Though this spring’s Bite Me was not without its issues, it went on to be a big hit for ENHYPEN by tapping into the Y2K trend and prioritizing a short-but-sweet song structure. The funky teasers for new title track Sweet Venom promised something even better, and HYBE-related acts have found recent success with MJ-esque throwbacks. But as much potential as the songs holds, its charms are undercut by a lack of development.
It’s gotten to the point where I check a single’s running time before even pressing play. It’s not that you can’t craft an amazing song that’s under three minutes. Decades ago, that used to be the norm. However, Sweet Venom‘s brief two-and-a-half-minute life doesn’t allow for any interesting flourishes to poke through.
I think we can all be happy that member Ni-ki finally gets to live out his long-simmering MJ fantasy. The retro outfits are the coolest thing about the music video, and the song’s groove captures a taste of the intricate, lively percussion that fueled so many of those Jacksonian classics. But, Sweet Venom misses the expansive sense of drama that’s made those songs endure for decades. It’s all surface pleasures, smoothed of their edges to create an amiable, boppy bauble.
I’m not immune to an amiable, boppy bauble, and Sweet Venom‘s core influences greatly appeal to me. That bias is enough to earn it an easy above-average rating. But just once, I’d love to hear a modern K-pop track stretch beyond pure homage. Elevate rather than replicate. Sweet Venom is sleek and consistently hooky, but also feels hollow and incomplete — a copy of a copy of a copy that lacks the robust melodies and unpredictable funk to make it truly crackle. When it comes to K-pop’s marquee acts, fans deserve music that settles for nothing less than its full capacity. This is “A+” style settling for “B” execution.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 8.5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
this song could’ve been so much more but no…hybe decides to consistently wallop off 1/3 of the song and release it
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Right!? It’s sooo frustrating.
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what is hybe’s OBSESSION lately with making all these new title tracks sound like a boring english single… this is their most boring tt yet and im kinda sad abt it cause i thought id love it from the previews, not bad, just boring.
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HYBE IS STILL TRYING TO GET A GRAMMY WHEN THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! OMG THE GRAMMYS GAVE BEYONCE’S NO TALENT DAUGHTER A GRAMMY FOR SINGING(BADLY)ON A HOOK! BTS HAS PROVEN TIME AND AGAIN THAT THEIR MUSIC IS GRAMMY WORTHY, BUT THE GRAMMY’S ARE AS FAKE AS A 3 DOLLAR BILL! HYBE CAN DO BETTER AND IF THEY’RE NOT CAREFUL PEOPLE WILL START TO TURN AWAY FROM KPOP ALTOGETHER BECAUSE YOU MUST REMEMBER THAT THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS VERY FICKLE! JUST SAYING.
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what did i just read.
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someone forgot to turn off caps lock on their keyboard
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i really need to watch cyberpunk edgerunners man
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I strongly dislike this trend of songs being only less than 3 minutes long. I also agree that its not enough time for the song to flourish. The song itself is enjoyable and is definitely going on my playlist (as most of enhypens songs do) but its missing just a little something.
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It’s ok for an ENHYPEN track , but can we please make the minimum song length to 3:10 in K-pop rn?
8/10
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This sound/trend is ok in small dosis, but it’s being overused by HYBE and at this point it’s not fun anymore. Even worse, nothing in the album caught my attention and that’s never happened with an Enhypen release before. I’m annoyed, sorry😒
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This song feels like it belongs on TXT’s latest album. The instrumentation reminds me of Do It Like That and, like Chasing That Feeling, it’s competent but ultimately boring. It makes me think “Is that all there is?” and I’m not just talking about the absurdly short length.
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They used to pack a lot more into the short songs back when. Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” is all of 3:35 long and it packs in 6 full sections.
This song here, I mean its fine, but nothing that I haven’t heard before. If you are young enough, maybe it passes for better. Me, its just a pass.
Also, there is nothing about the song that makes me say, yes, So Enhypen!
It sounds like any Hybe artist might have assigned this one. In another spin of the wheel, this song could have been a track off, say, Jungkook’s solo album, Alt-Standing Next to You. Its not that far from Standing Next to You vibe.
