By 2025 standards, The Boyz’ excellent VVV did everything it could to buck the year’s most regrettable trends, turning its energy way up, adding a great series of catchy melodies and stretching the track to nearly four (!) minutes to accommodate multiple musical goodies (a bridge! a dance break!). No wonder it’s one of the year’s best songs. With follow-up Stylish, it’s as if the group wanted to show exactly what could have happened if they had gone the opposite route.
A precipitous plunge in quality between comebacks is rare, but it does happen. My mind immediately goes to A.C.E’s Under Cover -> Savage in 2019. Unfortunately, the VVV -> Stylish trendline mirrors this drop. I recall seeing one of The Boyz state that the main purpose of this song was for the guys to look stylish on stage, and that’s a problem. The purpose of a song should be to… be a good song. Everything else is ornamentation.
With Stylish, we get two and a half minutes of mind-numbing sing-talk over an unremarkable beat that cribs from the seemingly unlimited supply of trap-meets-gurgling-synth production K-pop can’t seem to get enough of. As usual with a track like this, the verses barely qualify as rap, moving at a sluggish pace and bearing little rhythm worth returning to. The chorus is even more inane, with the translated lyrics proudly declaring that “even gibberish is stylish” before devolving into a series of “guap guap guap,” “shot shot shot” and “bubble gum bubble gum pop” lyrical centerpieces. I swear I’m not making this up. Emergency sirens blare throughout the track, which is probably my fault because I’ve filed a police report for crimes against K-pop.
| Hooks | 5 |
| Production | 5 |
| Longevity | 5 |
| Bias | 5 |
| RATING | 5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
0/10, NO JU HAKNYEON!
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If anything it’s probably better if Haknyeon is out of that company instead of in, I’m hoping the other guys can keep their heads above the water for now.
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From 9.25 to 5… I’m genuinely bowled over. I honestly thought that The Boyz would’ve stayed consistent, but this release just… blunted all the momentum they have built.
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Honestly, the last line in this article about filing a police report against crimes in K-pop is quite cute 😳
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Well, at least Savage tried too hard and ending up being a loud, noisy jackhammer that elicits some kinda reaction from us (or for me at least). This one doesn’t even try.
6 (6, 6, 6, 6) for me.
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Well they hired Drake and Chris Brown producers, it seems, for this “masterpiece”. I wish k-pop labels weren’t so blinded when they read US credits 😦
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Honestly, ban American producers from K-pop for awhile and let’s see what happens…
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I know right! 😩
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can we bring back the swedes pls
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snälla kära Gud!
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I’m not even gonna mince anything – in the words of Natalie Nunn, “trash. fucking trash. traaaaaash. this bitch is trash.”
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Ok, so they left their previous agency slamming the door because their artistic directions didn’t match, and this is what they’re able to do without? LOL
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it’s crazy because the last few comebacks under them were some of their best, and they continued that with VVV under the new company. now we’re back to this garbage lmfao
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this was rushed out of the gate because one hundred wanted everyone to be distracted from the fact that haknyeon was suing them for kicking them out.
6.75 (7, 7, 7, 6) for me
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I’m sorry but Haknyeon left at the right time.
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I would say that I hate songs with police sirens because it’s stressful to hear while driving, but there’s no way I’m ever going to play this song in my car or anywhere else, so I guess it doesn’t matter!
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July’s rating really tanking in the last few days LOL
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What the heck is guap? I’m feeling ancient. Life is so yum yum yum. Who got paid actual money to write that? It’s not funny. It’s not sexy. It’s not weird in an interesting way. It’s got the aesthetic appeal of a mosquito.
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I try not to be judgemental when I heard the teaser for this cause sometimes I do enjoy this kind of weird talking-chanting dominated song, it’s kind of my guilty pleasure
But when I heard that the beat barely change when they enter the chorus is when I officially lost it, this song is so devoid of style despite its title, going from VVV to this boring and presumably rushed production is just highly disappointing
Not really feeling like giving this one a score, won’t heard it ever again
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Stylish is a walking stereotype of pandemic/post-pandemic kpop … and VVV has all the things which are (in general) missing from pandemic/post-pandemic kpop
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Is this song from the same group that gave us powerful anthems like Boy, Giddy Up, Right Here, No Air, DDD, Tattoo, Stealer, Maverick, Watch It, Trigger and VVV???
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Is this song from the same group that gave us powerful anthems like Boy, Giddy Up, Right Here, No Air, DDD, Tattoo, Stealer, Maverick, Watch It, Trigger and VVV???
Sometimes I want to believe that they’re just making fun of current trends….
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So sad that the “posturing” genre in K-pop is so prevalent. The Boyz had some really good title tracks, from their boy next door eras, to their cool grown up men eras. Gone are the days of Reveal, Stealer, Bloom Bloom. I felt like they shined best with a more disco, dance track approach, or the drama of Reveal, Stealer, Tattoo, Breaking Dawn.
I blame NCT 127’s “Regular” on jettisoning this trend of “I’m so cool let me flex on yall”, but at least that had a dynamic chorus. If you’re going for these type of songs, at least make it a little different. I’m not a fan of RIIZE’s “Big Bad Back”, but at least they have a cool piano bridge. Sigh… this is making me like the creative risk of ZB1’s “Slam Dunk”. Similar posturing and chanting, but at least the basketball instrumental makes it fun.
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