Hi! It’s Annie!
Like most every K-Pop group right now, there’s a lot going on with ATEEZ. The K-Pop industry seems to be working overtime to fill the void of regular BTS content and the question of whether or not they will be exempt from the military is still in the air. It seems that every group is doing twice as much as they usually do. Personally I hope that this onslaught of giving idols even more work stops soon. If anything BTS should have been an example as to why it’s so important to not overwork idols and be aware of mental health. But that aside, ATEEZ keeps coming up with scores of new projects and more and more theories have been coming up about what might be next. So I’m going to go over some of the upcoming or current ATEEZ projects that I’ve been trying my best to keep up with this time around. They’ve been putting out so much I can’t always be on top of everything, but I certainly try to be! There will be some SPOILERS for ‘WANTEEZ’ in this post!
Idol Radio:
ATEEZ was one of the most popular guests on Idol Radio and quickly stole attention and hearts with how amazingly chaotic they were every time they appeared on the show. So it shouldn’t have startled me at all when they announced that Hongjoong and Yunho would be the new hosts for this season of the show. But I still couldn’t quite believe it and have been absolutely blown away by the content we receive of these two amazing dorks every week. I think we can all agree that Hongjoong and Yunho were perfect options for hosts. About twice a week they have new guests to meet with and new dances to learn from the corresponding comebacks. ATEEZ is well known in the industry for having some of the most difficult choreography of any group ever created and the members are known for learning choreography at record speeds. In other words, everyone has been impressed at our boys learning brand new choreography in about three minutes and dancing with the artists on the show. I am so happy that they’re getting more recognition for their dancing abilities from this show! We’re also getting adorable TikToks of HoHong, including one very recent ‘Sailor Moon’ one that absolutely sent me. ATEEZ? And ‘Sailor Moon’? How did I survive this??? Not to mention that the promotional photos for this caught me by surprise. I was expecting host-like and friendly photos but instead we got attractive almost ‘Deja Vu’ era photos of HoHong. I become more and more thankful every week for Yunho and Hongjoong being chosen as the season three hosts.
ATEEZ OST:
ATEEZ has right after each other announced two OSTs with a potential third one also coming soon. Both of them are already out for your listening pleasure and the first is called ‘Let’s Get Together’. I always love how versatile ATEEZ is between their more hardcore and darker themes, to their meaningful songs that explore deep themes, to their lighthearted hopeful songs. This is one of their more lighthearted tunes and reminds me a lot of songs like ‘Dreamers’ or especially ‘Be My Lover’ which was one of their collaboration songs with Kim Jong Kook. It has the feel of an ATEEZ song while definitely sounding like it could be the best song in an OST. San, Yunho, and Jongho get a lot of this chorus, but I found the OST here to be fairly well divided between the eight of them. With every new release it feels like they sing even more seamlessly with each other. This group is truly the perfect blend. Then Jongho singularly released his OST ‘Youth Fairytale’. This is not Jongho’s first time taking on an OST by himself, but this is probably the most upbeat of the songs he’s released. Instead of the slower love ballads we usually hear from him, we got pulsating beats and a lighter air to his voice. And of course, his voice is just as amazing as it always is. Jongho isn’t called one of the best voices in K-Pop for no reason. With how involved ATEEZ has started being in variety shows, general K-Dramas, and OSTs I wouldn’t be surprised to see much more from where all this came from. I know many of them loved their past acting gigs, so I wonder if we’ll see any of them back on our televisions screens sometime soon.
WANTEEZ Episode 7:
I know we’ve all been keeping up with the individual episodes of ‘WANTEEZ’ because I see it shared each week more than any of their past variety shows! They’ve been amazing and so diverse in content! But this most recent one was nothing short of adorable. This episode focused on testing their friendship by having them answer questions about each other and performing for each other with first impression dances. The big highlight from this episode that’s being spread everywhere right now is Wooyoung’s first impression dance which involved embarrassing the others with Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexy Back’. I was half surprised that KQ was ok with it and half not surprised at all because we all expect this from Wooyoung. I’m in love with the fact that KQ has been approving of more of an uncensored ATEEZ than we usually see in most groups. They’re all adults and I’m all for stopping pretending like they aren’t! This also featured Yunho recreating the Digimon dance from his childhood that went viral not that long ago. Hongjoong and Yunho recreated this dance on the first episode of ‘Idol Radio’, but I’m always a sucker for each time he does it. Of course, most of the songs were chaotic in the best ways. But the end result of the episode was adorable. It was cute to see Yunho and Mingi and San and Wooyoung choose each other without the other knowing. And it was so amazing to see how close they all really are, even if they got a question wrong occasionally. San even knew what number that Yunho usually sets the thermostat to! Roommate goals! And Hongjoong and Seonghwa always being stuck together no matter what happens is hilarious and so perfect for them. Yeosang’s sarcasm always makes my day and Jongho got all the love from his hyungs this episode as well. It was one of the cutest episodes of this variety show so far! To say that I’ve been looking forward to this every week would be an incredible understatement.
Hair Changes and Theories:
At a recent K-Pop convention, and the couple of days before that, it was revealed that many of the members of ATEEZ had changed their hair. Mingi now looks like literal fire with his yellow to orange to darker orange hair, Yunho became the latest member of ATEEZ to join the Oreo Line (his little “Surprise!” on ‘Idol Radio’ literally took me out with how cute it was), Wooyoung’s hair is now a vibrant shade of pinkish red, and Seonghwa has gone a whitish grey color. With all of these hair changes, it’s become clear that it has to be for a reason. While some theorize that they could just be for the concerts coming up, many (myself included) feel that the timing is too far off for the concerts in particular. They usually dye their hair right before a project if they do it for that project; so the only thing that comes to mind is that it has to be an unannounced secret project. Some people are saying that it must be a comeback, but it would be wild to have a comeback so soon after their last album. While I would love a comeback, I would also kind of be worried if this was for a comeback. To me that would definitely say that ATEEZ is working way too hard. Especially with all of these other projects they’ve recently taken up and a tour on the horizon. But whatever it is, I hope that ATEEZ is excited about it and I know that I will be!
I’m hoping that after these upcoming concerts ATEEZ will get some kind of break. Because after these last few years of constant working, they really deserve one. And after this period of all these fourth generation groups being worked like this, I hope all of them get breaks. But, of course, I always love every piece of content that ATEEZ releases. It always brightens my day and gives me something to look forward to each week. And with struggling in getting back to normal life after everything that’s happened, it’s so amazing to have ATEEZ through it all. I can’t wait to see them in November. I can hardly believe that it’s only one month away at the same time it still feels like it’s so far away! I swore to go back to their concert after Hongjoong told us all to come back in LA so I’ve been waiting (kind of impatiently) for the concert. I seriously can’t wait to see these boys again!
See you across the pond!
Sincerely, Annie
Oreos & Peanut Butter 