Overview:
IVE’s second Japanese EP has finally dropped (it feels like just yesterday we reviewed ‘CRUSH’), and because we have already heard ‘CRUSH’ and hopefully have listened to ‘Will’ and the original songs of the new Japanese versions, this review will be a short one.
Here I will cover things I haven’t talked about with the two Japanese exclusive songs yet and also evaluate how good the new Japanese versions are compared to their original Korean counterparts. There will be no tier list/rating for various reasons I’ll talk about at the end though.
Let’s hop in!
The Review:
So I’ve already talked about ‘CRUSH’ here but since some time has passed I’d like to talk about how well it has aged and will continue to age. This song just kept growing on me, while it’s still not on the level of all-time greats such as ‘After LIKE’ or even 2024 hits like ‘Accendio’ I really think any sort of IVE fan or K-Pop/J-Pop fan should sleep on this song. There were a handful of people I knew who didn’t care for it too much and I’m really hoping it grows on both them and other fans who did not dig it initially either.
As a lifelong Pokémon fan (let me know if you want me to blog about that haha) ‘Will’ was honestly a very overwhelming dream come true for me personally. As a song though, I do understand the fact the song is very lowkey (to be fair it was advertised that way as a single like the Pepsi collab songs). Like I said for ‘CRUSH’ though, I think no K-Pop/J-Pop should sleep on it and at least give it a shot, since I do find it very catchy and passionate. Overall, I think both ‘CRUSH’ and ‘Will’ deserve some playlist spots in certain Asian music playlists.
The Japanese singles:
I had mixed expectations for how these songs were going to sound compared to their original counterparts. I was very excited since I initially envisioned them to sound amazing in Japanese, however, I find Japanese versions of existing Korean songs usually will never hit as hard and honestly feel like covers rather than having their own unique identity.
With that being said, these three songs do are half-and-half when it comes to those expectations. ‘I AM’ is basically the same song and if you’re not paying attention then you might not even realize you’re listening to the Japanese version. That doesn’t make it bad though, as the Japanese language is good for it, although I would expect a fully English version to hit even harder.
‘Off the Record’ may be my favorite, I think the Japanese language fits very well with it especially in the second half of the bridge and second verse.
For ‘Baddie’ I was honestly blown away by how good it sounded Japanese, that one I personally had lowest expectations for since the song’s chorus is mostly English anyway and I didn’t expect the style and pacing of the song to translate to Japanese as well. I was proven wrong though, with Japanese hip-hop rising again, this song, this song could definitely make its way into any 2024 Japanese music playlist.
Are these songs better than the original? I personally don’t think so, which is why I don’t feel it’s fair to tier them since their expectations are raised so much by the fact they are versions of already existing hits. The only comparisons I would make would be between ‘CRUSH’ and ‘Will” but because ‘CRUSH’ was just that much more enforced, it’s pretty obvious who the winner would be.
A fun comparison I would make is this EP vs WAVE’s, where I do put WAVE above this due to WAVE and Classic being overall more iconic.