open discussion

Open Discussion (June 5, 2022)

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Open DiscussionIt’s Sunday, which means it’s time to end the week with an open discussion post!

To keep things civil, there are a few rules:

  1. Be kind and respectful to one another. Any harassing language will be deleted.
  2. This is not a place to state what you don’t like about me and/or my blog. Move elsewhere, trolls.
  3. Video/gif/image embedding is totally fine. Just try to limit yourself to a couple per comment. Otherwise my moderation filter goes crazy.

Each week, I’ll open with a question to get the conversation going. Feel free to chat about anything, but if you’re not sure what to write you can use this question as a starting point.

This week’s question:

If you had the power to do so, what’s one K-pop title track you wish you could wipe from existence? And, which b-side or album track would you replace it with?

82 thoughts on “Open Discussion (June 5, 2022)”

  1. I would remove TXT’s Can’t You See Me, which I never liked.

    Then, I’d shift Blue Hour into that space (it is a summer jam, after all) and have them release Ghosting in the fall where its evocative sound would have been a perfect fit.

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    • In this case, I’d replace ‘Blue Hour’ with ‘Wishlist’ to make the transition of TXT’s legendary emo-rock phase of 2021 seem more natural and exciting!

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        • I forgot that they have follow-ups lol
          Seriously though, that would’ve been a really good idea. I would’ve loved for them to have three separate signature sounds. One seeing them tackling a buoyantly funky sound (Blue Orangeade, New Rules, Blue Hour etc.), another being a unique melodically-rich synth sound (Ghosting, Crown, Thursday’s Child has far to go) and the last heading straight for the guitars (LOVESONG, Wishlist, Runaway).

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  3. Cravity Gas Pedal removed and replaced with Veni Vedi Vici! I know we did get an MV later on but it would have made a great title track.

    Wooah Purple removed and replaced with Pandora! I hate Purple with a passion and it wad actually Pandora which made me take interest in these girls!

    Finally T1419 Flex removed and replaced with Get the Bomb. I admit, I rather like T1419 a lot but Flex was the most underwhelming for me especially when Get the Bomb seemed so much more like them!

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    • In my original post (below), I targeted RV’s “Zimzalabim” as my “Kill it with FIRE!!!” choice, but I came close to choosing Woo!ah!’s “Purple”. It’s not that “Purple” is completely unlistenable, but it was the first song they released that I didn’t want to add to one of my playlists. Up until then, they were batting 1,000, then.. ..a bunt and out at second. I’ve gone back to it several times, and it’s not awful, it’s just.. ..meh?! It’s the chorus that kills it for me; the rest of the song is fine.

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      • I vehemently agree on both these tracks. I always refer to the RV song as “Zimzalatrashbin.” But I know there are people who love it. I would replace it with “Sunny Side Up.” Not as A-side bombastic, but superior in my opinion. And as KYOKO stated above, “Pandora” is a superior to that song about a secondary color. Hell, it is one of the best tracks in their discography. That along with this underappreciated gem:

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        • At the end of last year, Nick created his customary multi-part end of year list. In the final post *, I extolled my love for all things “Woo!ah!” and how they saved the entire year for me once I went back and absorbed everything they had released thus far. I put all their songs in order of preference. From “best” to “almost best”, the order went:
          1. “Scaredy Cat”
          2. “Round & Round”
          3. “I Don’t Miss You”
          4. “Payday”
          5. “Pandora”
          6. “Bad Girl”
          7. “woo!ah!”
          8. “Purple”.

          But honestly, it’s only the last 3 that are set in stone. The first five bounce around so much, depending on mood, that they each could occupy the top spot on any given day. I’ve just been completely smitten by this group.

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  5. i blame oh my girl’s commercial failure this year on the Most Boring Song of 2022:

    its not BAD, just boring! but honestly i prefer bad over boring (think nmixx’s o.o) because at least people would be talking about the bad song rather than the boring one

    anywayss replacing ‘real love’ with this:

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  6. Most who’ve seen my comments would think I am going to write about KQ’s egregious act on choosing Take Me Home over Fireworks.
    And they are damn right.

