carboxyl | ❌ txt: gbgb review and thoughts (Reply)

general disclaimer:

it's currently 1 am and i'm writing this in sort of a foul mood, for reasons which will be explained in a bit :D most of the content about the review will be kind of negative and just generally shitty !!!! im not going to apologize but just wanted u guys to know the kind of unstructured and disjointed shit that's about to follow LOL. take care <3

thursday's child first listen and thoughts:

okay so. i was really anticipating this comeback approximately since january, after the void that was left behind by the end of enhypen's promotions. i remembered that txt last had their comeback in like august so i knew this was coming. after the announcement was dropped, the guys were hyping up t'sc like it was truly the aoty that everybody and their mom's were waiting for lol. i mean i was already seeing parallels to attacca era where seventeen were also doing the same damn thing. regardless, it didn't really stop me from simply being super fucking interested in the new music they were about to put out right. i can say all i want that i'm mostly in on this because they're all attractive men and have great personalities but c'mon let's face it. i will always have a group's discography to brag about but these dudes might not be here for a long time, u know what i mean (see: one direction). anyways, i was busy today when the album dropped so i couldn't listen to it on the get go but considering the live reactions that my very kind sister was giving me, i was like. so fucking sure that this was a banger, megatronic, super duper hit. RIGHT??? like i can only assume so because bitches from the media showcase were also raving about it, how yeonjun stans are especially in the risk of DYING. so i here i was in class, trying not to freak the fuck out while listening to a lecture about sappho from the island of lesbos. i guess i'm going to in on the longwinded rant anyways.

good boy gone bad

i don't know where to start honestly. beginning with the general concept of the comeback which is like punk/emo/rock inspired heartbreak music continuing from lovesong and lo$er=lo<3er, i think it was a natural progression. however, i also think that this whole thing was TOO on the nose. everytime i woke up to some press articles with snippets of what the album was about and descriptions of each b-side, a part of my soul would disintegrate so slowly. i don't even know if we're still in +u anymore? i mean probably, what would i know. but i think, the best part of what actually worked in lovesong was completely missing in gbgb - and that is subtlety. from the music video to the styling, everything was so lowkey and just. generally vibey. i loved that so fucking much, especially because of how much it reminded me of what bighit is capable of and what they've accomplished in the past with titles like i need u and run. no, i get it. i really get that part of the teen angst experience is to get rejected, get dumped, get heartbroken. fine, we've all been there! me too, babey! but couldn't they have found a better way to execute this concept WHILE keeping the pop/punk sound? 5sos is a great example of how this concept would've worked wonderfully had they found a creative team with the right vision. apart from the lyrics being too corny and loud, i found the mv not complimenting the sound at all. both of them were incredibly busy so there was no cue to pay attention to relevant parts (for example, soobin's prechorus or even the bridge). i think the biggest crime of the song was definitely the HEAVY HEAVY autotune and the post-chorus. if this was any other boy group doing this concept and singing that repetitive phrasal chorus-postchorus blend, i would've just clicked off and never listened to it again. this is true txt privilege imo.

i also wish that i hadn't listened to so many of the teasers. bighit fucked up by releasing almost a WHOLE MINUTE of the song ?? who the fuck does that (except probably jype with twice)? while it sounded bearable (enjoyable even!) with the fan edited teaser knit, the whole song comes off as too overbearing and heavy to the ears. and this is coming from a person who enjoys noise music almost exclusively. you'd expect, you would really expect txt to have found their unique charm and sound by almost three years after their debut. i can even argue that they came so close too, i can excuse lo$er=lo<3er. but gbgb just puts a huge dent in their title track discography for me. imagine going from blue hour > lovesong > lo$er=lo<3er and then gbgb (crowd boos). taehyun's voice wasn't allowed to shine too.

music video was corny, i heard that they swapped out directors and i saw moas celebrating that lumpens didn't direct this LMAO. txt's usual mv team is now working with lsrfm and they got their gbgb team from contacts mostly (bc they've worked for sm and yg groups previously). as gorgeous and magical run away and cysm mvs were, i wasn't even expecting That kind of budget for this comeback, but considering that txt is having a cb after almost 8 months, i assumed that they'd fork over some cash even if they didn't rly want to. costume designing was okay, i liked the outfits they're wearing at the graveyard set but okay, i wanted more color. they can't just wear all black outfits to the stages. i liked the purple suits in the comeback show performance, it gave me super joker vibes, it was great (beomgyu esp!!). i wish yeonjun wasn't wearing the weird baseball cap with the outfit? it felt so out of place with the rest of their outfits. the trash scenes outfits (ESPECIALLY YEONJUN'S BIKER OUTFIT WAS SOOOO SEXY I LOVED IT) was great. i appreciate the lyrical callback to cat&dog LIKE YES, I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR CAT SORRY and i wished soobin got more screentime and lines tbh. okay done, that's it.