Note: idle and mamamoo are my ults. I absolutely love all of the groups mentioned in this post. I am strongly against hate masked as CoNsTrUcTiVE CrItCiSm as well
This gonna be long. But you can basically skip the examples
I think controversial comebacks, regardless of my feelings about them, affect the group negatively long term, even if the comeback itself was successful
In fact, I feel like many of my favorite groups fell into this “paradox” of trying to recreate something because it was successful, even if it earned them some maybe justified cconstructive criticism. Hate is absolutely not tolerated! I am talking about fans who voice their opinions nicely
Let me give some examples:
mamamoo
Mammove’s career was mostly made of songs that relies on vocals. Then, gogobebe happened. It still had some vocal parts but was mode reliant on the dance. In fact, it was their first song promoted in 1 million dance studio. Gogobebe success started a long track of dance-focused comebacks. Hip being the most successful one. Then we had dingga/aya, both having a dance break instead of a bridge. While gogobebe and hip were successful, they definitely started the discussion about the lack of vocal parts. By aya, many fans were a bit furious.
While we had the vocal focused “were are we now” after aya, it barely had any traction due to the bad promotion, it being a goodbye comeback, and not that engaging of a song. It was later followed by illella, yet another dance focused track
gidle
I am a HUGE wife, nxde and queencard defender. I absolutely love these songs even more than the fan favorites oh my god and hwaa. However, it would be stupid of me to not acknowledge how controversial they were
I feel like while they were successful, they put idle into this weird box: idle now is the “fierce, girl crush, feminist Group with silly English that used to do meaningful songs”. This brand is too strong to the point where any song not confirming to this brand is thought of as the “exception” rather than a proof of their versatility. For example, seniorita is always not mentioned when talking about how the old discography is better than the new one. And revenge/fate/allergy are considered the exception when discussing soyeon’s writing.
While this is fine and everything, I feel like this string of controversial releases one after another put a weird barrier to the group. People who like this brand get angry when the song is not fitting (see klaxon hate. Some people actually hate it with passion even though it’s harmless and plain at worst + it being quite similar to dumdi dumdi, which is old idle). and people who don’t like it reinforce the brand to others further by talking about their lyrics and concept all the time
ive
Ive started with the elegant brand. Their first few comebacks fit this brand PERFECTLY. then kitsch happened. “I am” still confirmed to the brand so most people were okay with it. I personally was a huge kitsch enjoyer but it definitely raised some eyebrows from casuals
Then baddie went to change their brand more. It was more impactful because it was not accompanied by an elegant TT. But still, it was successful
However by the time heya happened, many casuals were not happy with the lack of elegant comebacks. I personally consider heya to be one of their best TTs and ascendio is glorious. But some people wanted more of a classy, elegant comeback
itzy
Itzy is one of these groups who have always had controversial comebacks. Kinda like idle/aespa in that regard. I know people like to talk about sneakers being their downfall, but I personally think it started earlier than that with mafia in the morning. MITM was very very polarizing. More polarizing than any of their previous comebacks back then. But still, it was successful. I could feel its polarizing effect in loco: people still turned in. And while loco was definitely safer than MITM or not shy, it somehow received an unreasonable amount of hate for what the song is. Then the trilogy sneakers-boys like your-Cheshire happened and the rest is history
Regardless of all of this, people like what they like. Klaxon, wife, queencard, heya, ascendio, kitsch, loco, Cheshire, sneakers, aya, gogobebe, dingga, illella are all songs I love a lot. Whether casuals think the group brand is ruined or not will not change how I personally view a song. This post is just showerthoght I had while listening to these songs
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