break all the Rules is cringey camp or lousy, camp being very much about personal sense of humor.
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This is a very interesting breakdown. According to my personal taste I would order them a little differently. Cringy would come before unintelligible and mispronounced, lousy remains at the bottom.
To me, cringy campy lyrics are one of the greatest things in kpop. I will be devastated when lines like “Shut your tongue” or “We got the flow it’s break your naughty” disappear as more and more idols and songwriters become fluent in English. I wonder what this says about my personal sense of humor..
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If that says something about your humor… watch this.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rjCfCHWe8c”
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Ah, yes the ranking was for songs mostly in English, but I shall add your addition
In descending order (best to worst), my humble ranking:
Intelligible English good lyrics
Unintelligible English of any quality lyrics
A single lyric line that is so craptastic it is great
Mispronounced but decent lyrics
Cringey but campy lyrics
Intelligible well-pronounced lousy lyrics
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Ohh I misunderstood the first one then. For songs mostly in English, there’s usually less iconic lines – more often than not it’s a lot of generic, safe phrases (light it up like dynamite, etc etc) with very little meme potential.
“Craptastic” is also great.
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Revising again, In descending order (best to worst), my humble ranking of lkpop lyrics in English
Intelligible English good lyrics that rhyme
Intelligible English good lyrics
Unintelligible English of any quality lyrics
A single lyric line that is so craptastic it is great
Mispronounced but decent lyrics
Cringey but campy lyrics
Oh so bland lyrics
What does that mean lyrics
A single word said over over like that will make it means something
Well-pronounced lousy lyrics
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Never until now did I realize there were so many types of English lyrics. I should add this to my ‘list of topics I want to write about instead of writing my thesis’.
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Honestly, this March has zipped away so fast for me. I really love BDC’s Shoot The Moon and GHOST9’s Seoul, but the other songs………not that much. I am hoping for Astro’s comeback to be good, WJSN to come back with a banger and ATEEZ to hopefully release Take Me Home follow up music video during this month. I desperately want that Take Me Home MV!
Yeah, um……. Bad Habits is okay for me! I am pretty fine with its existence, though I do wish Dangerous was chosen as follow up music video….
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May this elf also remind you that Super Junior have a comeback next week. I know, I know, a million teasers out there, here is theirs:
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq8aK-v2clE
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Sorry i forgot about this! I have been waiting for it for too long! Thanks for reminding.
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“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6maESPSSVZs”
Pentagon’s comeback is also looking really good!
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Oooh this may be a chance for me to officially meet Super Junior! Who knows, if I love the song..
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Teaser is promising.. I see bright colours.. I hear a funky beat..
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Groundhog day. I had to check myself what day it actually is, and who are these people because they sound like an NCT but they are not NCT. Ah, this is the skrrt skrrt group that has the one who looks and sounds like Ten but who is not Ten.
“Naega something I’m the boss, Naega something I’m the player” This song’s chorus has the same cadence.
It’s alright.
( … apparently those aren’t the Boss lyrics but that is how I hear and sing them)
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Kpop boy group releases are truly starting to feel similar to the daily grind. Same song, different day.
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lmao “Naega something I’m the boss, Naega something I’m the player” That’s a PERFECT way to describe the lyrics to songs like these
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on the bright side, we have DRIPPIN’s long-awaited comeback next week!
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I forgot to highlight DRIPPIN and Yukika’s comeback! Really excited for this turn.
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That’s right! I have avoided all teasers so far, I want to be surprised.
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I’m kinda enjoying this. I think I’m mesmerized by the rapping which is so insistent but not unpleasant.
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