Battle of the B-Sides:: ASTRO: Cat's eye

 And here we are with the last of the posts for the randomness of April. Over six thousand songs, and once again, the Roulette Wheel picks a song I love a lot. Every time it turns up in my playlist, I go "Wow, I love this song. Which one is this?" And then go "Why didn't I recognize it?" I'm almost positive that that particular problem will be fixed after I write this post, which would be nice. But right now, it feels like I'm discovering it every time I listen to it, and I love it each time. So, if this is your first time listening to this, that's my recommendation right up front. I love it so much I fall in love with it again each time I hear it.

ASTRO debuted as a six-member group under Fantagio Entertainment in 2016, which means that their tenth anniversary was this year. Congrats to them! They're currently active as a four member group, though I could also see the arguments for a five or six member group, just depending on how you decide to make the argument. 

Cat's eye is the sixth and final track from their debut album, Spring Up, from 2016. Our songwriters are the members, JinJin (Trendz, Paul Kim) and Rocky (Weeekly, HAWW), and one of the producers that normally works with MAMAMOO songs, (MAMAMOO (Including Destiny and Starry Night), Chung Ha, DAY6, Kassy, Jo Yuri, Seungmin (Stray Kids), Nayeon, IU, Kep1er, DAVICHI, IS:SUE, Oneus, Kep1er, BTOB, BVNDIT, Baek A Yeon, Kim Sejeong, Kim Jaehwan, TNX, FIFTY FIFTY, CHEEZE, Minhyun, Park Won, AOA, Wonstein, MeloMance, Goo Hara Hyuk, miss A, ONEWE, Park Woosang, Younha, YuA, MASC, SoYou, and WJSN). 

A b-side with a music video. I love them. Thank you, ASTRO. Thank you, Fantagio. Y'all just made my life easier.

This particular music video is actually really fun, for one very specific reason. Yes, we get to go back and see them and how young they all looked (which is a bit of a shock for me because I've really only seen Moonbin and Eunwoo as child actors and then the whole lot of them as (mostly) military-aged). Yes, we have a very cute love song going on here about that first confession and being so completely lovesick and nervous before you do it. But more importantly, there's something about this music that you could only get at this time from them.

It's been a hot minute since I've seen anything so obviously debut and final review coded. Debut energy is unlike anything else. It's fantastic, and they're adorably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I may come back after I do the dance practice section if the things that I want to talk about are not actually part of the choreography.

Hi, I'm back! I did actually need to come back to this for the choreography, for a couple of reasons. You can see it better in one of the performances I found, but I want to talk about it here. First of all, this choreography is basically just musical theatre choreography. It's that same drama and storytelling that you get when you watch Newsies or Grease or West Side Story or Hairspray. Their expressions are very "musical theatre" as well, but this is a big ensemble song. Yes, we have some group choreography, but most of it is highly individualistic. And there's so much movement. They all go from one end of the stage to the other at various times, sometimes actually crossing it as a group. 

I love this. I love this so much.

And, looking at the comments, I may need to go take a look at the drama, To Be Continued, because it appears that this might be connected and definitely did feature pre-debut ASTRO. And now that I've seen it a couple of times, it feels surprisingly OST-like. So, without having seen the drama, I'm going to guess that this uses scenes from the show.

That's pretty cool.

Regardless of how much of the drama that this music video has, there are still some things that deserve to be pointed out. First of all, at 1:33, Rocky tries to kiss or manages to kiss Moonbin, and his look of surprise has made me smile every time I've seen this so far (I think I'm up to five now). It's the kind of playfulness that, especially from the younger half of a group, I love to see. 

At 1:25, the music video does the thing where as the music says "One, Two, Three", we get cuts and still shots at those moments. That's such a satisfying bit to have in a video.

And just for the record, that moment at the beginning when they look at each other, nod, and smile, is heart-warming, like they're reassuring each other and hyping each other right before that performance that could begin the rest of their lives and finalize the start of their career. It's so sweet, and if it's true that parts of this are from the show, then the fact that they got to do that twice would be such a special memory for them. They got a trial run, a practice to try out the feeling of debuting before they actually went and did it. 

And just as a quick shout out because he deserves it, the "Only you" part is MJ, main vocalist and criminally underrepresented here. Although, because this is a b-side, it's a good time for the non-mains to shine. JinJin, main rapper and the one who I affectionally called Short King when I was learning to identify them, also only gets a small section.

They're so cute. I just want to squish them into my pocket. All of them. The whole bunch. 

I stand corrected. This is the cutest thing I've seen from them. It's so cute, I teared up.

And the animal onesies will make sense in a moment. 

Eunwoo and Moonbin poking their heads out at the bottom section of the stage (:53) and singing together is almost frustratingly cute. How dare they be that cute? 

I'm reminded of something I wrote for my French class in college, where I took the perspective of an alien anthropologist commenting on strange things that humans do. And one of the things that was baffling to the alien was that humans dress up their young to look like other predatory animals because they think it's cute. 

Exhibit A: The 1st Astroad to Japan in 2017 as seen in this clip. 

At 1:25, I just realized that they say "R-O-C-K-Y" when Rocky starts his verse, and then JinJin joins in. I like hearing the rappers rap together. It gives the song extra sound and texture, and with a song as fun-loving as this one, it keeps it loose. And then, speaking of Rocky, do you see him at 2:31? That smile right then goes straight to my heart and makes my chest hurt. 

This choreography. I know I'm going to be talking about it later, but I'm slightly overwhelmed by how cute this is. Foot-kicking cute, is what this is.

This one was a couple of months after debut, in Incheon for KPoppin'. 

