Ranking. Every. GFriend. Album (Part 2)

To celebrate GFriend’s 5th anniversary, I have decided to rank and do a mini-review of each of their albums. This is part 2 of the post and we have reached the final top 5.

Read part 1 here

The album that began everything, the start of a legend.

Despite it only having 3 songs, all of them are just excellent and so well put together, with each showing a slightly different sides of GFriend’s ‘powerful-innocence’ concept. “Glass Bead” serves perfectly as an introduction to everyone who GFriend is, a young group of girls who might look pure and fragile as a glass bead, but are strong enough to protect themselves and the ones they love. The track has been compared to the legendary “Into the New World” by SNSD for its similar vibe, and tbh I think it’s a good thing. Since I am a SONE myself, I have always love seeing junior groups paying tribute to SNSD and the fact that GFriend’s music is similar to SNSD’s is a total plus for me.

The first b-side of the album is “White”, the song that GFriend was actually suppose to debut with. While “Glass Bead” make people nostalgic of SNSD’s debut back in 2007, “White” takes listeners all the way back to the late 90s when groups like S.E.S or Fin.K.L would release something similar to this. This song is another innocent dance track, but with a more dreamy and softer feelings. In contrast, “Neverland” is upbeat and fun, with an addictive hook that would make anyone can’t help but chant ‘Welcome to the Neverland!” every time listening to this bop.

What I love most about this mini album is how much they accurately represent GFriend at that time. They are pure but powerful in “Glass Bead”, but also soft and sentimental in “White”, and lastly playful and fun in “Neverland”. Season of Glass couldn’t have done a better job introducing to the world who GFriend is.

Asides from a best-of album and multiple singles, Fallin’ Light was GFriend’s first original Japanese material. If you think GFriend’s Korean songs already sound like anime songs, you have heard nothing yet until you take a listen to this album.

By the time when this album dropped, only 4 of the 11 were actual new tracks, as all the other songs were already part of the previously released singles. Tbh that bumped me out a lot since I was expecting bunch of new songs to bop to. But when I sat down to give the album a listen in one go, every single song hit so. freaking. hard! It was just back to back magic of pure anime songs. “Fallin’ Light” is an amazing title track and very fitting to represent the mood and vibe of the whole album. “Emotional Days” is one of the new tracks that were revealed, and immediately became a hit among Buddies due to its beautiful melodies and the members’ outstanding vocals. My personal favorite of the album is definitely “My My My”, a bright rock song that would remind listeners a lot of Dreamcatcher (whose music I also absolutely adore), plus this track brings back the powerful Yuju’s high note that we all miss so much. The last new track of the album was “Koi no Hajimari”, a soft and bright bop that just makes me feel like running through a field of green grass surrounded by beautiful nature in a Ghlibli animation. And even though the rest of the album were songs I already knew, they were surprisingly amazing to listen as a whole album.

This album was just everything that I imagined on how would GFriend’s music be like in Japan. It’s full of emotions, innocence, and anime-ish bops!

Released right after the massive success of “Rough”, this comeback was highly anticipated by both the fandom, the public, and even the pressed haters. Following the same formula that made GFriend popular, the title track “Navillera” continued their signature sound of emotional dance track that only them can do so well.

The album follows a retro concept, and a lot of the tracks remind me of music from 2nd generation Kpop groups. While promoting this album, the members emphasize a lot on the variety of genres that were presented in this album. And that definitely was the strongest point of this release. From Reggae, R&B, Rock, House, to even Dubstep, this album has got it all. What’s even more amazing is that they managed to turned all of those genres into sounding very GFriend-like. Every songs in LOL just sound like it was made for GFriend and none of them seem out of place or was seem like that they were put in just for filler purpose.

With 10 songs in total, this album has a lot to choose from. “Gone with the Wind” is a clear stand-out because of its strong beat and more modern sound compared to the rest of the album. Since it is a dubstep song, it is also accompanied with an awesome choreography that everyone needs to see (seriously go look it up on youtube now). “Compass” is a personal favorite of mine since they managed to make EDM sound so sweet and sentimental. “Fall in Love”, “LOL”, “Click” are all cute bops that I would recommend to anyone who’s a fan of the bubblegum genre. “Mermaid” is another song that stand out from the album because it’s the only one that brings a sad emotion. The lyrics are so beautiful and the emotions in the girls’ vocals really help to made this song sound so magical and whimsical. The whole album is like a trip to a colorful, retro amusement part, with each track representing a different ride that brings a different feelings, but all of them still gives you a the same joy.

If only Time for Us was nearly as good as this, sigh.

This era marks the end and the finale to GFriend’s famous School Trilogy. Also to give you some TMI, this was the era that I officially became a Buddy. I already had a soft spot for GFriend ever since SinB reminded me of my first ever bias Jessica Jung, and I continued to fall for them when I take a listen of “Me gustas Tu”. But the very moment that I watched “Rough” MV for the first time, there was no going back. It was such a magical moment, every single scene of the MV and every part of the song just touched some parts of my heart and I was completely obsessed with it. This was the first time I ever feel so impacted by a song since I first watch SNSD’s Gee, the very song that made me listen to Kpop. To summarize, listening to Rough for me was like meeting Jesus.

