Greatest Hits:: FIFTY FIFTY: Cupid

 As I said with the BOUNCY post, I have a friend that I've been helping to introduce her students to K-Pop. BOUNCY was their favorite song for most of the year, close second being VOODOO DOLL. Now, obviously, I can't do VOODOO DOLL again, OKay is too new, and I'd already decided on doing BOUNCY for them. But! I also wanted them to decide on a song. They spent the entire year liking boy groups, and hating the girl groups generally. There were a few exceptions to that, but for the most part, they hated the girl groups. Except for this song. As I predicted, they'd already known this song, but I was not expecting them to be able to sing and dance along. But when I asked my friend to have them pick a song, I was expecting a boy group. JikJin by Treasure, Techno Love by H.O.T, Move by TNX, Gangnam Style by Psy, In Bloom by ZEROBASEONE. Even Chase Me by Dreamcatcher because they actually requested that one a bit. You know, something that they really liked consistently over the course of the year. And then they picked Cupid. It's baffling that they picked one of the three songs by female artists that they liked rather than the more than seventy of the male artists. So, here, we are. This song has been very picky ten-year-old approved.

FIFTY FIFTY debuted in 2022 as a four member group under ATTRAKT. The three and a half years that the group has been active have been messy, shall we say, and they have now re-debuted as a five member group with one original member. Cupid was their breakout hit with the original four members: Keena, Saena, Sio, and Aran. This is also going to be a gentle warning that this post is not to say one version of the group is better or worse, because I know this is still a sensitive subject for a lot of people. The group as it was and the group as it is can coexist for this song simultaneously and will here because the ten-year-olds did not know or care about legal issues or group dynamics; they only care about the bop.

Cupid was the title track of their first single, released in 2023. It won K-Pop Song of the Year for iHeartRadio Music Awards in 2024, broke records held by NewJeans and BLACKPINK, and became the fastest Korean act to chart on Billboard Hot 100 and was the sixth to do so, and also the first K-Pop girl group to be on Billboard's year-end Hot 100 chart. There are thirteen versions of this song. Despite all of these achievements, this did not get any music show wins.

• Group: FIFTY FIFTY
• Debut Date: 2022 November 18 (re-debut: 2024 September 20)
• Company: ATTRAKT Entertainment
• Status: Active
• Album: The Beginning: Cupid
• Song: Cupid
• Release Date: 2023 February 24

I love songs with key changes. They're so satisfying to listen to, and they always give me little thrill when I get to sing them.

You know something funny? This music video is surprisingly witchy, and it weirdly reminds me of the movie Practical Magic. On the one hand, we've got the bright and fluffy versions with the pink and sweetness. Cutely feminine. What you'd expect from a song with this dreamy tone. On the other hand, there's an entire outfit where they're in different versions of something Wednesday Addams would wear, and the one is using tarot cards and they're talking about Cupid. 

These are four teen witches that are more Sabrina the Teenage Witch, instead of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but they're tired of being lonely, so they cast a little love spell. Just a simple, teeny, little love spell. If Cupid can't give them the love they want, then they'll get it themselves. It's a real, go-get-em attitude underneath a very sad song.

I know I've spent a lot of time with bridges lately because of May and I promise I'm not continuing this on purpose, but the bridge is where the spell gets cast. We enter a liminal space of black and impossible neon at 2:02 that is markedly different from anything else we've seen in the slightly musical-esque, but still largely theoretically real-world, that the music video has existed in up until this point, and then the final chorus has them in witchy outfits again (but different this time), but this is obviously not any sort of a real-world space because we have entered a dreamscape in fluffy pastel pink, purple, and blue. Plus, we have a few shots spliced in there of the black liminal space, which is obviously them maintaining the spell.

It's not sustainable because it's not real, and that's why the cut back to the real world at 2:57, with shadows, brown, and the mustard yellow and green of the 70s, is so unsettling. We've been progressing through the fluff, swept away by the romance of the love spell, until it's over, and then it's even worse when it's over because at no other point in the music video is it this drab. The ending is so comparatively dark, and, interestingly, because of how the lighting and the lines in the frame are working, the member is not the first person to draw your eye. The room has two spots of light, the lesser lamp highlighting the staticky TV if your eye manages to make it over there, and then the glaringly obvious bright window in the very center where most of the lines take you to first (the way the upper wall on the left points to the window, the off lights directly above the window in the frame, the couch bringing you up from the bottom), then the roof and ceiling angle to direct you over to the TV. The member is sitting there in darkness blending in with the shadows, alone. What's interesting about that is I believe that member is Sio, who is the only one of the four who, at the beginning, is not alone. She's in public staring at the other couple, which makes that one all the more startling and now that I've made that connection, I wonder if it was her idea to cast the love spell in the first place. If that's the case, that makes the end even more depressing, which is fantastic from a story standpoint. 

I'm also about to have a potentially wild take, but considering I glanced through the comments to see if anyone else had the same thought and I didn't see any about the storyline for the music video, so while I doubt this is the first time someone has had this thought, I didn't see anyone that can validate the potentially wild take, but it's also possible because I've been sitting here for five minutes typing, deleting, typing, deleting, trying to figure out how to word what I want to say without the diagram I've got in my head. Then I gave up. 

Actual events -> Song -> Music video

What I mean by that is the music video is actually the representation of the original events in an idealized state, which is why the music video looks like it does, depicting the second chance to Cupid (taken into their own hands via spell work). And the song, after the fact, remembers and describes the emotional state of the events, which is then translated into the dream-logic of the music video.

