Ranking. Every. GFriend. Album. (Part 1)

If you have checked out my ult list at the top of this blog, you would know GFriend is one of my favorite groups. In fact, since my all-time favorite group SNSD is inactive, GFriend is currently my no.1 priority. And they have just reached their 5th anniversary this January of 2020. To celebrate that, I am gonna do a ranking (and short reviews) of their discography.

Kpop is an industry that sadly moves so fast and companies have no choice but to squeeze at least 2 comebacks per year if they want to keep their artists relevant. This results in albums being rushed and barely have the same quality as albums from Western artists who spend over years perfecting an album. With a length of 12 songs, Time for Us sadly only have half of those songs are memorable. A few of the tracks are repetitive and seemed like only were added to the album just for fillers. “Our Secret” and “Truly Love” are both tropical house songs, why need both? Songs like “Glow” and “It’s you” though nice to listen, but forgettable. But perhaps Time for Us’s biggest weakness is failing to showcase something new to GFriend’s music. Even though it is their first full length album after 2 years since LOL, the growth compared to that album is quite ambiguous.

However, Time for Us still have its charm. Stand out tracks like “You are not alone” and “L.U.V” managed to do what most of the tracks couldn’t: add different colors to GFriend’s discography. While “YANA” is an epic healing anime-opening-like track, L.U.V bring in the urban vibe and hip-hop groove to the album. “Show Up” and “Only 1” are also some of tracks I would recommend from the album.

Though I wouldn’t say there’s any bad song in the album, due to its lack of versatility, Time for Us is unfortunately GFriend’s weakest album .

Recommend track: Only 1, You are not Alone, L.U.V

This album was released early in their career and features the title track “Me gustas Tu” – GFriend’s breakthrough hit song (and Korea’s national anthem btw). The only reason why it ranks so low is partly due to the less number of songs in the album. 1 out of 4 is a song I feel kinda meh about so it results in this low ranking. Anyway, this album perfectly represents GFriend in that time of their career: bright, youthful, fresh, and summery (since it was a summer comeback). All of the songs have influences from 90s-00s classic Kpop song which I love, without any interference from those noisy EDM sound. “Me gustas Tu” and “One” are both cute bops made by the geniuses Iggy Youngbae themselves, while “Under the sky” is a refreshing healing song that gives hope to listeners. I feel bad for disliking the remaining song of the album which is “My Buddy” which is a song for fans, but the song just doesn’t do anything for me (Yuju’s high notes are amazing in there though). Overall a nice album and always nostalgic to hear it again once in a while.

Recommend track: Me gustas Tu, Under the sky

Another album from 2019 on the lower ranking, yikes! However, Fever Season’s flaw is totally different from Time For Us. While Time For Us lacks versatility and fail to showcase a new side of GFriend, Fever Season did both of that, and quite well actually. The album has a wide range of songs with different vibes and moods, in addition to being the album that represent a change in their sound and concept to a more mature and modern image. However, the songs are great, but not excellent. Every Buddies (GFriend’s fandom) know GFriend have bunch of legendary b-sides like “Rainbow”, “Flower Garden”, “You are not Alone”, “Hear the wind sing”,… but when I think of a track like that in Fever Season, none really comes to mind.

But I never say any of the songs are bad, nope all of them are actually really nice. “Mr.Blue” and “Wish” are trendy tropical vibe songs with really addicting melodies, “Smile” is a fan-favorite with upbeat, cute tunes and almost sounds like a Twice’s song, “Paradise” display a new charm of GFriend with its jazzy and chill vibe, while “Hope” is exactly how a S.E.S song would sound like back in the days, with lyrics by the members themselves. Though a bop, “Flower (Korean version)” seems kinda out of place for me in this summer-themed album. So as I say, all are great songs, just unfortunately not amazing enough compared to other GFriend’s legendary b-sides.

Recommend track: Wish, Smile, Mr. Blue, Paradise

I have a confession to make, I absolutely hated this album at first! I hated the title track, I hated the comeback, I hated the promotion, I literally just pretended this comeback didn’t happen for 2 months. Part of the reason is because I hated how SouMu rushed this comeback with only 2 weeks of preparation (wtf) and the girls themselves didn’t even know they would comeback so soon. The bigger reason why I wasn’t fond of the comeback was because how bland Sunny Summer (the song) sounded for me at first. It just didn’t sound at all like a GFriend song, the use of random English lines, the repetitive hook in the chorus, and the overall lack of sentimental feelings usually presented in GFriend’ songs. So yeah, I basically ignored this comeback and the whole album.

But after the promotion had ended, I strangely found myself to be more and more fond of Sunny Summer (the song btw, I hate when they name the album with the same title as the title track). I realize that because it didn’t sound like a typical GFriend song, that’s why it’s charming. The fun and upbeat summery vibe just keep getting stuck in my head and I ended up falling in love with the song even though I refused to listen it at first. After opening up to the title track, I started to give the album a second chance too. “Windy Windy” and “Love in the Air” are two absolute gems. “Sweety” is popular among non-fans, though it’s not really my cup of tea. Although I wasn’t really fond of “Vacation” at first, but the live performances really changed my mind because of how fun and exciting the choreography is.

