Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
ILLIT, the much-anticipated five-member girl group formed by survival show R U Next? and under HYBE‘s Belift Lab, has now made their debut with “Magnetic” off their Super Real Me mini.
As somebody who didn’t follow the survival show, didn’t watch any teasers, and had no idea what to expect, I guess I should’ve known something we’d get easy-listening from a HYBE girl group, as they all seem to be going in that direction of late. It’s not an inherently bad thing as I like a lot of NewJeans‘ output, and this has a nice groove to it that reminds me of like some LOONA stuff more than anything. The verses here flow well over an active and upbeat foundation that is subtly meatier than it seems, so there’s definitely potential.
But like many others in this mold, whether “Magnetic” works for you will largely come down to if you think the chorus is an earworm. For me, the stuttering “yous” followed by “magnetic” doesn’t leave much of an impression as a hook, and the post-chorus of similar stuttered “dashes” and “baes” in a baby voice is more detrimental than adding to the experience. Furthermore, for a debut it just doesn’t standout, and I’m not sure why this would convince me to choose them over any others doing a similar sound. Regardless, it’s just their debut, they have a built-in fandom from the show, and they’re a under a HYBE subsidiary so they’ll get a lot more chances to develop their own identity from here.
