Song Review:: Seventeen: HAPPY BURSTDAY- THUNDER

• Release date: 2025 May 26

• Album tracklist: HBD, THUNDER, Bad Influence (Prod. by Pharrell Williams), Skyfall (The8 Solo), Fortunate Change (Joshua Solo), 99.9% (Wonwoo Solo), Raindrops (Seungkwan Solo), Damage (Hoshi Solo) (feat. Timbaland), Shake It Off (Mingyu Solo), Happy Virus (DK Solo), Destiny (Woozi Solo), Shining Star (Vernon Solo), Gemini (Jun Solo), Trigger (Dino Solo), Coincidence (Jeonghan Solo), Jungle (SCoups Solo)

• Album runtime: 49 minutes

 Hopefully I can be less stressed now that Seventeen has successfully hit their ten year anniversary. They got as big and dramatic a celebration as I hoped they would, ever since I heard what NU'EST had had planned for them until... This is a happy post. Genuinely, though, this might end up being incredibly healing as an event for me, and everyone looks so good for this comeback. I'm a little sad that Jeonghan and Wonwoo weren't able to perform with the rest of the group (though it's possible that Wonwoo at least was in the sea of Carats), but I also recognize that most boy groups don't get to hit their tenth with all the members active because of military and we're lucky we got as many members as we have. KCarats, my expectations are a little bit high because of the comments y'all made for the pre-recording of M Countdown. And as always, bless the four minute songs. You compensated enough for the shorter songs that we have a truly magnificent runtime even if the title track is a little short. Also, I've got my nails done in rose quartz and serenity for this one so I. Am. Prepared.

 Am I ready for this? Probably not. But that's fine. Okay. Objective hat on.

The whistling gives it a good texture and the whistling pops in fairly frequently, to tie the song together as a whole, even if it's somewhat absent during the second verse, although I swear I can hear it as single notes rather than an actual time later on in the song. The siren also is a nice touch to further texture the song. So we've got little effects to enhance the instrumental, which is clubbing music for the most part. We do also get a cool little reset after the first chorus. If it weren't for the little sound effects throughout the song, it would be incredibly repetitious, which is good for clubbing, not as good for just listening to. 

Also, does anyone else hear Stupid Idiot and 96ers in this song? Because of that, I'd guess that the three songs were written at similar times (and this one is clearly inspired by the electric man game), but this is apparently Seventeen's clubbing era. It's also fairly reminiscent of TANG TANG TANG by the BTOB subunit 90TAN. That was a lot of capital letters. But as this is a Seventeen title track, and so there are certain things I expect. High danceability, which Thunder has in spades, and a highlight on the voices literally no other group has (except for award winning fourth gen group, BSS) and that's Seungkwan and DK. I can identify Seungkwan's part but I have a much harder time finding DK's, and the frustrated desire to hear their voices come out strongly and presently is currently a little bit in conflict with how much I'm loving the amount of Woozi we get, which again is probably part of the reason why I'm reminded so strongly of 96ers and Stupid Idiot. I just miss my vibrato boys (I think I can hear DK's part, only because that vibrato of his cannot be controlled or restrained under basically any circumstances). Still, I can turn to the solo tracks for that, I assume. Also, the pronunciation of spelling "thunder" is adorable and I love it.

Okay. Time to see if my theories were correct. 

Well, now I'm wanting the whole movie. Dang it. That's basically just the intro to a movie. I have questions that are unlikely to be answered. Oh, wait. Is this music video and the one for...I think it was Eyes on You connected? Or is this one in the same universe as Maestro and God of Music as I thought? OR is it actually connected to HOT's music video? Or are they all in the same universe at different points? I'd rather be annoyed by these unanswered questions than be annoyed by a purely vibes and visuals music video, for the record. Jeonghan would have eaten this concept up. I'm so sad. It's fine. It's completely fine.