Song Review:: ATEEZ: GOLDEN HOUR Part.5- BAD

• Release date: 2026 June 26

• Album tracklist: BAD, MAMACITA, TOXIN, Fallin', Body

• Album runtime: 14 minutes

 I'm really, really curious about the music video for this song because I have theories. Despite YouTube pushing this music video on me every time I open the app or go to the website, but I've successfully avoided it so far so that I could watch it for the first time for this review. Which is a little late, but it's fine because it could be like all the other reviews I haven't been doing. (If I skipped a song you'd like my thoughts on, leave a comment somewhere in the blog, or you can use The Form because I do have a section for you to select that option. It's also an option to ask for a review of a song I covered for the Expanded Offerings. If you want.)

This is a surprisingly sparse instrumental, but there are some weird little additional sound effect. There's a high level of repetition going on here that isn't changed much in texture when we do get some changes. It's very stable and predictable, other than the small little additions that are buried in the instrumental so that you have to really listen to them, but I'm actually liking this less as I listen to it. This feels like club music, and I'm not sure if it's latin-esque or if it's afrobeats-inspired, but in either case, it doesn't matter to me particularly.

You know what? Rant incoming. I'm actually kind of irritated that people don't understand the vocal role that Mingi plays in the group. I regularly see comments about how he doesn't fit into the group. He only doesn't fit into the group if you're expecting ATEEZ to have the same high sound that most boy groups have these days where all the members sound the same. They have enough members that can chameleon with very versatile voices that the two members who have a hard time not sounding very similar in every song (Mingi and Jongho) mark this instantly as an ATEEZ song. That's not a flaw. It's not. They're a vital part of the ATEEZ soundscape (with the same volume "problem" if we're going to be honest), and the fact that Mingi goes into every song with the same intensity and sound gives every song they do in the wide range of styles and genres that they've done something stable to settle on. And in BAD, it's not even like he's the only member to settle down in a deeper voice and stand out like that. And you know what? He's practically purring through his lines this time around and I know I don't speak a lot of Spanish. But it sounds like he is.

Now, with the rant over, I'm not overly fond of this song vocally either. The "bad, bad, bad" repetition grates on my teeth a little bit, but the good news is that it doesn't take up the entire song. I probably wouldn't be able to listen to it on repeat if it did. I'm ignoring the pronunciation because I'm assuming that there's a play on words between "bad" and "bod", considering that this feels like it's a bit more of a sexier song, but I'm just generally not included to want to put this into any playlists. Which is fine. I don't have to like all of their title tracks, and I'll probably have a b-side or two that I really like.

The lore is loring once again, everyone. I am here for this. Also, do you see the amount of color we have here? Color in the set, color in the costuming, it's just so much color everywhere that I'm tickled pink by it. I don't know how I feel about the choreography just yet, but I assume that the stages and live performances will solidify anything I've got there.