#exo countdown

smile for me feels oddly threatening??

smile for me is a reference to the8's 2018 stage performance of the chinese version of CLAP on the chinese competition show chao yin zhan ji

a ranking of exo's japanese album countdown:

i want to preface this by saying that baekhyun is essentially the only member whose voice i can CONSISTENTLY identify at this point in my exo-l journey, so i won't be able to get quite as specific as i would normally like :(

10. lovin' you mo': the way they stylized this title was kind of stupid, i'm sorry. just say loving you more, it's a wasted effort to try to match the title to the tone. i got an image of being tracked down by these eight men trying to convince me to pick them. i wouldn't want to be a woman listening to this song. it's rare that i really vibe with any track that's basically "pick me, choose me, love me." i literally wrote in my notes, "these men are very needy and not in a fun way."

9. lightsaber: didn't hate it, but i DID hate the darth vader breathing at the beginning. good job sticking to the theming, but my ears weren't happy and i wanted to cry. i fuck with house music quite often and i loved the rapping it just got FASTER and it tickled me, hell yeah. the other songs were just better upon first listen. i do however want to mention that they did not find that happy medium between an empty chorus and a full one. repeating the title over and over is not a good strategy.

8. electric kiss: the beat went hard as fuck, but it was cranked up to ten and largely imbalanced, at least my ears weren't fucking with it too heavily. i was bopping in my seat though. idk who it was but there was some raspy vocals in there at one point and i can't decide how i feel about it. got the vibe that they were threatening me, but i can't deny a good exo bridge.

7. cosmic railway: okay. here's the thing. as a song in its own right, in and of itself, etc., it's FINE. it's pretty good, in fact. however, it's part of a pretty bulky album. and it's the only. slow. song. the whiplash i got from going from RUN THIS to this song was very unpleasant, and then i got whiplash AGAIN when the music swelled at the chorus, so i really can't tell whether that instrumental choice served the track well or not. liked the borderline trot vibes, the vocals were serving, and obviously the bridge slapped because it's exo. does not need to be five minutes long. i will accept fault for forgetting that all jp albums have softer songs, but you cannot possibly have it be the only one on a ten song album. no sir.

6. coming over: very funky, very groovy. yes and yes on the instrumentation. my complaint comes from the beat again. for the entire chorus it felt like the track was running away from the vocalists, ESPECIALLY during the ooo's at the tail end of the chorus. didn't agree with me, and neither did the line "go shouty, get naughty." the "we're done, goodnight" was my absolute favorite thing ever though, i chuckled. makes me wish they ended the album that way.

5. into my world: loved the instrumental intro but i can't fathom why there was a random roar at the end of it, you ruined it. :( there was that weird breathy rasp again which on a techno-esque album is not a good choice imo. i wrote that the "repetition of run away gets old but not as quickly as you would think" and i stand by that. they stop before i want to hit skip though, so at least there's that. the line that comes right before the rap section of the chorus is the best part of the song, they cooked with that. i noted specifically that i would not mind at all if this got stuck in my head after listening.

4. tactix: the intro was weird because whoever it was was way up close to the mic and my brain decided that was not good for me. loved the scatting during the chorus, you could tell they were having a really good time. could not concentrate on anything else if i had to while that song was playing, but sometimes you need a break, eh? loved the synth, had a fun time with the laser-adjacent effects as well. this was the point in the listening where i realized that techno was an objective and i buckled in. good soup.

3. drop that: no surprise that the remakes made the top three. instrumental was nice as fuck, i love isolated guitar/bass action. noted that i would do the running man to this. very nct, which i obviously get down with, neo definitely got my back. the vocal layering got to chipmunk pitch at one point which was unique i guess and there was one piano riffs followed by what sounds like the intercom noises on my building's fire alarm when i get an evacuation order. good rollercoaster i think, the tail end of the bridge leading into the final chorus was absolutely everything, they cooked again.

2. run this: they made REALLY good use of the empty chorus, i loved it. i also loved the back-and-forth between vocals and rap in the second verse. it transitioned back into the pre chorus very very well. bridge action very good as well. the only thing i didn't love was the infrequent video game noise in one ear, but if i listened to it without earbuds it would probably be fine.

1. love me right - romantic universe: exo has some of the best title tracks in the industry. the guitar reminds me of that which is present in life is a highway, likely due to the presence of a whammy bar if it was live and a specific setting on the loop if it was engineered, which is more likely. gotta love that type of timbre. i liked the brass and the distortions that followed that segment, very much good. the "yeahs" get annoying after a bit, but that's my only real complaint. also the "love. me. aaaaahhhh" before the last chorus was very tasteful? is that the word? idk. also, apparently it's called romantic universe in this version because they were trying to appeal to the japanese cultural idea of romantic love as being cosmic and all-consuming? fun tidbit, gotta love knowledge acquisition, amirite?