Song Review:: BTOB: Please Stay

• Release date: 2024 October 31

• Album tracklist: Please Stay

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 OUR HEALERS ARE BACK. It's only four of them, but four is better than none. I can feel my skin clearing already. And they are the youngest group in the Battle of the B Groups today, though they are the middle child in terms of age. It also irritates me that BTOB seems to get a lot of "You're too old to be idols" comments, and have for a few years now. It's not fine, but I'm ignoring it because they have it handled. This wasn't what we were promised earlier in the year, but honestly, who cares? This is BTOB's first release, even as a partial group, since they left CUBE just under a year ago, and I'm very much looking forward to what the healers have to give us with this first single of several they have planned.

The guitar takes front and center focus, even with the drums and keyboard. As that's one of the instruments Hyunsik plays, I'm not surprised by this. Also, if I could have just the instrumentals to this, that would be great, because they are mellow, and soothing, and healing. I absolutely want to be able to toss the instrumentals on repeat and then just go to sleep to them. Also, I'm not going to lie, I don't know how Hyunsik and Minhyuk did it, but they managed to make absolutely gorgeous instrumentals that I struggle to pay attention to because their voices outshine them so much. I'm pretty sure that this is actually a sad song, but until I go look at the lyrics, I'm going to pretend. 

Which is of course a feature of later BTOB music. Nothing is supposed to distract from the fact that they are singers above everything else, and we have all eight hands on deck for this. We've got Minhyuk's lovely voice, that once again proves that he's a rapper because he likes to rap, not because he can't sing. I'm going to have to play this song so my cat can hear it, see what he thinks. He'll likely be peeved because it doesn't have Changsub, who is his ult bias, but he has also screamed at me when I didn't show him Minhyuk singing, so there's that. It's weird. I'm very much aware of this. He doesn't care. But, we've also got Peniel singing and I am so proud of the progress he's made! Oh, and the harmonies that they make. Some people might be disappointed that they didn't do something other than exactly what is in their strongest wheelhouse, but if you were trying to reassure your fans that just because you left your company, that didn't mean that your group's identity didn't change, then something that is so clearly their specialty would work amazingly for those purposes.

I decided to play the music video so my cat could take a listen too. He's been quite upset with me today because I won't let him go outside. He's a black cat. It's Halloween. He's...I wouldn't call him friendly, but he's mostly domesticated. I don't want something to happen to him. As soon as Minhyuk started singing, he curled up and started purring. Not close enough for me to touch though, of course, because he's a butthead. So, thank you, BTOB. You soothed the wild beast. 

I was actually surprised by the music video. Normally, the cooler tones denote the past and the warmer colors denote the present. But the way they're used here is the cooler tones are reserved for the present because it's sad, and the warmer tones are used for the past because it was much happier. You can even see that in things like the coffee mugs and the clothing. The memories of the past also literally disappear and turn to piles of ash, which is just so brilliant I don't quite have words for it. All in all, this is a very sad music video. 

Wow, I've had a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions from the releases today. Yowza.