ILLIT’s music has grown more gimmicky with time, often on the hunt for the best TikTok challenge rather than the best songwriting. This is more of an observation than a judgment because there have been plenty of great K-pop groups who built their careers around gimmicks in the past. But every once and awhile, it’s nice to be reminded that they can also be a solid, straightforward pop group. This reminder has appeared most frequently in their Japanese work and continues with new single I Got You Back.
I Got Your Back gives ILLIT a pop-rock backdrop to work with and squeezes in two members of popular J-pop group Hana for good measure. It’s a fun time, even if the song doesn’t amount to much once its over. This is a brief spurt of energy, kicking up immediately and dispensing its shiny, singalong hooks in under two-and-a-half minutes. This doesn’t leave any room for musical bloat, but also prevents the track from taking any interesting chances.
To its credit, I Got Your Back stuffs as much as it can into its brief runtime. Once the vocals begin, there’s hardly a moment the girls aren’t delivering some sort of spunky refrain. The tradeoff for this approach comes at the song’s finale, which is… nonexistent. It simply ends without warning, refusing us the exciting climax a track like this is designed to build toward. This leaves I Got Your Back feeling unfinished and slightly unsatisfying, but I guess that’s the name of the game in pop music these days.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8 |
Grade: B-
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
ILLIT’s music is all over the map these days, here they seem to be horning in on QWER’s territory. This isn’t terrible but sounds like a less-interesting (and shorter) version of the QWER songs from earlier this year like Ceremony and Bad Habit, the only better thing about it is maybe the vocals are a little less annoying than that group’s chirpy aegyo.
Anyway I thought those songs were pretty good so this still might get an 8 from me, but it’s not an especially memorable effort.
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“It simply ends without warning, refusing us the exciting climax a track like this is designed to build toward.” Well described, and I hate this feeling.
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It’s very vanilla pop rock sounding, I don’t hate it, I like this much more than “it’s me” but as someone that has listened (and still do) to a lot of rock for a long time, this goes through one ear and immediately leave from the other.
Same with Qwer music, or softer stuff like Hanroro.
Korea do LOVE that style though it seems.
But if it can be a platform for more interesting rock stuff I’m all for it.
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off topic, but what do you think of the new red velvet highlight medley
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It sounds fine, but nothing really sticks out at this moment. I predict it will be consistently good.
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do you predict it will be better than red velvet’s cosmic?
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No, but that clip is too short to tell.
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The song sounds like debut-era Twice, or as Mysteric says above today’s QWER. It’s actually pretty good except for the abrupt ending.
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I was thinking the production sounds a lot like “No Celestial” from Lesserafim’s Antifragile album.
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ILLIT last japanese releases used cute concept with softer sound so I welcomed the pop rock variation in their discography. Its a good sound, but its a shame they did not make use of the featuring artists much and yeah I just can’t get used to the abrupt ending either. Is it really hard to make a decent outro? HYBE allergy to 3 minutes song really gets to my nerves more often than not
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I thought Jisoo of Blackpink is involved… Feel so ashamed of my narrow knowledge of Japanese Group….😳
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