    Fireworks has grown on me, but I still think it could have been more successful if given a crisper vocal and a cleaner instrumental. Apart from its apocalyptic soundscape and bombastic chorus, I don’t find any other redeeming qualities to the song. It’s a noisy structure-less song which acts as a rip-off of the guys past glories (Anybody thinking about WIN or Wonderland?).

    “https://youtu.be/xtcVwuauVV0”

    Take Me Home on the other hand is such a perfect take on the synth-pop trend. It’s a very new thing for the guys but they pull it off with absolute flair. That blazing saxophone solo conclusion? banger. Those breath-taking backing vocals? gorgeous. That soaring, cathartic chorus? Absolutely hard-hitting. It’s choreo is also extremely engaging and inventive.

    “https://youtu.be/xtcVwuauVV0”

    Also, Nick, I am wondering if you can take a suggestion for the next Open end discussion?
    My idea is something like, “There are plenty of frustrating K-pop songs which had the potential to be fantastic, how would you remake them in such a way that they achieved that level of excellence” or something along those lines.

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  7. Slightly unrelated to your question, but you reminded me how desperately I wish WayV’s Love Talk MV was in the original Chinese version instead of the English version.

    Love Talk is one of my favorite songs ever, so I know I sound dramatic, but those teenage boy-esque hormonal lyrics did not deserve a whole ass music video

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  8. Super Junior “2Yao2Yao”. I mean, what the hell is this? Did they let Eunhyuk pick the song? Friend don’t let friends let Eunhyuk pick the song. It is pronounce ee-i-ee-i-yo by the way, like Old McDonald. It’s Zico penned, and he kept the better song “Any Song” for himself released roughly at the same time, which was on top of Gaon for a very long time. In hindsight, I would swap songs.

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  9. OH also Kai’s debut solo album!! It has amazing b-sides, like Reason, Ride or Die, and Nothing on Me. Instead Mmmh was chosen as the title track.

    I like Mmmh, but I believe one of the b-sides I mentioned above would make a more impactful title track.

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    • Hardly agree. I felt “Nothing on Me” or “Ride or Die” would make a more impactful title track as it best shows Kai’s unique style of R&B, but yeah any b-sides from the album can work.

      It’s such a shame he didn’t have any tracks like these ones in his “Peaches” album because personally I felt he excels this synth-pop, maybe Weeknd-esque, genre so well.

      I’m crossing my fingers he releases songs like the two aforementioned ones if he is able to drop another album for this year. Mmmh and Peaches were ok but please, no more songs that sound like Bieber’s “Yummy” as the title track.

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      • Yeah I can definitely hear the Yummy-ness lol. Kai is also a far better stage performer than vocalist, and songs like the b-sides on his solo debut would be so dynamic for a stage!!

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  10. The first two that come into my mind is to replace skinz by OnlyOneOf by Suit Dance, I reallt didn’t liked skinz, libido was great but something annoy me in skinz, while it’s supposed to be my type of music, and i think suit dance is amazing, it reminds me of the a song of ice & fire, i loved this one.

    The second one that I think of is the recent TXT comeback, good boy gone bad, which i think is the worst TXT comeback in 2 years while the b sides are so damn good, I only can think about Opening Sequence, it’s a true masterpiece for me, by far my favorite b side of the year.

    I would like to know what you think about those two takes

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    • That’s funny because I think both albums picked the right song as title track, even if I don’t think either is the strongest work from the group. Personally, I would’ve preferred Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go as TXT’s title, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen since it’s a unit track. Maybe a full group version?

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  11. I would not fully remove Wave by Cix from existence, but I would still promote Lost to title track. And make it the ending of whatever anime is popular right now. But that would be strictly for my personal enjoyment because the song is not objectively a whole lot better haha.

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  12. Realizing that I’ve only started listening to b sides of artists a few years ago….

    Maybe pentagon’s “feeling like” gets wiped and switched with “sparkling night”

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  13. Since I believe it was the technical “title track” for the album, I’d switch Chungha’s Bicycle with Stay Tonight, Play, or Dream of You. Bicycle just didn’t have the replay value of those three pre-releases, or her back to back smashes of Gotta Go and Snapping from 2019.

