Who Is The Next Big Girl Group Internationally: ‘[X X] – EP’ Has Me Thinkin’ LOONA
I can always count on the genre of K Pop to provide for me the greatest variety of music per album – you folks at home should really give South Korean music a chance. Play just about any album of hundreds out there, and you will find at least one song that speaks to you, even if you don’t speak the language. This is exactly what happened when I came across LOONA and their album X X – EP, all because I heard one single called “Where You at” which absolutely blew my mind – leading me to this exceptional girl group. Big announcement y’all – Western girl groups absolutely suck right now. K Pop is where it has been at for years – as they push the envelope by including a whole host of genres in their catalogue, mixing several genres in one song often, and always delivering very impressive vocal harmonies on top of that. What do we got in America or the UK? Fifth Harmony and Little Mix, respectfully? Is Fifth Harmony even together anymore? On hiatus right? Well, should they come back as Forth Harmony sans Camila Cabello, I am skeptical that their rather one-tracked R&B Pop could move me as much as LOONA’s diverse styles – not all 100 percent perfect mind you, but all noble efforts in an industry that has dozens of such girl groups also pumping out good music. I don’t see that type of industry competition happening in the West anytime soon – yet I’m happy just to redirect my attentions to Korean Pop if it is going to continue to sound this amazing – filling the void that has persisted since the absence of real nineties R&B girl groups such as TLC, En Vogue, Changing Faces, and SWV. These groups had a special romantic quality that a group like LOONA has clearly studied, if you peruse the sounds of their other albums, yet on X X – EP there is a bit less throwback instrumentation and a bit more modernity, such as Trap and Future Bass sounds. Whatever style they tackle though, I have been delighted by them even more than my usual go-to groups TWICE and AOA.
