You know new K-pop releases are in a terrible state if all I have to write about is a pre-release from one of the industry’s “virtual” groups. SKINZ follow PLAVE as the latest virtual act to attempt a successful launch. They debuted last year and are set to release their first mini album soon. Before that, we’ve got the decidedly uneventful Why U Mad.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t understand the appeal of these virtual bands at all. It seems to me that, freed from the constraints of actual reality, a virtual act could do really creative, impossible things. Yet, these groups function like any other idol group, leaning into the same boring tropes without the flesh-and-blood appeal of a real person presented on screen. I’ve seen them “perform” on music shows and it’s the same dance moves and staging you’d see from any idol. The only difference is that it’s animated. Why on earth would I want to watch that?
This predictability extends to Why U Mad. The song is familiar boy group fare, thumping and swaggering over a guitar-infused beat. It’s an EL CAPITXN co-write, which comes through in both the melodies and production. Thanks to a strong songwriting team, the music is slightly above average when stacked against its many competitors. But without a recognizably human presentation, I find the whole endeavor difficult to connect with.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
Grade: C
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
we truly are STARVED for releases. when will this drought enddd!!! can someone please release SOMETHING that is not just ‘good’
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Seriously. This has been a tortuous run since November and the next few weeks don’t seem to offer much that could change 2026’s (lack of) momentum.
Thank goodness for all the Eurovision pre-selection competitions this time of year. Those songs are keeping me going.
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I am rooting for ATEEZ to pull off a decent one at least to continue the streak with their release coming, as of now I am conflicted whether the song will be good or not based purely on the production of the teaser, it can be promising but I am fingers crossed for a non-empty chorus AT LEAST.
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I feel for the kidz these days who have this fed to them.
This made me snort, from kpop.fandom.com: “On December 25, SKINZ was teased on SBS Gayo Daejeon. It was announced they will have seven members, all having lyric and composition skills.”
I had been trying to see if there are real (heavily-processed) voices behind them, or is that all AI. The first vocal sounds like they are trying to clone G-Dragon. Since it is a Wednesday, I used AI to craft Yoda-style quotes, this from Co-pilot which is the only one my work computer has unblocked.
⭐ Classic Yoda cadence
⭐ More mystical or wise
⭐ Playful or dramatic
⭐ Extra emphatic
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Adding … Nick links under the video to OnlyOneOf “Skinz” song. A real group full of angst and woe and messy complications. Let’s all go listen to them again, because nothing else good is coming out this month.
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I mean…I like it, but if you tell me anything about their name I’m going to default to the song by OnlyOneOf lol.
7.75/10 (8, 8, 8, 7) for me
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also speaking of names that make me thing of other things, one of the members goes by the stage name Finn, and every time I think about that name my brain automatically thinks of the adventure time character of the same name.
kinda funny if you think about that.
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…and this is why I try to engage with more optimistic world building as an artist/baby writer (meaning beginner), because seeing dystopic worlds imagined like this especially in the mix of entertainment and tech pisses me off. Besides my own gripes, yet another case of multiple groups just doing various facets of this type of song better.
4.5 (6, 6, 4, 2) I don’t think the performers do a horrible job, but they absolutely got screwed by lackluster and unimaginative artistic production.
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I would be into the virtual idol thing if it was like kpop demon hunters (with better music). Fleshed out characters with connections to stories. Instead of the reality like content that idols put out, they would just have episodes of their show. The way virtual idols are presented now feel like they just expect me to be as excited, and I don’t know why they would expect me to be?
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It won’t be long ☺️
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what won’t be long?
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Til they deliver those more interesting elements that you want. This stuff is still in infancy.
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Virtual and AI idol concepts are great because they reduce harmful parasocial behavior, drama, legal battles, and extreme standards. They can create way more variety in acts, representing different ethnic groups, languages, and styles. There are many other advantages. I’m sure we’ll get more exciting supplemental elements in the future too.
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They reduce parasocial behavior because they’re hard to connect to in the first place. Of all the things you mention, I feel like that’s definitely not a reason for the companies doing this. They want to save money and reduce liability for themselves. They are the ones who encourage idols to fan the flames of obsession from fans and do little to protect their artists. So yeah Drama and legal troubles may be reduced, but theyre opening new avenues for these problems. Representing different ethnic groups languages and styles can be done by using diverse people from all over the world, that’s not an advantage of ai. It just makes it less impressive and would only be done to placate the fans that aren’t there because there’s nothing to connect to to care if you’re represented or not. Virtual idols will end up like cryptocurrency, still around, but ending up not being nearly as relevant as people thought it would in a few years
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I am not seeing any variety, just more cleaving to the extreme standards using the basic contemporary tropes. Because it is all synthetic, the characters actually reinforce those extreme standards. The fake idols never have real human messy moments, so when a real human has a real messy moment the human just gets shoved aside for the fake one that never does anything wrong.
