Greatest Hits:: Purple Kiss: On My Bike

 Fun fact about me, every time that I have an enlistment to go through, I pick an artist and just listen to their discography on repeat. It's whoever gives me the comfort I want. Considering this was during the spooky month, I was hoping it would be Dreamcatcher because they're my spooky girls. Alas, when I woke up the morning of Seungkwan and Dino's enlistment, it was not the energy of Dreamcatcher I wanted, but Purple Kiss? That hit the spot. And after listening to the entire discography a couple of times, I realized something on my drive home from work. They basically have a no skip discography. The only one that I did skip was Do Re Mi, but that's because of what the song is, not because it's a bad song. This song hit two years old last month, and when I did the review of it, I was instantly enamoured with it. You may be wondering why I chose to do this this month instead of for October because Purple Kiss is another of those witchy girl groups I so love, but I love this song specifically so much that I've got it in about eight different playlists, including my very important de-stressing playlist for post-work. I adore this song. It's literally one of my favorite driving songs now. And this song marks an important milestone in that it is the first song that is going to be covered both as a regular review and as an Expanded Offerings post, which opens up a lot of songs. 

Purple Kiss debuted in 2021 under RBW Entertainment as a seven-member group, though the line-up was down to six for this release, and I'm still upset that they went through the d-word. So we're going to try to ignore that for this post. It didn't happen. They're just on hiatus. Also, they're another group known as "Beagle Idols" like my beloved BTOB and Purple Kiss's company seniors, MAMAMOO.

On My Bike was released as the title track of their seventh mini album, HEADWAY, released in 2024. Our only-lyricists are Swan, Yoon, and Dr.JO. Our lyricists and composers are Maria Marcus and Christian Fast. Our only-composer is Tobias Näslund. 

• Group: Purple Kiss
• Debut Date: 2021 March 15
• Company: RBW Entertainment
• Status: Disbanded
• Album: HEADWAY
• Song: On My Bike
• Release Date: 2024 October 22

I want you all to know that I picked up a lot of the Korean, even if I don't know what it means, just by listening and not having to look at the lyrics. That's how much I listen to this song, and there's a reason why it's on about eight of my playlists. It's not that I've ever had that kind of bike, but my 1989 Honda CRX that I had before my two car accidents had the same vibe because I called my old girl "my little zip zip". When she got going, she went.

Everything about this music video is perfection. They went fully fallen-angel with this one, and I don't care that the official description calls them witches. Witches don't have wings. Angels have feathery wings, but they don't have black feathered wings. Therefore, they are fallen angels.

And the start of the song makes you think this is going to be a spooky, haunted music box of an instrumental (which we do get a return to at 1:05, between the chorus and the second verse), and instead of that, it's a solid rock song that reminds me more of the Hex Girls from Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost which is my second favorite Scooby-Doo movie. The most specifically witchy sounding part of the song is the "All we do is fly around the city, we on fire" part at 2:02 and at 2:13. The second one in particular because of the harmony and how high and haunting it gets, if you'll pardon that, is quite witchy. 

And the spots in the music video like at 1:38 when we've got the fishbowl lens and the spooky red light while they're in the white outfits from 2:22 genuinely give the song some strong horror movie vibes. It also helps that the one at 2:50 has some blood splatter at 2:52. And the silhouette as they're walking out in the red light gives them horns on their shadows. This music video genuinely would have been perfect for my Halloween posts. Alas, this was literally one of my favorite releases in 2024 and if I had done an end of year recap, this would have been in my top ten at the end of the year. 

Like, personally, I think this is the sister song to Good Boy Gone Bad by TOMORROW X TOGETHER because think how powerful the teamup would have been there. Huh. A mash-up of those two songs might be interesting. They've got opposing keys (On My Bike is in C Minor and Good Boy Gone Bad is in C# Major), but the BPMs are similar. 

As a side note, because as amazing as the music video is I want to move onto the performances, which is where the song really shines, I absolutely adore how many Dreamcatcher fans are in the comments supporting them. Witchy girls supporting witchy girls.

Also the Moomoos and ToMoons, their fellow company fandoms for MAMAMOO and Oneus respectively. I love interactions like that.

For the record, it sounds a little bit like Swan has a bit of the double vocal going on, which implies that she is singing live at :37. But don't worry. Even if I can't say that any of the stages we're going to look at are live vocals, or majority live vocals, I found a performance where it has live in the title. I'd also be willing to believe that they're live at the whole group spot at 3:03 because it suddenly sounds like the balance is slightly off and they're suddenly very loud.