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  14. I would get rid of Black Swan by Rainbow and INSTEAD make the title track ‘Bad Man Crying’, which they had a dance practice for and is rumored to have been the original intended title track:

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  15. oh!! I would also replace the debut track We, First by Elris:

    With their superior B-Side Miracle:

    They could have had a WHOLE different career!

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  16. One last comment –

    I would replace Weki Meki’s La La La:

    With Iron Boy, which built off the chaos of IDLYG while also focusing the energy in a good way:

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  17. I would remove “Life Goes On” by BTS and replace it with “Dis-ease” as the title track. I felt that “Dis-ease” is more energetic and retains some of that early hip-hop BTS flavor, which I loved. It still keeps some themes relating to the pandemic but it does a good job doing so with an upbeat track. Not to mention the bridge, which takes it on another level.

    As for ATEEZ, I would remove “Fireworks (I’m the One)” and instead make “Take Me Home” as the title track. I think this one speaks for itself lol.

    Then for EXO, I will remove “Lotto” as their repackage title track for 2016 and replace it with “Artificial Love” because personally “Lotto” is just a big downgrade from their outstanding title tracks on EX’ACT (“Lucky One”/”Monster”). Plus, “Artificial Love” serves as a natural continuation to these title tracks as it retains elements from both of these songs while actually making the deep-house trend work for EXO. This would then set an outstanding year for EXO song-wise.

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  18. for rocket punch, i’d remove juicy from existence (or maybe turn it into a cf that’s never actually promoted as a single)

    and replace it with summer punch, bcuz its a more fitting summer track and one of my favorite b-sides of 2020 😀

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    • I totally dislike (hated even) Juicy when it came out but I kinda understand now why Woollim promoted it. Juicy truly was different from the other songs came out at the time and it kinda become memorable.

      However until this day I still can’t fathom why Woollim didn’t let the girls perform Summer Punch as promoted side track instead of Twinkle Star. Twinkle Star isn’t bad, but Summer Punch is the best song out of the whole mini.

      If Ropun aren’t going to have a Korea summer comeback, I’m wishing for a special MV for Summer Punch 🤞🏼

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  19. This is a tough one. 9/10 times a given title track will always end up growing on me, so it’s hard to think of a track I truly felt wanted to erase and replace.

    HOWEVER.

    EXO’s Love Shot was never a favorite of mine. It’s fine, it’s not fantastic, but it’s a breezy song that’s pretty catchy. I just don’t like it. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it after promotions. Gravity, on the other hand, became one of my all-time favorite EXO songs. I genuinely think that it was one of the best songs released that year, and there was so, so much potential to make this album hit with a bang.

    Gravity > Love Shot.

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  20. I think Itzy’s In the morning! They are (were mostly now) my fav. girl group when they debuted and apart from Mafia in the morning, I don’t dislike their other recent work as such. That whole album should be wiped from existence imho.

    None of their B-sides are a big fav with me so not sure which one to promote as a title but I liked their softer songs such as Be with Love so maybe promoting that over songs like Sorry Not Sorry would work for me!

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  21. for tbz…..DEFINITELY maverick/shes the boss i genuinely do not understand why other deobis like those two songs sm theyre just SO ridiculously mid

    and for the bsides….at least for the actual maverick ep id make russian roulette the tt instead but with slightly more heightened production (the original just feels more lowkey than what would usually be considered tt material)…..or EVEN BETTER make prism or einstein the tts for either the aformentioned ep or the shes the boss mini (im imagining a really cool sciencey concept shoot/mv for einstein in particular)

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    • I totally agree with the Russian roulette part and I would love to see how Prism or Einstein would work as title tracks.

      I still forgave Maverick as the title track because of the concept and the single album is pretty cohesive, but I felt totally disappointed by STB. Every time I listen to “Toxic Love” and “Why Why Why” on the mini album I can’t help but wondering who was the person who thought adding She’s The Boss was a good idea.