Worse, most of the idol scandals are not really scandals, some are false accusations, so the risk of getting shoved aside for something they didn’t do or isn’t that big of a deal is terrifying.
There is no tension in AI groups so the music can only be dull re-hashing. I am a child of the 80’s. It was all sex drugs and rock and roll. It was dangerous and exciting. We were happy when the bands came on stage sober enough to not die or something. I roll my eyes when a kpop group sings “Let’s break all the rules!” and proceeds to follow every rule.
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They’ll never be PLAVE.
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i mean honestly this is the perfect time for u to do more “every ____ single ranked” and/or “top 10 ____ album tracks” lists……those r one of my favorite things on this site to read. im thinking u should do red velvet golcha kara b1a4 block b got7 oh my girl or onlyoneof for the former and gfriend snsd twice fx lovelyz txt nct or seventeen for the latter
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That’s so funny because I have one scheduled for tomorrow!
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already excited!!
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(Never mind, it’ll be tomorrow. I didn’t realize there was actually a comeback to write about today.)
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I only trust J-pop to do 2D idol.
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Long time lurker, first time commenter. Have to be upfront and admit two things: (1) this is going to be a long one, so sorry, praying to the WordPress gods it doesn’t do the duplication thing; (2) I am a card-carrying PLAVE fan, and all my thoughts here are observations both borne from following PLAVE’s activities for the last few years as well as those that attempted to follow in their wake… AFOTS, AEONIT, Sphaze, WE-GO-6, MY:RAKL, NTAKE, SKINZ… if you haven’t heard of any of them, don’t even worry about it because the first three have already disbanded. (And I’ll be mentioning PLAVE a lot considering this review is concerning SKINZ, but let’s be real… would there even be a SKINZ review to comment on if PLAVE did not exist first?)
As I see it, SKINZ are basically SBS’s rushed and clumsy attempt at pushing out a rival virtual boy group (remembering that PLAVE’s company VLAST has links to and investment from MBC; this is why PLAVE are on Show! Music Core but never Inkigayo). Because of SBS, SKINZ’s live performance debut was at the Tokyo Dome of all places, and between that and securing EL CAPITXN’s services (which they no doubt did in part because of his extensive work with – and links to, iykyk – PLAVE) it’s obvious they’re really pushing them, but to what end I don’t think SBS even know. SKINZ are not AI, as another commenter has not entirely unreasonably speculated (they livestream once or twice a week via their Youtube channel if you want proof of life, so to speak).
But I believe their agency Bridge Enter did use AI in producing an early pre-debut teaser for them, which I suspect in part might have been because the agency devs were crunching to get their vtuber models and cinematic art ready in time for their debut – their first MV was really quite rough, a glorified dance practice that looked like it was filmed in 720p, and from what I can tell it squandered almost all of the initial goodwill that the AI teasers did manage to generate (initially they seemed to be promising something more LaDs-like in art style, iykwim). This MV looks quite a bit better than that but is still at best a glorified dance practice, which is a bit of a shame when the choreo is so mid.
The song itself is quite easily my favourite of theirs, but including this they have all of three tracks to their name so it’s almost not worth mentioning. And as a PLAVE fan I am probably not the first person to listen to if you want an objective opinion on SKINZ. But imho if you look at them as a group and don’t see anything original about them, then that is because there is literally nothing original about SKINZ. They’re a cynical experiment in marketing from SBS suits and a little paycheck on the side for EL CAPITXN, and not much more. It’s not the fault of the members (who god knows are trying, their main rapper recently unsuccessfully auditioned for SMTM12) and in a way isn’t even really the fault of Bridge Enter. Most non-techy types well and truly underestimate just how hard it is to get the whole technical side of Doing A Virtual right, let alone being able to try and inject a bit of actual creativity and imagination into the process. Which is why you’re not seeing much creativity or imagination here. They simply lack the resources or the willpower, probably both.
I also imagine the crunch the devs went under trying to get SKINZ out the door in time for the deadline SBS set for their debut was quite painful and had knock-on effects, especially since they did voice-only livestreams for a few months after… why would you do a virtual group podcast unless you had to. So I feel like it’s been one failed attempt after another to try and get some momentum happening. I really do wish the members of SKINZ all the best though.
