Song Review: ITZY – Gold

ITZY were without their main vocalist for January’s comeback, but still managed to drop an early-2024 highlight with the rugged, exciting Untouchable. Now, Lia has returned to the group and everything’s golden. At least, that’s what their new single Gold seeks to portray. It’s an interesting sonic shift for them, throwing disparate musical elements together in an arrangement reminiscent of NMIXX’s debut.

I’m a big proponent of keeping K-pop weird and shirking international influence for something more specific and unique. With this in mind, I admire Gold‘s chutzpah. Its blend of heavy rock guitar and quirky EDM hip-hop is interesting and ambitious. With a different song attached to this production, Gold could be a very quintessential K-pop standout. However, the song itself borders on awful at almost every turn.

After opening with a strong shot of energy backed by power chords, Gold quickly devolves into a weird mix of sing-talk and straight-up… rambling? I want to call this a rap song, but I’m not sure that’s what’s happening. Instead, it feels like the girls are simply vamping over the instrumental for three minutes. The track is riddled with awkward pauses and strange choices in phrasing, causing it to feel quite disjointed. I wish the producers had capitalized on the cool choral elements within the chorus, finding a melody that could have stood up to that bombast. More than anything, Gold feels like a ton of missed opportunities. However, I have a weird hunch that its sheer audacity might make it an unexpected grower.

Grade: D+