H1-KEY's Music Is The Underrated K-Pop Comfy Hug Of The Industry
H1-KEY's upbeat, yet grounded message in their music is perhaps just the dose of comfort K-Pop fans need to deal with a sometimes difficult world.
I've always considered music to be one of my fallbacks when it comes to adversity, motivation, or simply as a short break from the big things that happen in my life and in the world today. And for as much as I have always had a partial appreciation for heavier, sometimes darker rock sound, there's something to be said about the other side of the rock coin for me, that sort of "pop rock" sound that screams energy, brightness, confidence.
Obviously, if you're a long-time reader or subscriber of mine over the past six years, the gold standard for the former has always been 3rd generation group Dreamcatcher, whose combination of dark concept, sound, and story kept me into K-Pop when favorite second generation groups I liked, such as KARA and Infinite, faded away into the background. But the latter, brighter pop rock sound, with the exception of a few dips into the pool like Yena's "Good Morning" or Red Velvet Wendy's "Sunkiss", has been notoriously missing from my playlists for the most part - with one exception.
H1-KEY wasn't really on my radar until 2023's "Queendom Puzzle", at the time the latest iteration of MNet's girl group competition show. When eventual number one finisher and H1-KEY member Hwiseo stepped onto the solo stage portion to perform part of the group's viral hit "Rose Blossom" and somehow make i-dle's "TOMBOY" even more rock-ish with her impressive vocals, I got interested. Fellow H1-KEY member Riina's own performance of "Rose Blossom" and "POP!" and her confident personality during her interview sealed the deal, and made me mark down "Rose Blossom" as a listen after the episode.
It wasn't just that "Rose Blossom" scratched the pop/rock itch that was to me the mirror image of the "rock/pop" hybrid sound of Dreamcatcher, but what I saw in the MV and lyrics. It wasn't just upbeat for being upbeat's sake, but realistic in recognizing it isn't always like that. The group are portrayed as rough-living nomads in the video, and yet sang and portrayed themselves as being a "rose in the concrete, until this bleak city becomes filled with color". The song is filled with such comforting words in the midst of difficulties, and that's probably part of why it got extremely popular.
This "realistic, yet uplifting" trend continues throughout the title tracks in their discography, like "Let It Burn", a song about it being better to make a hard choice and go out with a bang rather than suffer in middling circumstances, and "Summer Was You", about treasured memories of the past, long past but never forgotten. I feel a bunch of this is cleverly hidden beneath the K-Pop veneer of stereotypical school settings and summer queen imagery. Nostalgia and memories, and taking comfort in them to help you through your more difficult, current circumstances, is a source of comfort, and H1-KEY never really sends the message that you should get stuck in the past, either. I can appreciate that balance.
This balanced view on life, past memories, and an optimistic approach to the unexpected detours it can take in the day-to-day is probably best crystallized in the group's recent 4th anniversary release, "Not Like A Movie". This is a fun pop/rock song in the H1-KEY style, but the lyrics talk about how life isn't a fairytale and that you can have big dreams that sometimes meet the sometimes-tough, rocky road of reality. The eventual transition of the words of the chorus from being disappointed about how things have turned out to a prioritization on your own happiness and self-care is a brilliant one, and on a personal note, made me feel a lot better about circumstances in my own life that I was not expecting and that I have, even now, been struggling to deal with.
"Not Like A Movie" was and still is the comforting hug of a friend that told me that things were going to be all right, even if life took a turn I didn't want it to, so long as I focused on myself and the things that made me happy. And I can't help but wonder if H1-KEY was referring to themselves on some level, too. The group, despite brief virality in 2023, remains underexposed in the highly competitive K-Pop space, as better-resourced, big 4 company-associated groups garner most of the attention of K-Pop fans both domestic and international. Yet their attitude, despite less overall popularity, remains seemingly as upbeat as it is grounded, preferring to do what they love to do no matter where that leads them in a sometimes volatile industry. I can't fault them for that if indeed that's how they feel, but I do hope more people pay attention to what they're doing, too.
As of this writing, H1-KEY has just released their latest album, which includes the aforementioned "Not Like A Movie" but also title track "To. My First Love", which takes the group back in time and away from the work grind to simpler school days and the freshness, excitement, and sometimes pain of first loves and younger emotions. The comparison to well-known 3rd generation group GFRIEND's "Rough" are real, and understandable. The track arguably put the group on the map not just for its awesome choreography but also for its lyrics recognizing the difficulty of being honest with someone you care about.
But I also think H1-KEY, true to their namesake, is taking a much less melancholy approach to the subject, even as they portray both the joy of being loved and the pain of that feeling not being returned. The group ends up remembering with fondness not just the memories, but what they learned, and it sends them back out at the end of the MV into the "real world" more equipped to face it. In a world where challenges and trials can arrive unexpectedly, maybe that's the kind of comforting reminder we need.
