JYP Entertainment/Republic Records girl group ITZY released their first original English single “Boys Like You” on Oct. 21. The single coincides with a new project that will be released later this year. On Nov. 8, the project was revealed to be a new album, titled “Cheshire” and will be released on Nov. 30.
The song itself is about a failed relationship with a boy. Lines like “Don’t forget, you’re the one that tried to get with my friends,” imply that the boy cheated on the singer with the singer’s friends. The chorus, with lines like “’Cause you’re crying like a baby, but do I look like your mommy?” makes it clear that the boy did not take the breakup very well and might be too immature for them after all.
Many netizens (internet users) have compared the song’s melody to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” The song’s subject matter is highly reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s early discography. Coincidentally, the song was released on the same day as Taylor Swift’s “Midnights (3am edition)” album, which may have overshadowed it.
A music video accompanied the song’s release. The video depicted the group’s members, Ryujin, Yuna, Yeji, Lia and Chaeryreong, at a Halloween party in a living room, with all of them wearing angel costumes, where they see the boy that each of them dated and broke up with dressed as a knight. He waves at them, but they do not wave back. The scene switches to them dancing in front of a plain white background, now wearing black clothing, and occasionally accompanied by paper photos of the members or graphics that appear to be laid over the video.
As the video progresses, it switches between the party, the white background now accompanied by a pink stage and a city background, where the girls wear white and blue clothing. Eventually, the girls show up in the city with their angel costumes as the boy cheats on each of the members with the others. The video ends with the party guests abandoning the boy and dancing with the girls in a nearby bedroom, clearly demonstrating their breakup and the end of their relationship.
The music video represents the song’s lyrics very well. For instance, when the girls sing the line: “I see through sweet little lies, and every excuse,” it is sung during a part of the video where one of the girls attempts to get revenge on the boy while he is dating another girl.
The song received relatively little promotion for a major K-pop single, only providing some teaser images and videos. The first teaser image, released on Oct. 16, depicted a cake with the song’s title written on green icing with the “You” messed up, hinting at the song’s main theme. The second teaser image, released on Oct. 18, featured the girls in their angel outfits against an orange and black background. The third teaser image, released on Oct. 21, featured the girls in their stage outfits against a white background with crayon-like imagery on the top of the poster. The teaser images successfully promoted the song and helped generate intrigue by implying what the song was about without outright stating it.
The first teaser video, which was released on Oct. 17, was 24 seconds long and depicted the girls at the party in their angel costumes while the same boy dressed as a knight waved at them. The second teaser video, released on Oct. 19, was 18 seconds long and featured the girls on the stage before transitioning to the scene from the Halloween party.
The song was not promoted through conventional means (such as performances, remixes, multiple types of music videos or talk show appearances). Despite a limited amount of promotion, the group did an Entertainment Tonight interview on Oct. 27, where they revealed that the “Checkmate” tour would feature a live-debut of the song. The group also performed the song in Los Angeles as part of their tour, wearing their stage outfits. Another way that they promoted the song was through two series of Youtube Shorts, one where they danced to the song and another where they showed off the outfits worn in their video.
JYP Entertainment released one major supplemental video after the single came out: a 24-minute behind the scenes video. In the video, members added additional commentary between takes, such as mentioning that the city set’s small scale was the result of their imaginations, as well as insight into each of the members transforming into different personas for the music video.
ITZY’s “Boys Like You” is a fun breakup song that adds to the group’s list of great K-pop singles. In spite of their limited promotional efforts, I wish them much success in the market, and hope to see them on the charts one day.
Bailey Kanthatham is a Entertainment Staff Writer for the fall 2022 quarter. He can be reached at bkanthat@uci.edu.
