YG Entertainment has a long history of keeping its acts in “the dungeon” (ie: not letting them release much material for months/years at a time). This is still the case for many acts, but occasionally the agency also blitzes the market with new song after new song. BABYMONSTER have been in one of these phases this year, with new single Deserve their fifth track to be promoted with a music video in 2026. As befitting of the fall/winter months, the ladies have pulled things back for a ballad.

Listeners like me often complain that BABYMONSTER don’t get much chance to show off their strong vocals on their many hip-hop flavored tracks. However, there’s a middle ground between sing-talk/chanted banger and overwrought ballad. Artists could belt out a huge dance track, for example. Deserve carries that kind of drama, but the shifting tempo never kicks into anything more than a canned stomp.

YG ballads have tended to be huge highlights in decades past, succeeding on incredible melody that sticks around for the long run. Deserve bludgeons us with plenty of bombast, but the songwriting sounds like the kind of vacuous Top-40 fare currently clogging the American charts. Yes, the group sing the chorus loudly, but the actual melody is as dull as can be. It’s essentially the same couple of  notes pounded out in staccato, aiming for ultimate catharsis but sounding more like a commercial for a campaign ad. It’s too bad, because it’s nice to hear the group singing with such intensity. They deserve much stronger material to showcase that skill.

Grade: C-