One benefit of shortening many song reviews is that I’m more likely to cover tracks I’d normally pass by. I didn’t follow MLD’s Dream Maker Project that formed boy group HORI7ON, but I’m always up for a new voice in K-pop.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing new to see (or hear) here. Dash’s verses are by-the-numbers boy group. They’re solid enough, but they’re also the reason I find myself bored with so many K-pop tracks these days. Where are the compelling ideas and ear-catching melodic flourishes?
However, the real reason I wanted to write about Dash is its… (gulp)… chorus. This hook is honestly a crime against HORI7ON’s burgeoning career. I can’t believe someone thought it was a good idea to shout “Dash! Dash! Dash! Crash! Crash! Crash!” over and over again and call it a chorus. Without that regrettable centerpiece, Dash would’ve been another average display of overused boy group tropes. Instead, it stands out in a bad way. You can do better than this, songwriters! These guys deserve a redo.
| Hooks | 4 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 6 |
| Bias | 6 |
| RATING | 5.75 |
Grade: F
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
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Part of me wants to believe that this is some sort of No Wave/Avant Garde masterpiece because of how ugly and abrasive the instrumental is during the chorus. But deep down, I know that this is just a bad nugu song, and their producers just went with the “noise + chanting = hype” formula instead of actually caring about making a good song. It’s still pretty impressive how awful they were able to make it sound though.
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Not awful enough. They saw the target and yet they blinked.
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You took the words right out of my mouth. When will these producers realize that all we long for is a proper chorus.
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It’s not all of us though, some people are into this stuff and some people seemingly just like supporting idols for being idols. A lot of YouTube comment sections look the same and don’t have comments that actually tell you anything about the song
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LOLOLOL
The MV itself looks like a Generative AI clip with the prompt “Six ATEEZ dupe posers, cringely attempting to imitate ATEEZ outfits and choreos, in apparently ATEEZ filming locations but cheaper, ATEEZ light effects here and there, ATEEZ style, Stray Kids style, realistic mood”.
OMG, this is probably the lowest level of the bar so far.
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Errata Corrige: *Seven* (of course) ATEEZ dupe posers. They’re so annoying I can’t even count them right.
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The agency clearly rented the influencer rent-a-plane for a half day as well, with hanger. Also the multi-colored containers show up again. I didn’t watch that closely, but I think it is missing the empty parking garage, the helipad, the abandoned round building, the abandoned school, etc.
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The school bus, the Paradise diner, and the room with blue doors are not here, either.
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Also the obligatory school hallway scene.
I just saw the plush red velveteen theater scene again this morning on some video, the one where the group dances on stage with camera angle pointed to see the empty theater seats, and usually with stage lights backlighting the group.
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o.o as an Ateez fan I am not sure if you dislike them cause boy this is bad and see Ateez name so many times in this review scared me T_T
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The song itself sounds like a generative AI song, poorly curated. As if every kpop song from this style in the past 2-3 years went into the blender and what came out was grey goo. If a bit of time had been spent cherry picking the best and counterpicking the worst to feed into the black box to craft something “new”, it might have been a tick or two better. (eg Like this but not like that.)
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Honestly you can hear potential with some of the vocals but the way the chorus ruins all the that is legit funny
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Delete *the*
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Fuck Kyler, honestly, will never get into this group as long as that fash-loving trash continues to stay in the lineup. Glad to know this song is terrible, SB19 remains the superior P-Pop group
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What did he do?
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Kyler has made several social media posts supporting former president Rodrigo Duterte and the Marcoses. As a Filipino, I can tell you that they are evil personified. Duterte openly boasted about sexually assaulting his housekeeper, constantly made misogynistic and homophobic jokes (including at the expense of his vice president, one of the few honorable government officials at the time). He had a major TV station shut down because he did not like their coverage of him. This TV station was ABS-CBN, who, by the way, co-produced Dream Maker. See how terribly ironic it is? He even said that “Hitler killed millions of Jews, I will kill millions of drug addicts” and eventually extended his ire to “communists” (who were, basically, anyone who opposed him. Duterte’s war on drugs (and communists) as bloody, with literal children getting dragged away by cops and executed on the streets, then having evidence planted on them as if to make it look like they had put up a fight. The ICC are literally investigating this drug war. And that’s only the tip of the shit iceberg, with all his corrupt cronies and family members and yes-men.
As for Marcoses… Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the current president. His father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., was literally the most infamous dictator and kleptocrat this country ever had. Marcos Sr. ruled for more than two decades (1965-1986), where his family plundered the national coffers, and his soldiers jailed, raped, tortured, and killed thousands of dissidents. The Marcoses spent and borrowed so much (estimates are that they stole $10B) that we are still repaying it to this day. The 1986 EDSA revolution is something of a Philippine claim to fame. That we now have another Marcos in the Office of the President… definitely speaks terribly about us.
Kyler also made some extremely misogynistic posts about former VP Leni Robredo, who was Marcos’s main competitor in the last presidential election.
