Song Review: Stray Kids – Ceremony

Over the years, Stray Kids have grown into one of K-pop’s premiere groups. In fact, their popularity is so global that it almost feels as if they’ve transcended the industry altogether. Once upon a time, they also topped my year-end singles chart. Gosh, that seems like lifetimes ago. The group is back today with their fourth Korean full-length album and the appropriately-titled Ceremony. After all, this feels very much like a victory lap.

Yes, it’s another K-pop song about how great and popular its performers. By now, you all know how tired and unappealing I find this lyrical trope, but even the most overused themes can be salvaged by killer songwriting and compelling production. Stray Kids have shown they’re capable of both in the past, but oftentimes their need to be catchy and clever in a sloganeering way gets them into trouble. Much of Ceremony feels like a meme, from the repeated “hip hip hooray” to the (annoying) “we’ve got good karma” catchphrase. There are fun moments buried within the song, but they’re about as short as the attention span needed to enjoy a funny internet joke.

Looking at the positives, Ceremony‘s woozy production is pretty interesting. It keeps the listener off balance throughout and the percussion during the verses has an addictive texture I haven’t heard much of in K-pop. I wish I could fuse it to a different song entirely, because so much of Ceremony is simply repeated retorts flowing through the same hip-hop phrasing we’ve heard over and over these past few years. The chorus is quite limp, centered around a feeble beat drop and some errant shouting. There’s no melodic focal point to pull everything together the way S-Class‘s pre-chorus did a couple years ago. Looking back at an even older touchstone, it’s as if Ceremony took the most polarizing parts of Bigbang’s Bang Bang Bang (ie: its iconic trap chorus) and tried to build an entire song around it. It’s an ear-catching experiment, but not one that works for me. Worse yet, I fear its more gimmicky moments will age poorly.

Grade: C