REVIEW
TXT+Rock=“Good Boy Gone Bad”
How a K-Pop boy band puts a spin on rock
2022.06.03
Credit
Article. Doheon Kim (Music Critic)
Photo Credit. BIGHIT MUSIC
The boy is dead. Children who once dreamed of the romance of pure love and beautiful companionship stopped dead in the cold, harsh light of reality and got a taste of the adult world, becoming a loser in love and dreaming of escape. In a chaotic world where the very meaning of the words they speak went unheard, they summoned all their strength, followed their hearts and ran away, dreaming of sweet freedom. But love cut like a knife and brought their whole world crashing down into pieces. Emotions long suppressed flow black from a deep wound in the heart and swallow the body whole. Now it’s time they’ve “Gone Bad.” And for that, they once again need the power of rock.

“Good Boy Gone Bad” shows a new side of TOMORROW X TOGETHER—something darker and more provocative. The members of the group abandon desperate grasps at salvation and ineffectual hopes in their radical lyrics. It may sound youthfully naive, but it’s an uncompromising depiction of killing the self, reaching into the shell left behind and pulling out someone new. It’s a cold and violent struggle, but there’s something elegant about it. The song takes cues from 2000s nu metal, with loud guitar riffs dominating the entire song and a layer of nonstop hip hop beats, but a closer listen reveals an unexpected depth: the fusion of rock and K-pop—a process that’s been ongoing since the very genesis of K-pop.

These days, when people think of a marriage of K-pop and rock, they think of the 1990s—the days of rock’s last hurrah. The alt rock boom that began with Nirvana and other grunge bands in Seattle quickly elevated itself to a reflection of the zeitgeist, capturing the sentiments of a gloomy, young generation growing up in the early 1990s. Bands of the period revolted against the commercialization running rampant through the mainstream rock scene, rejecting convention and bustling with commotion, panic and rage to seize on the darker emotions of youth. As it spun off into post-grunge and nu metal, the underground craze dominated the first half of the decade—a global trend with close ties to the early days of K-pop. Enter the legendary three-piece group started by Seo Taiji, former metal band Sinawe bassist, that forever changed the face of Korean popular culture: Seo Taiji and Boys.

Rock has a deep place in the music of Seo Taiji and Boys. The introduction to their hip hop dance song “I Know” uses closely cropped, densely layered string samples to imitate the sound of strumming a guitar, and a metal riff played by Seo Taiji himself on guitar follows the rapping. The song “You, In the Fantasy” also features heavy guitar on the bridge, and “Rock’N Roll Dance” pairs Seo Taiji’s own lyrics with a hip hop twist on AC/DC’s “Back In Black,” complete with guitar by Shin Daechul. Seo’s devotion to rock only became more evident with time. After monumentally crossing over heavy metal, hip hop and traditional Korean music in “Anyhow Song,” the lead single for their second album, the group then released Seo Taiji and Boys III in 1994 and Seo Taiji and Boys IV, their final album, the following year, suggesting K-pop would follow a rock direction from there on out.

 

Seo Taiji and Boys III is an important album that earned Seo Taiji the epithet “president of culture” and contains clear messages of social criticism and resistance against established society. “Dreaming of Bal-Hae” sent a message of peace and reunification for the Korean Peninsula, firmly established their identity as musicians in a mature, socially conscious idol group, and “Classroom Idea” severely criticized the education system of the time and the problem of cram schools. Once powerless to speak out about arduous entrance exams and an atmosphere of social conservatism, teenagers were growing confident that they could change the world with their fervent support of these cramming-adverse superstars. Though the song featured heavy metal band Crash’s vocalist Ahn Heung-Chan and was very much a rock song, the younger generation gave it their full support. Another critical moment for teens came in the form of the song “Come Back Home,” a song heavily influenced by gangster rap and hardcore hip hop that served as the lead single for the group’s fourth album. Runaway teenagers returned home after hearing the song, dreaming of more mature forms of resistance, while Seo Taiji’s unshakable fandom organized a protest against the Korea Public Performance Ethics Committee’s decision to censor the antiestablishment lyrics to the song “Regret of the Times”—which was critical of the older generation and ended up on the album as an instrumental only—and the law that allowed for the censorship of music before its release was revised as a result.

