It’s time for more new K-pop!
If you’ve been paying attention at all this past year, you know that I have a deep, obsessive love of Omega X. Listening to the hits these eleven members can make after debuting together for the second time has been truly magical. And nothing makes me more sad than the fact that their US tour got canceled at the end of last year. Of course, I was still thrilled to get the chance to video chat with maknae, Yechan, but still. A show would have been magnificent. Now with so many members slowly entering their military service, it’s hard to know when exactly all eleven members will be together again.
So I suppose in the meantime, I will be happy to get new music in the form of Omega X’s first subunit, OX:N. I’m not entirely sure what the ‘N’ represents in this name, but the OX means it’s an Omega X offshoot. In this subunit, we get blessed with the vocals kings that are Jaehan, Yechan, Xen, and Jehyun. As a massive fan of A Shoulder to Cry On, I will take any Jaehan and Yechan interactions they want to give me. It helps that all of the members have amazing chemistry and vocals that compliment one another in almost any arrangement.
For OX:N’s first mini album, N, we get straight vocals on five original tracks. As much as I love Omega X, this whole album gave off very similar sounds compared to their last Japanese effort. It’s really clean and pop sounding, which isn’t always my favorite. I know in my last post I said there is a combination that really works for me sometimes, but Omega X hasn’t found the right concoction for me yet. Their lead single, “You,” sounded like it could have come straight out of Justin Timberlake’s mouth, and he just doesn’t do anything for me. Naturally, after that small disappointment, I was nervous to listen to the rest of the album, but everything else was alright. “Suit & Tie” almost had a western flair to it, which was unquie, but it wasn’t enough to make it that memorable. There were a few moments that really shined for me, like whoever was singing “let me in” in the song of the same name, as well as the tone that’s used to start the second verse of “Orpheus.” All in all, I was hoping to like this a little more, but I will never stop supporting the members of Omega X!
The next group I decided very recently to delve into is Hearts2Hearts. And it’s worth noting that this is the first girl group I’ve checked out on the K-Pop landscape! Admittedly, I’d never once heard of this relatively newer group until they popped as one of the performers on my live taping of The Show in Seoul. They also happened to win that episode, but I can understand why. “Focus,” the title track on their EP, is insanely catchy. I found myself singing it for the next couple of days, and then even listened to it on my own accord since then! And I was personally shocked that the vogue/runway music style used appealed to me. If someone were to ask me about that style of music I’m sure I would have said it was annoying. In this instance, it was anything but!
Of course, just because a group has one good song doesn’t mean they will necessarily have two. I’m happy to report that I was proven wrong. Someone on Youtube had commented that Focus was an album that has “no skips,” and I have to agree with that wholeheartedly. It’s worh noting that even with the music that I typically listen to, women-led acts are just not something that appeals to me, so I was nervous for this record, but their producers and writers have found the right mix of things to make me a fan. “Apple Pie” is as sweet as the name implies, and all of their vocals are heavenly. All of the songs on the record do a great job with their harmonies and vocal ad-libs. “Pretty Please” and “Blue Moon” seemed to me to have really strong influences from the sounds of the early 2000s. The former even managed to shift into a really brief, but extremely cool old school hip hop section! The latter had beautiful, almost stripped back instrumentals featured here without making it sound corny or cringy. I think I’m a fan!