ATEEZ have commanded a large fanbase for years now, but this year they find themselves with an equally large public hit on their hands. I still don’t get how Bad turned into the sensation it did (the song just does nothing for me), but the group is now in a unique position to build upon that chart success with music that pulls casual fans deeper into their world. Ahead of a new album next month, pre-release Drip arrives as the first step toward that goal.
When a group scores a big hit, they tend to try to replicate that same sensation in an even bigger and bolder way. That means doubling down on the qualities that made a song successful, which can result in extremely great or extremely bad material depending on the quality of that first hit. With Drip, ATEEZ have clearly learned that simple, monotonous hooks connect with the audience. Replace “bad, bad, bad” with “drip, bricks, whip” (one of those rhymes is not like the other) and you’ve got the basic idea. There’s a bit more going on here when it comes to flow, but the end product is more tiresome than exciting.
Going back even further, Drip actually reminds me of their 2024 single Ice On My Teeth. That song had more interesting production to cover for its predictably braggadocious lyrics. With Drip, everything — from the instrumental to the resolution of each line — ends in the same place. It’s like kicking a can down the road. Something is moving, but nothing is moving with any purpose or destination.
| Hooks | 6 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 6 |
| Bias | 6 |
| RATING | 6.25 |
Grade: D
If you told 2020 me that they would resort to low-effort slop like this, I would have called a psychiatrist on you.
Rating’s the same
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10/10 comment, and honestly, I think this group unfortunately holds the honor of having the biggest drop off in music quality as far as I know. And that’s saying a lot. Part of it is also due to the chances of getting another Answer or Wonderland getting lower by the day.
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I would say SKZ too had that falloff but they just happened to have 3 excellent singles (District 9, Miroh and Side Effects) with rest being meh to decent but ATEEZ dominated 2018-2020 so their falloff is even more disappointing. 2025 showed so much promise and had me excited for this year but alas…
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ATEEZ being enemies of the blog in 2026 after a solid 2025. o7
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I mean, could be worse, they could have gotten the diabolical sub-6 ratings CORTIS got this year, but even then they don’t have a redeeming song à la REDRED
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ateez average is 8.03 right now what is it gonna be after this song?
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7.99, they’re no longer Heavy Hitters now ;/
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A whole tier drop this year 😩
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And to think they were comfortably sitting at 8.17 before their 2026 run decided to tank them down 😭
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this song is the perfect melatonin for me bcuz it puts me to sleep from how fucking boring it is
https://i.imgur.com/WigM3v7.gif
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fuck you wordpress why didnt u embed the gif
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Chilll, things happened sometimes hahahahaha
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This is the perfect example of a supertardom as mentioned earlier this week.
A bit monotonous, this song. Flatline for the whole runtime.
Rating somewhere in the 6s.
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Yup. Definitely a 6. It’s not bad but it’s nothing unique or innovative especially as someone older than their demographic fandom, I’ve heard this type of beat 10 years ago.
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Well… it’s better than Bad!
Not that it even matters much since that was already such a low bar to begin with.
Same rating as Nick and I should also ask you, how close is Answer to becoming a legendary song up there with Wave and Wonderland?
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Haven’t listened to it yet (will watch with some friends), but man I just feel sad. These guys have made some of my favorite tracks but these recent releases feel less and less ambitious. Sure, it might become an ear worm with time, like how BAD did, but I miss when I fell in love with a song almost instantly.
On another note, the concept photos preceding BAD make me question if the behind the scenes team is in a identity crisis. We had one set that was vampiric, In Your Fantasy themed. Another that was cyberpunk esque, reminiscent of The World era. And lastly the Latin concept. I kept wondering throughout, where are we going? And when Golden Hour 5 released, the album was completely torn between Latin and Synthwave. The direction feels so erratic. I’d simply rather listen to Latin artists straight from the culture (Tainy, Benito, Rauw, Rosalia, Plan B are my favorites).
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these releases keep getting more and more sadder. I miss vocal peak ateez :(.
straight up their worst tt by far
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Right, they are starting to sound like SKZ. Noisy and lacking a real melodic hook
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Was there a shakeup at KQ or something? Every release since In Your Fantasy has been more disappointing than the last.
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A friend and I theorized this but I do think that ever since Leez left Edenary (back in 2022), it has massively impacted their musical output. Like just compare songs like Geurrilla to whatever the hell their 2026 output is and you might see the stark difference.
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I’ll actually add GH:4 to the last good music drop they had. I surprisingly didn’t like Adrenaline when it came out cause it was post IYF. But that song I grew to love and loved all the B-sides from that album.
But Bad/GH:5 was just not good. Not a single track on that album replayable. I’m praying Drip isn’t indicative of GH:6
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Same like cortis “red red” but sure it is a hit it is very catchy
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“… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
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Yeah this is a miss for me. I think the beat is fine. But there’s not much else that makes this a song. The song is the beat, the beat is the song. It repeats on loop as their autotuned voices “rap” nonsense lyrics bragging about their swag and how much money they have and how cool they are. Sorry, boring. And if they read the room, they’d see almost every other group is offering some variation on this theme. It’s tired. I’m tired too.
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I liked Bad, and I like this way better! The beat and flows are excellent…ok, so basic hiphop elements met. Then the chorus is SUPER catchy. I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get as popular as Bad, especially with this fun choreo. Only thing I can fault it for is not bringing anything daring, like what Ice On My Teeth did. But what it lacks in innovation it makes up for with energy. 8.5
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They got nice beat and rap flow going, but the track stopped going anywhere after that first moment. I almost thought I mistakenly pressed the replay button in the middle of the track without realizing it. I did not even realize I missed the chorus with how flat the tune sounded.
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Wow, I hate it
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I fell off Ateez really hard after Guerilla and the only thing of theirs I’ve really been into since then was Seonghwa and Mingi’s cover of Trouble Maker. Drip might still grow on me as an earworm, but
While I don’t necessarily miss the “deep lore” kpop concepts, it did mean that groups like Ateez or Aespa had whole storylines to sing about instead of “I’m so rich, beautiful and amazing” over and over.
I recently listened to Say My Name and Hala Hala again and it reminded me of what got me into kpop initially. These songs (like many of that time period) felt like 3 songs in one with the shifts, layers and complexity they went through. Nowadays, you’re lucky to get maybe 0.75 songs per song
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I agree with your take! Older Ateez definitely felt like the songs were progressing to somewhere. There felt like an actual destination or goal in mind with thought out verses, and there were more vocals following the progression of the song!! And uh they kinda had a cool lore thing going on too.. But after the success of Work I think they’ve been going down a strange path. There doesn’t feel like a creative spark or originality they once had.
Your critique of kpop being just spoken out words hit me harder day by day… Kpop trainees are trained to be able to sing… And it feels like now they seldom do T-T Jongho didn’t sing a lot and that’s one of the reasons why I like Ateez…
I don’t understand what the industry is thinking… If I wanted to listen to hip-hop/rap or rnb tracks.. I’d just listen to Black artists? I feel like the chorus being repetitive simple buzzword english feels really cheap. In an era where ticket prices for concerts are really expensive… And the artists are singing about how much drip they have from touring worldwide every year.. It tires me out too
And Ateez styling has been great. They all look great. The music video cinematically feels way more put together then their debuts. But I’d also wish they’d spend more of their budget on rest and have some time to produce more thought out songs!! I could see this as like.. a filler song on an album… But I’d wish they’d come out with something more exciting. I’d wait!!!
As a fan I don’t want my hope to die yet T-T
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