Sexy Zone boast a wide gap between the cringiness of their group name (you’ll grow to love it!) and the quality of their output. Run is easily my favorite song so far this decade, but it’s only one of many strong singles. The guys are especially adept at retro concepts, and their new album The Highlight is stuffed with them. Forever Gold kicks things off with flair. It’s easily one of the best singles of 2022.
When it comes to pop songs, knockout introductions aren’t discussed nearly as often as they should be. It’s important to open a track with a bang, and I can think of no better opening that Kikuchi Fuma’s powerful vocal that sets Forever Gold into motion. Talk about immediately capturing the listener’s attention! This declaration of anthemic goodness sets off the track’s brilliant verses, which riff on familiar melodic turns that recall an optimistic, neon-colored version of the 80’s. The bounding synths are full-on Gloria in their exuberance as percussion drives Forever Gold forward with gusto.
The song falls into an unfortunate pre-chorus slow-down, but the lull in tempo is offset by another impressive melody. Then, we’re off to the races with a fist-in-the-air chorus that radiates sunshine and power. The instrumental and vocal melody stack on top of each other, forging an unstoppable freight train of shiny pop hooks. It’s all a little obvious, but in this case that predictability makes Forever Gold even more hummable. The song was co-written by the incredible Christofer Erixon, who’s been responsible for so many epic tracks for Johnny’s Entertainment acts. We can confidently add Forever Gold to that list. And if you’ve got the album, stick around for follow-up track Desideria. It’s giving me all the SHINee View/ONF Complete summertime vibes I’ve been craving.
| Hooks | 10 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 10 |
| RATING | 9.5 |
(you can hear a radio rip of the full song here)
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I don’t really favor this sound nor am I fully sold on this but I can see this being a grower if I listen to the full version. By the way I’m not sure if you do recommendations but I recently came across Hey! Say! JUMP’s Call & Pray through your page and I was wondering if there are any songs that you know that have the same energy as this since I’m a sucker for lively, uplifting, and high-tempo tracks.
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That’s a pretty unique track, and also one of my all-time favorites. It’s hard to find anything quite like it, but I’d recommend checking out more work from its producer Hiroyuki Sawano. You’d probably like the song he did with JO1 a couple months ago. I featured it in this round-up:
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(oh… and Sexy Zone’s Run. Always Sexy Zone’s Run 😉 )
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Damn you were right. I appreciate it a lot 👍
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I love Hiroyuki’s works! He has produced a lot of Attack on Titan OST’s, and they’re all pretty amazing. Vogel Im Kafig, APETITAN and CounterAttack-Mankind are all top-tier soundtracks.
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I do so love the Sexy Zone.
Damn you jpop for being unobtanium! Fie!
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Now that you mention it, they do remind of SHINEE in terms of their versatility. I’m at track 6 now (Iris) and every track thus far is such a treat. I’m definitely purchasing a physical copy of this.
Time Travel in their previous album was one of my favorite tracks. The songwriting and production on this new album really rivals that and is chef’s kiss.
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This is fantastic! I love Sexy Zone’s music so, so much.
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mp3 websites finally made the album available so i’ve finally listened to this song for the first time
i love it 😀
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Do you know how I can get a hold of an mp3 or flac version of Run? Can’t find it anywhere.
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there are plenty of websites where you can find these songs. the ones i use are jpopsingles.eu, jpopmix, and hikarinoakari
hikarinoakari is a bit more difficult, as some albums require you to have an account for their forum, which also requires you to access their discord. to access the discord, you have to either wait for a day to register, or pay $2 to their ko-fi
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Oh nice, thank you! I’ve already found several songs I’ve been looking for, this is great!:)
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They went full 80s here I love it
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