Who is ILLIT?
ILLIT is HYBE Entertainment’s newest five-member K-pop girl group. BE: LIFT LAB, a label within the company and home to the infamous ENHYPEN, created the group through a competition show “R U NEXT?” The show consisted of six intensive rounds ending with six girls ready to make their long-awaited debut in the industry. Youngseo, one of the members sadly announced her departure from the group for good in January. This resulted in a five-member lineup.
The group’s concept is fresh with bright-sounding music that sounds straight out of the infamous TV show “Sailor Moon.” Since the girls are as young as 16 years old, this concept feels age-appropriate and appeals to the Y2K aesthetic. There wasn’t a lot of buzz about this debut until HYBE released the highlight medley for the upcoming release. Snippets from that video started to circulate online with fans excited particularly for the release of the title track, “Magnetic.” It went viral all over TikTok even before the full-length song dropped.
“MAGNETIC” Review
On March 25, ILLIT released their mini album “SUPER REAL ME” with the title track “Magnetic.”
“Magnetic” tells the story of the girls falling in love with a guy that they gravitate towards like a magnet. They are opposites, but they attract because they are magnetized to each other and on the group’s mind constantly. ILLIT with this song and EP go for the genre pluggnb/ R&B. The production sounds like a video game and is an instant earworm. For the lyrics, they say “U U U U U” instead of “you” to symbolize the magnet further in the chorus.
The title track is unique and perfect for a debut. No one expected this group to revive the fresh innocent concept that K-pop fans were longing for. This song has been soaring on the global charts and has been all over TikTok. ILLIT now holds the record for the highest first-week sale of any girl group debut in Hanteo history. Hanteo is Korea’s chart where they keep track of an overview of all K-pop album sales.
“Magnetic” Music Video Review
The music video for “Magnetic” showcases that pretty youthful concept without over-sexualizing the group which I appreciate. K-pop has debuted very young girls and oftentimes will put them in crop tops. This is the first time where it feels age-appropriate which makes me want to support them more. In the video, they showcase their tough choreography while having a blast on set with white outfits. It feels like an ethereal experience as the group is shown to have superpowers.
ILLIT has become a global group within a week of their debut and this is only the beginning for them. Starting from very little noise as they were making their first entrance to the world to now having the biggest song globally as K-pop artists cracking the top 20 on the global Spotify chart is truly remarkable. They went for a concept that was missing from fans and came out on top because of it. The group earned their first music show win in Korea which often takes rookie groups years to accomplish. It took the girls one week to achieve this milestone.
“SUPER REAL ME” Review
“SUPER REAL ME” is a short debut EP following the current K-pop trend of no songs being three minutes or over. Four songs have a total run time of nine minutes and every second of it was a perfect listen. The ethereal youthful concept is prevalent in each track and my favorite was “Midnight Fiction.” The song has a beautiful production against bright vocals that stand out. Lyrics for “Midnight Fiction” make the song more dreamy and like you’re floating in space. They sound poetry-esque. According to Genius, the pre-chorus translates to: “Suddenly, it feels like my body has become a bird (Fly away). Rising up without wings. Our house has shrunk to a dot, it’s like a dot. The sound of the wind, my favorite song (Song).”
Each song fits into the other one perfectly and there are no skips on the EP. ILLIT did a great job making beautiful songs and showing off their impressive vocal tones. As of April 2, they have over 3 million followers on Spotify and have been racking up a lot of streams on all four tracks. I wish the songs were a little longer with the intro track, “My World” only being 1 minute and 45 seconds long.
What did you think of ILLIT’s debut?
