(first, sorry for the delay in posts, Muse had a family emergency)

Hello! Let’s dive into Kard’s latest album release, their 6th mini album: Icky.

I’ll be honest, the song title felt off putting, so I avoided listening to the title track for a bit. But it’s been stuck in my head on and off since I caved and listened to it. Considering how much I listen to on a regular basis, that’s impressive. So let’s look at the album as a whole.

First, my Latin side is happy with the beats on this whole album. I don’t have the album to check the credits and I was only able to find the producers for the title track, but the whole album feels steeped in Latin flavor. Not just the instrumentation, which is serving Latin Pop and Reggaeton. But the lyrics as well. From innuendo to overtly sexy themes, it’s like Latin music, but in Korean and English. Don’t believe me? Ask a Latin friend what Despacito is about. I would really like to see the producers for the entire album to see if they did have Latin artists work on it, just for my own curiosity.

While Icky and Cake feel very much like they’re drawing inspiration from Puerto Rico and Reggaeton, Without You and Fxxk You feel Colombian inspired. When I played Without You for my Latin Dad, he said “Shakira immediately came to mind.” And I have to agree. Which isn’t to say that it’s copying or bad. I am loving it! But I feel like the tracks on this album would work better on playlists with Latin music than it would any pure K-Pop playlists. And I’m totally fine with that! I’m not super familiar with their discography, but I think I need to check into them further now.

Here are a few tracks that I think could pair well on a playlist together:

(tw: flashing lights and images & texture-related imagery that some might find uncomfortable in the music video below)

KARD is a co-ed group from South Korea under DSP Media. J.Seph, BM, Somin, and Jiwoo debuted as KARD on July 19, 2017 with the mini album Hola Hola and have 5 awards under their belt so far. The name KARD comes from King, Ace, JokeR, & HiDden.