Here, here is for contrast, an old school boy band with an under-3:00 that has stood the test of time. A type of song one can feel when it “comes home”.
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This really does sound like it could have been another b-side on Golden, although Standing next to you has a bit more offering. Idk what’s going on with this Enhypen for me, but almost everything I’ve listened from them feels so lifeless. If you tell me that, say, Bite me is a good, solid track, I’ll be like yeah, totally! After 3 listens I’ll still stand by my words, but I’ll remove it from my tracks because it sucked a bit of life out of me. Vampire music if you ask me…thanks for reviving me with Daydream Believer.
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I feel that k-pop agencies don’t “get” that if they want to do retro they first need a great song, and then the production is standard stuff that has been done for 3-4 decades. I don’t think this has to do with the song being western, or even the length. Jungkook’s album is entirely western but the songs are amazing, one by one. Of course the production complements them perfectly, but it’s THE SONGS that are great. I feel like HYBE is putting a lot of effort into the dream of breaking their new boy bands in the US, and putting literally everything: the video, the styling, the visuals, the genre of the song, the great production, before the song itself. That will never work. It will only lead to “enjoyable fillers” but no ground breaking single
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I think a good resolution for K-pop next year is no more short title tracks.
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Every day the line between Enhypen and TXT gets more and more blurred, haha. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it didn’t mean I can always hear how Yeonjun would deliver every line so much better — and I like the Enhypen guys (when their voices aren’t getting mangled by the production)!
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this sounds like sugar rush ride, if the chorus was not an anti-drop, boring.
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I once saw someone say that the reason songs are getting shorter is so they’re easier to stream, and that’s part of why NewJeans has such high streaming numbers. If this is true, it would explain why songs are getting shorter, but it’s definitely disappointing. At least this song is a decent listen. I can console myself with that.
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lets say it together everybody
“recycled👏jonas👏brothers👏”
not bad but lackluster and why is it so short?! the verses are so few. really pretty falsetto though but the song needs longevity
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it’s okay but it just lacks an edge to set it apart from other acts with the same sound. it’s too sanitary and sweet that it bores me. and it’s also so brief and unremarkable that any opinion or feeling i have on it dissipates after a few minutes.
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Can we please make it a crime for a K-pop song to be under 3 minutes? Like this is K-pop, it’s meant to be otherworldly and an experience in itself and the songs need to breathe for that to happen!
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I don’t really think K-Pop songs need to be over 3 minutes so much as they need to be long enough to convey everything they’re trying to convey in a satisfying manner. NewJeans’ Super Shy clocks in at around 2:30 and is basically the same two things repeated the whole time, and it’s perfection to me. ZB1’s Back to ZEROBASE is also killer despite being short.
The problem with the recent trend of short releases, I think, is that the songwriters just seem to stop whenever they felt their work could pass for a full song. Like… no, you don’t have to exclude literally everything that’s not the hook for your dance challenge! It especially bugs me that many of them do this by cutting out any sort of bridge. Bridges are a wonderful way to introduce a new melody and, while they don’t always have to be in a song, including one is rarely to a song’s detriment and almost always gives it a boost for that final chorus upswing. Many recent short songs feel more like a shortcut than an artistic choice.
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Istg i havent heard a single fully sung bridge this year in a tt from hybe. (except firework &team) Recently, they also decided not to give chasing that feeling by txt a pre-chorus since maybe that would make the song too long?
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Oh I heavily agree with Super Shy and Back to ZB being pretty good cases of under 3-mins songs and I know that I’m generalising but the whole trend with songwriters/producers taking shortcuts as you said is such a waste knowing kpop is known for introducing so many elements into one song (genre change ups, cinematic bridges etc). I’m hoping this is just a trend though, because it seems to only be affecting a sizeable amount but not the majority of groups (HYBE is coming to mind).
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Oh, I heavily disagree with Super Shy unfortunately. Felt like the song was very rushed. And I don’t mean that in a “they didn’t take enough time to complete the song”, I mean it in a “feels like I’m speed running thru a song” kind of way.
