After the release of many sub-unit projects, tripleS are back with their newest full group album. Coincidentally, the name of their title track is the same question I’ve been wanting to ask the K-pop industry for most of this year. Are you alive? This song does exactly what we’ve been conditioned to expect from tripleS. Fans will likely be pleased, but anyone hoping for something different will need to look elsewhere.
As soon as Are You Alive (깨어) opens with its “la la la” chant, I swear I’ve heard this song from tripleS before. While not exactly the same melody, the cadence and performance seem to reference last year’s Girls Never Die. I’m all for groups having signature sounds and melodies as long as they’re enjoyable enough to warrant repetition, but I found this chant pretty limp last year and even more so today. For a group with twenty four members, I guess I expect something that sounds bigger, more energetic and definitely more ambitious.
Making matters worse, this “la la la” chant basically is the song. Fragments of melody swirl around it, alongside plenty of sing-talk that goes nowhere. This leaves listeners grasping onto a rather monotone, repetitive centerpiece. A lovely bridge adds welcome texture and offers a glimpse of how tripleS’s music might sound if their producers fully took advantage of the group’s large configuration. We really should be getting entire choral moments from a group like this. They have enough voices for a choir, but instead they’re playing by K-pop’s lame rules. I mean, their producers have Japan’s Sakamichi Series and 48 Group all over the internet as inspiration. Imagine what they could do with that sprawling sound as filtered through K-pop’s perfectionist prism? The fact that they won’t break out of their constrained box is extremely frustrating given their potential.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
The “la la la” chants verge into being annoying (the execution/melodies gives off kindergarten children playing around as they sing), cause I swear the little melody in between the centerpiece sounds so promising, yet limited by the repetitive onomatopoeia. The little melodies throughout the song has so much potential, but are heavily fragmented, it just prevents the potential from being reached. Overall, it’s alright, I guess, has potential to grow.
7.25 (7, 7, 8, 7) for me.
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You’re right, I actually really like the other melody that we get a snippet of in the chorus, but it’s sandwiched between lalalalas which actually makes them feel extra annoying. And also, I agree that something about the vocal execution makes them feel much more kindergarteny than any of the other numerous times TripleS have done lalalas. Maybe it’s just a bit too high-pitched and shouty by comparison, but it’s funny how big of a difference that makes.
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I will say this: the BSides are, so far, looking better for the most part. I have been scurrying about this album and right now: Diablo is way better produced than I thought it was going to be and Firework Diary is another pretty good one. Too Hot, on the other hand is disappointing and feels like it would have gotten more love had it won the ASSEMBLE24 poll (we did not need a trap bridge).
They also have to drop the lalala gimmick, they have so much else going for them (really good video production potential for lore, large group size, interesting instrumentals) and THAT is one of their hallmarks they keep this whole time?
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Alright, given a listen, here is how I rank this album:
Things get really good from Persona upwards. But Detective Soseol, WOW, that’s gotta be the Buried Treasure if there is one.
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Thanks for the write-up and recs. Wow, Detective Soseol is GREAT— anime opening style mixed with drum and bass, and such a dynamic track, as opposed to the actual TT that seems to go nowhere… I see they’re promoting this one with choreo, so maybe it’ll get the full MV treatment at some point..? Although idk if TripleS has a history of doing that with B-sides.
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I would call this song a hot mess. I feel like a reality show judge: there are some good ideas in there, and that portion it really clever, but when you decided to add this to that section you completely obscured that concept.
The la la la is like adding sections of bright neon lace all over in a ploofy foofs obscuring the concept. Second verse is nice. I don’t remember the first verse because it fades in the la la la assault. And lord knows what that real chorus is obscured underneath the la la la la’s. And then we get the coda we didn’t ask for, and a bonus verse or two. Not the best look.
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This may rub you the wrong way, but watching this, I had the thought that TripleS are kind of the female TWS— purely in the sense of reheating their own material. You’re right, “Are You Alive” is another “Girls Never Die,” which was another “Girls Capitalism,” which was another “Generation.” I like the sound, so I don’t mind it, but I think this is probably the weakest out of all of those tracks. Incidentally I also feel “Countdown” is TWS’s weakest…
And I agree with you that they could be doing more with their sheer numbers. I was disappointed by the choreo for Girls Never Die— they could be doing really dynamic stuff that no other kpop group is doing, and they even showed a little bit of this cool choreo in the video for that song, but it wasn’t part of the actual choreo for some reason… so I’m not expecting anything much this time around either.
Not a bad song, it just doesn’t really go anywhere. I’d say 7.75 but could go lower, the repetitiveness might get to me on repeated listens.
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It doesn’t rub me the wrong way at all because I had the exact same thought! That’s why I made sure to include the line “I’m all for groups having signature sounds and melodies as long as they’re enjoyable enough to warrant repetition” in this review.
While I hate the term “reheating their nachos,” I actually love when artists do that — as long as I found the nachos tasty in the first place. Then again, I’m also the type of person who goes to the same restaurants to order the same things over and over again.
I know this isn’t the way everyone sees pop music and isn’t meant to stifle artistic growth, but I tend to see pop acts as a brand and want/expect variations of that brand each time I come back to them. And just like the restaurant example, this probably prevents me from embracing artists whose “brand” generally isn’t for me. At the same time, it has me rushing back excitedly for more of the same from brands that I love.
