ATBO were the unlucky target of a rather snarky review on this blog back in July. Their debut wasn’t atrocious or unpolished. It was just a copy-and-paste of boy group tropes. Listening to many highlight medleys this week, I’ve become more convinced that original ideas are scarce in modern K-pop. A majority of songs sound nearly identical — or at least borrow from identical samples. Even more frustratingly, ATBO’s ho-hum debut album peaked with the awesome Graffiti — a breath of fresh musical air buried within a sea of sound-alike tracks. I wish the group had returned with something like that. Instead, we have Attitude.
Honestly, I’m about ready to file a plagiarism case on behalf of SM Entertainment and NCT. Attitude is a Frankenstein monster of obvious influences, and I’m surprised the agency thinks this is going to establish ATBO as a boy group worth following. The song opens with NCT 127’s Cherry Bomb before moving into NCT 127’s Kick It for its pre-chorus. I’m not going to pretend the song simply sounds like those tracks. It basically is those tracks.
And, when Attitude isn’t a direct NCT copycat, it’s an aimless joy-vacuum of half-hearted posturing and fragmented chant-singing that goes nowhere. Even its sparse dance breakdown has no perspective of its own. Pop music (and especially K-pop) has always cannibalized itself, but Attitude consumes the beast and licks all its bones clean. It’s almost impossible to review. It’s like buying one of those cheap knockoffs of designer products sold with half the letters out of order. I feel bad for the group. They deserve to make their mark on their own terms.
| Hooks | 5 |
| Production | 5 |
| Longevity | 6 |
| Bias | 5 |
| RATING | 5.25 |
Grade: F
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
meanwhile b-sides like ‘graffiti’ and ‘magic’ hint at a much more pleasant image and sound from them… it sucks that they’re saddled with such unimpressive songs for their main promotion material
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Another thing I have learned today: according to the hangul it is Ay Tee Bee Oh, and not At-boh.
Also, they timestamped 1:04 – 1:17 as the “Attitude Challenge”.
That’s all I got.
Not a good day in kpop for me. Quantity over quality.
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Oh my gosh. This is SO FUCKING BAD. SOOOOO FUCKING BAD!!!!
For me, it sounded like a throwaway, poorly produced SoundCloud rap “bop”. That’s all I can say. As for the rating, I think that even 5.25 is too high for a shitpiece like this.
For me, 3.75 at best. +1 song added to my personal worst k-pop tracks ever released.
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I gasped at the blatant Cherry Bomb/Kick It intro and pre-chorus… from the concept and choreography to the song, their company only had NCT in the moodboard it seems
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Thank you so much for your review! It’s exactly what I think of Attitude! They copied some parts of Kick it & Cherry Bomb of NCT 127.
I can say a lot more ftom Cherry Bomb. That makes me angry.
My opinion, Attitude is NOT a good song. It’s not finished and boring. Eventhough it copies Cherry Bomb, it’s just a ver bad version of the original.
It’s shameful for the agency of ATBO. They used this song to gain attention for their group. Dirty Marketing!!’n 🤮
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This is hands down the worst song of the day and possibly the year. I feel like the other songs were trying to do…something…this isn’t even trying. This one gave up before it started.
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On a related note, earlier this week I pulled together a first pass on year-end list based upon my ipod playcounts, and NCT Dream’s “Glitch Mode” will rank strangely high. I guess I must have never skipped it when it came around on the shuffle.
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Ok controversial opinion coming 😂😂
Yes this is so NCT that if I close my eyes it’s NCT. Opening my eyes would just confirm the MV and styling was NCT as well.
Yet…. I would say putting aside the whole NCTness – this song was pretty ok for me because of one reason – what could have been a 100% offensive song to my year with all the shouty screechy bg beatdrops and screams… was instead a very inoffensive little piece 😂 Like, there was absolutely nothing in this that made me go “UGH” or want to rip my ears off from the loudness overdose. It’s like taking the NCT madness out of a song and creating a budget version or a low-spice version of an NCT song for the faint hearted 💀😂
I liked that the whole song was pitched so low – it sounded easy on my ears anyway and it is catchy in a non-annoying way as well. I’ll probably give it a 7 because there’s nothing wow about it but I really can’t think of anything I want to hate about it either 😂
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I don’t think it is horrible either, just another generic boy band fare these days mimicking the trademark NCT-sound look feel.
I’d give it more of a mid-6 ish or so, if I bothered to grade it.
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I agree with you here. While it is nothing original, I think its okay to listen to. Tbh I was expecting a chorus with some obnoxious beat drop but I was pleasantly surprised and Im gonna be honest, I would take this song over 2 Baddies anyways. Like I genuinely can’t sing 2 baddies 1 porsche without thinking its ridiculous. At least this song I can bop along without it making me reach for the next button immediately.
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Yeah, I agree with you. Vocal line ain’t that bad too. Heck, I can see a lot of potential from this group. Just wonder why their management think they should be NCT 127 jr…
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hey tbz come get yalls lil stepbrothers…….
but seriously ist is setting these poor guys up so badly like i already have my fair share of grievances with them bc of the boyz and how bad their 2022 has been thanks to how incompetent their management has gotten but now….yeah that merger never should have happened imo
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i guess it’s clear that IST only looks at NCT as a role model for their boygroups which is pretty sad bc everyone is gonna sound like a copy-paste of them PLUS a group as huge as tbz should be trendsetters for their generation, just like their 4th gen colleagues.
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Heck, I’ve only heard “Cherry Bomb” and “Kick It” once each in full (not for me, more so on the former than the latter), and I immediately recognized them in this song. Yikes. I usually don’t mind songs sounding similar to others, but this isn’t just a similar sound…this is pretty blatant hack-job copy/pasting in places. I might go give those two songs each an honorary second listen each because I think they deserve it more than this song does.
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Everyone seeing the obvious copied parts of “Kick It” and “Cherry Bomb” like I did, but can we talk about that synth in the beginning that sounds exactly the same as that in “Simon Says”?
All of that sums up what the song exactly is. A dollar-store NCT song.
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ok what is this? The members don’t have the energy in their voice or performance to make this song work. This was the same problem with their debut song and it seems like it got worse with this release. Also, why do they look so stoic? They all have no emotions and it looks so awkward.
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ok, rewatching the MV and they actually do have expressions but it just seems so off for some reason.
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Haha. I can’t believe NCT as a brand is this influential…. It’s not that super bad per se, despite its blatant plagiarism. Why? Just because it’s not as noisy as NCT (or Stray Kids).
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