Song Review:: FIFTY FIFTY: LOVE TUNE- Starry Night {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2024 September 20

• Album tracklist: Push Your Love, Starry Night, Starry Night - [ENG version], SOS, SOS - [ENG version], Gravity

• Album runtime: 18 minutes

I think I've figured out how I'm going to deal with pre-releases for my reviews. It does involve me updating them post-album drop, but that is the best way for me to keep things straight. Also, I'm endlessly entertained by the fact that there isn't a single way to mark different versions of the same song. I had a moment where I was annoyed by this, but then I decided to just enjoy that I don't have to type out the same thing every single time I run into albums like this. At least they usually stay consistent within the album itself. I thank them for that. I also don't know how I feel about FIFTY FIFTY's situation. Obviously it's a mess, what with the lineup changes and the legal battle, but I also kind of feel like the group called FIFTY FIFTY is actually the ship of Theseus. 24K saw an entire lineup change, and also changed the name of the group to 24K+, but they're definitely not the same group with no original members. FIFTY FIFTY didn't have the full lineup change, but is it still FIFTY FIFTY? Something to think about, I guess. I don't know. I remember hearing Cupid last year because I listened to the Mama Awards playlist, but I also can't just recall the song off the top of my head, so I am not the person to ask for the aural differences between the first and second versions of this group.

Something that I find entertaining about the song is that even instrumentals are floaty. Forget the vocals for a moment. At no point, does the sound that is supposed to be supporting the vocals feel like it's grounded. Not that this is a bad thing. The song feels like it was designed to be free-wheeling and bird-like, so the fact that it lacks that grounding element just means that the song is more swift or swallow, rather than a raptor of some sort. Fun fact: swifts spend most of their time airborne, doing literally everything a normal bird does on the wing except nesting. So that's a particularly appropriate bird to liken to this song that doesn't feel like it touches down at any point. There's nothing that draws me with the instrumentals. They have a couple of moments of quiet where the members are doing acapella, and there's another section near the end that features some sort of stringed instrument that is just gently being plucked. the same one that is at the very beginning, but this time it's completely on its own. But otherwise, the instrumentals just kind of feel like they're there.

I kind of feel like because I wasn't incredibly familiar with FIFTY FIFTY as a quartet, I'm not going to have the same emotional recoil that the actual fans are likely having. Thinking about how I'd feel if NU'EST were to re-debut with Minhyun and Baekho and three or four other new members wouldn't be a good analogy, because NU'EST was an older group. So I'd have to think of it as, like, TWS or xikers. In which case, I think I'd really struggle with the new group, because they're not the members I know. I'm fairly adaptive. But I've seen TWS and xikers perform in person. I've gotten to know the members a little, at least their public personas. I'd still struggle a lot. I imagine it would be hard to listen to the new, re-debuting FIFTY FIFTY and not hearing the voices you expect, especially when they'll likely be performing the old songs. ALL OF THIS TO SAY, I get it and I sympathize with the fans. And also, I don't know which voice is the old one and which voices are the new ones, so I just get to focus on what they're doing with them. The part that piques my interest the most is the pre-chorus. The way it builds, I am a huge fan of that. The chorus then would have been the point where we get some nice heavy drums that the members could have belted and pressed against. Instead, we got a wispy, airy, bird-like chorus. It's a little disappointing.

I'm reserving my final judgement until we can get more from this new version of the group. I'm not overly impressed at the moment, but we're having the album come out in a few days, so I'll get more of a sample size then. Fingers crossed they have a successful debut! I wouldn't wish a poor one on any of the groups.