Song Review: Soyeon (i-dle) – Star | The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion

i-dle are at a tricky fork in their career where their music no longer becomes an instant chart sensation yet they retain a large enough fan base to keep their career chugging along. At this point, artists can either cater directly to that fanbase or continue trying to score a more mainstream hit even if that means swimming against the tide. Or, we can just pause for a fun little stopgap from leader (and chief songwriter) Soyeon.

Soyeon hasn’t made a huge push toward solo stardom, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen more often at this stage in i-dle’s career. Star feels more like a gift for fans than a bid for chart dominance, but either way it’s a frustrating mixed bag. The verses have a pleasant — almost 2nd-gen — appeal as Soyeon sing-talks her way across a rugged electro beat. I can’t help but imagine how this sound might develop into an actual song.

Sadly, Star never progresses toward that ideal. It completely gives up when we reach the “chorus,” which is just a repetition of the word “star” over the kind of dance beat you can hear in any corner of the K-pop universe right now. It continues to amaze me that, as K-pop finally transitions back toward a more upbeat club tempo, we’re stuck with these lazy-as-hell spoken word hooks. It would almost be less frustrating if the industry didn’t touch club music at all. Getting this close to success and wasting it on dull, repetitive, two-minute songwriting absolutely stings.

Hooks	6
Production	8
Longevity	8
Bias	7
RATING	7.25

Grade: C

7 thoughts on “Song Review: Soyeon (i-dle) – Star”

Someone please close the portal Whiplash opened, thank you very much.

Rating’s the same

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Visual is good, the whole track needs to be polished.

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The budget for this MV seems low :<

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this song is giving pop star who fell off 10 years ago trying to pander to her 10 remaining gay fans by shouting things like “mother” “cunt” “serving” etc.

unfortunately as a gay person im long immune to these charms as i have higher standards with my EDM music

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This review opening section seems to be struggling long and hard to describe how i-dle finally “fell-off” in a polite way LOL yeah we all know there is no “nice way” to say the group’s popularity had gone past their expiration date. Even Soyeon seems to have lost her golden touch these days if this “half-baked effort” song is her best output today. What a grim future for i-dle…..well at least they are still doing fine in mainland China.

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I think this would have been vastly improved if the song was half a minute longer and mixed the chorus with the most melodic part of the verse together at the end, which was where I thought the song was going to go as an attempt to redeem itself.

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