A generational landmark’s parallel narrative: Words on NMIXX’s Fe304: FORWARD
It’s been less than a week, but I cannot help but think:
Is it too early to say that this specific release is the Perfect Velvet of its generation, and in a similar way that Odd Eye Circle’s Max & Match was the Pink Tape of its previous generation?
I’ve been pondering over this analogy because it’s become increasingly recurrent amongst all the Korean critics I’ve heard from so far. All the definitive sounds of 4th Gen K-Pop are present here (glitch, UKG, downtempo, alternative R&B), all whilst transforming into something beyond that generation’s musical signifiers altogether. Break has these elements as well with its own takes on Jersey club, dance pop, and New Jack Swing, but far more watered down to its barest essentials.
In a similar vein, Red Velvet’s Perfect Velvet took the sonic hallmarks of its respective era (synthfunk, future bass, trap, r&b, electropop) and made what ended up being prime examples of them in K-Pop. It remains as forward-thinking as it was for its time, and reached towards a future that allowed a production like Forward to happen. That’s even if Red Velvet themselves have had the most pop-like sheen to their sound (in part thanks to their aptly-named dual concept) compared to other primarily experimental girl groups in the same vein as them (GWSN, WJSN, Odd Eye Circle).
Most important is the fact that Forward sticks out far more amongst its peers’ releases than Perfect Velvet, especially because it’s arriving in what we can now comfortably call a post-NewJeans period of understated musical homogeneity, in which borderline-excessive overuse of Y2K references and aesthetics remain abound, and repeated swings at Western assimilation have come off more as carelessly pastiche than newly inventive attempts at improving K-Pop’s signature knack for glocalization.
On the other hand, Perfect Velvet wasn’t nearly as lost in the shuffle of bright electropop (and electropop-tinged classical crossovers) that encompassed most 3rd Gen girl group discographies (Oh My Girl, Lovelyz, Momoland, GFRIEND). Not only did Red Velvet take home a total of 7 music show wins at the time of release, but they also had the advantage of being one-third of the Big 3’s representative girl groups alongside TWICE and BLACKPINK. Not to mention that Red Velvet were — and still are — part of a generational trio that remains unanimously undisputed amongst the entirety of K-Pop’s collective fandom to this day.
It is without question that musically, NMIXX have been amongst the best of their generation. However, popularity-wise, they now find themselves in the same boat as a group of f(x)’s stature were from 2011–13. As it stands, NMIXX’s labelmates are also the groups who happen to be the industry’s touring forces at the moment. I say “touring forces” within the greater context of 4th Gen, specifically because 2nd Gen groups — ESPECIALLY those under SM Entertainment — had a much stronger chokehold domestically and within their region during their reign.
So much so, that 3rd and early 4th Gen JYP groups are now mirroring this respective position amongst the wider industry. Groups like TWICE, ITZY, and Stray Kids are far from domestic darlings, but their place as primarily public-friendly frontrunners in an era of global tours is what 2nd Generation SM groups were for K-Pop’s Golden Age — albeit on a much bigger scale than what the Golden Age was previously afforded.
In a post-pandemic industry, TWICE, Stray Kids, and ITZY have practically run the gamut for world tours, standing toe-to-toe with BTS, BLACKPINK, and SEVENTEEN about as similarly as Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, and TVXQ were for their respective generation; albeit as the dominant forces to beat in Korean variety TV appearances, dramas, and CFs — alongside BIGBANG, Girl’s Day, 2NE1, and KARA — all while having a strong foothold in Japan (the one glaring similarity that TWICE, Stray Kids, and ITZY share with them) and consistently selling out all-Asia tours.
Within the context of K-Pop’s current state of mass globalization, TWICE, Stray Kids, and ITZY are also constantly billed as must-see performers, if not branded as performance titans amongst their Big 4 peers. More importantly, all three groups have maintained comfortably stable international fandoms to the point where physical sales have evolved to become a secondary source of mass profit for 2 of those 3 groups (TWICE and ITZY).
And yet, NMIXX’s discography remains a gem, standing firmly against the literal barrier that aespa, IVE, (G) I-DLE, and LE SSERAFIM have collectively established in retaining the attention of the domestic — and greater international — GP. It runs parallel to where f(x)’s earliest releases stood as K-Pop dove headfirst into the 2010s— sparse and often underpromoted pieces of relentless experimentation that were continually lost in the shuffle of their company’s biggest money makers.
Of even greater note is f(x)’s popularity relative to their contemporaries. However regularly Krystal and Sulli acted in K-Dramas, they weren’t anywhere near one of the top girl groups of their generation. There was the golden trio dubbed WonSoKa (Wonder Girls, SNSD, KARA) — the former being the first of their kind to fully venture into the US market, while the latter two’s meteoric rise established what would become a culturally permanent death grip on the South Korean and Japanese market. Not long after f(x)’s debut, another barrier of girl group popularity would present itself in the form of 2NE1, T-ARA, Girl’s Day, and Apink.
Throughout the peak of their popularity, SNSD, Super Junior, and TVXQ’s Korean discographies were notoriously front-loaded from 2011–13. The Boys, Oh!, I Got A Boy, Sorry Sorry, Bonamana, Keep Your Head Down, and Mr. Simple would all mint smash hits out of their title tracks, but to the point where their accompanying full-length B-sides paled in comparison. Even early EXO singles neatly fit into this landscape, as the quality of their full-length releases wouldn’t escalate until the release of EXODUS in 2015.
The same can be said for Stray Kids’ and ITZY’s most recent output (a slew of decent title tracks — albeit barely charting domestically — but with often lackluster B-sides to boot). However, both f(x) and NMIXX’s works have often been met with critical acclaim, if not consistently so.
The greatest shared outcome that NMIXX can therefore build towards? A discography that will hold so much influence in future years of K-Pop to come, and one that will age far better than the most recent output of their company peers — one that may have the benefit of being widely appreciated in online spaces in the present, but the unparalleled longevity of being far more appreciated in retrospect once its eventual impact becomes fully realized.
NMIXX are, after all, one of the many offspring that f(x) would produce in K-Pop’s 4th Generation — the first of its kind to do so, however much SM Entertainment still attempts to erase their legacy within the company, let alone care about the lengths to which their existence and influence has continued to spread throughout the industry’s history.
To this, I can only say: More power to Mixxpop, and the shape of Mixxpop to come.