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its funny because i keep seeing people say this sounds like a txt song EXCEPT moas .. I think enhypen vary genres so often that it was inevitable that they would overlap with txt’s sound at least once, but it’s also practically guaranteed it won’t happen again. I think that you only review songs with music videos (?) – enhypen recently released a song called keep swimmin through with an mv, and also the orange blood concept trailer had like half of orange flower too.
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This song is nice but definitely rubs me the wrong way. Actually everything Hybe releases rubs me the wrong way. They somehow make their idols and music feel so much like products to consume rather than artists and art. I don’t understand why Hybe debuts groups with untrained vocalists and then gives them vocally challenging songs. When I watched Enhypen’s music shows for this comeback I was once again reminded of the fact that they really aren’t a vocal group. Tbh I think all kpop groups should be vocal groups, but that’s another matter. It also doesn’t help that Hybe autotunes and processes their voices so obviously. When I listened to Still Monster I was actually baffled by the amount of autotune I could clearly hear. It just feels like a scam since you know the majority of Hybe vocalists will need to rely on loud backtrack or lip syncing in order to preform “live”. Leserrafim is a clear example of that since Kazuha, Sakura, and Eunchae (3/5 of the group) have very questionable vocal abilities that became more obvious when they had to sing live. Well anyway 6/10 song.
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pdogg as a producer is known for his autotune as a stylistic choice though … (see: life goes on by bts, he autotuned yoongi’s verse for no reason).
if you want to have a better listen at enhypen’s live vocals, just a little bit and blossom would be a good start.
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I like this sound!
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Sweet Venom would’ve been fine if it had more lines, but as it is the song is a little bit annoying and sharp on the ears, it feels like half of it is just eeee eeee. I enjoyed listening to “Blind”.
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I’ve decided the problem is the artists are all just too young to look at a song and either have an issue or desire or critical opinion at all, and then be able to identify it, to themselves, their group, and finally raise it to the company. They have been RAISED by these companies, especially, and crucially, in terms of their music sense, so without any kind of outside influences to help them think a bit differently, or external, worldly experiences in different organisations or institutions, they’d be second-guessing any opinions they do manage to have, or not realise that the process of music, making and choosing songs, can be different. Of course some may have influences, esp from family, but it most likely in most cases isn’t very much or very strong. You need friends who are passionate and really into music and discovering it, and mentors. The discovery (of genres, styles, artists who inspire you, historical moments or periods or phenomenons) has GOT to be organic for you to feel a personal connection to it.
I think of someone like Jonghyun, who had the chance to be a young adult, develop his creative brain, his artistry, make friends, have a band, have a PAST and experiences before being an idol, which gave him the ability and capacity to have all the opinions and goals and desire for experimentation, risk, and depth in his own and his group’s creative output and journey.
In saying all this I love Enhypen, I love their discography, I think they’re incredibly talented, I do even like the song, with agreement to all of Nick’s points – namely lack of drama, development and soul – I just mourn the company’s level of control over their artistry and output (for all the good things the kpop system has given us), and the absence of broader musical lessons, influences, and experiences provided to their artists.
Specifically on the song – chorus was a little above average for my expectations these days – it definitely didn’t fall for EVERY boring overdone melodic choice, a few, but it WAS a little unpredictable (a good, interesting thing) which is (sadly) unusual now; post chorus is boring. The Bella Poarch ft. is wild lmao. No hate to her but we know where HYBE’s priorities lie with only 4 actual songs in this release – trends and audience above song quality 😩.
I did think YES! that’s Enhypen!!! … and may have punched the air when I heard the “He-ey” at the start (I had to pause it right after so there was extra impact, space for it to echo in my brain).
Admittedly I was in a happy, reflective, regenerative mood as I walked by a river in what is a new beginning moment in my life, so that may have amplified my enjoyment 😂. The intro track gave me mega feels. That was very Enhypen indeed. The narration followed by an expansive vocal moment is so dependable from them. I do like Fate more, (though it has had time to marinate), but the “Fate.. fate… fa-a-ate!” is just gorgeous.
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to sum it up, this is their most boring title track.
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😅😅 lmao my apologies… i did forget to add my planned “sorry for the following rant”
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Can you do song reviews for the other tracks on the album please? If you can’t do all, could you please do Still Monster? Thank you.
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