Song Review:: N.TOP: WE:DISCONNECT-FIND- Shining Star {Japanese}

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  • Release date: 2026 March 15
  • Album tracklist: Shining Star, Only One
  • Album runtime: 5 minutes

 Can we take a minute and enjoy the fact that the title of the album is styled exactly like I format these posts? I'm curious about this because I enjoyed the debut track they had a lot. And! And! Good news! On YouTube Music, this song currently has more streams than their debut song, which is exactly the growth we want to be seeing. This is good. This is amazing news. I don't even care that both songs are under three minutes for a moment because for a small group for a small company like that, this growth is extravagant and I love to see it.

This scratches the exact same itch as my second favorite Seventeen song (Ima). Same ballpark. The guitar is on fire here and it's very present throughout most of the song. Also, the way the vocals and the instrumental work together on the "shining star" part to mimic each other's emphasis is very nice. This is one of those songs that feel high energy but are simultaneously surprisingly soothing. I love songs like that.

Does this sound like Japanese to anyone else? I think this might be in Japanese. I did check the music video and threw on captions and the only option is for Japanese, so I'm thinking this might be a Japanese release. If I remember, I'll try and go hunting for the lyrics again later to verify that, but right now, I'm running on the assumption that this is a Japanese single. If that's true, then that's also hilarious that the song that this one reminds me of is also one of Seventeen's Japanese releases. It's just deeply amusing. There's a lovely brightness here that is just so soothing. The rapping isn't necessarily aggressive or loud, it's just there with the rest of the vocals. We've got lower pitches, we've got some falsetto, we've got softness, we've got energy. There's so much good stuff going on vocally that I'm especially pleased because of how short the song is. They managed to maximize the runtime and real estate.

Oh, right. This is the group that has the member that reminds me of Ren. You know. I've been noticing a bit of an apocalyptic theme going on with the music videos the last year or so. Not that they haven't been somewhat frequent anyway, but now that I'm actively paying attention, I'm noticing it. Also, the Ima reminders depend, which is lovely. It's really a very pretty music video though with a storyline, even if I don't read the Japanese that's on the intertitles.



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