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  22. When you follow/stan/adopt/sasaeng a K-Pop group, you want everything they release to fall under two categories: 1. Songs you love, and 2. Songs you love less. Meaning, while not everything they release will make it into your playlists, the ones that didn’t were at least worthy of a listen. We want our geese to lay golden eggs, not rotten ones. It is very rare to find a group that hasn’t dropped at least one stinker in the nest.

    For a long time, I thought Red Velvet was one of those “they can do no wrong” groups. They had a few songs/b-sides that weren’t my cup of earl grey, but they weren’t abhorrent; then they released “The ReVe Festival: Day 1”. I remember the first time I heard “Zimzalabim”.I was forlorn, forsooth. Why, girls, why?!? Is it me? Is it my fault? Did I not squee loud enough on your other releases? Should I have mailed more versions of my Irene/Joy fan fictions? Yeri? Have you not forgiven me for the shoebox full of personal effects I sent you? (BTW, my mom keeps asking where my baby teeth disappeared to, so could you mail those back, please?).

    Nope.. ..my life changed when that titular anathema dropped. What could have replaced it? Umm.. ..EVERYTHING! …at the very least, “Sunny Side Up!” or “Milkshake” from the same release.

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  23. I’ve always thought about how you can make the perfect Twice album (all bangers, no fillers) by combining all the best songs from Eyes Wide Open, Taste of Love, and Formula of Love.

    The title track would be:
    1. I Can’t Stop Me
    2. Scientist (double title track) (and of course, I’m not inviting Alcohol Free to the party lol)

    As for the b-sides, I’m thinking of putting some of the bangers from each album in such as:
    1. Up No More
    2. Do What We Like
    3. Scandal
    4. Baby Blue Love
    5. Moonlight
    6. FILA
    7. Last Waltz
    8. Push n Pull
    9. The Feels
    10. and there’s gotta be some more that I’ve missed since I haven’t listened to any of the albums for months.

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  24. So, it is not exactly K-Pop, but Luhan’s Reloaded is one of the strangest albums of all time, with some fantastic songs… and some songs that I can’t forget if I want to. The album had several singles, but for whatever reasons, ‘Lu’ was the title track, promoted in Reloaded II, and released with the album.

    ‘Medals’ out charted every other song on the album, and for good reason, it just might be the best C-Pop song since its release, I LOVE it.

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    • I had no idea Medals was that successful! It’s easily my favorite Luhan song as well.

      Speaking of C-pop, have you heard these tracks? I loved this group’s work (mostly their first album)

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      • As far as Luhan’s songs go, it probably is one of the most successful songs.

        Ah, R1SE, the Wanna One of China. Yes, I have enjoyed quite a few of their songs (particularly the first one you showed). You’re not alone in loving their first album, it is the second best-selling album in China’s history!

        Personally, not too much of a C-Idol fan, I prefer the C-Drama OSTs, somewhat like the anime OSTs of Japan. I especially enjoy historical or fantasy OSTs, since they usually incorporate traditional and rock elements.

        Just some C-Pop (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong) songs I think you’d like:

        This is pure cheeky T-ARA esque idol dance-pop, the chorus has been stuck in my head for years at this point…

        You enjoyed the Wu Jiacheng remake, so I see no reason for you to not love this. It is pure ’80s cheese in Cantonese.

        Dramatic surging pop-rock, one of my favorite songs of the last five years for sure.

        Not exactly your type of song (a dramatic ballad OST), but probably my favorite song this century so far. I don’t say that lightly, this song is basically perfect in every conceivable way. This is pretty much a legendary song in every way.

        I hope I did not post too much lol, and I hope you check out the picks when you have the time!

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        • I never knew the original version of that Wu Jia Cheng track was so… fabulous! I love the attitude.

          I like that BonBon Girls song too, and I can see why you love the OST track, even though it’s not really my thing. It’s quite beautiful!

