Battle of the B-Sides:: TWS: Oh Mymy : 7s

 Every group that debuts, no matter the size of the company, regardless of whether this is their first group or their twentieth, is significant. When you have a group debuting after a major player in the game, there are two routes the company can take: ignore that or acknowledge it. Pledis has, historically, used their debuted groups to introduce their debuting ones. We saw that with After School introducing NU'EST, NU'EST introducing Seventeen, and now Seventeen introducing TWS. It's possible that Seventeen also introduced Pristin, but as they're no longer an active group, it would be difficult for Pristin to have introduced TWS. Still, I like that Pledis does that. I needed something a bit lighter, and this recently got submitted erroneously as a Greatest Hits post, but while this is a single, it's not the lead single. It's fine though! If something gets put into the wrong category, well, I can nudge it back into the correct one. The important thing is that someone loves this song enough to ask me to yap about it. Now, that being said, I'd also love to do a proper review of this one, so if you're also interested in that side, you can always request that. This one has good timing as well because Mr. Maknae graduated from high school this month! Also, I was determined to love them because they're connected to NU'EST, and also Seventeen. And then Seventeen and the two NU'EST members still at Pledis when they debuted have been doting on them, quietly in the case of Baekho and Minhyun. 

Oh Mymy 7s was TWS's pre-debut single from their first mini album, Sparkling Blue, released almost exactly two years ago today (if this had actually been a GH post, you did perfectly in respecting the two year thing). So, we have two composers for this song. One of them, Believve, has worked with a lot of western artists, notably Tyla and Usher, and on the K-Pop side, we've got Lisa, LE SSERAFIM, P1Harmony, Jay Park and Jackson Wang. He didn't work on any of the lyrics. Composer and lyricist is our Legendary Producer Bumzu, known for his work on NU'EST, Seventeen, fromis_9, Jin, Taemin, IZ*ONE, Block B, Pristin, 2PM, and NCT Dream, among others (including his solo songs). Shannon Bae (former member of Pristin and friend of my boy Aron's younger sister), is one of the lyricists, known for her work on songs for Seventeen, Kep1er, Verivery, H1-KEY, QWER, Kino, tripleS, fromis_9, Blitzers, Sevenus, JO1, Pristin, and Jamie. Jeon Jin is part of Bumzu's production company and has worked on songs for Seventeen, GFRIEND, fromis_9, QWER, VANNER, Omega X, WEi, GHOST9, ATBO, 24K+, JustB, BIGONE, Hyolyn, NMIXX, and Sandara Park. Haon has done many of his own songs, as well as for Jay Park, ph-1, The Boyz, Ravi, Chen, and Code Kunst. Last but not least on the list is Glenn, also at Bumzu's production company, who has worked on songs for Seventeen, ATBO, JustB, NU'EST, Drippin', and The Boyz' version of O Sole Mio from Kingdom. And, as a pre-debut song, it placed 9th on MCountdown. Which is insane.

This wasn't the original music video released for this song (that one will come up later), but what got released later is strictly the music video, which is what I shared.

One of the coolest things about this music video is that we get three different kinds of situations for this group as they're performing, and the music video starts with their final evaluation in front of their CEO HSS, their producer and sunbae Bumzu, and their company sunbae group Seventeen, and also Hitman Bang for some reason who is ostensibly unattached to Pledis at all and to TWS as he as a producer or writer was uninvolved with that entire debut album nor was he CEO of HYBE at the time. That final evaluation is so important for a trainee as that marks the transition from trainee to pre-debut idol so having the music video start off with that? It's a bit of a unique approach to introduce the group to the world by showing that. But I love it.

And the fact that they literally travel the world? We've got scenes for at least Paris, London, and New York, as well as this partially being filmed in Antwerp Station. So, starting with the final review, they perform everywhere from schools to streets across continents. 

If that isn't a metaphor for the hope for this group, I don't know what is.

But, and this one is important, there's also a sense of returning because we get more moments from the final evaluation, as well as them in the practice room. No matter where they go, they return to their origin and their process of learning. Building such a strong sense of humility and continual hard work into their image from the very start, from even before they debut? It's an intriguing direction for the company to take. 

Also, Jihoon's debut with TWS made him the second former member of Trainee A to debut, after Yorch over in POW the year before, and so many people were excited for him. That had to have been hard on all of the members to have that group suddenly cut from debut and then have to find new groups to bond and practice with, so I'm glad that Jihoon found a home with TWS.

This was the original video, as you can tell by the much higher number of views. Again, the strategies being used here are fascinating. Combining the introduction to the group with the song music video? Genius, especially because they were kept so closely under wraps except for Hoshi's stomping of the gas pedal with regards to them for Caratland 2023. We get names and little bits of the personalities, but there's a strong sense of solemnity with the video in general, even with the excitement that's nearly palpable at the beginning.

What's so striking though is that they talk about themselves very little. They spend their time talking about each other, how thankful they are for them, how 

And I'd just like to point out that Dino brings in a present for them. He finally gets to be hyung. And the Carats in the comments are focused on how proud they are that Seventeen gets younger brothers and how talented the members seem to be. But there are other fandoms scattered throughout: Engene, Army, MOA. Some recent comments coming here after Cortis's debut. It's a great show of support.

