My K-pop journey has been a bit of a whirlwind that was kickstarted during my freshman year. I had heard about K-pop before and had seen big groups like BTS on New Year’s Eve, but I didn’t understand why they were so popular. What was it about these Korean Idol Groups that was so different from the music I was listening to? I never thought that I would become a big K-pop fan, and then I came to college.
Freshman year completely changed my outlook on the entire world of K-pop. Due to the Covid outbreak, my friend and I were stuck in our dorm room almost 24/7. Because almost all of our classes were online, we were able to finish our homework, and then we had a lot of time on our hands that we didn’t really know what to do with. We watched TV or YouTube, but I was bored out of my mind. Looking back, this was the perfect environment for a new obsession to blossom, and it did.
In August 2020, BTS dropped their first all-English single, “Dynamite.” My friend and I didn’t hear it until October, but once we did, there was no hope for us. We tried to deny it at first, making jokes about it. I tried to pretend they weren’t good, but how could I? I wasn’t satisfied with only listening to this one song. It was so catchy, and I found that I was having so much more fun when I was discovering new things about BTS until, eventually, I knew the names of all the members and had a 2-hour playlist of their songs. Getting into BTS made the time in our musty dorm room so enjoyable that I forgot about how boring and monotonous it had been before.
BTS was the best artist I had ever been into. I felt like I didn’t need to dive any further into K-pop because BTS was enough. For months I stuck to my promise of staying completely out of the K-pop scene except for BTS until one day, a video for “Blue Hour,” a song by Tomorrow x Together, popped up. I noticed that this group was under the same label as BTS, so I just clicked on it to see how they compared, and I loved it. Everything about the song was so good, and I loved the members’ visuals. I forgot everything I had said about staying out of K-pop and swore that they were going to be the next group that I fell in love with.
My friend was extremely resistant to the idea. We were both worried that by getting into another group, our love for BTS would start to wane. Even so, I couldn’t help myself. I had to find out more. I looked them up and started making a playlist, and I would play their songs in the car, but my friend was still worried about getting into another group but she started to like their music so much that she bought albums and constantly kept up with all of their content. I still liked them, but I felt like there was some reason I couldn’t get into them as much as I could BTS. There wasn’t one member who really caught my attention, and by this time, my friend was so into them that they felt like her group rather than mine. So I accepted that I would never be a die-hard fan, but I was okay with that, and I haven’t really thought of them that much since my short obsession freshman year.
My friend is still really into TXT, and they were coming out with a new album comeback on January 27th. We decided to have a watch party with snacks and treats before the album, along with a music video for their title track “Sugar Rush Ride,” dropped at midnight et. I wasn’t expecting too much. I thought it would be good but nothing life-changing. Writing this now, I can say I was so wrong. I don’t think I have felt this way about a comeback since I watched “Dynamite.” Everything about it was amazing. The visuals, the choreography, and the song. I was speechless. I couldn’t believe it. I was feeling things for this group that I hadn’t felt since I saw “Blue Hour” two years before.
With every second that my ears were blessed by the sweet melody that was “Sugar Rush Ride,” I could feel a new obsession blooming. The crazy part is that there isn’t one bad track on the whole album. I’m in love with every song. I couldn’t get them out of my head and decided that this would be the first TXT album that I purchased. Every track is so versatile while also coming back to the central theme of Temptation. My favorite track aside from “Sugar Rush Ride” is “Tinnitus.” I think this is TXT’s most mature sound, and that is one of the reasons I love it. The vocals are unique and somewhat experimental but still catchy and enjoyable to listen to.
I never thought that I would be able to get into TXT again, but the Temptation album has changed everything I thought I knew about them as a group. They are quickly becoming one of my new favorite groups, and somehow they have turned me back into the TXT-obsessed girl I was freshman year.