This is why I feel very, very strongly about this. I want nothing to do with this group as long as he is in it, and thankfully their music (if you can call it that) makes this an easy choice for me.
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Unfortunately the Twitter account that had the screenshots no longer exists. This was definitely talked about a LOT, though, there are still traces of this convo on the internet. There were a bunch of other contestants also outed as fash supporters, homophobes, and misogynists (at least four), but of the ones I know Kyler is the one who made the final lineup. Bleh.
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See also my previous comment on one of Nick’s other posts: https://thebiaslist.com/2022/11/26/grading-the-k-pop-agencies-2022-part-two-kq-mld-p-nation-rbw-top-wake-one-wm-yuehua/comment-page-1/#comment-121624
(Nick, I am sorry to clutter your page with this kind of discourse, but as a Filipino citizen I have strong feelings about this.)
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As a Filipino myself, I see all of these discourse on the members & how some of these kids are apologists to actual criminals. I didn’t have the energy to explore more on it though (ie. were the socmed posts recent, or could they be attributed to being young) (I’d assume he’s in the right age when he posted them), so kudos to you for bringing these information to this conversation space.
As someone who saw how MLD changed since MMLD themselves debuted, it’s just tragic. I think every now & then: how did they transform from the company that gave the earmworms Wonderful Love, as well as Bboom Bboom (aka the song that made MLD Ent realize the Filipino market is untapped or whatever)…..to making kpop retreads to MMLD’s hoobae-nims? They continue to bring recycled ideas (despite MMLD themselves have resigned from them) and that’s just wack. I thought this was supposed to be a producer-owned company (Duble Sidekick), but they use the same rotation of composers that aren’t them, smh.
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If I remember correctly (again, the inconvenience of that one account with the actual screenshots going down and no one else seeming to have archived most of them, gah) those screenshots were from the last campaign period (i.e. 2021-22). So recent. Also, at least one of said posts was tagged with #YesToABSCBNShutdown too. You have got to be some level of shameless and brazen to join a show produced by a network whose shutdown you advocated for.
His management tried to issue an apology for him, explaining he was young and wasn’t even a registered voter: https://twitter.com/ChakapusoPH/status/1594714694048440320? but honestly no, I am not taking it. No, no sympathy for a spoiled rich kid from QC advocating for murderers and tyrants. The misogyny of his anti-Leni posts is extra ick.
It’s extremely telling that Kyler does not have a FB page or a public Twitter account anymore, most probably because rightfully outraged people have given him plenty of shit over this.
Kyler is the one I’m aware of who made it to the final lineup. The other trash contestants I’m aware of were Chierald, JL, and Gabby. Nothing about the other members.
Still, I really don’t care enough about the music either, so I will continue to happily ignore it.
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Fuck this song. Fuck it for being another bunch of these dated, overused boy group noise tropes. Fuck it for its damn existence which doesn’t make any sense. I can’t even call it a song of its own, tbh. It’s just a huge heap of CRINGE.
Overall, the current state of the industry is especially disappointing, as it seems to me. This year feels even duller, even more disinteresting when it comes to new releases. Now there’s even more reminiscence of those old, oversaturated industry tropes. Wtf is happening to K-pop?…..
I’m so fed up with this, ‘cuz as the time goes by, the possibility of myself entirely quitting K-pop keeps increasing rapidly.😵😫
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I held my own private sing-a-long with Z:EA festival yesterday in the car. It was great and nostalgic. I highly recommend something similar.
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I apologize, at the one minute mark I thought you were crazy for giving this such a low score. Its not anything great but its not a 5.75 bad. Than the chorus started and I noped out of that pretty quick. That’s awful. Why would you settle on that? Who’s fault is this?
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It’s not even close to the level of genius stupidity that was Cravity’s Gas Pedal. If you are going to go that way embrace it and make it as catchy and weird as possible. This is just there.
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Something doesn’t click here…
In ann honestly, MLD hasn’t made a good song since TFN’s Flex. The verses in this song don’t even connect together.
6.25 (6 7, 6, 6)
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If only the rest of the song was as nice as the pre-chorus, ALAS!
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When they officially debut ill be back on this and probably cheer for your hopelessness. Enjoy life and create positivity around yourself. That was a PRE-DEBUT song it is just an introduction for them and atleast show a glimpse of these young men. I myself listen to CPOP, JPOP, KPOP, PPOP and even western POP. I don’t have any complaints about the song. I wasn’t expecting alot for a pre-debut song. Sit back and relax and calm your hateful heart. Alright?
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Listen to the Song. Understand the lyrics and try to understand why they used an abandoned building. A hangar, those container vans and helipad.
Dash is to travel…..
It is a journey to stardom. It isn’t a debut song but more like of an introduction for their official debut this year. Including political comments under this post an obvious bias and hate oriented review as well. I supported the pink and will always be but I moved on and plastered it inside my head that everyone makes mistakes and everyone has a room for improvement.
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