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          • Anita Mui really was something special, wasn’t she? I’d say this is (currently) my favorite song of hers, but she brings her attitude into even her ballads. Unfortunately, she had a very sad life, from being physically assaulted, accused by tabloids for crazy claims, singing from a young age, losing family early, and eventually dying from cancer at 40. She stayed true to herself till the very end, speaking against the massacres and dictatorship before and after the Hong Kong merger.

            Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t like the OST (Unrivaled under Heaven), but I thought I’d just share it. I love it so, so much!

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  27. Easy! I would replace BAE173’s sorry excuse of a comeback

    and replace it with this diamond in the rough that fits their sound better

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  28. Surprisingly lots of takes I disagree with here, haha.

    Anyway, I’d probably replace “Not Shy” with “Don’t Give a What” (Itzy’s discography.) It was the last song after “Wannabe” that gave me the original buoyant teen crush energy.

    I suspect they’d never promote something like “Don’t Give a What” as a title track because it’s pretty much 80% sung, and they tend to perform songs that are either at least half rapped or downtempo.

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    • Okay. This thread has a theme and I’m about to derail it, but luckily it’s an *open* thread.

      Has anyone been keeping up with Adora??? Her songs are incredibly catchy and cohesive. And her vooooice. Swoons.

      First Make U Dance, then The Little Name, now this, and I’m just having *fun* listening to all three in a row. Not nitpicking little things that could make it better or comparing them to other songs.

      Is Adora my dream kpop soloist?? I haven’t felt this way about anyone’s songs since early Yubin (who releases stuff less often than 1x per year,) early Youha (who hasn’t released anything as good as Island or abittipsy) or to a smaller extent Sunmi (where I like, but don’t *love* almost all her songs.) I don’t have an ult right now, so this is lovely.

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  29. I’d replace BabySoul’s “Walking Through The Moon” with “Mirror”, truly one of the best B-side released this year. Actually Woollim’s CEO wanted “Mirror” to be the title but she did asked for WTTM instead. 😦

    I’m obsessed with this melody, the ending is heartbreaking.

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  30. Make Bad Dream or Genie in a bottle the single from the last CIX album. I love Nine-i’s Parallel Universse, but they could have paired it with Daze Days. Lose Creature from the latest E’Last album and have Poison or Shelter be the title tracks.

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    • Also make the Universe NCT 2022 album an EP with OK!, Zoo, Miracle, and Dreaming. 127 did not acquit themselves well here.

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  31. no but seriously imagine it….ur seeing golden child in concert. everyone is having a great time. golden child seem a little excited. “we have a surprise for u guys” tag says. all of a sudden onf come out start singing complete. when hyojin gets to the chorus someone else starts singing….”byeore byeol geot jungeseo” lights flash everywhere and you see golcha singing complete along with onf while snuper is singing the star of stars. everyone in the crowd is going wild and crying. then if things couldnt get any better nick thebiaslist comes out on stage and does a backflip while holding the gay flag

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  32. Remove: “skinz” – OnlyOneOf
    Replace with: ultimate bliss -OR- gaslighting
    Reason: I kinda like skinz but that is too experimental for me to actually enjoy. Ultimate bliss and Gaslighting are superior b-sides.

    Remove: “So What” – LOONA
    Replace with: Ding Ding Dong
    Reason: It’s the Lee Sooman effect and the NCT-fication of Loona’s title tracks that made me a little estranged towards their recent title tracks. Ding Ding Dong keeps that Loona vibe and is briskly energetic for a title track.

    Remove: “Really Bad Boy” – Red Velvet
    Replace with: So Good
    Reason: I may have gotten the appeal of Zimzalabim, but I will probably never “get” RBB no matter how much I listen to it. For a track that touts the moniker “Bad Boy” and the superior R&B track attached to it, RBB falls flat on its face. “So Good,” on the other hand, is literally s o g o o d. It perfectly follows the R&B goodness of Bad Boy, with catchy melodies!

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  33. i’d get rid of purple kiss’s “memem” and replace it with “pretty psycho.” the song isn’t necessarily the most groundbreaking, but it would be a much better follow-up to “zombie,” which is a song I really loved, whereas “memem” just isn’t really an enjoyable song for me

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