I know I should shut up and go away now but I just want to address the comment Nick made about not connecting with SKINZ, because he’s said it before about PLAVE and it’s something that other people bring up as well. I think at least some of the antipathy I observe around virtual idols is basically down to latent prejudice against what some would perceive as a lesser art form (that is to say, certainly vtubing specifically, but also anime/2D generally). I’ll spare you all from the essay that unpacks all that right now though because to be honest, that antipathy is almost entirely justified with groups like SKINZ.
I haven’t commented under any of Nick’s reviews for PLAVE, mainly because I know the music is what ultimately counts for Nick and I just don’t believe most of PLAVE’s music will ever really be for him anyway. The members have gone on record several times saying their aim is to write and produce ‘easy-listening’ music, basically in a transparent attempt to almost try and overcome their own concept and court the general Korean public. Which is all anathema to you, Nick – perfectly understandable! I also know that no amount of me commenting “But they’re actually really charming and funny when you get to know them!!!!” under those reviews is going to change your or anyone else’s mind, so why bother (stay tuned while I attempt this in the last paragraph btw)
But I do think Nick is kinda sorta confusing his understandable antipathy towards PLAVE’s music with his also understandable antipathy towards PLAVE’s concept. Not trying to single you out, Nick – I think you are far from alone in that, and they’re totally valid stances to have because this is all subjective anyway – it’s just that you happen to be the guy that has the blog that I can leave an unnecessarily long comment on, sorry! But I’m just going to offer the following, try my best to not sound too preachy about it (because who am I to say anything when I know shit about f***) and then I’m going to disappear and probably never show my face here again.
Wot I think is, if the only content you ever see from PLAVE are the MVs and the music show stages you just happen to catch, then of course you’re not going to feel a connection there, because that’s just them fulfilling the idol part of their virtual idol contract. They’re just performing for the benefit of their pre-existing fans who already know what the deal is (which is honestly I feel is kind of the case for most idols anyway, but it is especially true for virtual idols). Of course you’re not going to come away feeling much different about them unless you were already invested. If you take them purely at face value, PLAVE (and by extension every other virtual idol) will always be a purely skin-deep proposition.
To get that human connection, you’re going to have to see the members at their most human i.e. delve into their non-musical content. PLAVE livestream a lot, probably too much actually. Unless you’re on that darned clock app I actually think the most accessible PLAVE content for kpop normies are their various idol variety show appearances. As an OG 2nd gen hag fan since 2008, I very much appreciated their appearances on ZIP Daesung, Hyoyeon’s Level Up, and Jaefriends with Jaejoong, in part because it absolutely comes across how much the members respect and revere them, which means they were also very clearly nervous. So I recommend PLAVE on KStar Next Door with Jonathan; it had the chaotic energy I associate with their livestreams and features Jonathan arguing with Noah, who then sat on the floor and started crying about wanting to go home. That’s when I connect to him the most personally, I guess.
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Thank you for this.
For me, its about the music. I don’t have space in my life for nugu groups of any variety that has music that is merely pleasant, or to watch all their vlogs and extra content. I have my usual go to established acts when I need pleasant music. (Heck, I don’t have the time to watch all of their side-content either.) And when a group of any age comes out with new music that is truly New and Interesting, I get excited and and that to my playlists.
So if Plave does it for you, fine. I will continue to do my thing, and you continue to do your thing.
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Adding: Since you spoke with such passion, I had to look up what I thought about Plave’s prior releases, relisten. The songs still are mostly mid (to me), but the vocalists behind them are good (below is copied what I wrote under one review). Skinz vocals to me sounds like under-employed late 4th gen.
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PLAVE fans already know who the idols behind the ‘characters’ are, and yes, they are all 2nd/3rd gen idols getting a second shot at being an idol through this format. The whole idea was to have a debut without attaching it to the usual baggage of real history, kpop ageism and who is the visual etc. comparisons. The guys sing, dance and speak themselves, it’s recorded and presented through motion-capture, not animation. When they interact with other artists, like on the variety shows that the other commenter above mentioned, they wear mo-cap suits so they don’t reveal their real identities while allowing the tech to pick up and mirror their movements. I see a lot of misconception that there’s some external animation going on, or that they’re AI etc. but they’re not.
It’s not considered to be the ‘done’ thing to publicly go around talking about their identities though, because the whole point of them debuting as PLAVE is to have a fresh start and this is how Vtubers in general have been for ages, like Hatsune Miku, Hololive etc. – even if you know the ‘real’ person, you don’t go about revealing them because the point is to connect with the avatar that they are playing.
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