Overall, I think Sunny Summer’s biggest strength is that it totally accomplished its goal of being a special album just for summer. Every track of the album serve a different feeling of summer, from the fun and excited summer day in “Sunny Summer” and “Vacation”, to the dreamy and refreshing wind of a summer night in “Windy Windy” and “Love in the Air”. What’s more amazing is “Sunny Summer” even managed to sneak its way into my top 5 favorite GFriend’s title track!

Recommend track: Sunny Summer, Sweety, Windy Windy, Love in the Air

7. Parallel / Rainbow (2017) – 5th Mini Album & 1st Repackage Album

Parallel had huge shoes to filled when it being released right after The Awakening, one of my favorite GFriend albums ever (yup spoiler alert The Awakening is definitely ranking high). It was interesting back then to see which direction would the the album go, whether to the more mature vibe of The Awakening or back to the innocent sound of their early releases. Parallel ended up being more of the latter but with a few exception. After “Fingertip” under-performed on the charts, the title track “Love Whisper” brought back their innocent, nostalgic 90s sound and performed a lot better on the charts. For my personal taste, “Love Whisper” is a quite simple song with nice melodies, and with tempo slower than past GFriend’s title tracks. Though not excellent like “Rough” or “Me gustas Tu”, it is still a nice song and I love to listen to it from time to time.

Among the b-sides, “Ave Maria” is a clear stand out, being the only song of the album with a mature sound. The disco beat and the addicting “maria oh maria” makes the song a total hit just from the first listen. “One Half” is a cute bubblegum pop track reminding me of their past b-sides like “One” and “White”. “Life is a Party” also stands out because it features rap for the first time in GFriend’s discography. All in all, this album was nice but it was rather a disappointment after such an amazing album like The Awakening.

However, the repackage version of this album totally pulled up the quality of the album. 2 new tracks were added, which were “Summer Rain” and “Rainbow”. Thanks to these 2 tracks, there was more of a range of emotion and vibes throughout the album, bringing in more of a sadness and sentimentality. “Summer Rain” is literally a sad version of “Love Whisper” and was purposefully made to sound like that. But the real star of the album is without a doubt “Rainbow”. Probably GFriend’s most famous b-side, “Rainbow” is amazing right on first listen. With a guitar solo as the intro (which is already a signature GFriend thing), “Rainbow” is a rock song about healing and finding the rainbow after the rain. Beautiful melodies and lyrics, there is really no wonder why “Rainbow” is GFriend’s most famous and popular b-side.

Recommend track: Rainbow, Ave Maria, Life is a Party

After such a successful 2016, many people considered 2017 a disappointing year for GFriend. However, in 2018 GFriend released Time for the Moon Night and proved to everyone that they still got it. In other words, TFTMN was a revival moment in their career. This album also marked another change in their career: for the first time ever since their debut 3 years ago, their title track was not produced by the duo Iggy Youngbae. Instead, GFriend had Source Music’s in-house producer Noh Juhwan to produced the title track with the same title “Time for the Moon Night”. The switch proved to be absolute magic, as the title track was both popular with the public and the fandom. “TFTMN” still has the classic GFriend’s formula, classical instrumental and sentimental emotions, but with new and different arrangements that gives a slight more magical feeling to GFriend’s sound.

The rest of the album was a somewhat change to their discography as well. “Love Bug” is a playful, catchy dance track a that serves more of a fun, modern side than the rest of their discography. “Tik Tik” and “You are My Star” are both great songs with easy to listen melodies. But “Flower Garden” absolutely steals the show for this album. Produced by another SouMu in-house producer called MIO, this track incorporated elements from all of GFriend’s past works and were put together into this beautiful masterpiece that takes listeners into a magical journey where imaginary flower petals fall in front of your eyes. “Flower Garden” is almost like a combination of music from GFriend, Lovelyz, Oh My Girl, and WJSN, yup it’s that magical! Sadly, this album suffers from a weak link in the form of the 5th track called “Bye”. I rarely dislike tracks from my ult groups but “Bye” is just soooooooooooo boring. I’m not even a ballad hater, I love a great balled, but “Bye” is just so dull that I can’t feel anything despite it supposed to be an emotional track. Such a shame because this album could have been in the top 5 if it wasn’t for it having one bad track.

Just like Umji once said, Time for the Moon Night felt like a second beginning of GFriend, a start of their second chapter. This era transited GFriend from normal school girls, to story-telling magical ladies.

Recommend track: Time for the Moon Night, Love Bug, Flower Garden, Tik Tik

Anyway, this is getting kinda long so I’ll continue on with the top 5 in a separate post. See ya!

And stan GFriend and support their comeback on Feb 3rd 2020!