Stray Kids drops love song of its own style

 Globally popular K-pop group Stray Kids returned Friday with a song depicting the universal theme of love in its own style.

Included in the band’s new EP, “Maxident,” released at 1 p.m., the song “Case 143″ compared one’s confusion from sudden feelings of love to an incident with a case number 143.

“Since the song carries diverse genres and sounds, you’ll probably feel Stray Kids’ signature up-tempo and energetic music style that comes up to your mind whenever you think of the group from it,” member Han said during an online press conference to promote the EP.

It marks the first time that any album from the group has been fronted by a love-themed song since its debut in 2018, but it is not the first long song from the group.

K-pop boy group Stray Kids poses for the camera during an online press conference for its seventh EP “Maxident” on Oct. 7, 2022, in this photo provided by JYP Entertainment (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Han and Changbin participated in composing and writing the lyrics for the main track as a member of the group’s own producing unit, 3RACHA, along with Bang Chan.

“We pondered a lot to figure out how to express love while staying true to our own images. Now I think it can stand out from other love songs because it used our own straightforward way of expressing love,” Changbin said.

For the EP’s name, the band once again used a compound word as it did with its previous EP “Oddinary,” a combination of the English words “odd” and “ordinary,” to carry the message that odd things will soon be perceived as ordinary. The title “Maxident” is a compound word of “max,” or “maximum,” and “Incident,” meaning a big incident together, according to the band.

The new EP is expected to be the first double million-selling album from the group as its preorders reached 2.24 million copies on Sept. 28, more than a week before its release.

In August, last year, Stray Kids became the first K-pop act under JYP Entertainment with a million-selling album for its second full-length album “Noeasy.” “Oddinary,” which was released in March this year, became the band’s second album to sell more than a million copies. The album also made the band the third K-pop act to claim No. 1 on the Billboard 200 main albums chart.

Seungmin attributed the success to the support from the band’s global fandom STAY, saying it still doesn’t feel real.

“I think we live everyday without forgetting where we started and our love for this job, and many people have recognized and loved this attitude. So I’m grateful for this,” he said.

Although the band is now in its fifth year in the job, its members always feel a lot of pressure to work on new songs because they want to show off their growth to fans, according to Bang Chan. But the pressure also serves as a stimulus for development, he said.

When asked about the group’s next goal, Changbin said, “Many people gain strength from music, and I hope Stray Kids’ name will come to their mind first at such moments.”