Going back to my earlier point now that I've wandered out of my tangent, I'd also argue that the rap is the moment when they decided. "I’m gonna make it mine/Love is a light I’ll show my love is right/It’s not a joke so give it to me right now/No more chance to you". When does the rap come?

Right before the bridge.

Coincidence? I think not.

It's a very pretty song, and one that deserves a 3 AM cry session just by itself, but I love how the music video expands it. 

Music Bank delightfully gives us the lyrics with the name attached, which is why I like to give this one for the first stage. I also could do MCountdown because they regularly have the names as well, but for some reason I just prefer Music Bank, and at this point, it's kind of my thing, so I'm not going to be changing that any time soon unless there somehow isn't a Music Bank performance or Music Bank doesn't have the names.

Listen to those fanchants. That's so satisfying to hear. 

Also, they're in the outfits from the end when they're in the dreamscape. That's nice. I appreciate that. It's funny, I really like both when they use the music video outfits and when they have different ones for different reasons. I like the callbacks, but I also like novelty, so I'm just generally pleased by most stage outfits. Easily satisfied, that's me! Your Friendly Neighborhood Fangirl! But in this case, the outfits are wonderfully flouncy and it fits the choreography a lot more than I expected. Look at it at :36. Flouncy and floofy both. 

I don't know if this is part of the choreography yet or if this is stage specific moment but Keena and Saena play Rock Paper Scissors at 2:05 and Keena wins. She smiles and Saena pouts at the camera. It's a very cute little moment.

This one is from Inkigayo. 

Okay. We have confirmation of live mics because at :26, Sio's string (I want to call it a shoelace but it's obviously not a shoe lace because it's on her shirt and not her shoe) pops up and hits her mic and you can audibly hear it. She also smiles a tiny bit after it hits, which I think is cute.

I don't think it's fully live singing, which isn't ideal, but it's fine. During the chorus and the rap, I think that's where we've actually got live vocals. It also sounds distinctly different from the audio recording. I also say this with the caveat that it's not entirely unheard of for the broadcasting companies to alter the audio when the stages get uploaded so without being there to confirm with my own two ear holes, I can't say that they weren't singing live for the whole thing and it didn't get altered later.

Keena had a very cute moment with her hair as well at 1:56. She hit it with her hand just right during the choreography and it flipped across her face like it decided it wanted the spotlight, and she had to kind of toss her head to get it moved back away, which resulted in her smiling when her part is over. 

You know what's impressive? This song got FIFTY FIFTY enough recognition to perform at an open concert less than a year after debut. Part of why I bring this up is normally they've got some back-up dancers, but in this case they're handling the entire stage by themselves. 

And I don't know what their fanbase demographics normally is like, but it looks like a lot of this particular crowd is made of older women, and the fact that you can hear their clapping faintly is genuinely a little sweet. Even with the face masks, you can still see some eye smiles at :55, which is adorable. Love that for the group.

I also have to give a shout out the obvious definition you can see in Aran's and Saena's thigh muscles at :08 and 1:36. If the boy groups wore shorts that short, I'd be praising them for it too when I see it. But since these members are in front of me, I will praise it when I see it.

Ah, listen to those vibratos. They're quiet, but they're there. 

This is a live in studio recording of the four of them singing the twin version, which I think is the English version. You can hear little air puffs on some of the consonants, which is an ideal situation here. You can also hear the weird intake of breath as Aran smiles and almost laughs at :58. That's what we want to be hearing.

They cut out the rap in this version, which makes sense since the Twin Version is only a two member version, and neither of the rappers are in this version. The rap gets replaced by some absolutely lovely vocalizations and occasional harmonies.

Sio has a cute little wink to the camera at 1:15. It's quiet, unobtrusive, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but it's very cute.

Choreography time!

If you wanted to learn the choreography, this link goes to a tutorial for the chorus that explains it really well. And this one goes to the original dance practice in mirrored form.

The reason I'm including that is because the dance practice is apparently not available from the official YouTube channel. Why? Can't tell you. No idea. 

So instead you're getting a full-cam version from the Music Bank stage I shared first. Everything is a circle!

Anyway, we don't get all of the details because sometimes those beautiful, flouncy, floofy skirts get in the way of the footwork visibility a little. 

But what's interesting about this choreography, is that for a lot of the song, the one who's actively singing has different choreography than the other three, especially during the first half of the song. In the latter half of the song, there's a lot more synchronized choreography, or close enough to being synchronized that I'm fine with calling it that. 

 For the most part, this choreography is actually pretty floaty and delicate, but then there are moments like at 2:38 where the choreography suddenly kicks up into something a lot more energetic. There's no reason why according to the music, but that just makes the experience a little more delightful because it's both a surprise, which interrupts the expectation in the brain and forces you to pay attention again if your brain has been lulled into complacency, and it's a compliment to the members that they could handle more.

Alright everyone! That's a soft, floaty song that was a lot more witchy in the music video than I was expecting, but on the whole it's pretty enough that it makes it all the more fun with that surprise witchiness. I'm still surprised that the ten-year-olds picked this one over the plethora of the boy groups, but you know what? I'm glad they picked it, and thank you for reading!

And next up is a song that I saw get called one of the worst songs in 2024, and that won't stand. If you have a song that you love that a lot of other people seem to hate, feel free to drop it in the comments or fill out The Form with it so that I can help you defend it. I may not like to join hate trains, even if I'm not a particular fan of a song, but I will happily join a defense, particularly if you give me a good reason to defend it. I will see you next time.

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