Not only is “Rough” a beautiful masterpiece that can’t be topped, this era also delivers a flawless album. Snowflake serves as the perfect finale to the iconic School Trilogy. The album showcases everything that the previous two album presented, as well as an extension to GFriend’s identity. “Luv Star” and “Someday” showcase the bright image that GFriend already showed from the past two releases. “Someday” in particular is one of my all-time favorite GFriend track because of its beautiful up-lifting lyrics and the emotions that run through the song which makes me feel so comforted on my worst days. “Trust” was GFriend’s first ever ballad song and imo it is still their best ballad. It’s very simple and pretty but sometimes simple is the best. The track that really pop out from the rest is “Say My Name”. At that time, GFriend had only done bubblegum dance tracks that were bright and cute, but “Say My Name” showcases a more mature, slightly darker, and more emotionally-complicated side of the girls, and proved that GFriend can do more than just the frame of schoolgirls concept.

All the tracks of the album tied in very well with each other and that’s what I love most about GFriend’s albums. A lot of the time, the album’s concept is built around the title track, while the b-sides just seem to be songs that are randomly put together. But it felt like SouMu decided on an overall concept for the album first and then started to choose the songs that would go well with that concept. My biggest applause to the staffs that are behind the selection of GFriend’s music and concept.

And there you have it ladies and gays, GFriend’s very best album is their 4th mini album The Awakening. It has been 3 years since its release and it still is waiting to be topped. Despite it being labelled as a ‘flop’ by some, there is just no denying to the quality of this golden album. This era witnessed GFriend shedding away (only for a while) the innocent schoolgirl look and tried on a more chic, girl-crush style, and you can probably say this is their first attempt of a dark concept. The album took inspiration from 80s-90s retro imagery of shoujo mangas and turned GFriend into romantic knights who was awakened to love. And all the tracks follow this distinct concept, with every songs carrying the dreamy, romantic, but also strong and chic feeling.

“Hear the Wind Sing” starts the album with a bang and already show listeners that this is gonna be one ride of an album. “Hear the Wind Sing” is a breezy, spring-like dance track but never miss the signature sentimental that GFriend songs always have. Unlike the schoolgirls from their past releases, GFriend bring in a more lady-like feeling for this track, showcasing a visible maturity. The title track “Fingertip” continued the excitement from the last track and bring us a retro disco dance track. As expected from the concept change, this title track have a lot more funk and energetic beats compared to their past works proving their diversity but while still maintaining the GFriend sound. The album continued with an interesting track that is “Contrail”. As the group’s first ever song with the genre of New Jack Swing, this track presents a quirky, interesting, but also emotionally complex side of GFriend as Sowon and Yerin get to showcase their laid-back low register while Yuju and Eunha belting out those powerful notes. “Contrail” sometimes is laid-back and chill, but also emotional at the same time, which is what make the track so intriguing.

“Please Save My Earth” is definitely an interesting song title that catches your attention, and imo this is also the most interesting song of the album. Though not confirmed, I believe this whole album’s concept was based on the manga “Please Save My Earth” by Hiwatari Saki. This shoujo manga involved a group of human-like aliens who was reincarnated as Earthlings in their next life, who must remember their past lives using ‘The Awakening’. Yup, that’s the plot idk about you but I think it’s clear where SouMu get their inspiration from. Anyway, back to the actual song, “Please Save My Earth” is a whimsical, musical-like track that tells the love story between a couple that seems like the moon and the Earth. The beautiful fairy-tale-like melodies and epic build-up gives the song a very grand feeling, and the girls’ amazing vocals (especially Yerin) is just the icing on the cake. Continuing from the emotions of the last track, “Rain in the Spring Time” takes listener on a slower, calmer ride as the ballad track of the album. Just like a spring rain, the song is refreshing and calms you down. This ballad also differs itself from other GFriend ballads because it was produced by foreign producers, so this ballad have a more modern vibe to it. When you thought the album was gonna ended slowly with the ballad tracks, “Crush” said ‘Nope!’ and give us a total banger for us to shake our ass off to finish the album off. Having the same producer as WJSN’s “Secret”, this track displays the same epic-ness that makes listeners can’t help but bop to it.

With absolutely fantastic tracks and a consisting theme throughout the album, The Awakening is without a doubt GFriend’s strongest album. Even if all the songs are versatile with different genres, they all tied down to the same concept. The Awakening is THAT album.

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This post took so long to finish because of busy college schedule but I’m glad it’s finally done. So there you have it, if you want some recommendation for GFriend’s albums, just look through these reviews and figure out what fits your taste. I love their music so much and I hope more people would take a listen to some of their b-sides because they are gems.

GFriend is coming back on Feb 3rd 2020 so please anticipate, bye!