 

The arrival of Seo Taiji and Boys ushered in the era of idol culture. Groups made up of artists who undergo extensive training, managed at a company level, with distinct comeback and promotion cycles: these were the traits that distinguished idols from existing singers and which they used to target teenagers as the main consumers of the music market. It’s not just this format but the musical style itself that still echoes from Seo Taiji and Boys’ breakthrough. SM Entertainment’s boy group H.O.T. made their debut song, “Descent of Warriors,” a protest against school violence, showing influences from “Come Back Home,” while the group’s competition, SECHSKIES, likewise entered the pop music world with “Rise Up,” a criticism of entrance exams and public education. In the world of idol music, rock was the central flavor drawing teenage support and fueling resistance from the end of the 1990s to the early to mid-2000s with its hybrid of dance, hip hop and electronica.

Let’s turn back to TOMORROW X TOGETHER. It’s no coincidence that many people are reminded of K-pop’s past dabbling in rock when they hear “Good Boy Gone Bad.” In fact, the group’s latest foray into K-pop–rock cross-pollination was preceded by “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” feat. Seori and “LO$ER=LO♡ER” last year, which kicked off the trend. The most important part is not the choice of genre itself but the emotion that can be extracted from it. The Chaos Chapter series saw TOMORROW X TOGETHER singing of the fragility of youth, losing confidence the first time one has to face reality and being left to wander. The group required the voice of rock in order to express Generation Z’s collective anxiety, self-loathing and inability to be open about their pain, and borrowed elements from 1990s alt rock, hardcore, pop punk and emo, which all share a similar sentiment. This is in step with the 2020s revival of rock among Gen Z worldwide during the pandemic. Similarly, the rock sound they love does not sound like traditional rock bands but has instead been refined and combined with other genres.

The first groups to come to mind after hearing “Good Boy Gone Bad” are Seo Taiji and Boys, H.O.T., SECHSKIES, TVXQ and, for a more recent example, BTS. The predominant features are the progression that suggests 1990s hip hop dance songs, the refined melody and its catchy chorus. What’s interesting is the way TOMORROW X TOGETHER makes use of rock and the past. Decked out in suits and leather jackets, the members seem to emphasize the blackened heart of 2000s-era emo bands, but the dance pop music, with its sleek, hip hop rock style, would lend itself better to 1990s hip hop fashion. Their vocals are different, too. The members used to sing cheerfully on their other rock songs but now emphasize the appeal of their voices around the new song’s distinctive sentiment and emphasize confidence despite the vulnerability. The radical emotional change during YEONJUN’s rap, SOOBIN and BEOMGYU’s fluid vocals and TAEHYUN and HYUNINGKAI’s highlighted performance all blend together effectively. Elements that hardly seem suitable for one another come together in perfect harmony and create a space where anxiety and awakening can coexist. And as these characteristics start to form a clear message, TOMORROW X TOGETHER continues their narrative of growth through rock music.

It's unquestionably interesting to see this recent mix of K-pop and rock reaching beyond international rock bands and trends and back to the very origins of K-pop in the 1990s. While TOMORROW X TOGETHER used rock as a means to contain their anger in The Chaos Chapter series, they have now changed dramatically, smirking at the world through their rock sound in “Good Boy Gone Bad.” What they’re going for sounds less like Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, WILLOW or YUNGBLUD and more like Seo Taiji and Boys, H.O.T., SECHSKIES, TVXQ and SHINHWA. It’s as though the rock revival is reawakening the same sentiment that was present in K-pop in its earliest days. For TOMORROW X TOGETHER, their fans and music enthusiasts alike, “Good Boy Gone Bad” holds a lot of meaning and gives them a lot to talk about. It’s a blackened heart with a lot of meaning.

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