First impressions are important, and in K-pop they often come via pre-release. Big Hit’s new boy group CORTIS made a lousy first impression with GO! last week. However, I’d say a follow-up is even more important than the first impression. With new expectations and information driving the listener experience, this is where an artist either confirms or betrays those conceptions. New single What You Want is more palatable than its predecessor, but I hate to say it confirms the issues I have with CORTIS’s sound.
The approach around CORTIS’s rollout continues to rub me the wrong way. The hyper-affected nature of these songs feels forced and cringy, especially given the guys’ “self-produced” branding. They’re trying so hard to seem as if they’re not trying at all, and that combination is off-putting from a listener perspective. Even the term “conceptual performance film” attached to this song’s video feels oddly pretentious. Of course, all this posing and posturing would be forgivable if the music was great. That’s where we end up in big trouble.
In this case, the band tries to make What You Want sound rough and thrown together. The vocals sound as if they were recorded in a tin can, while the instrumental sludges along like an indie grunge band picking at Nirvana’s scraps. It’s an exhausting schtick and not a whole lot of fun to listen to. They’re clearly aiming to move away from the “K-pop sound” (whatever that may be) but if I want to listen to bad indie rock I’m already spoiled for choice and if you’re going to venture down this route the songwriting better be top-notch. Everything about What You Want feels more like a high school talent show than the new group from the world’s biggest record label. That’s obviously what CORTIS are going for, but I don’t understand why anyone would want that.
EDIT: Updated with full music video below.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 6 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
calling it a “conceptual performance film” is kind of hilarious. i let out a sigh everytime kpop artists talk about something being “conceptual” tbh. it’s such a nothing word, and everytime it’s used in kpop it seems like they just want to say “look at how DEEP and COMPLEX and DIFFERENT this is” for something that’s actually not that unique at all. in this case it’s simply your usual performance video.
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didn’t you see the treadmills?! that screams conceptual to me! /s
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They’ll never be OK GO…
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again it just feels like they are trying to copy already existing singers or bands, this is super targeted towards the western audience and it does none of the songs it’s trying to copy any justice.
6/10☺️🙏💕
If the disband button was a thing, I’m slamming my fists in it right now💕💕💕
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could you maybe enlighten me on ”trying to copy already existing singers or bands”, exactly which song did they copy from i just wanna know
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I have never in my life had to double speed and let alone, not finish a song. This one takes the crown. Why would I ever want to be shouted at for 3 minutes straight.
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These guys are so… inspired. To put it nicely.
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It’s definitely giving skippable b-side on an Unwritten Law album for me. It’s not even a genre I necessarily dislike, but there’s a big difference in believability/’selling it’ between a rock group and HYBE idols shaking it on the beach.
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this entire debut rollout is such a chop. I read that one of the members said that it’s gonna be unlike anything you’ve heard of… I guess he was referring to the garbage mixing on a pop rock track because it’s certainly my first time hearing it. go back to the drawing board boys, this is not it
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Picking my nose was more interesting than this.
6.5 (7, 6, 7, 6) for me
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This works a lot better for me than Go!, probably because I prefer this early 2000s sound over the other one. It doesn’t sound like Kpop but I appreciate the hit of nostalgia, this time with more Asian representation and dancing. Also, I think they got the order right by releasing the performance vid before the MV.
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Based on everyone else’s comments, I thought I would hate this, but surprisingly I like it. Firstly, Nick, you said “if I want to listen to bad indie rock I’m already spoiled for choice,” but I listen to a lot of contemporary indie rock, and my main complaint is that it almost always sounds tired (and when you look at photos of these “new young” bands, often you see streaks of gray hair). I like youthful energy in my indie music. Thankfully, I don’t hear any Nirvana or grunge (I’m really allergic to that subgenre); I kind of thought of the Beastie Boys a bit, in the shout/rapping. This is going on my indie playlist for now.
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Do you have any recs for contemporary indie rock? The most recent band in this genre I listened to religiously was the Arctic Monkeys. I really focus on very old bands and I would love to explore a more contemporary sound (I also haaaate grunge, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, this whole thing).
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No one new’s really knocking my socks off – which was kind of my complaint, haha. I tend to listen to BBC Radio 6 and Radio X (both in the UK) to try to pick up new songs and artists. When I’m in the mood to listen to relatively recent favorite indie songs, I usually listen to this playlist I made awhile back: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/15iRMl57cRiXjJQXTNHPub?si=3fd30ba8cbf04b8e
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(Back. I was college touring with darling daughter who is somehow a rising senior in high school (!!!)) (I don’t think I missed much.)
If would have helped that if they want the indie band cred that they were actually indie and a band. Also to look like they picked out their own outfits, perhaps with an unfortunate visible tattoo. And also to not genre hop from whatever Go was to this one here. I mean, these songs would exist on very different radio stations and be heard coming from very different cars.
moving on …
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I have the same problem that I did with ‘go,’ the song itself is inoffensive, but the more offensive thing is the fact that it doesn’t sound like K-pop at all. I don’t like the ‘K-pop is too Westernised’ argument a lot of time, mainly because if you actually dig into the genre you will find a lot of bold K-pop, but if Cortis is going to be an indicator of where Hybe and other big companies are going to go, then I think it’d be better for me to sit these releases out.
