A K-pop act’s title track isn’t always the best song on their album, even if it’s the one most people will hear. Sometimes, b-sides deserve recognition too. In the singles-oriented world of K-pop, I want to spotlight some of these buried treasures and give them the props they deserve.

Since it was so easily available to watch, I decided to briefly dive back into survival shows and gave KBS’s Make Mate 1 a chance. I enjoyed the series (even if the finale and eventual line-up was a mess), mostly because of the song choices the contestants performed. Overall, Make Mate 1 was your traditional, tropey show but with consistently great music. What other survival series has given us stages including Sherlock, Crooked, Be Mine, Crown, Fiction, Growl, We Are The Future, Perfect Man, etc? I loved the spotlight on older classics.

As part of its finale, Make Mate delivered its requisite original songs. These usually tend to be pretty ho-hum, but I was immediately taken with the energetic Higher Wire. Its heavy electro stomp and brisk melodies are straight out of K-pop’s second gen while the EDM propulsion and layered vocals recall a Produce 101 theme. I’m not sure how well the seesawing chorus will play in the long run, but for now it’s a welcome blast of catchy survival show cheese. Its airy vocal blend actually reminds me of groups like ELO and Bee Gees in their late-disco period. That’s definitely not a comparison I thought I’d be making when I first started watching Make Make 1, but here we are!

Grade: B+