Song Review:: LOVEONE: Drama Queen- Drama Queen

• Release date: 2025 April 25

• Album tracklist: Drama Queen, Dreamin', Drama Queen (Inst.)

• Album runtime: 6 minutes

 I covered their debut song, FUNNY HONEY, back in November and even then, I was excited to see a girl group that had all the members be eighteen or older. I also remember thinking that none of them had a strongly arresting charisma, but that they could simply not have been used to being in front of the cameras yet. But their name on the comeback schedule did catch my attention because I really want them to do well. With the release of this song, it brings the total number of songs released by this group up to a massive...three. Sample size is still not great, so I'll probably make a comment or two on Dreamin' as well, but I also recognize that it is very expensive to debut a group, especially when you don't have another, bigger group to pick up slack until the new group can get their feet underneath them.

Ooh, this is very much up my wheelhouse with the instrumentals. Oh, I like this. It's got some 70s vibes threaded through it, but what I'm most strongly reminded of is What's Good by Seventeen. I'd be curious to see if they're in the same key, because I'd hazard a slight guess that they use the same chords and scale. And yes, I'm listening to the instrumental. Why is that exciting for me? A number of things I personally am frustrated with concerning girl groups that I'm not going to necessarily get into here, but it does mean that they're continuing with the early 3rd gen, or 2nd gen during the same time, sound. This feels like a party song, a celebration song. It isn't super high energy, but it's got enough going on that I'm sitting here doing what I affectionately call car dancing (I'm not currently in a car while I'm writing this) while I'm listening to it. 

As a side note, I'm very excited for my ears. I compared some info on the two songs, and they have the same time signature (4/4, which is the most common one to find so that's not interesting), same key signature (D Major, and I'm really quite chuffed), and the same BPM (116 BPM, although apparently What's Good is less than .1 faster than Drama Queen). Oh, I'm pleased. So you could, theoretically, sing What's Good to the instrumental of Drama Queen or vice versa.

Still don't have any big belting ad-libs to really show off vocal nimbleness, but their voices are very well supported and there's quite a bit of oomph out of them, so I'll take it. We did get a bit of a belt, but it's hidden behind the chorus. The best part is the group as a whole isn't beholden to a single tone, so we've got lower, richer voices with the higher, more traditionally-viewed-as-feminine voices, and it's that combo that makes the song so interesting. I'd even hazard a guess that one of those lower voices belongs to a rapper, because I think I'm hearing my favorite thing: what I affectionately call the rapper rasp. But, I love it. We're getting closer to some evidence of incredible vocals and I couldn't be happier, and we've got a bit of variation going on.

As promised, I took a listen to Dreamin' as well, and this one is a bit jazzier and later in K-Pop sounds. This one circles around OH MY GIRL and GFRIEND circa 2016. We get some rapping in this one, so I think I was right about that being a rapper rasp in Drama Queen, but it fits together really well, and I like this one as well.

One of the members of LOVEONE looks a lot like a member of Girls' Generation, and I wish I knew their names better to be able to tell you which one. Taeyeon maybe? Anyway, this is a really cute music video where the majority of the storyline is dedicated to prom! Or at least the Korean equivalent maybe? Do they have an equivalent? I'm also fascinated by the fact that the entire first section of the song doesn't have group choreography. It's kind of a bold choice, and it does catch my attention. I wish there was more storyline to the music video, but there's enough that I'm satisfied, just greedy.