With the longer version of the prologue, we get a little bit more of the members talking about themselves and each other (particularly "The six of us getting together wasn't so easy. We relied on each other a lot and gave each other strength, which brought us closer together and got us all the way here"), but we also get to hear HSS and Seventeen's advice to them, which would have been exactly what I would have expected from them. It's the benefit of having seniors who did not have an easy road themselves (and Hoshi so obviously hyping them up is hilarious, but then his advice is quite sharp).

But it's incredible how much they talk about positivity being their goal and being artists that they and their families can be proud of.

Okay. Enough of the sappy and sentimental! Onto the stages!

I picked this one for first because Music Bank gives the lyrics and the member singing. And also because Dohoon's got some visuals on him. He's the thumbnail, and his laugh at the end is adorable.

This really is a cute song. But that "Oh mymy" is so catchy. And it's a pretty bold claim that they can catch your interest in seven seconds, which would have been really cool if that was where the vocals started (it's actually twelve seconds).

I like how Shinyu and Dohoon have the handoff rapping. The thing about this song, and I'm going to pop into the choreography more in depth later, is that the choreography is so much harder than the sound of the song, which means that the conversational rapping style is just so good for that contrast. 

Also, I adore the fact that they get to say their group name so many times. It's a thing we see with their seniors often, so that their first introduction also follows that trend? Love it. I love it so much.

And the fanchant is so loud for this stage. This is what I want to be hearing. This stage did come with their actual debut, but it doesn't matter because it's a nice, loud fanchant.

The introduction to this MCountdown stage is flipping adorable.

Anyway. Hanjin actually got a lot of attention from this stage for being the cutest thing ever, which is a hard title to claim because Kyungmin is also right there, but even though Hanjin doesn't get a lot of screentime, he's such a good dancer and his expressions and movements are perfect for the concept. He shines even when the camera doesn't focus on him.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the one obviously born for the stage. Jihoon just is such a solid performer, that I'm glad he got another opportunity to debut.

This is why I like this section of these posts: I get to find interesting stages. It's like a treasure hunt. Oh Mymy : 7 as a rock song? Yes, please. Give me more.

The coolest part of this arrangement of the song, hands down, is Jihoon's "Concentration, concentration now begins/Keep the rhythm, keep the rhythm going on/I'll go first 담에 다 같이 join해". It's good in the original, because it also features a shout-out of TWS, but there's something so satisfying about it here. We've got a live band, we've got hand mics, we've got just so much fun going on here.

And you know what? Because it's available and this is a really cool addition to this song, have Yumeki, the original choreographer, doing it. It's one of the only reasons I like survival shows: I want to see what interesting performances come out of them. And in this case, that's kind of a unique thing.

I'm including this one because that introduction is hilarious. Highly recommend it. So, TWS's first MAMAs had them performing this song and their debut song, but based on some of the comments, it was even more incredible in person. Plus, they dropped a Seventeen reference with the desks from Seventeen's first MAMAs. If you want just the performance, that's at 2:18, but I love that introduction. (They also did a cover of Dynamite and killed it, so there's that.) Heavy-hitting rookies indeed. As expected of them.

They're wearing the shoes that Hoshi gave them! 

There are two versions of this, one is moving and one is fixed. I obviously picked the fixed version because that's the best way to mimic being at a performance. And we get shoe squeaks. I love shoe squeaks. 

And now I get to finally talk about those bits of the choreography that I love. First of all, Youngjae's line "You can be my lucky seven strike"? The cute little details for his part of the choreography there is one of my favorites here. We've got baseball choreography as well, which is delightful. They've got a ton of little details scattered throughout the choreography as they're moving or transitioning, and while not all of them go to the actively singing member, a lot of them are designed to look really good on camera for the one singing or rapping. But there are a few that you can only see reliably with a fixed camera (or live), like the trio that are crouching hopping sideways during Shinyu's rap. They're funny to watch.

Also, I really like the bit during one of the "oh my my" parts where they're surrounding Youngjae in a circle facing him. Every time I watch that, it's just so satisfying.

But, and I'm sorry to bring up Seventeen again (this will be the last time, I promise), other than the fact that they're a bunch of comedians because comedy finds them, Seventeen is known for their synchronization skills. NU'EST had similarly high levels of synchronization, as did After School and Pristin. TWS, as the new Pledis group, has some very synced up shoes to fill and they show that off here with bombast. They get a dance break that's basically just one big synchronized group dance with some occasional variations to get the members into different positions so that there's lateral and horizontal movement as well as the body movements. That dance break at the end is wonderful because it lets them show off why it is that they were the ones debuting with this group.

I got a little bit sappy there at the beginning. I'm not going to apologize for it because I'm so ludicrously proud of these kids (even though I know they're all fully legal adults now), but this is also a strong pre-debut showing, and I like seeing hints that they're going to have a strong bond, if they don't already have one. 

Thanks for reading! Congrats again for your high school graduation, Kyungmin! And thank you for this submission, whoever you are!

If you'd like me to cover a song, feel free to leave a comment or you can always fill out The Form. I only actually need artist, album, year, and song title, and if you'd like one of these specialty posts or if you want me to do a regular review on something.

Have a lovely day!