Greatest Hits:: H.U.B: Girl Gang

The submissions I've got right now are all soft and lovely, and while I recognize that it's unlikely that y'all are reading these posts in the actual posted order (mostly because I don't have that literally anywhere you can find it and would require you to go through all of my posts to find them in order. And while I would be so unbelievably flattered if you did that, realistically, I know you're highly unlikely to) (ooh, I just had an idea, thanks, Tumblr writers) (a number of days later, that has been implemented and I'm glad to get back to the business , I as writer needed something emotionally very different from the last one I posted. So while this is only a few years earlier than my last one, and only a year younger in group age as a whole, I think you'll agree with me that this is a good contrast for both of them.

H.U.B (Hope U Bounce) debuted as a four-member girl group under New Planet Entertainment in 2017. They've had some line-up changes between debut and disbandment (including one of the eventual members being a former Pledis trainee, which certainly caught my attention and I may do a later song at some point to take a look at that member), but the members in this line-up are Gracie, Riu, Yuen, and Keina. Some more context, some of their contemporaries that debuted in 2017 with them were ALICE, Dreamcatcher, Pristin, G-reyish, and Weki Meki, and over on the boy group side, we have A.C.E, Golden Child, The Boyz, Wanna One, and ONF. It's an impressive list of debuts for late third gen saturation.

Apparently at least one of the members had a hand in writing this song, but I can't find any evidence of that. Still, that's not entirely out of the question because there are a number of reasons why that might be. Girl Gang is their debut song, essentially the only track on the single (that and the instrumental version). The officially recognized songwriters are Park Bom Geun (SHINee, NCT U, F.able, Rusha, and Shin Na Ra) and Nuvo (XLOV, Aimers, E.SO, SW:C (!!! I love that song!), MustB and Greatguys). I think Yueum may have been one of the ones that helped with composing. Alternatively, because Genius and Spotify have different names and I do like to check multiple sources, they could also be Pandastic (lyricist, composer, and arranger) and 8NUVO. Or maybe they're the same people? I'm not sure.

• Group: H.U.B
• Debut Date: 2017 February 09
• Company: New Planet Entertainment
• Status: Disbanded (2019 February)
• Album: Girl Gang
• Song: Girl Gang
• Release Date: 2017 February 09

Now, you may notice that I didn't give you the music video for a debut song that is a title track. That's because while there technically is one, it's functionally a dance practice. So. I'm going to have that at the end in my standard dance practice position.

127 views when this was retrieved. Because of that, I'm going to guess that many of you have never heard of them or this song. Which is fine! That just means that we get to discover them together! I'm looking forward to the stages and some extra clips because I think they're needed for some context.

This song joins the list of "la la la la la" songs, which is delightful. But this song goes hard. The song starts off with gunshots, but also includes ticking and a very solid weight to the general instrumentals along with a bucketload of sass and attitude, which is a bold choice for debut, but I dig it.

I also found a color coded lyrics with a French translation, which again makes me laugh that the only time I get to use my French fluency these days is because of K-Pop, but here we are. I did however learn that "twerk" in French is "twerk", which wasn't something I was expecting to learn today, but here we are. As matches the instrumental, it's very much a statement piece of a song, but it's also a very bold love song, which I cannot stress enough how much I love that. 

That bridge is actually a work of art.  But there's a strength to the song in that you regularly get the members passing the lines back and forth, rather than keeping things cleaned delineated. It would have been easier for the members to memorize the song, but this way there's a stronger sense of unity. And with a debut? That's so important.

But if it's true that at least some of the members helped write this, that's deeply impressive. This is a solid song. They should be proud. The English makes me raise an eyebrow a bit, but you know what, there's a long tradition of odd English in K-Pop, so really, they're just following in their sunbaes' footsteps.

Most of the attention this group got at the time was because of Rui and ISAC. She ran so fast, she had some of the commentators trying to see better and Chani from SF9 was sitting there with his jaw on the floor (that's at 2:17). Normally I wouldn't include non-relevant videos here, but in this case, she got so much attention because of that, her group got attention at debut because this was pre-debut. She ran that in 9.33, which is almost a full second faster than second, Seoyul from Berrygood.

