Release Date: October 21, 2024
Track Listing
- I’ll Like You
- Cherish (My Love)
- Iykyk (If You Know You Know)
- Pimple
- Tick Tack
Review
HYBE’s newest girl group made its debut earlier this year with their EP Super Real Me, which features the songs Magnetic and Lucky Girl Syndrome. In my review, I said it was a solid start but lacked a cohesive theme that brought everything together.
The build-up to their second EP,I’ll Like You, was overshadowed by the infighting between ADOR’s former CEO Min Heejin and HYBE, with ILLIT getting dragged into their spat with plagiarism and workplace bullying accusations.
The album still dropped on October 21, even with the doom and gloom of internal company politics hanging over ILLIT. So now, this is where we separate all the drama from what is more important to this article: the music.
Have BE:LIFT figured out a direction for ILLIT, or will this be another compilation of random songs? Let’s take a look.
The title track Cherish (My Love) is a bit of a curveball, considering their first single Magnetic had them coming out swinging. This time, ILLIT starts with something equally catchy but much more chill. The vibe of Cherish (My Love) reminds me a lot of FIFTY FIFTY. Some may not like that comparison, but that’s the feeling I got when listening to it.
Because this song is less about hammering you over the head with background noise I was able to hear the members vocals more clearly. Minju’s voice is very pretty and I’ll probably be paying more attention to her in the future.
Much like Magnetic, Cherish (My Love) has its package of remixes to consume. The three that qualify as actual remixes take the song in many different directions. The Deep Dive Remix is mid-tempo R&B/Pop, The Moonlight Remix is high-tempo Dance Pop, and the Fever Remix is Jersey Club.
I found the Moonlight Remix to be closest to my musical tastes, but don’t pass on the other two if you’re in the mood to hear Cherish (My Love) interpreted into different genres.
You start getting to the good stuff when you get to the album cuts. That makes I’ll Like You the opposite of ILLIT’s debut Super Real Me, where the title track was strong, and everything else fell off a bit after.
IYKYK (If You Know You Know) was the first song among the album cuts that stuck out to me. It shares similarities to a song by the Japanese girl group XG with the same name; both are UK Garage-style tracks.
But the similarities end there, as ILLIT’s IYKYK leans more towards pure girl pop territory and lacks a recognizable sample. It’s an infectious track that takes ILLIT into unexplored musical territory, and it makes sense that this is the other song from I’ll Like You featured during ILLIT’s promotional rounds on Korean music shows.
Tick Tack is a short but sweet uptempo pop song with plenty of 8-bit video game sounds that help put a unique twist on what would otherwise be a standard girl group b-side. I wish this were longer, as it cuts off as it starts gaining momentum. But it’s still a fun song to listen to.
Comparing I’ll Like You to ILLIT’s debut, I would say that this second EP is much more cohesive from front to back and doesn’t feel like a group of random songs. I’m surprised at the leap of improvement over Super Real Me since a follow-up to a successful debut usually has more incremental returns.
With everything said, don’t let all the outside drama surrounding ILLIT stop you from giving this album a chance. I’ll Like You is certainly worth giving a few spins.
Stream I’ll Like You on Apple Music
Stream I’ll Like You on Spotify
Stream Cherish (My Love) [Remixes] on Apple Music
Stream Cherish (My Love) [Remixes] on Spotify
