It’s the fourteenth day in February! Nothing of any importance or worth happens on this date! Yay!
Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’m a Valentine’s hater. A V-day Grinch, if such a thing exists. A Vrinch? Who knows. Anyway, it’s a stupid piece of commercial nonsense designed to make single people feel bad that they haven’t bowed to their society’s notion of the superior coupled unit, and to remind couples that their love is only valuable if expressed through the vanities of capitalism. It’s not my favourite holiday.
But never mind about all that nonsense, because there’s another K-pop group here to distract me. It’s the last of boy group week today, and, to at least nod to V-day, the group here does start with V. Don't say I didn't try. Guys, gals, gays and theys, it's Victon.
Who are Victon?
Mercifully an easier to pronounce name, Victon are a seven-member boy group who debuted under Play M in late 2016. Play M? Of course I’ve never heard of them, you know how this game works! Complicated origin story? Well, not really, but they did have a reality show called Me & 7 Men (which sounds like, well, yeah. You know) which chronicled their training up to debut, but it wasn’t a survival show. You know what is a survival show? Our good old friend, the Produce series. Victon member Seungwoo competed and actually came third on the series Produce X 101, meaning that in 2019 he paused his work with the group to become part of the show’s resulting boyband, X1. However, the series was eventually exposed as having manipulated viewer votes to such an extent that this group was disbanded, and Seungwoo returned to Victon in 2020. Just a little bit of drama for you there. I mean, would it really be K-pop without some kind of member fluctuation? I think not. 2016 puts Victon in the middle period of boy bands I’ve looked at this week: maybe young enough to have avoided the full fashion question mark that hovered over early 2010s K-pop, and hopefully established enough to have their own distinct style. Let’s see.
The First Song
This is November 2016’s surprisingly sweet and chirpy I’m Fine. Much less in-your-face and hype than A.C.E, Oneus or even Pentagon, it’s interesting to see that Victon chose to come out of the gate in the primary-coloured fizzy pop mode. This song has the kind of light hip hop beat (complete with goofy little record scratches) that puts me in mind of nineties American pop, complimented by groovy electric keyboard hooks in the background. We also have another chorus that’s like, filled with words! Woohoo! I think this is a smart move to start with, as it just allows for so much more character to come through. The video features the boys smiling, playing some kind of Grandma’s Footsteps game, and dancing moves easy enough to still allow expression. Watching it makes you feel like you know them, which I don’t think would have come through in a more edgy or dark style of song.
Five of the Big Hits
For Victon I’ve gone for Mayday, Howling, nostalgic night, Remember Me and Time of Sorrow. Considering how light and bubbly their debut song was, this title list doesn’t really fill me with hope that this will continue. I mean, it doesn’t seem like something with ‘sorrow’ in the title is going to be a hoot, but we’ll see.
Beginning with Mayday, I am definitely right that the tone here is much darker. However, this song really stood out for me, opening with a repeated beeping that’s clearly supposed to represent a heart monitor. The beeping speeds up and then flatlines, introducing the main song. What is most significant for me here is that the beat is slower than expected for what is clearly a darker concept, and the song keeps control of itself, never feeling the need to pick up the pace for the chorus or bridge. The rhythm swings in an almost pirate-like way, similar to ATEEZ’s Wonderland, and creates something that is instantly distinct and engaging. Howling is similar in its angsty tone, but here we’re in much more familiar dance/EDM fast beat territory, and the song is far less memorable for it. There’s some good rapping in the first verse, but, following Mayday, this song just felt far too generic.
Speaking of generic, it turns out I was right about Time of Sorrow not being a bop. It’s a classic, feelings-centric, mid-tempo, light ballad type piece. Nice enough if that’s your thing, but we all know it isn’t mine. Remember Me, considering it shares its name with that DEVESTATING song from the film Coco, is more exciting, with an easy, non-verbal chanting hook forming the centre of the chorus. The opening house piano also underscores the rest of the track, and makes this, essentially standard EDM light dance song, that touch more unique. Nostalgic night builds even more from this, starting with fairly dull verses, and very carefully working to build the rhythm into a more impactful chorus, where the distorted synths burst onto the scene before turning up the rhythm to match your heart rate. There is none of the lightness of I’m Fine in any of these songs, but enough of them are experimental enough with their construction to still maintain my interest.
The Latest Song
The latest song from Victon is January 2021’s What I Said, the latest K-pop track to realise the potential of Latin music’s melodies and instrumental hooks. This song is laden with trumpets in the backdrop, and the lyrics overtly reference Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin’s smash I Like It. This obviously gives it massive potential, and the combination of these effects with the more classic hip-hop beat and vocal styling makes for a different take on the hype track, in much the same way that Mayday used a change of pace to shake things up. It’s a really fun little song, and the scenarios in the video remind me of a) Monsta X in Fantasia (when they’re all in black jackets with gold brocade detailing) and b) BTS’s Blood, Sweat and Tears (all dressed in white shirts sat solemnly at a table). The concept is not original in any way, but it is definitely done well.
The Latest Album
January 2021’s What I Said was actually the lead single for the group’s first studio album, Voice: The Future is Now. Another obscure title that I can’t say I get, but hey ho. Being a studio album of course means that it is a lot longer than the standard K-pop EP, but honestly, most of the middle part felt pretty repetitive and ultimately disposable.
The album opens with an unimpactful but fun enough EDM style, mild hype track, Into The Mirror. The song has an unsurprising, if well balanced, mix of delicate high vocals, fast rap, and shouty, chanted choruses. The next song is the bombastic What I Said, which livens things up significantly. The tone then drops to a much more chilled-out groove that it maintains until the last quarter of the album. Songs like Chess and Up To You are some of the best of these, enjoying the freedom in the rapping and singing allowed, though by their milder nature they are just inherently less captivating. All Day and Carry On veer the closest to full-on ballads, without the minimalism that really makes that work. The pace picks back up over Eyes On You and Utopia, and by Unpredictable we’re back to dancing music. This song is wonderfully funky, stripping the instrumentation back for a smooth and punchy chorus like the best of NU’EST. The chorus’s instrumental hook does sound weirdly like kazoos though. Maybe that’s the unpredictable element. Flip A Coin brings us back into more hip-hop territory, and wow is there some impressive rap flow in the first and second verses. The central melodic riff is just damn catchy, and as simplistic as the idea of ‘flipping a coin’ needs to be. The album closes with the unsurprising, uplifting EDM-lite We Stay, which is joyful if mostly uninventive. The distortion of the synths opening the song is attention grabbing though. A nice end to an album with high points and, well…boring ones.
Thoughts?
As a group, Victon do seem more likely than usual to create something playful in their music, and when they commit to it, something great comes out. I really enjoyed the refusal of Mayday to turn up the speed or volume to achieve its effects, and how Unpredictable stuck to a tight minimalism. What I Said is also a really enjoyable song, though how much of that is due to the style it's leaning so heavily on, is up for debate. I am a little surprised that, giving the brightness of their debut title song, Victon don’t seem to have returned much to this concept, at least not in what I listened to. It’s a shame, as I feel I got a burst of character that didn’t really come back. I love a dark or hype sound as much as anyone, maybe even more when it comes to the latter, but, given that it’s a lot of what I’ve heard this week, it’s slightly disappointing that another group doesn’t want to stray too far away from it. I like Victon, but I think I would like to hear them either pushing the minimalist funk more, or else adding a little bit of the bounciness back to their songs. They can and have done it, so why not give it a try?
Comments