Also, MBC fully messed up and showed her sitting "watching herself run" at 1:14, but that makes it really funny because of how fast she is. Obviously, she's so fast that she could sit and watch herself run. Obviously. But I think the gugudan, Oh My Girl, and Red Velvet reactions may be accurate. Same though.

But you know how to know she came to win? Her hair is up in a ponytail. She's got such good form. 

And then the next year, she broke her own record (8.99 this time! And that may have broken the female record!) We love a multi-talented girl. Once again, she came with her hair in a ponytail.

But Mijoo's reaction at 1:37 as they ran past is absolutely priceless. This was of course later and not exactly relevant, but I think she's pretty incredible and I want to recognize that. And assuming Victon and (I think) BM were actually reacting to this, those expressions are really funny. Warranted, but funny.

This was their first MCountdown stage. And we aren't going to say too much about the choreography, because that's for the dance practice, but this actually looks pretty good with the cameras. I'm going to tell you that this was choreographed by Grace (pink hair) and Keina (blonde hair). 

I'm also going to say that when I first watched that dance practice, I was kind of in love with the one in the coat (because I love long coats like that as we know). Turns out that the coated one is Rui, and I'm pleased and not surprised to see such strongly defined thigh muscles from her. 

There's one very big thing noting and that those are the most obviously live vocals I've heard in a while. We get bits of breathiness. We get vocals that are noticeably different, but not weaker, from the studio recording. There's a bit of instability when they do some bouncing around, which is completely understandable. But that's fantastic that they still sound that good live two days after debut.

First week of promotions and their first Show! Music Core performance! Whoever was in charge of the camerawork for their stage clearly had fun because they were responding to the instrumental really well with those pulses and shifts. 

Hilariously, there have been multiple people in the comments of this and the previous video who have said something to the effect of "This reminds me of BTS for some reason", which is delightful. The entire stage is actually pretty nice. 

I'm going to include a third stage because there aren't a ton of performances that they got to do. We still have live vocals, which again, I'm going to applaud them for. The other thing I'm going to point out is that all three of these performances have had different clothes, which is not common with rookie groups from very small companies. So that's again something that should be applauded. 

And just because this one from The Show was re-uploaded only a few months ago, and I love that The Show was a great place for the rookies and the small companies to have a place to perform their songs. And the fact that this got re-uploaded? I want to support that. And also, I liked this performance. 

For this one, we've got Arirang Radio K-Pop. Rui was absent due to a schedule. I deeply love it when the idols do their choreography when they're in a radio or singing only situation. The really cool thing is that the two who are doing it more are the two choreographers, which means that even though they've been presumably dealing with the choreography for months, they're still enjoying the choreography. We also get to hear their vocals, and impressively, they sound a lot like their performance vocals minus some of the dancing-induced wobbling. It's just a shame because there's evidence of a lot of potential with this group and these members.

Okay, choreography time. 

Those are a lot of different moves on display, and the one, I think, is a BIGBANG reference. I'm not positive. Don't quote me on that. But the move that they do on the word "hooligan" makes me think of BIGBANG for some reason. 

This is impressive for a debuting group, especially since the company was so small and had so little money that they had to choreograph this themselves. I'm not sure how much experience prior to this that Gracie and Keina had with choreographing their own dances, but there are quite a few cool little points that I want to highlight specifically. The quick little twerk on the word "twerk". The hoop motion on "swish". Rui's little mixing thing she does with Yuen at the end of her part in the second verse. It's fun choreography and it's a fun song.

The main thing that I appreciate about this is that obviously, as is evident by the above stages, they didn't go super ambitious with it. They recognized limitations and made sure to operate within those limitations to give the best performance possible. They still did a lot, but they didn't sacrifice singability. It's a lot of raw polish and potential, but they had something here already.

Thanks for discovering this group a little bit with me! I actually really love this song, even if the English lyrics are a bit odd. But it's loud and vibrant and bold, and they very clearly worked hard on this. If you've got a song you'd like me to cover, feel free to let me know in a comment or you can use The Form if you don't want me or anyone else to know you're submitting. That could be especially useful if you're a very loud member of a fandom and you want to suggest a song that is not by that artist. For instance. No judgement here.

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