Recently, (G)I-DLE’s album teaser and track list for their 2nd full album, [2], were unveiled, drawing massive attention.
In particular, despite being a full album, [2] only consists of 8 tracks, shocking fans. In particular, the girl group’s 6th mini-album, “I Feel”, which was released in May of last year, includes a total of 6 tracks, meaning that a “full album” is only 2 songs more than a “mini-album”.
Additionally, when the album teaser of [2] was revealed, many fans were excited to listen to the audio snippet, only to discover a peculiar detail.
In particular, the duration of each songs were displayed in the teaser video, and out of the 8 songs of [2], only one song, “7Days”, is longer than 3 minutes. The remaining tracks, including title track “Super Lady”, only last from 2:24 to 2:43 minutes.
The duration and number of songs in (G)I-DLE’s [2] has thus sparked a huge debate on the popular forum platform Reddit. In particular, many netizens express disappointment at the low number of songs and their shortness.
Meanwhile, others mention that shorter songs and less songs in albums have become a “trend” in K-pop nowadays, with songs being made shorter with no bridges and thus, more suitable for TikTok. This is apparent in the case of NewJeans’ EP “Get Up” as well as the recent title songs of popular groups such as NMIXX and ENHYPEN.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- I am not so mad about the 8 songs, but when the majority of the songs is less than 3 mins, than that is a problem. To compound on top of the short songs, many songs have the chorus repeated multiple times where you actually get about 1:30 of actual verses and singing. This may translate well for streaming and tik tok, but it is not good for a concert.
- I really don’t understand how 8 songs is supposed to be considered a full album
- It’s not a “trend” is an actual way to earn more money as you get money per stream. If the songs are shorter people will listen to more songs and you’ll earn more money. Not only Kpop does this, most other pop music from all over the world as well.
- They’re (k-pop industry) getting so damn lazy with making actual full-length songs, it’s annoying tbh.
- 2016 – Mamamoo’s Memory: seven songs, 25 minutes long, considered an EP. 2024 – (G)I-DLE’s “2”: eight songs, under 24 minutes long, apparently a “full” album. How times change.
Source: Krb, Reddit
