Song Review:: ICHILLIN': Prequel- Official

• Release date: 2024 November 22

• Album tracklist: Intro, Official, Miami, Official (Instrumental Extended ver.) 

• Album runtime: 13 minutes

I know next to nothing about the group so I'm just going to go stick my nose in places for a minute. Three-year-old group under KM Entertainment, they're the company's first group. There's a fan whose prediction for the group for this year included an Aron collaboration with one of the members, which makes me raise an eyebrow in surprise. I was not expecting to see that, and now I'm intrigued. But the group are all adults now, so if I like them, I can listen to them.

And it's a three minute song, so I have to applaud that.

There's a strong dance beat that took a second for me to adjust to the amount of sounds blasted right from the start. I deeply appreciate the commitment to the energy that drives the song forward the entire time. Even when the instrumentals drop the number of instruments happening at the same time at various places through the song, it's all still energizing. I appreciate the rests just as a little bit of variety, which is essentially the only kind the listener gets as the song's instrumentals are incredibly consistent. Ah! I figured out which recent release this also sounds like: Crazy by Le Sserafim. Okay. I can rest easy now.

There's not a lot of singing happening in the song. The chorus is predominately a spoken segment that I wouldn't necessarily call a rap, but it's something akin to that. It's the same style of song with Bite Me, and the chorus there too is not my favorite part of the song, but because of Bite Me, I'm sure that Official will also prove itself to be popular. However, a new problem has arisen for me and that's regarding the fact that I hear a Cursed Wonwoo AI Cover superimposed over the song in some of the later songs. The last thirty seconds revive the song for me, with big vocals and a fierce melody. 

I'm a big fan of the handheld camera. It gives it a strong indie vibe to the song, and that coupled with the strong "nightclub" styled lights throughout the entire music video, gives it a bit of a dreamy haze. Going further with the indie vibe, I'm not sure that the music video has a strong storyline, but there's enough of a recognizable connection between the lyrics and the images that it's clearly about working hard and partying hard. It bothers me a little that the line is "This is my official."  It feels like that is supposed to be an adjective, but that requires a noun, because if it's noun, that makes the line very, very funny. But there are a lot of really subtle details within the music video that I assume are significant to the group or the fans. I just don't understand the context for them.