Monthly Playlist #6, July 2018- Loona Edition

I was prepared to write a playlist about all the new Brockhampton, the new album from The Internet, and Ariana’s beautiful new single God is a woman but Loona’s discography has taken me hostage for the whole month of July. If you’re active on Twitter, you might have seen the phrase “Stan Loona” thrown about on completely unrelated posts. To be honest, this is what convinced me to figure out what the hype was about. After my last playlist, I decided to look more into K-pop, it’s history, who’s currently popular and how the industry works. While posting my own question on r/kpophelp about how group/idol popularity is measured in South Korea, I came across someone asking what Loona was and I had had the same question but it all seemed too complicated to get into. Thanks to a primer I found in a Loona Discord chat, and the countless hours of Loona content on Youtube that I watched for five days straight, I’m going to break it down for you and list some of my favorite songs that highlight what’s so special about the this K-pop girl group.

 

What’s a Loona?

Loona (or LOOΠΔ in characters based on the hangeul for “girl of the month”) is a 12 piece K-pop girl group coming from the production company, Blockberry Creative. This is more than just another seemingly bloated K-pop group with too many members, it’s an extensive project designed to familiarize fans of K-pop and newcomers with all the members, their diverse discography, and the lore behind each of their music videos.

Each “girl of the month” debuted (or became publicly known) with their own single, accompanied by a music video and a b-side with another member of the group. These girls are then grouped together in three to four person subunits. For me, this made it easier for me to familiarize myself with all the members because it felt more like following three smaller groups (and one solo artist because the youngest, Yeojin, isn’t categorized into a subunit) as opposed to one giant twelve person group. The subunits are as follows: ⅓ (Heejin, Hyunjin, Haseul, ViVi), Odd Eye Circle (Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry), and yyxy (Yves, Chuu, Go Won, Olivia Hye). Each of the subunits has different aesthetics, storylines, and musical styles as well so people often find that they like one subunit more than the others based on personal preference.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

If you want to dig deeper than just the music videos, there are LoonaTV episodes on their official YouTube channel which are short vlogs that are less than a minute to a minute long, showing the behind the scenes process of filming music videos, photo shoots and assembling the subunits. When I first got into this group, I regret not checking these out after watching the music videos because I think it’s really interesting to see all the work that goes into the content they release. It’s also a great way to get to know the girls, their personalities, and their relationships with each other.

 

My Personal Favorites

Girl Front/ODD Front- Loona/Odd Eye Circle

Girl Front is the song that tipped me over the edge and convinced me to look deeper into Loona. This song is a high energy dance-pop track with electronic flourishes that keep momentum. The thing that really stood out for me in this song is the lyrical and musical references to the previous solo singles. It really feels like all the pieces came together to make one powerful subunit debut song. The attention to detail in this song and Loona songs, in general, is very impressive and made me curious to see where else they could have implemented little details like this.

I’m putting Girl Front and ODD Front together because they’re two different versions of the same song. While Girl Front came first, ODD Front is Girl Front with the beginning ad libs and production elements from ODD, the intro track on Odd Eye Circle’s first album, Mix & Match. ODD Front leans toward more atmospheric production than its predecessor by having the twinkling notes closer to the front of the mix, as opposed to being in the background of Girl Front’s production. From what I’ve heard, It seems that ODD Front came from fans wanting a full version of ODD after hearing it on the first album.
See Saw- Go Won, Chuu, and Kim Lip

Loona has a few different musical modes. There is some overlap but for the most part, you can break their discography into upbeat bops, R&B-leaning jams, dreamy atmospheric, and ballads. I would categorize See Saw in the R&B-leaning jam section. In the description of Go Won’s single music video, One&Only, Blockberry Creative describes See Saw as a song that “defies the typical grammar of the k-pop genre to expand the boundaries of music with the uniqueness of LOOΠΔ”. They also outline how Chuu’s “refreshing voice” and Go Won’s “adolescent voice” contrast each other like a musical seesaw. This engaging concept is seen in the pre-chorus with the two passing off lines with ease and effortlessly switching between Go Won’s staccato rhythm and Chuu’s melodic rhythm. This also musically illustrates the turbulent emotions of heartbreak and the hope that things can be repaired one day.

Let Me In- Haseul

For this next pick, we’re going to swerve into a completely different lane and visit Loona’s ballad territory which features killer vocal performances and soaring instrumentals. This song blew my mind upon first listen. It starts out with a longing orchestral backing as Haseul eases into the song but when the chorus hits, the pace picks up and the tone becomes brighter as Haseul’s voice soars. She’s such a strong vocalist and this song does wonders to showcase her abilities.

In about 11 hours of me writing this blog post, Loona will have released their first single as a group and after seeing the teaser, I am so excited to see how they will come together as a twelve piece group after two years of showing us that they are more than capable of taking the music industry by storm.