Song Review: HITGS – Sourpatch

Whenever I see a newly-debuted group with a long acronym for a name, I’m instantly curious what the letters stand for. The answer is usually entertaining, but “HITGS” is almost perfunctory in its meaning. “Hip, Innocent, Teenager, Girls, Story.” Yeah, that’s like a mad lib for the typical K-pop vision board. At any rate, HITGS hail from H Entertainment, home to both WOOAH and DXMON. I wish them well, because this agency has some known issues.

If HITGS’s name represents non-musical qualities sought after by K-pop agencies, debut single Sourpatch stands as an example of the industry’s overriding musical trends. We’re in this weird phase where K-pop has managed to make dance music boring by muting every instrumental and stripping character from the airy vocals placed over the top. Objectively, Sourpatch‘s BPM is high, but you wouldn’t know it from how quiet and subdued the song sounds.

This feels like a passing global pop trend that K-pop refuses to relinquish. Most big-name popstars have already moved onto a more personality-rich performance style, making a song like Sourpatch come across as an antiquated little curio. The song itself is fine in the way most of this beigepop tends to be “fine,” but between its oft-repeated hooks, stuttering, non-committal percussion and charisma vacuum, Sourpatch is like taking a whiff of gently scented air laced with a hint of sedative.

Grade: C