In this article, we will tell you about five top boy-bands whose members are also composers. Here are the current top five South Korean boy-bands which self-compose most of their own music!
STRAY KIDS
This group is the result of the survival program show called “Stray Kids (스트레이 키즈)”, created by JYP Entertainment and Mnet. The show ran on Mnet from October 17 to December 19, 2017, and featured male trainees from JYP who competed for the chance to debut as part of an idol group. The group Stray Kids is made of the top nine contestants from the show. Members: Bang-chan (Leader), Lee-know, Chang-bin, Hyun-jin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N Ex member: Woo-jin Years Active: 2017 – present Label: JYP Entertainment Stray Kids have their own in-house songwriting team, named “3RACHA”, that consists of Bang-chan, Chang-bin, and Han. “We are given a lot of freedom. It is mostly what we want to speak. It is our lyrics and our melodies. So we would write all our songs. We finish a song, and we would show it to our big boss, JYP. And he would give feedback on it. And yeah, it is beautiful teamwork,” the leader Bang-chan said, in an interview with Forbes on June 6, 2019. He added, “Honestly, having the opportunity to even write songs for the team is a great big honor. But because we still have a long way to go, we hope to become songwriters who can inspire others and give energy and hope to people in need.”
Mixtape
Mixtape is a pre-debut Extended Play (EP) that was released on January 8, 2018. It consists of seven songs, all of which were composed by 3RACHA (Bang-chan, Chang-bin, and Han), with the help of several professional producers.
I Am Not
I Am Not is a debut Extended Play (EP) that was released on March 26, 2018. It consists of seven songs, with one bonus track. All the songs were composed by 3RACHA, except the song “Not!”, which was composed by Bang-chan, alone.
I Am WHO
The group’s second Extended Play was released on August 6, 2018. It consists of seven songs with one bonus track, all of which were composed by 3RACHA, except the song “WHO?”, which was composed by Woo-jin, Han, and Felix, and the bonus track, “Mixtape #2”, which was composed by all of the members Stray Kids.
I Am YOU
This is the third Extended Play and was released on October 22, 2018. Like the first two EPs, it consists of seven songs with one bonus track. All the songs were composed by 3RACHA, except the song “You”, which was composed by Chang-bin, Hyun-jin, and I.N, and the bonus track, “Mixtape #3”, which was composed by the entire group.
Clé 1: MIROH
This is the group’s fourth EP, and was released on March 25, 2019. As with the previous albums, this also has seven songs with one bonus track. About half of the songs were composed by 3RACHA. The songs “Entrance” and “Chronosaurus” were composed by Bang-chan and the other producers, KAIROS and samUIL. The song “19” was composed by Bang-chan and Han, and the bonus track, “Mixtape #4”, was composed by all of the members of Stray Kids.
Clé 2: Yellow Wood
This is the group’s first special album, and was released on June 19, 2019. It consists of three new songs and all four Mixtape songs. The new songs were composed by 3RACHA and, as previously mentioned, the Mixtape songs were composed jointly by the group as a whole.
When Stray Kids was interviewed by Forbes, the leader, Bang-chan, talked about how they compose their songs, “When we write our songs, we do think about what we have written before and how we need to continue off of that and what we need to think about writing on next. It is okay, it is not that difficult. But we do need to think about it.” Here are some of the moments when they were composing their songs, which you can watch in the “Stray Kids” video, below!
