After the release of their ninth mini album, K-pop band Stray Kids hit the charts once again. PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter.com/stray_kids
K-pop band Stray Kids released their ninth mini album “Maxident” on Oct. 7 and topped the charts for the second time this year.
The band originally caught attention this year with their eighth mini album entitled “Oddinary” earlier this year in March, and with that came their second world tour. They toured the U.S. this past summer yet had to cancel two of their concerts in Texas and Georgia due to three of the members having COVID-19.
Stray Kids luckily rescheduled dates for Texas and Georgia and added an extra day for each of the two, as well as touring more places, meaning that a year-long tour is on its way.
While in South Korea, the group performed all the songs from both of their most recent mini albums on their tour.
Stray Kids is known for naming their albums in unique ways, such as combining words. “Noeasy” is meant to be a play on the word “noisy,” and “Oddinary” alludes to “ordinary” with a twist. “Maxident” is meant to be the word “accident,” and the meaning of it is falling in love with someone by accident, ultimately becoming obsessed with them.
This album features seven new songs and a Korean version of their latest title track, which is in Japanese, “Circus.” The album has received a lot of praise from fans all over the internet who were anticipating the group’s second comeback of the year.
All the songs on “Maxident” were written by either one or all three of the group’s production unit, 3RACHA, which consists of the band members Bang Chan, Changbin and Han.
The title track of this album is “Case 143,” which received over 11 million views in 24 hours. The meaning of the title is the number of letters in the phrase “I love you.” One for “I,” four letters for “love” and three letters for “you.”
When I first listened to “Case 143,” it took me by surprise. This song wasn’t what I expected from the trailer for the album. However, the next day, when I listened to the whole album, I loved “Case 143.” The song is very catchy and upbeat, and I really love the techno-beat chorus.
Another track, “Chill,” had a similar sound to “Case 143” in terms of being very upbeat and cheery. It’s a cute and bubbly-sounding song that I really enjoy.
“Give Me Your TMI,” and “Superboard” had more of a serious and heavy bass beat to them. I liked them both a lot when I first listened to them, especially each of the songs’ choruses because they were very catchy and had a cool rhythm and flow to them.
My favorite song off of this album is “Taste,” which is sung by the dance unit of the band Danceracha. The members of this unit, Lee Know, Hyunjin and Felix wrote this song, and when I first listened to it, I was in shock at how good it was. It was initially slow and led to a build-up where the chorus amazed me.
My second favorite song off of this album is “Can’t Stop,” sung by the vocal unit of the band Vocalracha. The members of this unit are Seungmin and I.N., and they wrote this song together. It also had a very upbeat vibe, but it was a lot more fast-paced and had an addicting beat that made me dance in my car. Them being the youngest members, born in 2000 and 2001, gave the song a very youthful vibe to it.
The Korean version of “Circus” was good, but I always enjoy the original versions of a lot of Japanese songs by K-pop artists. There are some Korean versions of Japanese songs I like, but to me, nothing beats the original.
This is one of my favorite mini albums from them, especially the love-struck and pink heart theme that they went with because it’s something they’ve never done before, and it’s their first love song title track. Each song blew me away in different ways, and I have been listening to this album on repeat since it came out.
Make sure to check out Stray Kids on your streaming platform of choice.