Stray Kids’ ‘Ate’ is middle ground between what they’ve achieved and the future
It’s always personal with Stray Kids. Everything they’ve done has drawn inspiration from their experiences, aspirations and experimentations. Their latest mini album, “Ate,” is a look back on how far they’ve come.
“Ate” dropped on July 19, the day after they announced that all members had renewed their contract with JYP Entertainment. The contract renewal came almost a year before the expiration of their existing ones.
Clearly, Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N are satisfied with the direction of their careers. The effect was immediate. It silenced speculations on the group’s future. The seven-year curse that plagues K-pop groups, wherein they disband or a member leaves, has skipped Stray Kids.
“Ate” as a word is straightforward. It is Gen Z slang which means they did things in style or very well. The members often see or hear the word after their performances. It’s quite common to read praises such as “they ate and left no crumbs” in their fan cams on different platforms. But it is also a wordplay on “eight,” and in the lore of Stray Kids and Stay (fandom name), eight means fate. It is by divine design for the group to have that number of members.
Eight is fate
“Ate” has eight tracks in it, and it came out eight months after “Rock-Star.” Part of the genius of Stray Kids is the way they manage to tickle the brains of their fans with hints and details like these.
It starts with the anthem of “Mountains” where they declare, “I woke up on the mountains/ Ain’t nobody stopping me, I’m walking like a Titan.” It’s an establishment of their status in the music industry. They are on top of the world and everybody is looking up to them. Cocky statement? Definitely. Is it factual? Absolutely.
Stray Kids have reached new heights in their careers that go beyond music. They dominated the fashion world when they became the first K-pop group to attend the Met Gala together this year. Their influence extends to members as individuals.
Bang Chan, Lee Know, Seungmin and I.N made their debut at Paris Fashion Week, while Hyunjin has become an important presence at Milan Fashion Week. Felix walked the runway for the first time. Han has been named part of the Balmain army, and eyes are peeled for what’s in store for Changbin.
Their song “Slash” is part of the soundtrack of the movie “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
There’s also humor in the song. To refer to themselves as “Titans” is a perfect metaphor for their talent, but it also seems like a jab to their heights. Fans and they themselves tease each other at how short they are. I.N once said that their height is also their fate. One can imagine 3Racha, the production sub-unit of the group composed of Bang Chan, Changbin and Han, guffawing when they wrote this.
The trio continues to be the formidable force behind the group’s music, as they are the composers, lyricists and producers of this album. It’s interesting how their rising global popularity has affected their production.
“Originally it was not the usual Stray Kids style but the more popular mainstream pop style that people are familiar with. We wanted to make popular music with a slight touch of the SKZ style, but after we were finished, the music didn’t feel like Stray Kids’ music,” Changbin said in “Intro: ‘Ate’.” They redid everything because of it. “We added a dash of mainstream music into the classic Stray Kids style music.”
Earworm
The restraint is heard in the title track “Chk Chk Boom” which is a Latin-style hip-hop earworm. They deliberately made it relaxed and easy to listen to. Bang Chan said that they created at least 20 demos for this song, and the album includes two of them. The original and the Festival version are in the album, while music platforms carry the Instrumental, Heatwave and Deadeye versions. Changbin explains that the song is about the Stray Kids’ goal.
It’s an effective use of onomatopoeia. The highly addicting line “Chk Chk Boom” copies the sound of pulling the trigger and firing it to hit a target, making the choreography instinctive and the song easy to remember. They serve a new Stray Kids flavor through this song.
The way they willingly accommodated mainstream sound to introduce themselves to new listeners shows growth and maturity. But it’s also admirable how they stood their ground, making sure they do not lose their identity as artists while doing it.
As if to underline that, they followed the title track with “Jjam.” All members agree that the track Bang Chan and Changbin worked on is the most typical of Stray Kids’ sound: fun, fast and high-intensity. Something you can easily see yourself dancing to in clubs and while chanting the line “I know, You know, Lee Know.”
The boys have come up with the point-of-view of villainous characters in their songs. Their legendary debates on who is worse between the characters in “Ex” and “Chill” have spilled over into their YouTube content and Bubble messages, wrangling their fans in.
The saga continues in “I Like It,” wherein the character likes being in a “situationship,” another Gen Z slang where the person likes the perks of being in a relationship without the actual commitment.
The dance song goes, “If you want to cross the line, go ahead, but I won’t/ Because it’s bеtter this way,” an attitude they do not approve of. In Filipino, the character is paasa. Han has claimed ownership of the verse, but he also comically stated that he couldn’t relate to it because he’s nice.
Still running
Bang Chan asked the help of Felix in writing “Runners.” The two culled inspiration from their groups’ multiple images of running together in different concerts and events. The Aussie duo previously worked on “FNF” (“5-Star”) together.
“We might fall, we might stumble and we may even die, but despite all that we’re still running,” Bang Chan said. Seungmin said that the challenge of singing it is the fast melody and clear changes in rhythm. He had a lot of fun with it.
Han wrote “Twilight” two years ago and warned Stay to not speculate on his emotional state when he wrote it. After all, it’s just another song where we get a glimpse of his brilliance in crafting love songs. The emotional track is perfect to listen to at night, according to I.N.
“This is perhaps the calmest song in the album,“ Lee Know said in “Lee Mu-jin Service” after he beautifully performed the song ahead of its drop.
Han’s love songs encapsulate emotions perfectly. They grip your heart tight until the ache reaches its peak and everything is let out. “Twilight” is no exception, as it mourns a lost flame. The feeling it leaves sets the stage for “Stray Kids” the song. It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this, making their group name a title of the song. They came out with “3Racha’’ in “Maxident” before. But just when it was thought that it was going to be a diss track, it turned out to be a celebration of the group.
“Everything I talk about comes from being a member of Stray Kids. It’s hard to imagine a life without them,” said Hyunjin.
There were references made to past songs such as “Hellevator,” “Lonely Street.” “Lalalala” and “Topline.” But most importantly, there’s a line that reiterates Bang Chan’s promise as leader to Stay. It goes, “There ain’t no last step out/ Oh, we’ll never stop.” It’s completely different from their song “Fam,” but in a way, it’s also the same, like two sides of the same coin. The core of the message is that Stray Kids is family. They are Stay’s family. And it’s heartwarming.
“Ate” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. It is ther their fifth consecutive album to do so, joining the ranks of “Oddinary,” “Maxident,” “5-Star” and “Rock-Star.” They are the first group to do so. History has been made.
But just as it is, “Ate” is a solid album. Versachoi, as in the past, has worked with them in this album along with other producers, namely Restart (Kor), Chae Kang-hae, DallasK, Ronnie Icon, BB Elliot, JBach, Nathan Cunningham and Marc Sibley.
The album has 3Racha’s stamp all over it, as well as Bang Chan’s distinctive notes, Changbin’s unrelenting rap and Han’s versatility. We also hear the tremendous growth of Lee Know as a vocalist here. “Ate” carries the qualities that makes it distinctively Stray Kids, such as Hyunjin’s powerful rap, Felix’s deep voice, Seungmin’s rich, warm tones, and I.N’s fresh, bright vocals.
“Ate” is a good introduction to those who don’t know them, but it also endears itself to longtime fans. It’s a middle ground between what they’ve already worked on and what they are set to achieve in the future.