I'm actually starting with MCountdown this time around for the promotional stages, which is unusual, I know, but I want to give a specific shout-out to that one fan you can hear who is absolutely screaming the fanchant like that is her only purpose in life. You can hear her really clearly even with the music and the vocals from the members at 1:01. And at 1:16, you can also very clearly hear the "퍼플키스" of the fanchant from her. Considering the Plories are a smaller fandom, having a fan like that is invaluable. Respect. Hat is off to you. Metaphorically because I'm not wearing a hat and I don't usually wear hats, but the sentiment stands.

Over the course of these posts, we've seen some truly intricate comeback stages. This isn't one of them. It's them and the LED screen. But there are still some very cool spots. For instance. I love how beautiful the spin where their hair fans out as they twist back around to stare at the camera at 3:11. Especially Na Go Eun and Swan. I know they probably practiced that hair flip to make sure they'd be able to get it just right, but that practice paid off well. 

Or the way the light is blinking around them on the stage at :50, making it look like they're moving through stars while numbers go through the LED behind them. And speaking of the LED screen, it would be hard to deny how very, very cool their logo is. The best place to take a look at it is at 1:26.

Now that we've had the cool biker outfits, let's take a look at the white wedding dress outfits. But if you look at their shoes, they're also in sneakers. You've got the best of both worlds. But the fun thing about the wedding dress outfits is they all look dirtied and a little bit scorched, much like a lightly toasted marshmallow. 

On this Inkigayo stage, we've got several spots where we've got some double vocals and some spots where they sound a little bit unlike the recording. Which is good. Again, that implies at least partial live vocals. 

I really love how the camera is situated at 1:07. It's full on so as you watch their little cascade of movements, the members reveal themselves, but the way they look in their white dresses against the LED screen that reminds me a bit of a forest fire and while doing the clockwork choreography is a stunning visual. 

Most of the LED screentime is taken up by a big spooky gothic castle that reminds me of a Dracula castle, and with the white dresses they're wearing, we're in full-blown Dracula's Brides territory, which would be an interesting take. The fire thing, which is echoed by the red and orange lights behind them, is not a new concept for the stage because they do set an abandoned building on fire in the music video, but the castle part is new. Personally, I'm fully into that because a Gothic castle is such a delicious visual, and at 2:26, it looks like they're going through a hallway with stone hands reaching out of the walls and ceiling towards them. Again, that's a cool visual. 

But crucially with the stage we get the purple lights above them so we've got that slight contrast and conflict. As they're travelling through the orange and red of the fire and the castle, they're still surrounded by purple, which is their color. I could go full literature major on the symbolism of that, but for y'all's sake, I'm not going to because I try not to turn these into essays too often. 

But think for a moment about the implications of the purple, which is their color per their group name, remaining and surrounding them even when they're surrounded by fire and conflict. 

I know I haven't talked a lot about the choreography yet, but the dance practice is going to be a long section. 

I'm going to give y'all another stage where we get the names attached. And I haven't pointed it out yet, but if you'll refer back to the credits section a moment, you'll notice that one of the names in the lyricist section is Swan. Swan as in one of the main vocalists of the group, and the maknae, who has a nice close-up at :29. Member written. 

And Chaein's hair flip at 3:01 at the end? Gorgeous. 

I'm a particular fan of Ireh and Yuki's hair in this stage, though. Yuki gets the thumbnail so you get to see that gorgeous plum red even before you hit play and Ireh's got the two-toned hair with white as the top color and then black underneath, so as she moves, it's exposed. Brilliant. Shout-out to their stylists. 

And speaking of stylists, the set designers gave us a very interesting liminal space for the LED screen where it looks kind of like they're in a warehouse, but if they were in an art deco, dwarven warehouse. I don't know if you've seen that post that's like "dwarves are art deco and elves are nouveau", but I do think that's pretty accurate with how both groups are portrayed generally speaking. And this is an art deco warehouse with some lava lines going through it, thus very dwarven. We've got a lot of white lights on them this time, with the occasional yellow or orange to break it up or otherwise emphasize the drama. 

Also, once again, we have a Plory who is so loud while she's screaming. Shout-out to her specifically. You go, girl. Way to represent. 

I'm not going to talk about the choreography yet, because again, I'm waiting for the actual dance practice, but I really liked this video and wanted to share it anyway, because they actually do look like a high school biker gang in this choreography video.

Don't join a gang, friends.

But, it looks really cool and that's pretty fitting for a song with Dosie's line "I'm a good girl gone bad ain't no copycat" in it (:30).

And now for proper live vocals because they did a performance of Band Live with this. I'm sad they never got to do a Killing Voice. 

