It may be shocking for some to know that there’s actually a huge market for K-pop. Across countries like South Korea, Japan, and China, K-pop has slowly taken over Asia and as such, it’s starting to gain some traction in the western world. The group Monsta X is sure to be the next big thing in Korean Pop, and having just released a new English language album just days ago, they might even be on the way to global success. Their latest release, The Dreaming, has opened to praise from fans and critics alike.
The Dreaming is reminiscent of hit boy band albums from groups like The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Monsta X doesn’t even sound like a Korean band.
Now, this isn’t Monsta X’s debut English album. That came last year, apparently inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, with another mini English album released back in June. Their decision to release yet another with The Dreaming has music fans now screaming for K-pop. The Dreaming is reminiscent of hit boy band albums from groups like The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Monsta X doesn’t even sound like a Korean band, as their command of the English language is indistinguishable from even the world’s most celebrated European and American artists. With that in mind, this new album could be the beginning of expanding their fan base to many new countries.
The first thing to be noticed is that this group had to have hired the best producers for The Dreaming. Nothing is overdone as far as the editing and production goes. The vocals blend flawlessly with the musical arrangement, there’s a balance of real instruments and added FX, and the use of auto-tune is minimal if even hardly used at all. Most importantly, these guys can definitely sing. They can harmonize, stretch runs over an extended period (though the editing probably does help a tad here), and everyone in the band is featured equally across all of the tracks. Being that it is ‘pop music’, the lyrics are still fairly inventive and less formulaic than a lot of pop that gets released in the U.S. market. There are only ten tracks on The Dreaming, but amongst the set there’s barely any room to find fault. Objectively, songs like Whispers in the Dark, Blame Me and One Day would fit right into the American market with no issues. Those three in particular would fare well enough for radio play, generating enough interest to get Americans to listen to the rest of the album.
Monsta X dropped their debut album back in 2015 with a more than a few that have followed since, but strangely enough, their time might actually be now. The Dreaming is the sign of a new direction for the band, seemingly influenced by an older retro genre of pop not seen since the late 90s and early 2000s. Aside from this, there’s no doubting their talent. They can sing in multiple markets and in different languages, showing their potential to be limitless. At the moment they boast over two million monthly listeners, but The Dreaming is likely to raise that number significantly in the months to come.
