For any group a few years into their career, the choice comes to either follow the trends or set them. With an established discography centering largely on the themes of youth and growing up, entering new concepts as adults can be tricky. With TXT, the past couple of years have felt as if Big Hit is trying to reconcile the lore of youthful angst the company developed so well for the group — one that brought them many fans — and the desire to push the group into new, less thought-out territory. With TXT’s latest, The Star Chapter: Sanctuary and its title “Over the Moon,” TXT manage to break away from their lore into new lyrical territory only to leave listeners wanting.
In a fresh turn for TXT, “Over the Moon” is not a song about growing up, longing, failure, or becoming heartbroken bad boys in leather shorts who throw teddy bears at the wall in defiance. “Over the Moon” is a love song through and through — one that harkens back to the trot classic “With You” in its promise of building a life together in happiness. It also hits on the group’s past upbeat strengths like the zumba stylings of “Blue Hour.” With these references in mind, “Over the Moon” has a lot going for it.
The lyrics speak of “the land of forever” while in the MV the members prepare themselves to run into the wedding hall. Yeonjun grooves in the bathroom, Huening Kai gets his daily workout in ahead of the big day, Beomgyu cuts a ring, Taehyun prepares the flowers, and Soobin stands in the rain in a white shirt. The boyfriend concept is in full force as a water motif carries throughout. This is the spring of their love — promising and hopeful in every way. The members go so far as to discard their umbrellas, ready for the onslaught of spring rain that nurtures their love and fertilizes the land they sing of in the chorus. This is their vow of the beginning of forever as they dance through the second chorus in the wedding venue with flowers arranged behind them.
And then… that’s it? Two verses and two nearly identical choruses? Pretty bold of a group to promise “forever” and not even provide three minutes — much less a climax.
“Over the Moon” begs for a drop-out bridge to pull back the instrumental and give the vocals a moment to shine (think Exo‘s “Love Me Right”), and for all the emotions of love and forever to come to a head in a final chorus with adlibs and funk. A big finish. It’s a track with all the potential to be something or to show something, but instead, it abandons all that promise in the name of perceived trends and a catchy enough hook.
Short runtimes have been the trend not only in K-pop but in pop music for years — they maximize streaming counts, TikTok plays, and the possibility of being added to a popular Spotify playlist. Even last year, The New York Times Popcast praised NewJeans‘ 37-second track “Get Up” for giving the song’s highlights and not bothering with all the filling. But, repeat value, efficiency, and quality are not equal. “Over the Moon” takes the trend to an extreme as it gives quality without reaching proper enjoyability or artistry. It simply leaves listeners wanting the rest of the song.
Now, this is an MV review. Should track length matter if the visual product is what’s covered? Well, yes. By cutting the track short — robbing it of a musical climax — the MV is also undercut. Plenty of plot points are established during the two-and-a-half-minute runtime: each member prepares to arrive at the wedding hall, the water motif builds with the loss of umbrellas, Kai runs somewhere, and Beomgyu has… a kite? But when the track accompanying these scenes goes nowhere and lacks any real build, what hope is there for the narrative?
The MV is filled with quick, disparate cuts — some individual members and some obligatory group drone choreography shots. Rapid cuts leave a lot to take in, but very little to mull over because it’s over before it’s even started. If the point was to get them to the chapel, then mission accomplished. But the final product is a shotgun wedding more than anything — even if the members pull their best Temptation of the Wolves moments with umbrellas.
“Over the Moon” is hurt by its runtime in every way. There was simply too much to squeeze into two minutes. Because of that, there’s also little of the group’s personality in the release on screen or on the track. It’s generic vocals, generic boyfriend scenes, and no oomph. Short tracks with oomph and personality are possible — Kiss of Life did it earlier this year with “Midas Touch” — and TXT are more than equipped as artists to deliver (imagine Taehyun or Yeonjun’s potential adlibs in a bridge). What elevates a track from a promising sample to a well-executed earworm is the company’s willingness to let the artist shine outside of the trends — trust in the group and not a formula for streaming numbers.
What TXT serve with “Over the Moon” and the Sanctuary mini album is akin to the tasting menu of a soon-to-open restaurant: every individual bite-sized sample tastes great, the courses all complement one another, and there is excitement with the new flavors experienced. However — unlike a tasting menu — the true six-course meal is never coming. The title track, as well as the album accompanying it, are all just well-crafted samples; 14 minutes of taste testing but never committing to a whole dish, much less a meal. It’s a highlight reel. Sanctuary and “Over the Moon” promise the quality of all the ingredients and intrigue, but the anticipation of something more is the ultimate item on the menu. And that’s a letdown when clear vocal effort on the part of TXT has been put into crafting something that could have been great.
TXT can deliver something memorable if Big Hit would set aside TikTok sounds and the Spotify numbers game for a moment. They’ve proven it in the past with “0X1=Lovesong” and even “Sugar Rush Ride.” For this unfinished title and Sancuatry, album sales are already in the bag with the physical album; Big Hit doesn’t have to worry too much about rankings when they’ve packaged success with four physical copies and two special versions. It’s a shame that quality is cut short to try to follow trends that few fans or even causal listeners want. Audiences want a song to sing along to, a visual or auditory story they can mull over, and an addition to the discography that shows growth and direction. “Over the Moon” only succeeds in teasing the potential of the group, racking up streams as a default of runtime, and leaving fans wanting because what they’ve sampled sounds so good.
But at least it will do enough numbers for TXT to have a whole fourteen minutes of new tracks to launch another international tour in 2025.
(YouTube. Images via Big Hit Entertainment.)
