I never know whether or not to write about K-pop’s CF songs. You can’t really approach a commercial advertisement with the same criteria as a title track, yet as a piece of music these songs often follow the same approaches as other K-pop songs and occasionally eclipse them.
TXT’s Open Always Wins is a collaboration with Samsung and sees the group continuing down a rock-inspired route. Notably, the guys contributed to the song’s English-language lyrics, though the vague banality of CF tracks doesn’t make that as big of a deal as effusive press releases might suggest. More than anything, Open Always Wins echoes many of the concerns I had with their most recent album. There’s plenty of potential here, but a short running time and general lack of follow-through makes it feel unfinished.
Open Always Wins‘ strongest moments are its chorus and post-chorus. The melodies here are catchy and anthemic. They call for a much more robust instrumental to give them the punch they need. The grungy production feels murky and colorless. This sentiment continues through an energy-dipping second verse and halting pre-chorus. Overall, the song is perfectly fine (especially for a CF), but requires several more drafts to nurture it into a fully-realized standout.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 7.75 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Is Slow Rabbit accidentally muting one of the layers in the production right before sending it off? If you actually pay attention to the short advertisement with this song’s instrumental, it has a SUPER STRONG AND PUNCHY guitar that is nowhere to be found in the main track. I’m just so lost as to what happened (again) https://youtu.be/vrQIqgPDw00?si=9IwofACHLq-jZ9Ei
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If there is one constant in pop songwriting, it is that the more the press and fans hype They Wrote This Themselves, the less they actually probably did. Maybe a line or two or something. (ooh snap)
For a CF, it’s okayish, about par for the course. Compared to other recent ones though, I can’t hear it as easily in the 10 sec – 15 sec – 30 sec – 60 sec – full length increments that usually proliferate. Even though the melody is mostly the same line, it just isn’t catchy enough like great ads should be. Qv New Jeans recent iphone ad, they sliced and diced it and it was everywhere in every length.
Part of me wants to see Nick rank CF’s, part of me thinks yeah nah. There probably already are bucu fan-contributed listicles on kpop “news” sites, of course with their stans ranked on top.
Me, I would put Big Bang + 2NE1 LG CF on top, always. 100m+ views? Yasssss.
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I see your Lollipop and raise you a Gmarket Party!
(also, this one actually worked because for a couple years there I bought all my K-pop exclusively through Gmarket 😅)
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Yaasss I forgot about this one somehow how could I forget about GMarket by GD.
GD truly embraces the kitsch in shilling for money, The other try to be “not an ad but it is” and we all know. GD is All In On Ad and we all know.
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