Good Kpop Choruses

[anorthite]

I feel in my soul that there's something wrong with the Maverick chorus that has nothing to do with the harness-and-military-lite backflips and flamethrowersness of it all. This has resulted in kpop choruses that are good (synonymous with kpop choruses that I enjoy): a demonstration.

Your chorus needs:

• an A part; this should be the catchiest part of the chorus. if you're insisting on bending the knee to the "i'm a *noun de jour*" trend this is probably where that happens
• a B part specifically a melodic B part, to give us a break from being shouted at by men
• to be short enough that it doesn't feel like the A and B choruses are two separate back to back choruses or a prechorus/chorus situation
• to be long ENOUGH (very specific but really I mean it needs to go somewhere and arrive somewhere, not just repeat/circle around into itself)

Why would anybody mess with this great formula? I don't really know in general but kpop-bgs-specifically: you need to squeeze in a very strenous dancebreak for Reasons, you have to "sing" it all together to give the dozen member precious vocal time making repetition and brevity important, yelling looks cool? Not really sure anyway that's for further study where I track the dark cb trend in its current rather played-out state from circa 2016 and hold "blood sweat and tears" culpable as expected.

Anyway good and bad choruses are demonstrated below by the predictable victim boy groups.

TBZ Ver.
Exhibit 1: Reveal (GOOD)

• the chorus has the initial repetitive melody (down for your love, down for your love, oh x2), and then it has a B part in the form of a stepping-down melody before another repetition of the A part
  

   
Exhibit 2: The Stealer (OK)

• sorttttt of a B part going on here in that the second melody part starts high instead of low which makes it sort of satisfying when you listen to it for a long time but it still feels like it's missing a third part/real second part in some way
• It's just too short overall
• Does have a really nice prechorus imo which helps

Exhibit 4: Maverick (NOT GOOD)

• BACK IN THE GAME SON!!!!!!!!
• This chorus is not good also known as bad which is why I have to talk about jumil all day instead
• Unrelated to structure it has those horrible faux-brass synth things and 2012 trap hi-hats which is all very blackpink ... another party who gets some blame in all this!
• This chorus does have a B part the first time around but the way its arranged is weird
• It's basically an AABB and the B (the synthy vocal section) is longgg I feel like this definitely should have been a case of picking three --> ABA or AAB or something
• The B section doesn't actually go somewhere like the Reveal B section for instance it just goes back into itself
• The second chorus only has the shouting/I'm a maverick repetitive melody and the B part is gone in favor of the bridge ?????
• The first chorus is wayyyy better than the second one and I don't know why they'd do this except the song was too long? But that's because the FIRST chorus was unnecessarily long
• I actually really like the prechorus here too though

Exhibit 4: No Air (GOOD BUT IDK WHY)

• what's on the tin. I don't know why this is so satisfying--maybe the instrumental drop part IS the B section?

Exhibit 5: Right Here (ALSO GOOD BUT IDK WHY)

• I think the reason this song is good is because of the fact that every time I hear the chorus I immediately think of the thunderous stomping of kpop trainee desperation 
• It does technically have the same structure as Reveal (repetitive A x2, B, A again) so not that much of a mystery except that I think the o-o-o-o-o-o-o nanananana part is unlikely to be found in any songwriting manual but WHOOOOO cares

NCT ver.
Exhibit 1: Deja Vu (GOOD)

• I understand some people do not like this song but that is because you spend all day thinking up how to compare music to kitchen implements instead of having taste
• Ok so THIS is how I would fix the Maverick chorus
• The first part is kind of repetitive and sing-song and would be very annoying very fast without the B stepping-up middle part, which also has a change of instrumentation (the SM synth blast), followed by a return to the A part
• The B part is short enough that it doesn't feel like a second chorus and then returns to the identifiable A part again
• BOOM is also really good at this I just wanted to talk about Deja Vu though

Exhibit 2: Hello Future (OK)

• they should have reversed this chorus and done the more repetitive part FIRST and then the part with a longer melody line second
• It's not bad and it has those great chord changes and also Haechan but ... it would have been BETTER the other way

Exhibit 3: Go (BAD)

• my poor meow meow
• The chorus is just not good
• Technically it has the same structure as Deja Vu (repetitive A part x2, longer melodic B part, A again) except the A part is literally just Dream shouting "WE BE SCREAMING GO" at full volume and the melodic part is not boring enough to offset the feeling of being assaulted by this adolescent litany

Exhibit 4: We Go Up (BAD)

• this song makes me mad because there is basically nothing going on in the instrumental or the prechorus (due to Jaemin reasons) OR the actual chorus ... running on unit chemistry and Mark adlibs alone

Exhibit 5: My First and Last (PERFECT)

• I don't even know how to classify what's going on here because the chorus is just one big melodic line, but that's one of many many reasons why it's great!