Song Review:: Stray Kids: Hop- Walkin On Water

• Release date: 2024 December 13

• Album tracklist: Walkin on Water, Bounce Back, U (Feat. TABLO), Walkin On Water (HIP Ver.), Railway (Bang Chan), Unfair (Felix), HALLUCINATION (I.N), Youth (Lee Know), So Good (Hyunjin), ULTRA (Changbin), Hold my hand (Han), As we are (Seungmin)

• Album runtime: 34 minutes

 The buzz I've been hearing all day is that the mixtape is fire, Chan is a legend, Lee Know and Han are being Han and Lee Know, Changbin dropped a song that's like every kick-butt YA movie, and Seungmin went looking for blood and then to patch up the wounds he caused. Which is also par for the course if I understand correctly. Also, I think the album artwork design is really cool, using the Chinese characters to form the word "hop." But the runtime? Two and a half minutes is not long enough to warm up food. This is not it.

There are essentially two things that make the instrumentals stand out from the normal generic hip-hop trappings. I don't use generic to be a bad thing, but simply to mean following conventions of any particular genre. I don't know when the word had negative connotations added to it, but really if I ever use generic in this context, I mean it with the more literal, academic definition probably close to 99% of the time. One of those things is mimicking the sound of record scratches via vocals, which is a great use of onomatopoeia. The human voice is so versatile. The other thing is the industrial thumping of thin sheets of metal, which sounds like a metal trashcan being hit, although in this case it's less the can part being hit that is being recreating, either by actually hitting the metal and recording the sound, and more the lid. Otherwise, it's pretty much exactly what I'd expect to hear for the amount of time the song gets, and that's good.

There are few things I like better from Stray Kids than Chan's singing, even if in this case he's got about four lines. But given that he also has his hands all over every other part of the production and creation, that's not something I'm particularly worried about, because if he wanted more lines, he could certainly give himself more. I feel bad that he had to spend so much time as a trainee, for a number of reasons, but the seven years did really good things for his overall competence with idol-related skills, and his voice is gorgeous, if sparsely used. This song and Water by Seventeen's hip hop unit are cousin songs, and I think that's kind of funny. Obvious connection with the title and the theme, plus the length, and I really like that, especially since the groups are friends, and Chan and Mingyu are in the chat group. It's like two buddies rolling up to hang out, and they're in something like couple outfits by complete accident. Walkin on Water is short, but there's a lot packed into the song, much of which is the repetition of the "walkin on water". I also appreciate the fact that even though the vocalists don't have big belting moments, they are sprinkled in liberally enough that it helps break up the rapping. And, honestly, the song's grown on me since I've gotten to this part of the review. Took me probably about fifteen times, maybe twenty given how short this song is, of listening to it, but I think I actually like it now.

I'm sure the eagle-eyed fans have already noticed this, but I really appreciate that both the day set and the night set had the arrows stuck in them upstage. Nice little link to the introduction scene. The stylists need a raise. They did a phenomenal job. I don't think there was much of a storyline, but also, I'm very well aware of the fact that they have extensive lore, and so I'm sure that I missed a hundred tiny details that mean there is actually a storyline, but from a non-fan perspective, I don't see it. Not that I don't enjoy the music video. The quality of it is very well done, and the bits of choreography we see are so intriguing.