ATEEZ: News and Controversy

Hey! Hallie here!

ATEEZ has a lot of releases and performances coming up in just the next few months. Between album releases, multiple music videos, and a full concert tour, they’ll definitely be busy for a while. And even with some of these not having occurred yet, most of them have already made news. You’ll definitely see posts about some of the upcoming performances and their newest comeback in the future, but for now I’ll go over what we know so far. All we really have right now is the excellent “Turbulence” music video that I’ll get into in a second. There’s also a lot of mixed news in regards to their tour which I will try my best not to be too negative about addressing. So let’s look at ATEEZ’s crazy schedule!

‘ZERO: FEVER EPILOGUE’:

First I’m going into the song, and music video, that was already released! “Turbulence” is a slower piece than you would expect from a leading song on their newest comeback album, but don’t let that chase you away. This ballad is incredible and has such an important message behind it that I become emotional every time I listen to it. The song is about trying to find your place in life, a concept I’ve been struggling with a lot lately. It describes how impatience to find a purpose can turn quickly into feelings of depression and anxiety. It even describes how frightening it can be to wander without knowing which direction is the right one. The chorus asks what we should all aim to be in the future when it’s so difficult to just be yourself most days. But at the end of the song, ATEEZ encourages the listener to strive only for being true to yourself and assures us that it’s alright to appreciate where you are right now so long as you’re still pushing forward. Many people can relate to the feelings expressed here, especially with the state of the world as it has been. I definitely have been feeling lost and aimless lately, which made this song feel like it came at the perfect time. All of the members have their own moments to shine here as well. ATEEZ is getting better and better at making sure all eight members get plenty of time. Jongho’s voice stands out quite a bit in the chorus, as it always does, but all of the vocal line show off the strength and emotion in their voices throughout. Meanwhile Mingi and Hongjoong’s verses are rhythmic and soft, and both even sing at parts of the song. The music video is tastefully angsty, with the members separated into different locations, mostly around a city. The muted colors and hazy lights feel both sad and wistful at the same time. I also really liked the use of cozier outfits in this video, including warm jackets and sweatshirts, to make the whole thing feel more personal. “Turbulence” already ensures that this new comeback is going to be incredible.

So what else is on the album? Fortunately, we already have the entire tracklist available to look at. After “Turbulence” we have two more new songs, “Be With You” and “The Letter”. Then we’ll be getting the Korean versions of “Still Here” and “Better”. The rest of the album is mostly songs we all heard on the competition show ‘Kingdom’. These songs are “The Real”, “Wave (Overture)”, “WONDERLAND (Symphony No.9 “From The Wonderland”)”, and “Answer (Ode to Joy) (Feat. LA POEM)”. The last track on the album will be “Outro: Over the Horizon”. I’m excited to hear the new songs, but I’m also excited to be able to own some of the really amazing variations of their previous songs we heard on ‘Kingdom’. I’m also excited to see the music video for “The Real” that ATEEZ just teased earlier today! We’ll be sure to talk about that MV once it drops!

Concert Tour:

ATEEZ released the news a few months ago that starting January they’ll be going on a world tour. ‘The Fellowship: Beginning of the End’ will start out in Seoul and end in Madrid. ATEEZ will also be doing fan sign events in New York, LA, and Madrid during the tour. All their concert dates sold out in minutes, an incredible accomplishment not many acts can boast. As all ATINY are, I’m so proud of them! That said, there is some controversy surrounding both the concert and the fan meets. For one, the company did nothing to limit the amount of scalpers who could buy tickets to ATEEZ’s concerts. Doing a quick search online will reveal that scalpers got their hands on quite a lot of tickets for these concerts and are already selling them for much more than they’re worth. Many ATINY are frustrated and upset that no tickets are available to them aside from insanely overpriced resale tickets. As for the fan meets, you must enter into a raffle by purchasing ATEEZ’s album to see if you can attend. However, the album is much more expensive than past albums have been, especially where shipping is concerned. This is outpricing a lot of ATINY, especially those who want to enter into the raffle more than once. While this is extremely frustrating for all of us, be sure not to direct your anger at the members. They have nothing to do with these decisions. Plainly put, KQ needs to get better at organizing events like this and they need to catch up to all of the other K-Pop companies who have already come up with safeguards against scalpers. Even with those things in mind, though, ATEEZ did succeed in selling out all of their concerts. Scalpers wouldn’t have been so interested if there wasn’t so much demand. So let’s all keep being incredibly proud of ATEEZ for continuously building up their popularity!

Christmas Performance:

This is something to look forward to, but unfortunately those of us who live outside of Korea won’t be able to see this performance until Christmas day. ATEEZ appeared on the show ‘Immortal Songs’ where they performed three songs we can look forward to. “The Real”, “FANTASTIC BABY” by BIGBANG, and “Nillili Mambo” by Block B. For those who don’t know, Block B in particular has always been a major influence on ATEEZ that you can hear in both the style of their songs and see in some of their pirate concepts. While I love all of these songs and can’t wait to see their performances of all three, “Nillili Mambo” is one of the best K-Pop songs I’ve ever heard and it’s one many ATINYs have wanted ATEEZ to cover for a long time. It’s so difficult to wait to see them perform this song when so many of us have been waiting for so long! I just want to see which members do which parts!

And that’s all of the news for right now! ATEEZ has so much going on to be excited about! They keep surprising me with each new release and performance. They’ve grown so much in such a short amount of time and I can’t wait to see what’s next for them! As for right now though, I hope all of their current projects go really well and that they’ll be able to take a break soon afterwards. Unlike BTS, it seems ATEEZ will be working through the holidays. I’m happy for them, but I hope they can also balance all of this excitement with self care.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie