It seems I’m writing about a HYBE act or a HYBE-adjacent act every other day on this blog. The monolithic company has taken over K-pop and has its sights set on J-pop as well. The resulting music is of mixed quality, but HYBE’s ever-expanding roster of artists have all found success so far. Love them or hate them, it doesn’t feel that we’re in for a slowdown anytime soon.
On balance, &TEAM’s Firework is an above-average HYBE track. It hits many of the notes I tend to enjoy — a little synthwave here, a nice melody there — but suffers from a lack of identity. Many HYBE acts are beginning to feel interchangeable, beholden to the company’s song camps and antiseptic sheen. &TEAM’s vocal performance is competent, but this could just as easily be an ENHYPEN or TXT track. Any personality is smothered by vocal effects and dull arrangements, making Firework feel factory-pressed.
Luckily, the song has strong bones. Its driving energy offers a nice springboard for the sprightly verses. The chorus crests with renewed intensity, begging for a more dynamic vocal arrangement to craft a worthy centerpiece. In the hands of a more singular vision (the song has eleven credited songwriters), Firework could be a stunning standout. Instead, it’s a very enjoyable corporate product.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
Grade: B
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
In related corporate branding news, Sierra Mist has been rebranded as Starry, with the same fizzy sugary lemon lime rush.
B-side “Road Not Taken” is pretty good. It sounds a bit like OnlyOneOf covering a WayV song, or vice versa. They really leaned heavily into the vocoder / melodyne effects, and it works out well.
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This is easily my favorite HYBE title track from their boy groups in the last year or so, I really like the production in this and the whole performance feels really self assured. I was thinking that the chorus could have been stronget at first but I took another listen in the morning and I already found myself remembering it and singing along so I’m quite satisfied. Perhaps an 8.75 or higher from me.
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I absolutely agree with your review. When Enhypen debuted, I said to my circle of friends “it sounds like this could be a song made for TXT” or “it sounds like TXT but in a different font”. At the time, my friends didn’t agree with me. Now, after &TEAM’s debut, it got obvious to them. Me and my best friend call it “the HYBE formula” because it never fails (all the songs are truly amazing) and most of their boy groups are starting to sound the same. I honestly believe HYBE has a vast interntwined library of songs for either TXT, Enhypen and &TEAM, and that means that sometimes they must stumble uppon a song that makes them go “okay, we’ll give this one for which of the three?”. Interestingly enough, I think now it’s time for the girl groups to shine and bring something new to the industry. Le Sserafim and NewJeans both have their distinct and refreshing sounds.
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Txt write, composer and producer their own music
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Just to tell you each label under hybe has its own production team.
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Eh, it seems like HYBE still can’t let go of the heavily autotuning for ALL of their boy groups (BTS, TXT, Enhypen, and now &Team). Like you’ve stated, they all sounding the same which makes me glad that artists like EXO and SHINee are making a comeback. Cause we’ll get to hear true natural vocals, which is always refreshing (even though it should be the standard norm by now).
The chorus have a nice melody though, but at this point I have more faith in their subsidiaries groups (New Jeans, Les serferm, Seventeen) to deliver variety (while still sounding good) for me.
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Definitely the best HYBE single yet this year. This is also a clear favorite of mine from all the male groups this year, it’s clear, empowering, and uplifting while being all cathartic. Definitely everything I love about music is here. 9/10.
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Woah. I really really like this contrary to what expected. I think this might be my favourite song from them.
It’s upbeat but still has an element of nostalgia? Sadness? Something that contrasts it’s upbeat impression.
8.75 for me.
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Well I agree with Nick, in that the song is OK, but somehow I feel like I’m having a huge indigestion of “OK” songs come out of the same factory. The fact that there’s 11 credited songwriters is another hint at the likelihood that HYBE is basically assembling these songs note by note hiring a huge number of people each time to reproduce the same style over and over again – and the end result is “OK” but has no spark.
I don’t agree with some comments here that “the songs following this HYBE formula are all amazing” – and in fact, although the artists are really good and the albums sell really well, the singles never chart well. I absolutely adore most of BTS repertoire up to the Love Yourself era, but after then it’s all got repetitive, formulaic and with no spark of its own. And the other groups TXT, ENHYPEN etc suffer from the same defect. It’s such a shame because what got me into kpop was the diversity of it. Now I find myself back to browsing western songs, simply because lots of kpop has become very similar to western songs but with an inferior quality in the writing and melodies. The girl bands though are keeping me in a lot! Personally I feel the quality there is higher 🙂
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I guess you dont know that each label under hybe has its own production team.
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I think this is the best pop song from a HYBE boy group in a long time and also my favourite chorus of all the comebacks this year so far it’s such a powerful and catchy chorus , I don’t personally think it sounds like any other group I think it’s easy to say that because it’s a pop song but &team’s speciality is pop songs with a emo punk element , the way they add the guitar in the back is their signature thing I think this song had some really good melodies and it matched them perfectly , also the video is out of this world I LOVE IT
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You do know that each label has their own production team. Plus bts and txt write ,composer and producer their own music.
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Just to tell you each label under hybe has its own production team.
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how hybe are handling andteam confuses me because if I wanted pop rock I’d listen to txt, and if I wanted lore, I’d read enhypen’s webtoon which is apparently popular among the animanga community. andteam have this distinct lack of identity and honestly it’s down to the poor business decisions made by hybe, meanwhile SM are excelling at creating and maintaining a strong brand identity for each of their groups (see: aespa and riize).
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