Today may be a barren day for new K-pop releases, but IVE have slid into the empty slate with a music video for new Japanese single Lucid Dream. Their Japanese work has been a mixed bag so far and overall feels pretty inessential. This track does nothing to buck that trend.

For Lucid Dream, the group has taken a more subdued approach. The song’s restrained production feels like a grab bag of so many 2020s trends — a bit of city pop here, a bit of UK garage there, a bit of Jersey club over there. It all combines to craft a sound palette that feels overly generic. Dreamy synths provide a bit of texture, but this is much more of a vibe than a song. The melodies follow suit, sweetly cresting over the instrumental with a frictionless ease that requires very little engagement from the listener. By the time we get to the (somewhat annoying) “la la la lucid” hook, you may very well be lulled into a blissful semi-sleep. Given the title, I guess that’s the point!

This approach might have proven successful if Lucid Dream was the only pop song released in 2026 or if you were an alien who had never heard pop music before, but we’re spoiled for choice these days so I’m not sure what would coax me to listen to this over anything else (apart from fandom bias).

Grade: C