Song Review: TUIDE – Sun Kiss

HYBE has churned out new idol groups with increasing regularly over the past few years, but the newly-debuted TUIDE are the first act from subsidiary ABD, designed to solely manage girl groups. This is a welcome development, as the corporation has had a difficult time giving their girl groups anything but gimmicky slop lately. Maybe some focus and attention could help the situation. Alas, our overlords at HYBE seem to be stubbornly addicted to the same formula. If they’re not peddling sing-talk novelty, they’re offering ultra-subdued trendy pop in the post-NewJeans mold. I don’t know when it was decided that K-pop suddenly had to be boring to be “authentic,” but a song like Sun Kiss exists in a world allergic to bombast and/or musical scope. It’s content to find a subdued groove and paint over it with wispy watercolors. No moment in Sun Kiss attempts to stand out. Instead, the purpose is to blend together until you’ve got the softest sounding background pop imaginable. This is the kind of music you’d hear poolside at a fancy hotel, meant to set the vibe but never compete with anything else happening around you. This kind of music has its function, but when the majority of pop music...