HYBE is preparing to dominate the conversation once more with the upcoming debut of TUIDE, the first group under their newly established ABD label meant to cater exclusively to girl groups. The optimist in me continues to hope that a new group means a new sound and concept, but judging by pre-release track GRLS the agency creatives are still chasing that unbelievably influential NewJeans appeal.
Look, I hate to constantly compare new groups to older ones, but when the music feels so cut/copy/paste, what else can I do? I’m not sure what’s preventing GRLS from being a NewJeans or early-ILLIT song. It bears the same (very played out) subdued UK garage influences. It’s hard to imagine producers working on this instrumental and coming away from it feeling excited because the beat has almost no voice of its own. I heard this a million times back in 2001 and it’s maddening that we’re saddled with a reheated version twenty-five years later with no evolution or unique take on the source material.
There are moments in GRLS where we get a peek of TUIDE’s potential vocal prowess. These bursts are fleeting, since most of the track is simply the group chanting “GRLS, GRLS, grls, grls…”, but I treasure the brief spikes of harmony. How I wish TUIDE would lean further in this direction! That alone would place them in a unique light within today’s market. Unfortunately, the vast majority of GRLS features the same flat phrasing passed off as melody over the same muted production afraid to do anything new or exciting. We’ll see how the eventual title track bears out, but for now I feel like I can predict exactly how it will sound and that’s a boring proposition for a new group.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.25 |
Grade: C
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
The concept of ruining NewJeans just to reheat their kimbap over and over again 💔 (it’s on the company btw, not the girls)
Anyways, sounds like an OST for Lego Friends. Rating’s the same.
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Haha it does sound like that!
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i was hoping they’d go for a sound that forgoes girl group trends, since they’re working with pledis staff (and they may get some of that tws dna). i do love the funky energy esp with the harmonies, but the topline is a bit lazy. hoping the title track will be better
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Hmm… there’s nothing here that really stands out to me, either sonically or aesthetically. Why am I getting kind of tired of music videos where the camera just follows the idols around? That style was innovative at one point, but it isn’t anymore… or at least it doesn’t feel that way. It’s time for K-pop to get a little more random. Do something like Unidunitê (I think in the US you call it eeny, meeny, miny, moe) or whatever. If you end up stopping at Sistar’s Alone, then follow what worked in that song, just its strongest points, and see what happens. That’s about all I can really recommend to the industry right now. With the way things have been going from A to B, we’ll just end up with B to C. Oh, by the way, I went back to 2024, and I think there are more songs from that year that I like now than I used to
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it’s just another NewJeans so uninspired like surely you could’ve come up with something than saying GIRLS 50 times? lemme whack that group name too, it’s overall a chop for me so far
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i was sick of the song by the second chorus
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Judging by the title, I really thought this is just a visualizer, or medley, or whatsoever instead of a pre-release.
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hybe still doing the newjeans/uk garage/drum and bass style is just the japanese soldier who kept fighting 29 years after ww2
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It honestly feels insulting at this point.
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it probably works better as an album/ep intro
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I think the target demographic is wayyy young. As Annie~ says above, Lego Friends age. For those in the US, American Girl Doll age.
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Everything I will say here goes to HYBE, these girls aren’t to blame at all. They’re just working with what they’ve been given (I doubt they had any type of input or were heard in any way).
It honestly makes me sad and upset to see HYBE and other agencies attempt to recreate NewJeans’ magic after their own company, (and the KPop industry at large) failed them. In a way, it’s kind of iconic, NewJeans came, had two years packed with hits, and then a bunch of copycat “creative teams” decided to continue referencing the same sounds and a similar aesthetic 4 years after their debut.
This song in particular sounds like tripleS, ILLIT, LE SSERAFIM or Hearts2Hearts trying to do a NewJeans thing. It does not even reach the “NewJeans copy” level, it’s at the “plagio di plagio” tier. The worst part is that they don’t even hide it anymore, you just gotta take a look at their teasers and the whole visual aesthetic for this group’s debut era; it all looks like NewJeans’ Attention EP and ADOR’s initial brand.
All the best of luck to these girls, hopefully they’ll get a different type of sound and become interesting with time, like Hearts2Hearts eventually did. But from the bottom of my heart, I just got a big “go to hell” for HYBE. Go to hell for Manon, for trying to feed us slop with KATSEYE, ILLIT and LE SSERAFIM, for having BTS release the worst album of their career, and most importantly, for ruining NewJeans, who were on track to become one of Kpop’s most important groups (if not the most) in this generation.
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Best thing this song did for me is want me to go listen to SHINee’s Girls Girls Girls. It’s remarkable unmemorable and not ambitious. I do agree that the small moments of melody and harmonization are nice.
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Girls Girls Girls mention! That song’s a banger
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Woah I certainly got a flashback to 2000 era from the aesthetic, that itself is not bad in my book. The song itself felt more like an intro rather than a fully fleshed-out song for chart so I will held my judgement until the album come out. While many of us might be tired of recycled newjeans concept, I for one did not mind that much as long as it is done right. While HYBE track records so far did make it hard for us not to worry (RIP? newjeans), but It seems ILLIT still managed to find success today despite their rocky start so let’s not lose hope for the rookie group yet.
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Well… the choreo is cute?
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I agree, pretty decent song but nothing blowing me away. ALSO: Do you plan on reviewing La La Lune by Junhee?
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It is sounding a bit stale I guess. Might grow on me a bit. The choreo is very good. And I’m always happy to see any gg’s co-opt from despicable new jeans. They should give the whole catalogue to these girls and send the others up north. 7
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I loved NewJeans. Listening to this, I don’t know why people would compare it to them. I might end up liking this song, I don’t know. But it doesn’t sound anything like NewJeans to me.
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nothing i haven’t heard before, and has been done better by others in and out of kpop. i wouldn’t have even known this group existed if it weren’t for people bringing up that one of the members is the sister of twice’s jihyo.
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Ummm meh
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All I can say is it sounds like a NewJeans song with little variety and creativity. They thought they were clever with the GRLS hook but I got sick of the constant repetition of the word. I didn’t really get to learn that much about them through this pre-release expect that they got “bestie-tude” and are GRLS. And the amount of English is actually scaring me. The title has bring to something new to the table if these GRLS want any chance of sticking out in this oversaturated industry.
7(7,7,7,7)
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Ditto the sentiment in the review and comment section. I’ll just add that I like the concept of the video, simple but still engaging. Ironically, you’d think they’d give a less performance based video when we’re meeting the girls. Also there are some unique visuals in this group
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Hi Nick! Just thought I’d ask if you’ve heard about Jiwon’s (ex-Cherry Bullet) new solo single, Call Me Up — I think you’d really like it!
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