ODDINARY

The record

ODDINARY is the mini album Stray Kids released on 18 March 2022, with seven tracks. The title track is ‘Maniac’. It follows Christmas EveL by four months and is the group’s first mini album since Clé : LEVANTER of December 2019.

The album introduction on Bugs explains that the title joins odd and ordinary, and carries the message that ordinary people all have something odd about them, so that what is odd is exactly what is ordinary. The same text describes ‘Maniac’ as a song that lays an addictive chorus over bold production, and says its lyrics tell the listener not to be held inside a frame the world has decided but to show a real self. The in-house production team 3RACHA worked on every track.

Reviews

NME’s Tássia Assis reviewed the record five days after release. She wrote that what makes the group special is not only that they self-produce most of their repertoire or how astonishing their performances are, but “perhaps it’s somewhere in the way they are always questioning themselves, and then, they reflect that process back to us like a mirror”. She closed: “While nowadays they may claim to be nothing but ‘Oddinary’, this mini-album is a reflection of their extraordinary passion, wit and growth. It’s an elegant step forward for a group who, hopefully, will never get tired of raising questions.”

Yemi of Idology (아이돌로지) wrote in the magazine’s monthly albums column for March 2022 that this is “an album in which the fluency that comes naturally with experience stands out”. Of the title track she wrote that “compared with earlier records that were all release, it shows a relatively supple mood; the group’s strong energy is still there, but what stood out to me was that they now have room to try modulating it”. She closed that “in making a work that gathers the team’s strengths well on the eve of widening where they operate, one comes to read their future brightly”.

Billboard named the record among its best K-pop albums of 2022. Jeff Benjamin wrote that Oddinary “succeeds with its message to perceive so-called ‘odd’ things as ‘ordinary’ through a cohesive, comforting piece of work”, and that the record “sounds like a SKZ more secure in themselves than ever: the ambition and experimentation of songs like ‘Maniac’ and blitzing trap opener ‘Venom’ are balanced by Oddinary’s more subtle unit tracks”. In the same title’s best albums of the year so far, Jason Lipshutz placed the record at number 42 and wrote that its commercial success “shouldn’t overshadow the artistic triumph of the seven-track project”, because “each song lands with a dazzling intensity”.

Among the tracks

The track three of the reviews put first is the opener, ‘Venom’. Lipshutz described “the wind-up electronic slither of the ‘Venom’ beat” and set it beside “the breathless vocal workouts of ‘Freeze’”. Benjamin called it a “blitzing trap opener”. Assis wrote that the song “trickles down like a spider weaving its web”, and read the group, who usually go out and get it, surrendering here to a force stronger than their own.

Of ‘Muddy Water’ Assis wrote that the closing track by the group’s rappers “is the absolute standout on ‘Oddinary’”, and that over a jazzy, old-school hip-hop melody they “exhibit some of their best verses to date”. Benjamin wrote that the same track “closes the set to fully secure the Oddinary message of a commitment to changing current ‘muddy’ norms and cleansing them for a brighter, better day”. Of the two unit tracks Assis wrote that ‘Lonely St.’ brings back the melodic verve of the group’s early years with light grunge guitars and handclaps, and that ‘Waiting For Us’ segues with soft rock, “giving center stage to their soaring voices”. Benjamin called the same pair the record’s standouts, describing ‘Lonely St.’ as “a melancholy rock-pop cut about feeling lost” and ‘Waiting for Us’ as “a promise to stick together ’til better days”.

Numbers

The Korea Herald, carrying a Yonhap report, said the album entered the Billboard 200 dated 2 April 2022 at number one, making Stray Kids the third K-pop act to top that chart. By the same report it was the group’s first chart-topper and its first chart entry at once, earning 110,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending 24 March, and the agency counted first-week sales of 853,000 copies.