But it's super cute how they keep going "vroom vroom" at the beginning. And I highly recommend you put the captions on because they're funny. Dosie at the end doing the little lobster hand motion? Makes me laugh, as does how they choose to just vocalize to give their closing. But that was them being quiet. I've seen them in person. They're a very loud group.

Can we also appreciate that they're almost just doing the full choreography? No standing still for this group. They're doing the formation changes and most of the choreography, if not at full energy then probably at least 50% which increases as the song goes on, and I'm realizing that a couple of them may actually have been singing live during more of the stages than I thought because some of them sound almost the same as the studio recording, which is insane. 

Especially Swan. Even with how high she's singing at 1:30, that vibrato is coming through strong and clear. And then at 3:16, after she's been dancing with at least 70% energy almost the entire time, and also singing along regardless of whose part it is with her mic not up to her mouth because she's just here to have a good time, she is literally studio quality as she's harmonizing up above Chaein. But her brief little ad-lib right after that is ethereal. Simply haunting because she's got just the right amount of huskiness to her voice. If she decided to go that route, she'd be a queen of Halloween alongside Bibi as a soloist. That's an Amy Lee voice right there. And I don't know if anyone is aware yet of my deep and abiding love for the eldest/maknae duo, but we actually get a moment of it at 1:40, when Swan puts her arm around Na Go Eun's shoulders during her part and Na Go Eun just looks at her and smiles before vibing with her.

Na Go Eun, by contrast, has the rockstar grit to her voice. Rockstar. Not lobster (which immediately makes me think of Mingyu in Italy trying to order lobster). One of the best examples is at 2:32 right before the chorus. She shakes her head, does a little spin, and then does her part in her low voice. Her voice actually does a really good job of helping to balance out the higher voices of her groupmates, which also makes her a perfect choice to close out the song.

Chaein and Yuki's little cat gestures at Dosie during her "I'm a good girl gone bad, ain't no copycat" line is adorable. And I love how Dosie and Ireh are just off to the side at 1:45 doing the choreography while their eldest member and maknae are handling the vocals of the chorus. They've got another adorable part together at 2:30 when they're doing bike movements together, so I'm glad that the shot that got put in the video included that. Dosie actually sings quite a bit during the other members' part. And I love the "On my on my on my bike, yeah yeah yeah" part that she does at 3:48 with that dismissive little hand wave. She's got a very sweet voice and I think her part at 3:04 might be a little too low for her at the end, because it sounds like she gets a little bit out of breath, but she's also been dancing, so with that a little bit out of her range, I'm not going to fault her for that. Even if she hadn't been dancing, I still wouldn't fault her for it.

Yuki. My girl Yuki. She hypes up her unnie at 2:35. She raises her hand and adorably says "네" at 2:08 when Swan asks her if she's ready, and then switches on the Cool Rapper Mode on a dime, while Ireh is standing there with her arms folded and just grinning at the adorableness. She does both a cat gesture for "copycat" and gives herself horns for "goblin." She doesn't get a lot of screen time, but a lot of the time she's on screen, she's doing something fun.

Ireh has such a delicious little growl to her voice at her "Vroom vroom runnin'" part at 1:53 and at 3:29. It's a really good contrast to her much higher, sweeter voice at 2:43. The fun thing with her is she's so down to play with the other members, and she really just seems like she's having a good time, but because she's got the palest hair that's also loose, every movement she makes causes her hair to very visibly move against the black jacket, some variation of which they're all wearing. I kind of wish she could have had the two-toned for this performance, but it's fine. She still looks incredible. And I know she's not the only one to be pointing at Swan at 1:33, but she's got quite the grin on her face while Yuki and Dosie are very coolly pointing. 

Chaein starts off the song, and she's a good person to do it. She doesn't have quite as low of a voice as Na Go Eun, but she does start off the song with a little tremor of vibrato on "vroom" at 1:17 and another tremor at 2:00. And the one-two punch of Chaein and Na Go Eun at 2:27 is genuinely quite powerful. And the second major one-two vocal punch is the harmonization between her and Swan at 3:13, where Chaein gets the grounded melody with her tremor vibrato comfortably in her vocal range. And Chaein's "Car for the body, but a bike for a soul" is one of my favorite parts to sing when I'm in the car, even if I'm no longer in my little zip zip. Like, Na Go Eun's is good. But the first one with Chaein? Mmmm.

And just because I think these are really cool, this is the relay dance they did of this. They're in the same outfits as their MCountdown stage that I shared first.