MJ is out here doing jazzercise while he sings, and he's so ridiculously stable. Main vocalist flex, right there. Everyone else is more or less stationary, but not MJ! No, MJ gets to prove his vocal stability.

Also, as a case in point, I'd just like everyone to notice that every single member sings along at some point during the song when it is not his part, so it's a good thing that they were using hand mics. 

In addition, I sent this to my mom, essentially frothing at the mouth over how adorable they are, which she agreed with, but her only other comment was "Are those leggings?" Slightly not the point, but they are wearing very stretchy pants, which they kind of need to be wearing for this choreography. And you can also kind of see the Big Boy™ that JinJin would become because of those stretchy pants. 

1:40 gives us an absolutely adorable interaction between JinJin and Eunwoo.

And at 2:08, look how cool Moonbin and MJ look like that. Seriously, pause it then (and appreciate that it looks like they're all at the same angle there), and just admire how cool they look there.

If this one doesn't bump you to 5:52, that's where you're looking for Cat's eye here in 2022 at their Seoul concert.

They broke out the cat ears and paws. 

I thought I'd have a chance to recover from the cuteness. I think ASTRO hates me, because what is this?

And do you see who is the first to break from the clowder (pun intended) to go greet the big cat figure? Sanha. 

I haven't said a lot about him yet. But that's okay, because this section is going to have a lot of the maknae, starting with his pose at 6:39. That is wallpaper-on-your-laptop worthy right there (As is Eunwoo at 9:26, so make sure you keep watching after the song is technically over). And then his pose at 6:55 while he's singing and leaning on the inflatable cat is adorable, forced to move only because JinJin comes up and starts having fun with the cat. Then there's Moonbin's part at 7:08 (Moonbin who is showing off those muscles and only has one in-ear in) where Sanha and JinJin crouch down to join him in his posing. 

JinJin apparently is one that needs the hand mic, not just because he's a rapper, but also because he's one of those that sings through a song when it isn't his part. He's my favorite for a very good reason (and also the leader, but let's pretend that I don't immediately emotionally attach to the leader like I'm a bloodhound for them).

I was also a little bit confused because at 7:23, I was expecting MJ, but the man who was singing did not in fact look like MJ and instead looked like Rocky. And then when the camera gave us a wide-shot at 7:38, I counted them and there were only five.

In case you were wondering, MJ had been enlisted for a few weeks by this point. So this concert was only with the other five members.

Still, that speaks very well of Rocky's vocals that he was the one to pick up the main vocalist's parts. It's also amusing because the group is doing the choreography at 8:22 during MJ's part right there, and Rocky, who is covering it, is not doing the choreography. That's fair, though, you know? I wouldn't want to be hitting those notes and trying to do those moves either.

And I'd hazard a guess that these are live mics because Eunwoo's voice gets a lot clearer and louder when he holds the headset closer to his mouth at 7:27, and then you can hear the puff of air from his enunciation of "말도 못해요" very clearly as well. Then at 8:40, you can hear the puff from him laughing because of his members.

You know why else I'd hazard a guess that those are live mics? Because I think Sanha's part snuck up on him and he forgot to breathe, and that's why his voice cuts out like it does at 8:01. We've all been there, and I love to see thing like this.

8:09. Ooh, Moonbin is a sweaty boy. That's okay. He's in excellent company with Mingyu and Minho (SHINee) and Minhyuk (BTOB) and Baekho. (I also just realized that every single one of those are also if not the most "working out" of their respective groups, so I wonder if there is a correlation there that the guys who get the sweatiest also tend to work out the most). His arms certainly imply that he would have ended up on that list as well.

This is not the traditional dance practice we know and love. And you know what? That's okay. They got to dress up in animal onesies.

They had so much fun with this, and even if, realistically, some of this was for the camera, not all of it would have been. But this is joyful and it matches the brightness of the song better than a real dance practice would have.

There's also so much happening that I'm not sure I have the time or real estate to point out everything. So I'll simply tell you who is who, so you can watch the member or members you want to. No, I'm not kidding about how much is going on. At one point Eunwoo has Sanha on his back and he's spinning him around, and at another point, they're all dog piling on Rocky and Moonbin, who I think gets an elbow somewhere an elbow shouldn't be and flips his hood off while he laugh-yells. And at one point, MJ just starts yelling "My egg!" In Korean of course, but I understood that!

And Sanha has braces, and he's so cute, I want to cry.

JinJin: White Seal

MJ: Red Chicken

Eunwoo: Brown Deer

Moonbin: Black Cat

Rocky: Purple ...Flying Squirrel?

Sanha: Yellow Bee

This is so flinging, flanging, shot-of-pure-sugar-in-my-veins cute. My dog keeps looking at me like I've lost my mind because I keep making frustrated noises because the cuteness aggression is so real right now that I almost forgot how to spell "aggression". 

I hope you all enjoyed this a quarter as much as I did, because if you did, then you'll have enjoyed it immensely indeed. I'm going to need 3-5 business days to recover from this. In other news, if you've got a song you'd like me to cover, feel free to drop a comment or fill out The Form for me. I'd love to hear what you've got.

I've got May well-planned, but June is still mostly up for grabs. And if you'd like, try to figure out what my theme is for May. You may not get the next one on Sunday as usual because I have a concert that I have to travel to this weekend and I'm not sure how much work I'm going to get done on it. And if you're the person who submitted the Woodz song, look for it in June.

And as a hilarious side-note, also released in February 2016 was B.A.P's bright album, two songs of which I've covered here, so Cat's eye is in excellent company.

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