Starship Entertainment‘s KiiiKiii have been a surprisingly intriguing group so far, from their creative teasers to their trendy, laid-back, rather nondescript non-debut debut “I DO ME” to the hopefully-ironic-but-still-trying-too-hard “DEBUT SONG” (also not a debut or something). While things have been interesting, the actual music hasn’t been appealing to this point, and now they finally make their official debut debut with “BTG“. Much to my pleasant surprise, they establish a mostly appealing brand of the bratty, girl crush type of sound and image.
Fair warning, “BTG” is very much a mixed bag in a way, but importantly, KiiiKiii and producer Dem Jointz get the key stuff correct. Specifically, the airy vocal over the pre-chorus is enchanting, especially when contrasted with the bass underneath pounding away at a seemingly increasingly rapid tempo. From there it transitions into the “been that girl” hook repetition, which feels almost cynically designed for TikTok challenges but is also immediately memorable thanks to being set over a beat PinkPantheress would be proud of. While it’s only been a few hours now, it’s not hard to imagine those sections burrowing into my ears for a minute.
Despite that praise, the verses are hard to take serious for the same reasons as stuff like BABYMONSTER‘s “CLIK CLAK” (which is being like the K-pop equivalent of studio gangsters). The second verse in particular is brutal, not only are the lyrics unfiltered cringe, but it also comes with a downshift in tempo and has a terrible rhyme scheme that gives it all a disorienting flow. The fact that it comes immediately after the exhilarating first impression of the pre-chorus and chorus almost feels like intentional sabotage.
Admittedly, it’s not ideal to want to memory erase verses Men-In-Black-style from an otherwise great song, but if you can kinda zone out during those sections (using your K-pop experience in trying to ignore rapping attempts), it gets back to the core of the song soon enough. And fortunately, the bridge that’s included gives the song space to breathe before diving back into the pre-chorus and chorus for a satisfying conclusion. That’s where the driving beat, the elegant, lingering vocals, and addictive hooks of the chorus might do just enough to make the song worth it.
