Is it possible to have songs injected straight into your veins? If so, I volunteer, and Stray Kids’ new Japanese comeback “Giant” will be first on my list.
Japan is the second largest market for K-pop groups, naturally after South Korea, so it makes sense that these artists tend to drop Japanese albums as well.
Released Nov. 13 with 10 tracks, I wouldn’t be surprised if this album somehow made its way into my most listened-to things on Spotify (and yes I know that thing is closed already, it’s called exaggeration).
Granted, not all songs were worth listening to. The Japanese version of “Chk Chk Boom” should’ve stayed in the drafts, we already had two perfect versions in the original and the festival one, no need for this travesty.
The title track “Giant” though, is an explosion of power and noise, which pretty much sums up the entire Stray Kids discography, to be honest. And of course, these eight geniuses (BangChan, Han, Hyujin, Seungmin, Changbin, Felix, Lee Know and I.N.) already had the time to perform it at their “dominATE” world tour with a full choreography and all, which seriously just go watch it. It’s kind of incredible.
And the lyrics “do-re-mi-fa “King Giant”?” I see what you did there Bangchan.
Two of the songs, “NIGHT” and “Falling up” were already previously released on Oct. 6 — in Korean, Japanese and English — as both are used as opening songs to the second season of the anime “Tower of God.”
And to an avid anime fan like me, these songs are pure masterpieces. They are exactly what an anime opening should be, even though I’m refusing to listen to the English version based on principle. I’m sorry but I will always be a sub over a dub anime watcher, and that goes for the openings as well.
Also the high notes? Listen, I’m as tone- deaf as it gets, but even I can appreciate the vocals from Han here.
My absolute favorite song from this album is, “Christmas Love.” As someone who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, (I’m not American put the pitchforks down), I’m already in a very Christmas mood and this song hasn’t left my playlist.
After the viral Bangchan and Seungmin cover of “All I want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey, we, the fans, have been all waiting for this, and dare I say it did not disappoint at all. Rather — and it does pain me to say this — goodbye to “Last Christmas” and the aforementioned Carey song — I have found my new Christmas love song that I will obnoxiously play during the whole year and make everyone around me miserable.
It’s also just a really fun, goofy song to listen to and surprisingly catchy — even to someone like me who doesn’t understand the language — seriously go give it a listen. You won’t regret it.
“WHY?” is such a hilariously timed release in my opinion. A song about them wanting people to leave them alone and that no matter what, they just continue to progress and ignore all the hate? HYBE, you called?
Anyone who knows anything about the K-pop industry knows how much HYBE talks about Stray Kids, essentially calling them short and bad dancers. Yeah, if this album didn’t come out like two days after that happened, I would’ve called that it was scripted.
“Saiyan” — other than the anime reference — doesn’t stand out that much to me, it’s a lot slower than other songs on the album but there’s something so nice about the music, which made sense when I looked at who produced it (Bangchan and Han).
And would it really be a Stray Kids album if these men didn’t include an absolute heartbreaker? “愛をくれたのに、なぜ” or “Why did you give me love?” carries so much raw emotion in it, and while yes I did have to google the lyrics, even without knowing what they are singing about you can feel the pain.
That being said “I hate you, but I want to see you / I miss you so much, the scars are still there / You left me behind so quickly” kinda hurt, not gonna lie.
The album has been out for barely a week so there aren’t really any statistics that I can pull out to show you just how good this is. Go give it a listen and make your own opinion.
Stray Kids are just putting out banger after banger this year. Just look at “Come play,” which made it as a title track in the Netflix show “Arcane season 2.”
Stray Kids are simply taking over the world.
And I will be back. Because apparently, these men don’t sleep, since their next Korean come-back is already announced for Dec. 13.