(Not that I think the industry is going that way, Hearts2Hearts TWS and Illit are doing a lot of good heavy lifting.)
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Bad…. just bad… this group is doomed.
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This sounds so amateurish, it actually sounds like a song by an indie band that had 5 dollars and a dream lol plus it’s really annoying that they stretch out the words…
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Honestly, not too bad for a Sum 41 b-side. Much better than their stab at Travis $cott at least.
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Unfortunately I was the target audience for “go” but this here did nothing for me. These kids aren’t doing anything that hasn’t been done..there’s more inspo out there then Travis Scott and mediore rock bands. I implore producers to do more research cause this ain’t it.
I would love to see the male version of Katseye. Give us a multicultural boy group…not kpop but just a regular boy group.
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Apparently, this beat out over 300 candidates for title track. At a certain point, you really have to question whether it’s simply a taste issue. I mean… they thought 300 songs were worse than… this?!
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Welp, I literally wrote out quite a few paragraphs over you actively participating in cringe culture and how confusing that is considering you say you miss the old days of old/2nd gen KPOP, but old/2nd gen KPOP is literally peak cringe and that’s part of why it’s so good, but I just deleted them instead because I think I just need to stop reading your reviews and keep my mouth shut after this.
In this day and age, I’d rather have cringy music than the boring “vibes” based bullshit of less than 3 minute songs plaguing the entertainment (and KPOP especially) industry.
You should try to remove that word from your every day vernacular and inject some whimsy in your life. It might do you some good. I don’t even really like boy groups that much, and this song is just okay to me, but I’m so tired of people saying “cringe” like it’s a bad thing. Cringe culture will truly be the death of all things creative if people don’t snap out of it and stop participating in it. To be cringe is to be free! Peace, and respectfully, have a good one!
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The funny thing is, I actually agree with you in a way. Back in the day, artists were definitely not afraid to be cringe and that’s why we have so many campy, fun ideas in older pop music. Today, everyone wants to be cool and “authentic” and have the kind of musical taste (ie: dull/boring) that won’t get them mocked by anyone, and I personally find *that* to be cringe. “Cringe” isn’t a bad thing in the way you’re describing, but that’s not what this song is. It’s trying so hard to be “authentic” and cool that it comes across as cringe… and not in a good way.
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I don’t know why y’all hate them so much. As someone who enjoys a lot of music (admittedly not much English music though), I think both Go and What You Want are pretty catchy. I see people comparing them to certain western artists, but I’d still pick Cortis over those because their image is a lot cleaner and more positive. Just my opinion though.
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This song makes me wonder , what did the producer consume to create this song. The lyric was great, but the beats really beats me up. I have no idea, their song GO was really goood. Are you tripping?, is my real attention to them.
If you guys listen to Memories By Riize, it has flavor of them a bit of it. That is what remind me of.
No hate to them tho, I give up on that things long time ago. But all, it was only my opinion. Go stream their song ” GO” tho… it really great
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Not my thing, but I rather like the way it sounds. It has a nostalgic appeal. I do seem to spend a lot of time these days thinking “What song does this remind me of”? I suppose something I vaguely heard in the 90s when I was obsessed with Dead Can Dance and not much else, or n the early 2000s when I was half-asleep all the time from babies. I heard a lot of songs in passing back then.
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when i read your review for go and the comments i was shocked cause i thought “no way a song can be that bad”, so i listened to it and immediately was proven wrong cause it was, in fact, THAT bad. it worried me cause by the way those boys are being marketed to the public, people have really high expectations and if go is what they’re gonna go for, they’re gonna become a punching bag for haters (which i already see start happening). now, listening to this one, i feel a bit relieved cause though it’s not my favourite song ever, it’s still lacking a lot to be good in my opinion, and i probably won’t listen to it again willingly, it’s definitely much better than whatever go was, which means they can release better stuff and hopefully they will live up to expectations someday. unfortunately today is not the day, but i do see them having a bright future if they stop trying to be whatever they are trying to be and focus on not wasting their potential instead.
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I take back what i said, i just need time to process stuff. This song is Band Core, like 5sos, The Vamps. Don’t overthink just listen it
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Just a lukewarm defense of this song… I think the reason why CORTIS couldn’t pull off What You Want is the fact that this song was likely a Teezo Touchdown reject, in a sense that the instrumental and vocal arrangement has his fingerprints all over it but it sounds like a much weaker song compared to other tracks in his official repertoire (highlights like Familiarity, Rock Paper Strippers, and Five O’Clock are all SO fun). And so much of the joy and spunk that a Teezo song carries for me comes down to the fact that Teezo himself sings in a way that is silly in a surprisingly heartfelt way, like he has a huge stake in how wacky the song turns out to be. I just don’t think that stake is something that CORTIS has been able to empathise with and emulate.
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This is my favorite song off the EP!
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