On October 17, at ILLIT's 'PRESS START♥︎' encore concert, fans' attention was focused on the 'Arrest Me' stage, being performed for the first time at the end of the show. I, sitting in the floor section, felt the same way. The chorus of the song had already been released through short videos. The loud whistle sounds and the investigation drama concept—could this really be the title track of the next album? Soon enough, ILLIT appeared in police uniforms with whistles around their necks. Even after the stage ended, the whistle sounds lingered, and the chant of arrest remained in my ears. It was complicated. My head anticipated a hit, but my heart found the song awkward to accept.
The way people look at ILLIT is also subtle. The audience wasn't as empty as the photos posted on social media suggested, but empty seats could be spotted throughout Inspire Arena. It made me more puzzled, recalling what music industry personnel had told me a few days before the concert about ILLIT's hot popularity in Japan. On September 30 last year, 'It's Me' surpassed 100 million cumulative streams in Japan.
The response to 'Arrest Me' is good as expected. By YouTube standards, it's become a hot topic right after A2O LITE's 'NEON'—which is a natural disaster. More prepared short-form videos draw greater response, and parodies emerge where the chorus lyrics are applied to each person's 'favorite.' It's absurd, cute, and easy to follow along with. Plus, the completion level is high. But what is this indescribable feeling?
ILLIT's world is intricate. From their debut with 'Super Real Me,' the theme symbolizing the group has been 'obsession.' It's not a focus on what's happening in the world or a possible future. The team's interest lies in micro narratives—uneven teenage emotions, chance encounters, imagination wildly inflated by oneself. Among countless emotions, the best subject is love. In this world, love is not dating but unrequited love. Unrequited love—a single word from someone you like, a passing message, a futile expectation harbored—lies at the center of ILLIT.
'Super attraction,' which started with 'Magnetic,' led to a process of observing the other person's actions and collecting evidence of affection. To others, it may be nothing more than a fleeting moment of youth, but to me, only this moment is most precious. From 'Cherish,' where they declared "even God threw up both hands and feet," and 'Tick-Tack,' which bounced elastic emotions using 8-bit chiptune sound, ILLIT's identity became clear. To express a world of solo vows and fantasies, fluffy synth riffs are laid down faintly like cotton candy.
A surging inner heart rushes forward with protruding bass and drums beating at breakneck speed. Yoon-ah, Min-joo, Moka, Wonhee, and Iroha practice the personification of the concept of cuteness on stage. At the same time, there's something strangely cool about it. Emotions are uneven, but the world containing those emotions rarely breaks.
Many hands create this small, mysterious world. ILLIT's planning evokes a stop-motion animation set where music, choreography, costumes, concepts, and videos busily revolve around the emotions of one girl. The songwriting and composition credits of the albums produced by mobilizing the production capacity of Belift Lab and parent company HYBE are comparable to a major feature film.
In fact, projects like the 'Little Monster' music video that recalled the works of Michel Gondry, or 'Borrowed Cat,' which sampled the theme of 'The Five Star Stories,' are results only possible with large-scale K-pop production. At one point, ILLIT developed a full-fledged 'magical girl' universe with this concept. Though the systematic planning has largely fallen apart now, even words that seem carelessly thrown out and songs that appear superficially frivolous still receive the kind of resources poured into grand declarations. Excess is what makes ILLIT fun.
But that's not the end! Musicians from other scenes join in. The ingenious metaphor of 'Not Cute Anymore' is the work of singer-songwriter Yura and Sasha Alex Sloan, and Yura also participated in the songwriting and composition of 'It's Me' along with Korean hyperpop star The Deep. Tomatoejad, an independent three-member Y2K girl group consisting of Mercury, Quinn, and Nayeon, also added their names to this 'Arrest Me.'
'Break Even' is a work that unfolds the evidence of affection ILLIT has built to date, bringing one chapter of the story to a close. The innocent times of unconditional devotion have passed. It's time to take out the calculator on the feelings poured into the relationship. Contrary to the previous album 'MAMIHLAPINATAPAI,' which displayed various genres, in this album the change in sound and the progression of emotion are tightly interlocked. In the dreamy atmosphere of 'Super In Love,' we look back on the relationship, and upon entering the rough speed garage of 'More,' the heart grows anxious. Irritation and anger toward an unresponsive person pour out over the breathless rhythm. It's on the verge of explosion.
There's no need to calculate step by step; once the warrant is issued, what remains is on-site execution. The seething emotion carries over to 'Arrest Me' through imperative chants, a repeated title, and loud whistle sounds. The iced tea I picked in 'IYKYK,' the feeling I was 'jellyous' of, and the DM I received at dawn are all evidence. The crime is causing my heart to flutter—a sin of impertinence; the reason for arrest is venting to forget the embarrassment of throbbing meaninglessly while waiting only for a clear answer.
Wordplay that twists the Miranda rights, a music video capturing familiar investigative drama scenes from Korean films. The concept is witty. Yet somehow, the shared anger transforms into an impression that the angry members are cute. Rather than why the girl is angry, what clothes she's wearing and what role she has taken on catches the eye more. Over the meticulously accumulated emotions, retro investigative comedy stands tall. Even the homonymous Japanese anime 'Arrest Me' comes to mind.
The discord and awkwardness of moments when the planner's taste suddenly appears is what causes heated debate whenever ILLIT returns. ILLIT's world has many incidents. They fall in love, misunderstand alone, get annoyed, and then decide to arrest the other person. Yet after following that commotion, the image we discover is cute ILLIT. Cute when excited, cute when angry, cute even at being clumsy at investigation. Even as emotions change, the perspective of appreciation scarcely changes. The story moves forward, but the feeling of newly understanding the character is faint. It seems cuteness has already decided the ending of every incident.
There's no need to necessarily accept an idol's role-play as personal confession. The K-pop ILLIT is doing now might be closer to T-ara and AOA, which showcased different roles and costumes with each activity, or Orange Caramel, which enjoyed absurd settings and exaggerated transformations. They perform ridiculous situations with serious expressions and create kitsch. However, ILLIT's music raises greater expectations than that. They gather specific clues from daily life to build relationships across multiple songs and connect emotional changes to rhythmic changes. The heart is drawn in detail, but what's shown is similar each time. Room for interpretation shrinks. What remains is only the image of ILLIT as undercover agents on stakeout. This stuttering doesn't prevent enjoying ILLIT, but it doesn't allow 'obsession.'
In 'Pop,' which twists the riff of 'Lucky Girl Syndrome' into a baile funk style, ILLIT meets new excitement. Even the time spent hating you for not knowing my heart quickly fades, and without time to look into my feelings, the next person appears. The album's cycle ends in just four songs and 11 minutes. Compared to 'MAMIHLAPINATAPAI,' which incorporated diverse emotions led by the harsh Euro techno 'It's Me,' the emptiness is considerable. Among short videos and campaign content that will soon be forgotten, only the unproductive debate and the police-concept ILLIT remain.
The virtue of skillfully digesting concepts in keeping with the planner's taste and trends is also important in K-pop. That's why the praise 'an idol itself' emerges. The reason ILLIT is popular in Japan may also be due to such a conceptual nature. I simply leave the opinion that the break-even point doesn't seem to match. A meticulously and finely crafted world remembered only as aegyo asking to be arrested is regrettable no matter how much I think about it. There's much to ask.
Kim Do-heon (Popular Music Critic) / zener1218@gmail.com
<Photo source=Belift Lab>
※ Articles by external contributors may not align with the editorial direction of this publication.