With that all said, this is definitely the weakest of the tripleS brand for me because it leans into the elements I like least about their music. Meanwhile, Countdown actually does some things I tend to love most (big percussion, guitar stabs, fully-sung hook), which places it right up with TWS’s best for me. As usual, it all comes down to personal taste I guess…
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It really does come down to personal taste because I’m the opposite: in the last few months I have really grown fond of tripleS’s music, and I’m finding “Are You Alive” to be their strongest title track yet; I’ve had it on repeat this entire week and can’t seem to get tired of it. TWS on the other hand, I could never get into.
What I’m really here to talk about though is another way that I feel the two groups are related, or more accurately are mirror images of each other: the themes tackled by their lyrics and by extension their music videos. TWS represent a kind of bright optimism, where the world is a wonder waiting to be explored. tripleS OTOH portray a kind of gritty realism where life is a struggle and only via perseverance and solidarity can some happy moments be attained. The contrast couldn’t be more stark, and perhaps it reflects the difference of how young men and women view their prospects in Korean society today.
The music then also reflects those themes, bright and cheerful versus brooding and cathartic.
Finally let’s look at the videos: Plot Twist is directed by Oh Ji-won, who has also directed the majority of the tripleS music videos. She seems to specialize in a kind of magical realism, and for Plot Twist she creates this bright sunny day of young boys who meet new friends and create meaningful memories. Now contrast this with her work on Girls Never Day a mere few months later, which starts at a funeral and only goes downhill from there.
As someone who was always drawn towards darker themes I suppose it’s no wonder that I gravitate towards them, but I can totally see why people who instead like harmless fun or outright escapism might prefer the other side of the mirror. But ultimately I feel that K-pop is at its most interesting when it branches out to a variety of styles, and that’s another reason why I appreciate tripleS so much: very few groups today are doing what they’re doing, both musically and (especially) thematically.
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This group not only reheat their nachos in term of the music, they also seem to use the same dance routine for their choreo. Talking about the song, I think it’s catchy but the lalala gets pretty annoying and think I will enjoy the song more with the less of the lalalas. Chorus (or is it post chorus?) is so good I like it and their mv has been beautiful as always
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According to Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, the word “la” is used 60 times in this song. It declined to count all in their entire discography, which was disappointing.
I like other songs by TripleS, including ones with a “lala” focal point, but the “la”s here were too much for me.
7,7,6,6 = 6.5
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I was a little hasty in my scoring. I mostly got over the las after being grumpy about it. Gonna bump this to:
8,7,7,8 = 7.5
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As someone who has gotten into more of TripleS lately, I do like ethis song and I think its a good spooky song (though I do agree that the group have started to become a little too dependent on the lalala’s)
8.5 (8, 9, 8, 9) for me
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I feel like there should be a list of tripleS songs that don’t have them singing “lalala”.
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i’m not crazy about the title track but on the plus side, most of the b-sides i thought were quite refreshing.
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drop top getting a higher rating than AYA? woah
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Very disappointed to be honest, was expecting something more. Girls Never Die was fantastic, we don’t need a watered down version of it! I was one of the few people who really loved Hit the Floor and the whole VV album, so I was hopeful that it will go more into this direction. As everyone else mentioned: the la-la-las are getting extremely annoying. They can ditch them for now. Hit the Floor and Invincible showed that they don’t need them. And I also agree with Nick: they should do choir or multi-voiced singing. Why have 24 members when the chorus and ad-libs are mostly done by one only member (DaHyun)? Why have 24 members if most of the girls literally only get 1-4 seconds of lines per song? Three of them literally have just 1 second. The album was also a big no for me, nothing really sticks. The first album was so good, but this is just heated nachos as people mentioned above. And you know what? Heated nachos are NOT as good as fresh nachos. Period.
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Honestly I cannot warm up to Triples no matter how hard I try 😦 It’s all just too beige for me, and I got fed up with the la la la since day 1.
It also really irks me that they are selling NFTs to fans, and bundling the entire album with these NFTs selling it for like 4-5 dollars… it makes me think they reallllly don’t care about the music at all
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Don’t do this to yourself. In such case, I just move on and try to find something that is actually my taste. I got them since Rising.
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This is not the most well produced and the most exciting tripleS title track but I’m just too biased that I’d still repeat this everyday
First time following the scoring system here, it’s getting an 8 from me (7,7,8,10)
Hope they’re willing to try new things and balance the distribution more for their next releases, and yeah I think we’ve had enough with the lalalas, hope the fans won’t get lalala baited on the next title track voting
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I think the la la part was the best thing about “girls never die”. Undeniably it’s overused here, but everything around it is enjoyable and breaks it up. I like it now but I might get sick of the song once the la la part becomes too much
Regarding the number of members I agree they’re not used to their best effect . Even the chanting parts don’t sound like more then 3 or 4 members stacked on top of each other
triple s is late gen z loona, and like loona have done great ideas and potential but may not be fully realized. I hope with all these members the company didn’t bite off more than they can chew. Granted, the 48 groups have so many more members, I don’t know how financing that goes down
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