The choreography was arranged really well to highlight individual members, but still give a sense of how powerful the group choreography is. And it flows so well. 

Also, Yuki twerks at 2:15, and then runs off looking a little embarrassed. It's okay, Yuki. At least you didn't twerk on stage at a major awards show and cause everyone in the audience, and your group members with you to about howl with laughter.

Here is a really cool variation of the dance practice where it's both a relay dance, and a question and answer portion where if you're unfamiliar with the group, you find out all about the members, including which one has to be blurred out because she gets a little bit too excited about being the funniest member when the cameras are off. Also, which one of them has a stain on the back of her shirt, which has been there for two weeks. 

Also, Na Go Eun smacks Chaein on the butt at one point.

They're so loud. And one of them has a goose honk laugh like me and Vernon.

Swan of course is almost out of the door with Na Go Eun close behind her before the rest of them are finished saying goodbye. There's always at least one that's like "We're done? Peace out," and seems to teleport away.

If you enjoyed that, here's the music video behind that they were talking about in the previous video.

And if you, like me, really like the recording behinds because that's the most raw version of the vocals we ever get and the best proof of what they can do with their voices as well as one of the two big offerings of proof of how hard the artist works, here's the recording behind as well.

Oh, look. They recorded this the same day they recorded the Green Light Dance video.

And this is where we really highlight Ireh and Dosie because their dancing is incredible.

But first some choreography points I've been dying to talk about. Starting off the song with some big group choreography really sets the mood for the entire song. And it really is powerful because we've got foot stomps, we've got shoe squeaks, and we've got claps. We get more stomps at 1:13 during the belt-grabbing choreography of the rap section.

And the do-si-do move at 2:11 is just so pleasing.

The star formation they make around Chaein and Swan at 2:19 is a beautiful moment of visual stillness in the midst of all that activity, and practically, it allows the members a moment to catch their breath before the last big push of the climax of the song. 

The fluidity of the "Car for my body but a bike for my soul" part at 2:42 requires so much body control to make it that still and that fluid and that synchronized. The second one at 2:56 is the exact opposite: powerful, sharp, but still completely synchronized. And actually, with it paused at 2:56 like I have it right now I think it's genuinely synchronized, and not just "Oh, they're doing the same dance move at the same time". Arm angles and heights look exactly the same across all six members. They all have the same slight head tilt. And their legs look like they're equidistant apart and bent at the same angle. I'm not getting out my ruler or protractor to measure anything, but just eyeballed, that looks just about as synchronized as I've seen anything. And I've seen some choreography that's a lot less synchronized than I think was supposed to be. So it's impressive that at the very end of the song, they're still that together.

There's also something about this choreography that makes me think of a comment my friend's cousin made last month. We took her to her first K-Pop concert (Monsta X) and she commented that she was surprised by how much variation there was to the choreography, both within the songs and across songs, that there was a lot less repetition than she was expecting. And this choreography does have some spots where we get similar choreography, mostly at the chorus area, but on the whole, there's actually quite a lot that's different, which would make it a lot harder to learn. 

Alright. Now the special highlight on Ireh and Dosie. First of all, it's incredible how often one or the other is up front, which is where you put the best dancers. Second of all, they're also fairly often paired up together on one side or the other.

Ireh's best part is probably at :53 during her part right there. The relative stillness of the rest of the members compared to her movement automatically draws the eye to her, and then, because she's still in motion when the others also spin, you're going to keep your attention on her. And I love that spin. It's so pretty, especially with the way her hair flows around her right there.

Dosie's is shortly after at 1:06. There's a moment right before that where they line up perfectly, and that's satisfying to see on its own, but she gets the center of the cascade to expose the other members and then she's the center of the clockwork doll, very creepy choreography that just looks so cool. She almost looks like she's creaking, which is such a cool detail and so fitting for that.

This is such an impressive group. RBW, when I catch you...

Over four thousand words later, November indulgence number two is finished and delivered for your pleasure, Champions! Again, this is probably in my top ten favorite songs that got released in 2024, and if I were to rank them, it's probably top four actually. I adore this song and I hope y'all appreciate it a little bit more now as well, if you didn't already like it.

Next up is my best friend's choice, and I'd be willing to bet that most of you have never heard of this group, let alone have heard the song before because when second gen girl groups get brought up, I've never seen this group brought up in the conversation. Which is a crying shame because we're going to be treated to some vocals.

If you've got a song you'd like me to cover, do feel free to drop a comment for me with the artist, album title, and song title. Or if you'd rather more structure and more complete anonymity because I'm the only person who will see it, you can always use The Form.

Thanks for reading!

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