“What you want?!”

Welcome to the era of choice. With an abundance of everything at our fingertips, we define ourselves by our preferences. CORTIS, BIGHIT MUSIC’s latest boy group, recently put out their debut album, “COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES,” and all throughout the lead single, they repeatedly call out the song’s title: “What You Want.” In the accompanying music video, as member KEONHO wakes up in a subway station, he’s immediately flooded with choices right before his very eyes. He has to choose between two billiard balls, although he has no idea what will happen as a result. JAMES, meanwhile, can’t escape the stares of the voracious patrons of a packed restaurant and finds himself flummoxed. There are moments of “pressure” scattered all throughout the video, as the members of CORTIS themselves have said. Even as they escape one setting, the cycle of choices and pressure repeats like a dream within a dream. And we come back to them repeatedly asking one another, “What you want?!” It could be a reflection of the confusing world today’s teens are forced to navigate. One person says this is right, while someone else says no, you’re wrong, it’s this. And at the same time, teens are told to do what they want. So what is it any one of them truly wants, then? In the end, it all comes down to the choices we make.

The group opens their very first lead single letting the listener know what they’re after: “Money, Style, Fame, Love and what?” But there’s no hint of rebellion or defiance in their young, enthusiastic voices. They take concepts typical of hip hop bravado—reaching for something, wanting to show yourself off to the world, ambitious dreams of success, feelings bubbling beneath the surface—and retool them to be more appropriate for their age group. For “all 17 years of my life” they “chased after fame,” and all it takes to get it is “a late-night, dawn delivery kind of fresh song.” Over top of the serious trap beat that drives “FaSHioN,” the boys brag through a tight rap about each of them being a “thrift shop master” who can unearth a “30,000 won bomber” and more (“My tee, 5 bucks / My pants, 10,000 won”). For teens like them, the kind of fashion finds worth bragging about are those that prove how savvy their purchases are or pieces they hunt down in Dongmyo, Hongdae, or on used clothing apps that reflect their tastes. CORTIS draws on their real-life experiences as teenage boys and their trainee life under BIGHIT MUSIC and injects that directly into their songs, leading to slice-of-life lines like “Pull up to the studio with our pants low” (“GO!”) and “Finished to album in LA” (“FaSHioN”). Lyrics that explore their songwriting lifestyle, like “Lit up the studio, make night bright as day,” reflect who they are and their confidence levels. Their dream of attending the “Met Gala” may feel like a distant one, but it’s a future that’s within their grasp. Just like moving back and forth between Dongmyo and LA, their life is both ordinary and extraordinary, fascinating yet relatable, constantly alternating in their lyrics between the everyday life right in front of them and the deeper aspirations they hold onto. Whether they’re exploring their curiosity for the outside world while preparing to debut, a level of ambition where “enough’s not enough to fill me up,” JAMES’ decision to chase his future when he “left home to look for what we dreamed of,” or simply the desire to make their names known, the kind of ambition CORTIS raps about feels like it’s driven less by a sense of urgency and more by the raw energy of being a teen.

You can hear the group literally shouting at points in their songs. The “I GOT WORK / YOU GOT WORK” refrain in “LLullaby” is a chant JAMES came up with to wake up the others when they really were sleeping. The group repeatedly questions what it is they truly want in “What You Want” and push each other for new songs and beats when they need them (“GO!”). CORTIS put out a documentary, “What We Want,” showing the creative process that went into their lead single during a songwriting session in LA. As an early version of “What You Want” begins to take shape, there’s a moment in the studio that seems to embody the sense of liberation that was the impetus for the song’s foundation, the boys putting down the mics in the middle of their loose brainstorming to clap and stomp as a group. Sometimes they direct their messages to the world, other times they build camaraderie, and still other times they serve as a release for emotions welling up inside them. Within that framework, there’s something almost poetic about “JoyRide.” CORTIS takes the word and portrays it as a picturesque escape through the quiet of night. The song opens with a steady guitar riff as the melody softly floats in, repeating the same set of notes for what feels like ages. It evokes a feeling of being trapped somewhere and wanting to and drive away in secret to escape. As the song moves into the chorus, the words “driving so fast” usher in a melodic shift that jumps a whole octave in a quietly cathartic burst of pent-up emotion. The teenage longing for freedom can manifest itself as unrestrained ambition, but also as the emotions stirring inside them. There’s a juxtaposition all throughout “Lullaby” of vocal harmonies, chanting, simple guitar and bass, and an assortment of different effects. There’s a calmness punctuated by sudden outbursts, along with a touch of eccentricity and shadows woven into the mix. While songs like “GO!” and “FaSHioN” are outgoing, confident, and full of CORTIS’ sense of humor, tracks like “JoyRide” and “Lullaby” capture more intimate moments. The group adds depth and dimension to their album by digging into these complex emotions one by one and exploring them through different musical genres.

