#and now i'm like well actually this slots perfectly fine into this sort of thing.

[elvisabutler]

little ramble in the tags don't mind me. probably deleting this later.

[yuuana]

Music May 2023 #2: Stray Kids - Maniac release: March 2022 genre: Kpop

In further proof of just how far behind I am, three of my top four candidates for today's track have already had another comeback. And in fact, I am so far behind on Stray Kids, that they've had multiple comebacks since this AND I'm skipping releases they put out between NOEASY and ODDINARY, so expect me to hit them again a couple times between now and the end of the month, probably, so I'm at least hitting their other two recent full albums, MAXIDENT and THE SOUND.

So despite being Stay, I'm skipping over ... several MVs that came out between Thunderous and Maniac, even though I love most of them, because ... well, because I'll never get caught up if I don't, for one thing. Three of them are also seasonal (Christmas songs), so I'd feel weird writing about them right now. I may or may not come back to some of those further down the line, but no promises. And in my defense, because they've been touring under the name MANIAC since last year, I'd ... sort of lost track of just how much music they've put out between tour legs.

One thing about Stray Kids is you can count on them to do things their own way, thanks to being a self-producing group - 3RACHA writes and produces the vast majority of what Stray Kids releases, albeit in conjunction with a rotating array of outside producers. Maniac has a sound that is unlike anything else that was playing at the time while at the same time being perfectly and immediately recognizable as Stray Kids. Which is an accomplishment given that I could not possibly put into words what exactly that sound is, you just recognize it when you hear it.

As for the video, well, I don't quite know where to start. There's threads of narrative flowing through it, but several viewings on, it's clearly more about vibes and performance beats than storytelling. And if you weren't already familiar with what passes for lore with this group, you might not know there's a running story here anyway. It works perfectly fine as a stand-alone about how trying to hide who you are, playing out a role that society expects, is only going to end up backfiring when the real you comes out. On the other hand, there are a few scattered visual cues that could be read as implying that the dokkaebi from Thunderous have come forward into the modern era. What that means for the world at large ... remains to be seen.

ODDINARY is available for purchase, both digital and physical, wherever you like to do your music buying, and streaming more or less everywhere. If I remember right they have actually, finally, wrapped up their MANIAC touring, so they might actually take a nap before doing anything else. But probably not.

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