Keeping up with K-Pop: STAYC’s “Teddy Bear” is missing its stuffing

On Feb. 14, K-Pop girl group STAYC released their second single album, “Teddy Bear.”

The song strays from the typical STAYC sound that fans have become accustomed to. If anything, the song seems to not know what style it wants to be. 

Each section of the song, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, etc is fine when you listen to it alone; but when you blend it all together, it turns into a Kidz Bop nightmare. 

At the song’s start, a more western style welcomes listeners in. Their signature “STAYC girls, it’s going down” starts the song, and then the song starts to go downhill, fast. 

With an upbeat instrumental, adding a banjo to modern-day synth beats, the song seems to try to blend the country and synth-pop genres together. However, the verse feels empty instrumentally.

This could be overlooked if the vocals over it added dimension, but the mixing is off and makes the girls singing seem swallowed into the belly of the teddy bear. If the vocals were louder, and the instrumental wasn’t as jarring, maybe this song would’ve stood a chance. 

The pre-chorus leading into the chorus was a breath of fresh air, and it’s the sound I wish was kept throughout the whole song. It was ethereal and light, and made me feel like maybe the song could redeem itself.

The vocals in this section also stood out, with a synthesizer being used to give dimension and add contrast. My STAYC girls finally arrived, and I was excited to see if the song could redeem itself. 

And then the second verse came, and the song was completely ruined. 

Trust me, hearing Sieun, the main vocalist, break out of what listeners of STAYC are used to and start rapping was a surprise. After the western beat, hearing 90s hip-hop beats added into the second verse took me out of the redemption arc for the song. 

The addition was random and unnecessary; it feels as if the producers had a random generator deciding what direction the song would go in next. The rap itself is fine, but when you put it next to the already rough start, it felt as if the song was confused about what it was trying to be. 

On top of the song being confusing, the music video also gave viewers an interesting journey. 

Normally, K-Pop videos never make any sense at all to me, but this one really left me in mystery. 

I did not have any major qualms until the bridge of the song, when out of nowhere it was showing STAYC doing a ritual of some sort, maybe praising the teddy bear they were singing about. 

It clouded the music video and made one of the better parts of the song, music-wise, look like a joke because of the music video. 

On top of this, “Teddy Bear” has one of STAYC’s best choreographies, and the music video barely highlighted that. Instead of dancing, we got random storylines that never got resolved, and I had to search for dance practice to see what choreo went along with the song. 

The song is fine; it is just all over the place and is missing something to blend all the aspects of it together, but it does have a catchy chorus, and cute choreography.

After a six-month wait for new music, I wish this comeback never happened, and I hope this is just a tiny error for STAYC, because if this is the direction they are heading in as a group, I fear for their Kidz Bop era.