Release Date: September 24, 2021
Track Listing
- LOCO
- SWIPE
- Sooo Lucky
- #Twenty
- B[OO]M-BOXX
- Gas Me Up
- LOVE is
- Chillin’ Chillin’
- Mirror
- LOCO (English Version)
- DALLA DALLA (Inst.)
- ICY (Inst.)
- WANNABE (Inst.)
- Not Shy (Inst.)
- In the morning (Inst.)
- LOCO (Inst.)
- Thanks to. (Voice track for MIDZY)
Review
ITZY makes another return with their third release of 2021 in the form of their first full-length Korean album titled Crazy In Love. The lead single from this album is LOCO. A song that, according to Spanish speakers, is grammatically incorrect with its title. For the nitpickers out there, LOCA is the proper terminology.
Anyway, LOCO is a song produced by GALACTIKA, the masterminds behind DALLA DALLA and WANNABE. So with that kind of pedigree, it was easy to get excited about LOCO.
However, those expecting a bombastic explosion of high-energy music and throwing everything in the background noises might come away disappointed with LOCO.
It’s probably the most “subdued” a-side the group has released so far. Nevertheless, LOCO is a welcome change from the usual insanity of an ITZY lead song that may take more than a few spins for some to get totally behind.
I believe LOCO is a catchy track enhanced further by its music video with a pimped-out bulldozer and Yuna with a chainsaw, among many other visual goodies. However, I would also consider it a mid-tier ITZY a-side overall. So it’s neither great nor terrible.
The more exciting stuff comes once you hit the second track, SWIPE, a song that has a killer minimalistic Hip-Pop beat and is mainly spoken rather than sung.
The positive messaging behind the lyrics of this song is a topic ITZY has covered in their early career. So it’s nice to see them going back to that type of content now that they have somewhat moved away from that self-love, and empowerment in their more recent material before this album dropped.
As for the rest of Crazy In Love? Subtract all the instrumental tracks tacked on at the end and the English version of LOCO, and you get seven more new songs to take in. The uptempo songs such as #Twenty and B[OO]M-BOXX have some banging beats but are ultimately not that memorable.
I’ll give props to B[OO]M- BOXX‘s composers for encapsulating everything about early ITZY songs into one track. It’s much like the video above I stumbled upon while surfing YouTube. Gas Me Up is a travesty on many levels. And that is all I have to say about that song.
As we near the end of the album ITZY follows a similar path as their previous EP GUESS WHO, where they slow down. The three songs before the English version of LOCO are more examples of allowing this group to work their vocals around different mid-tempo songs. The one that stands out the most is Mirror, the only authentic “slow jam” on the album.
For a first full-length album, this is not bad and it should satisfy the appetites of MIDZY everywhere. It’s not perfect by any means. Tracks four, five and six, along with the instrumentals at the end, are pretty much filler. Crazy In Love feels a bit more cohesive if you take those elements away in my opinion.
