K-Pop debuts can be tricky things. At times, they’re the best song a group delivers. Sometimes, they’re the only song a group delivers!
But, debuts can also be huge wtf moments in an artist’s career. In this feature, I’ll be looking back at debut songs through the prism of time, re-evaluating how well they hold up and how representative they are of an artist’s eventual singles run.
Debut Date: November 8, 2005
Review:
With a career as long as Super Junior’s, musical output is bound to go through several iterations. They’ve had their funky stage, their Latin stage, their electropop stage and their current ‘throw it all in a blender’ stage. But when they first debuted, their music mostly fell in line with SM Entertainment trends of the moment.
By that, I mean their title tracks were delightfully weird. Yes, songs like Miracle and U were boiler plate dance pop, but then you had bombastic throwdowns like Don’t Don and Twins. The latter is the subject of my lookback today, and remains one of the group’s definitive works.
Take a moment to enjoy Twins’ music video and all its hairstyle… choices. You may think this song sounds definitively “K-pop” (at least I do!), but like many SM releases of its era, Twins is actually a cover of a western pop track. In this case, we’re talking about the 2003 single Knockout from British boy band Triple 8. This song was a top ten hit in the UK, though I don’t imagine many remember it (or Triple 8) today.
To most of us, Twins is the definitive version of this track. That has a lot to do with Super Junior themselves, who deliver a robust, engaging performance. The vocal arrangement adds needed harmony, the rap embraces the production’s inherent goofiness and the whole product boasts much more texture and dimension than the original. That crunchy guitar riff is still omnipresent, but it’s offset by a skillful use of space that adds needed aural diversity to the track. I especially love the extended finale, which fades in and out as vocals ricochet off the song’s edges. It feels big and dramatic, just as a debut should be.
Does the song hold up?
For me, yes. But, I imagine this sound won’t be loved by everyone.
Is the song stronger or weaker than most of the artist’s title tracks?
It’s not their strongest, but I’d put it in the upper half of their singles run. (and yes, I’ll be redoing my top ten at some point this summer…)
Does the song represent the artist’s music going forward?
Not really. The group has been through so many different phases.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 9 |
~
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Nick! I swear you read my mind, as I was just listening to this song last night and thought to myself “I hope The Bias List does a debut re-evaluation for this one.”
I personally love this song and I had to listen to it on its own (without the distraction of the video) to really appreciate it. Honestly, the rock/rap combo makes the song feel pretty fresh and not all that dated in today’s landscape (to clarify- the actual song, not the MV, lmao). If I heard this for the first time today, you could easily convince me it was much more recent than 2005.
Although, for anyone who hasn’t watched the video, please do, if only to get a laugh out of Heechul!
(btw, longtime reader but first time commenter here! Felt like I just had to say something as I was literally LAST NIGHT hoping you’d write about this song.)
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I’m glad we had an unexpected mind meld! And I’m even happier that you decided to make your first comment 🙂
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Your username makes me very happy – welcome to the comment section!
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Haha! I’m glad someone got my username reference. I’m clearly heavily biased towards SuJu so I guess it is fitting that my first comment was this post:)
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Ah, yasss the hairstyles.
It has often been thought that SuJu was made up of all the TVXQ leftovers, and this song and Don’t Don have always sounded like TVXQ leftovers to me. I own them but don’t search out and play them unless I am playing the great big SuJu ipod shuffle list and don’t hit the skip button when they come around.
The song from this pre-Kyuhyun era that is a keeper and a regular on my playlist is “Miracle” which is their standard fan service song at every Super Show concert. The wander the stage style waving at everyone song. Even in the short sets for local festivals and such, if the set is at least 3 songs long SuJu will have Miracle as one of those, plus a mashup of Mr Simple / Bonamano / Sorry Sorry, plus whatever is the current single.
So here is one “Miracle” from just last month at a music festival in Busan
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR6-XdUoTsc
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Redoing the top 10 Suju list? Yay! In other news, the ultimate K-Pop song of Summer sounds interesting. I just hope TVXQ’s Hi Ya Ya is eligible. It reminds me of the time we got to vote for the next 10/10 song you’d review!
And yes, I love this song. Slightly better than the Triple 8 version.
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I love the crunchy rock guitar! Can we bring that back?
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