Border: Day One Review
Border: Day One (2020)
the 1st part of my enhypen discography review! probably counts as juvenilia, considering 4/7 members were underage at the time of its release. kiki was only 14 mind you, so i'll be extra easy on him rgdfjghfgh. it's a baby vampires concept. the concept photos have them all dressed as little vampires against a blood red backdrop, drinking red liquid. it was serious!
Ranking system:
๐ - it's peak.
๐ - great song that made me feel something. could slot into a playlist.
๐ - would listen to it voluntarily, a few flaws that are either easy to overlook or a bit charming
๐ฅญ - had potential but the finished product is very flawed
๐ - not going to seek it out, but won't outright complain if i hear it.
๐ - it does absolutely nothing for me but isn't offensive
๐ - does absolutely nothing for me and is offensive
๐ - so bad that it almost wraps back around to good just bc i was laffing so much
๐ - special pathetic label for songs that were too pathetic for me to feel good about ranking
๐
- BOOOOOOOO TOMATOES TOMATOES
๐/๐ Intro: Walk the Line
So I assumed this would automatically jump into Given-Taken, but instead I was greeted with this? Um...you really didn't need to do all that gdfjgkfgh. Is it Jake reading this? Does he have a bit of a lisp or is it just the mixing? There's like, a third of a song in here, interspersed with the monologue.
๐ Given-Taken
one of the best bg debuts ever, probably. i haven't actually paid attention to who sings what, because HYBE vocal processing generally makes it hard to tell, and they were kids so who cares rly. omg and the beautiful harpsichord and synth melodies...looking at the lyrics, it's like, very blatantly a vampire song which is fine but dfgfkghj it's a little cutesilly. but like u rly couldn't ask for a better debut song especially if u remember the year this was released. this was stylistically different from pretty much anything else, so they stood out right off the bat. the melodrama of it suits their concept and there's like a few different microhooks built into the main hook, making me think HYBE probably paid a lot for this track. it sounds expensive but the purchase was worth it.
๐ฅญ Let Me In (20 Cube)
So having the 14 year-old immediately proclaim "I'LL BE YOUR BOYFRIEND" immediately following a heater like Given-Taken might not have been the best idea. What do you mean you want to 'go into my cube', is that what the kids are calling it these days? The main hook here is pretty annoying lol but the post-chorus is fun. Damn, compared to the later tracks, they really don't seem all guilty/hesitant about ruining this human girl's life fdghfhgh. they're like i might hurt you but you gotta let me in that CUBE, girl! someone ad-libs BEBY GIRL! during the final chorus, that was pretty funny. i'm not sure what to think of it, it's like, got a weird reggae sort of rhythm to it and these very dramatic synth brass stabs that don't seem to suit the theme at all.
๐ 10 Months
'I'm all grown up now' being the first line....well no, but whatever. What is this actually about? It's got a cute tropical sound to it and that bass drop in the chorus is good, but...the theme? They're singing about a...boy they're treating like a puppy(?) is this the actual translation? Well, whatever, I think I get the point, it's one of those "I know I'm young but this love is actly serious you can totally trust me on that" songs playing on their age I guess. I like whatever that little distorted screech in the background is, the production is really good on this one. Like honestly kinda banger/catchy a little.
๐ Flicker
Okay, a bit of a sexy one, at least rhythm-wise. You can tell they're totally not old enough to project any sort of sexuality here, so it just comes off sounding totally ridiculous lfdgjhfgh. I dunno, like maybe this could've been left in the drafts for later, not that it's anything particularly groundbreaking. Their voices sound particularly nasal/indistinguishable on this one. I do like that Kiki tells me we're like a pair of protons (??) fair enough, man. I think Sunghoon says something akin to "even tho i'm not allowed to touch you, kinda feels like we already been touchin" rjdgfhnfgh. A chop honestly.
๐ Outro: Cross The Line
I kinda like this one compared to the intro fdjgfhjfgh how dramatic. Since I know the album that follows this one, I'm like ohhhhhhh hahahaa yeah exactly. They should've leaned into the whole "creepy vampire orphan boys" aesthetic while they were still babybeans, like no don't pretend to be my boyfriend yet pretend to be my creepy possessed dolls!