The choreography for “What You Want” is an endless display of youthful energy. The CORTIS members are in full rockstar mode, running across treadmills the whole time as they gleefully strike poses, shove their hands up their shirts, and stomp limpingly. Ironically, what makes their performance feel so exhilarating and liberated is their mastery of the moves. They step on and off of the moving treadmills with zero hesitation, never even needing to glance down as they move around. Despite zipping around the whole time, they pull off elaborate moves where they give the impression of slowing down, and make moves like placing their hands on their hips and nodding along as they shuffle their shoulders look like a cakewalk. The entire performance exudes all the spirit of a fresh new boy group and the animated energy that teens are flush with. There’s more excitement in “FaSHioN,” where they grab at their clothes to mime showing off their fashion choices. They leap around energetically like they’re in a “mosh pit,” then shrink down and look around as if scouting their way ahead. CORTIS pulls off their intentionally tongue-in-cheek swag thanks to the precision of their movements, right down to the exact speed and angle, and “GO!,” released ahead of the album, is a crystallization of these defining traits. “GO!” begins with SEONGHYEON walking forward at a leisurely pace, making effortless hand movements. As MARTIN takes over, the rest of the group joins in along to the beat, looking free and easy. Then, at the song’s driving refrain—“Watch me go, go, go, go, go, go”—the boys move as one in perfect harmony. They rapidly shift between moves every eighth of a measure, reaching their hands out, acting like they’re pulling something towards themselves, and giving two thumbs up. CORTIS’ ability to take what could easily come across as juvenile and perform it with amazing discipline is at the root of what makes them a unique pleasure to watch.

The CORTIS members shot and edited the original music video for “What You Want” themselves. They filmed in a variety of different locations—the video opens in the BIGHIT MUSIC offices, moves through the distinct alleys of Seoul, lined with signs in Korean for real estate offices, pharmacies, and lottery shops, and finally follows CORTIS home, clothes scattered everywhere. The scene behind them changes from the office to the city streets through an effect where it looks like they’re jumping out of the screen, pulling a similar trick for other transitions where they appear to fall or collide with something. The official music video is based on this version and clearly follows in its footsteps. It begins in a desert in the United States, where the group members once again fall, collide, and wander through surreal dream-like spaces that blur the boundary between imagination and reality. As might be expected from a generation intimately familiar with TikTok and vlogs, CORTIS’s videos tend to relish in the thrill of repeated movements and the satisfaction of dynamic transitions over straightforward narratives. The music video for “GO!,” released ahead of the album, experiments with all sorts of different video techniques, from distorted shots using 360 cameras to shots of the group members setting up the camera and walking away as if filming a TikTok challenge. In statically framed shots, they move together single file, and piece together clips like a collage. It all zips by, every cut timed perfectly to the beat. You don’t have to make yourself into a YouTuber or TikToker anymore—anyone with a smartphone can shoot videos and edit them to music. The places you show off through the fastest cuts possible and the aesthetic choices you make through layouts and filters practically become an extension of your personal style. Whether it aligns with traditional ideas of video editing is irrelevant. For a generation that grew up not just consuming videos but also creating, editing, and posting to their personal channels, it’s already second nature. For the all-teen CORTIS, video isn’t just a tool for promoting their music, it’s another medium through which to express themselves.

In 1960s America, there were teenagers who picked up some secondhand instruments, got together with friends in their garages, and inadvertently gave birth to the genre now known as garage rock. Today, there are far more tools at our disposal. Anyone can create or search for anything on their smartphone, and with the right programs installed on a tablet or laptop, you can mess around with an endless array of virtual instruments. As JAMES, who learned to sing, dance, and even play sports through an iPad, put it, it’s about more than just the music. Teens can take some music, throw on some suitable dance moves, and take and edit photos and videos. Throughout the history of music, as a genre develops and advances, the next generation toys with all those techniques—dismantling, rearranging—until they get at the very essence of it. The need to claim something new as their own has never been greater for any generation than today’s. Inheriting the legacy of the past feels almost devoid of meaning anymore. Instead, they collect everything like it’s vintage, proving their individuality through newly rearranged and curated tastes. In that way, “What You Want” feels like what you get when today’s teens, equipped with endless choices, meet the DIY spirit of garage rock. The vintage guitar riffs keep things raw and delicate, while the boom bap beat makes it explosive—not in the heavy way characteristic of the genre, but in a way that’s explosively refreshing. Layered on top is a whirling, arena-filling chant where the group alternates between sing-rapping and rock band frontman energy. Onstage, they pull off complex choreography flawlessly, all while bouncing around with mics in hand like true rockstars. And that’s not to mention the music video they created themselves. With lyrics that “Crash, Smash, Rock, Mash up” all this and more, “What You Want” is a perfect self-portrait of CORTIS. They find the tools they need to express their desires and volatile emotions through whatever mix of songs, dance, and video suits them. They cherry-pick characteristics of disparate genres and blend them together without reservation. In doing so, CORTIS turns the chaos of juxtaposition into an identity. It’s the anthem of a new generation—one that screams, “this is what we want.”