On Jan.15, 2023, SM Entertainment put out a comeback teaser for one of their most powerful girl groups. With an overwhelming amount of talent in vocals and dance, they still managed to produce one of the worst albums in the company’s history.
GOT the Beat is a supergroup consisting of seven members. A super-group is where a company takes members from different groups and just smushes them all together. It is also a subunit of the project “Girls On Top” which made its debut on Jan. 3, 2022. There are members from each generation, as well as a soloist. The Queen of K-pop – the GOAT – BoA, is part of this life-altering group. Members include Taeyeon and Hyoyeon from Girls’ Generation, Wendy and Seulgi from Red Velvet, and Karina and Winter from Aespa. All of those groups are some of the most popular girl groups in Korea’s history.
Now, this is going to have a lot more criticism than my other reviews because, to be honest, it isn’t that good compared to the members’ respective group’s releases. Reviewing this album will hurt my Revluv, Sone (Girls’ Generation fandom), and BoA stan soul.
The first song on the album is the title-track, “Stamp On It,” which is not the best. I feel like the producers put the most mediocre beat and instrumentals together and then hoped the vocals could save it. Spoiler alert – it failed miserably. All verses in the songs are uninteresting and lacking in the good amount of flavor their previous title-track had, which makes me sad. It doesn’t stick to your brain, very unmemorable. Although I do enjoy the catchy pre-chorus and the vocals during the bridge, it still is not a good song.
Second on the track list of the album is “Goddess Level,” which is not on goddess level. This song’s intro is just so unbelievably bad, it is unlistenable for the five seconds it has. I feel like they tried to give off 2015-girl-boss-Fifth Harmony vibes with noise/music instrumentals and tried to make a song, key word being ‘tried.’ One of the instruments in the background is a weird saxophone that irritates me to the point that I want to lose my hearing. I’m all for girl-power songs, but if you’re going to make one, at least make it bearable. Though, (like always) since they have some of the best vocals in Kpop, it saves them from extreme annihilation.
“Alter Ego” is another song that appears on “Stamp On It,” a little better than the past songs. Sure, it might be irritable for the first minute but it grows onto you. GOT has continued with their bass-heavy, girl-power song, but this one is done better. “Alter Ego” has a better flow than their past songs. It doesn’t sound sloppy but it also isn’t toe-curling. I personally enjoy the pre-chorus a lot, it’s smooth and nice with, you guessed it, amazing vocals. Just have to listen to the pre-chorus and bridge and ignore the wacky verses and chorus.
Now my personal favorite on this album is “Rose” for good reasons. First of all, the beat throughout the song had me hooked when it started playing. It’s different from the previous songs, the same layout but different vibes. This time, their song has an actual meaning about it! It’s a type of break-up song where they are now baddies that don’t need love from a man, using the analogy of them being roses with thorns because they are beautiful but not to be messed with is something I really liked. Not to mention, the vocals from Wendy, Taeyon, and BoA are absolutely ethereal. I don’t care if people find it corny, I thoroughly enjoy this song.
However, the next two final songs are just so bad to listen to I just decided to smush them together. “Outlaw” is the second-to-last song on the tracklist, probably because it’s the second to the worst song on it. This song is like a trap, it sounds decent for the first half but the millisecond the chorus kicks in, the decency is gone and it’s absolutely horrible. “Outlaw” had so much potential to be a good song, but the producers gave up midway through writing.
Here it is, the worst song on this album, “MALA.” The flute in this song just gives me horrible flashbacks to NCT 127 “Sticker.” I hate unnecessary, nauseating flutes in songs. Every single verse in this song is unlistenable, it’s just that bad. I wholeheartedly believe that if that sickening flute wasn’t in this song, it could have been decent. Not even the girls’ amazing voices could save “MALA.”
Overall, this was a very mediocre album, with not a lot of noteworthy songs. That alone makes me feel disappointed because I had such hope for this album only to be let down. Other K-pop listeners might enjoy the songs, but they are probably hard of hearing if so. Giving this album such bad reviews makes me feel very sad, I had so much hope for the girls. Hopefully, next year with a new rotation, they will receive a better-produced album.