I’ve resisted writing about JYP Entertainment’s GIRLSET until now because they only have the slightest connection to K-pop and I haven’t cared enough about their music to have much to say. However, it’s a slow day/month/year and the group is set to promote this new song on Korean music shows, so it feels like the right time to check in.
After listening to new single Chat, I’ll be checking in and checking right back out thank you very much. I fear the viral success of Katseye’s Gnarly has done irreparable damage to the industry — especially its girl groups. I’ve tried to get into hyperpop as a genre for many years because it seems like something I should enjoy, but the overall sound is not for me and the twists K-pop producers are putting on it are practically unbearable.
Not to sound like the elder millennial I am, but I fear we’re losing track of the ingredients that make a pop song satisfying. Chat has one idea it thinks is very clever, so it repeats this schtick over and over with little variation or growth. For those counting, GIRLSET say the word “chat” 124 times in just under three minutes. That doesn’t leave room for much else, but when they’re not chatting they’re talking their way through a fractured electronic soundscape, rattling off catchphrases that no real person could utter without visibly cringing (“How she got the spot so litty?”). Melody is in short supply (nearly nonexistent), but you can’t really call this rap either because it isn’t particularly rhythmic. As with so many tracks of this nature, Chat feels like a meme set to music. It’s exhausting.
| Hooks | 6 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 6 |
| Bias | 5 |
| RATING | 6 |
Grade: D-
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Guys, wagwan❤️❤️
Just felt you needed to know that today ❤️😍
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it’s unfortunate that the first time you write about girlset was also the time that they released their worst song yet
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Listening to this when it released while carsick on a bus for a learning journey made me find a new low I never knew existed. 1/10 it doesn’t even have singing.
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Hey Nick, did know Nam Woo-hyun and Infinite released a song this year, entitled “Boys and Girls”? I just discovered it on Spotify.
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The last minute was so good, if only they utilized it for the rest of the song. Man, why do nearly every song has to be meh for a good 90% of the song’s duration then we get an exciting outro that’s “too little, too late” and a massive what if to what the whole song could have been 😩
Anyways, 6.25 (6, 7, 6, 6) for me. Girlset, let’s stick to the Little Miss or Tweak sound, tyvm. And kpop industry, let’s keep the hyperpop to aespa, Savage is prolly the only kpop or kpop-adjacent song that did hyperpop well and mostly cause it was paired with brilliant melodies as well
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Interesting you mentions Katseye, because the recent idle song “Gimme dat love” choreo version came on my feed, and it seemed that the styling was all Katseye-coded. I sure hope this isn’t a trend, but I do know how kpop beats trends to death so yes it will be a trend.
As the resident old person, I do feel for the kids these days, this, this sort of repetitive trendy thing. They can have it.
That said, back in my day Falco “Rock me Amadeus” was on heavy rotation on MTV, in which he intones the word “Amadeus” so many times that I asked our AI overlords and they say 46 times. Fun fact: “Rock Me Amadeus” was only the fourth song ever in a foreign language to hit #1 on Billboard Hot 100. I bet the old people back then had no idea what the flip “Rock Me Amadeus” was either.
Sharing, because sharing is caring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-H895vrIU8
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so sad your first review on them is not great 😦
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Hyperpop still feels nebulous as a term for me, probably because I don’t like most of what’s classified as it, yet the few examples I do enjoy I really like. Charli XCX’s Pop 2 and Underscores’ latest album U come to mind, and that’s probably because those works aren’t fully hyperpop.
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Kpop is so bad this year I’ve completely fallen off.
Muse’s new album is pretty solid though.
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this would have been a thousand times more bearable if the song sounded like the last minute.
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I liked Little Miss and really enjoyed Tweak. Chat, I’m not so sure about yet. I appreciate that it has a lot of ideas and feels experimental in places, but a bit of a bummer that this is the song they’re taking on music shows.
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Well, this really is a shame… I thought the whole point about GIRLSET rebranding and launching a more mature and sexy image was to go for that cool R&B-pop vibe that they used in Little Miss and Tweak.
Those two songs were not anything crazy by any means but they sounded great and had a nice groove. I was excited at the idea of R&B girl groups having a resurgance with FLO and GIRLSET. From this single, I guess they’ll just go in different directions and stick to what’s popular, but I hope that their album proves me wrong.
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I typically don’t comment, but honestly K-Pop hasn’t been “pop” in a while. I had higher hopes for Girlset based on their last few releases, but this missed the mark for me. I’ve been listening to kpop less over the few years and surprisingly started listening to vpop again. New releases in vpop seem to be more vocal-heavy, which is slowly disappearing in kpop imo.
Just discovered this new artist LEZII, so I don’t know much about him. What I do know is I enjoy his voice, and that he composes most of his own songs, which all have a nice dramatic flair that has been missing in a lot of new kpop releases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb8ZJQnm5JQ&list=RDSb8ZJQnm5JQ&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fnv4a8pMUM
LEZII – Dập Dìu Trong Mưa | MV OFFICIAL
I’m typically hesitant to listen to boy/girl groups in vpop too since they have a habit of failing, but the latest one doesnt seem so bad. Not my particular type of music, but better than some releases in kpop these days. This song does sound familiar to an older kpop sing, but I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Seems like some Korean producers helped with the song too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS9GzAxVoow
I’ve also been enjoying these two songs from a fairly popular music show in Vietnam. Again, typically avoid them since they have too many random rap and dance breaks, but it looks like theyre trying to have more singing these days. Not sure how “live” these videos are though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4SlgUOWYTs
BAD NIGHT – Dương Domic, Pháp Kiều, Ali Hoàng Dương, DANG HONG HAI | ANH TRAI “SAY HI” [LIVE STAGE]
Fun fact, CongB and Dang Hong Hai were both contestants in Boys Planet.
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The last minute of the song is quite fine, but I don’t want to slough through an unbearable period of 2 minutes of sloppy ass meme song just to hear it. As many KPOP trends nowadays are going bad to worse (noise music, talk-chanting, raging ass rap, lesbian thirst trap, meme-focused song) I find myself going back to JPOP and Vocaloid music again just to cleanse my soul.
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