Moments in Timelessness

KARMA Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 Stray Kids No one does boastful bangers like Stray Kids. The fourth-generation K-pop group has found some of their biggest successes with bravado-led, relentlessly high-energy tracks like 2020’s “God’s Menu,” 2022’s “MANIAC,” 2023’s “LALALALA,” and 2024’s “Chk Chk Boom.” The fact that all were written by 3RACHA, the group’s hip-hop subunit (composed of members Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han), grounds the songs in an authenticity arguably necessary to pull off Stray Kids’ “noise music” concept. On 2025’s  KARMA , “BLEEP” is the most reminiscent of this signature “SKZ” style, but Stray Kids chose the comparatively low-key track “CEREMONY” as the lead single off of their fourth full-length album, released shortly after the conclusion of Stray Kids’ year-long, 54-show Dominate World Tour. In this context, “CEREMONY”’s hooky claim “Yeah, we gon’ celebrate ’cause we got good/Karma, karma, karma, karma” is a triumphal ritual cleanse. 3RACHA took the writing and co...

Hollow - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 Stray Kids In 2025, Stray Kids used their third Japanese mini album,  Hollow , to sing and rap about the highs and lows of life as an active, successful K-pop group, exploring feelings of emptiness despite success and defiant pride in the face of criticism across five tracks. Stray Kids released  Hollow  in the middle of their global dominATE tour, eight years into their career. The context is vital for a self-produced album that gets emotional but never strays far from Stray Kids’ signature high-energy bravado or the buoyant urgency of the J-rock sensibility from which it occasionally borrows. Title track “Hollow” is the most explicit in the album’s exploration of a deep loneliness, not easily shaken. “I embrace everything and run, but why do I feel hollow?/Loneliness haunts me no matter where I am, I’m alone,” Han sings in the chorus, shining some light on the realities of life as a hard-working K-pop idol. In the rat-tat-tat of “Parade,...

Mixtape : dominATE - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 Stray Kids On the heels of 2024 mixtape  HOP , K-pop phenoms Stray Kids continue their tradition of more casual, self-produced “mixtape” releases with  Mixtape : dominATE . The project shares a name with the group’s third world tour: Dominate. Like  HOP ,  Mixtape : dominATE  is predominantly composed of tracks that don’t feature all of the members, with Stray Kids’ eight members breaking up into subunits to write and perform four of the album’s five tracks. In restless, electric guitar-led “Burnin’ Tires,” Changbin and I.N. are “running until the end,” while Han and Felix rap about riding Benzes and saluting fans in swagger song “Truman.” Bang Chan and Hyunjin beckon listeners to follow in head-banging pop-rock track “ESCAPE,” while Lee Know and Seungmin promise to keep singing in lyrical ballad “CINEMA.” The octet is all together for a Korean-language version of “GIANT,” a stadium-stomper that was first released in ...

HOP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 Stray Kids Mixtape  HOP —not to be confused with Stray Kids’ 2018 EP titled  Mixtape —is the K-pop group’s final release in a busy 2024. As in hip-hop, K-pop artists use the term “mixtape” to categorize material released without the level of promotional fanfare of a regular album or single; K-pop mixtapes are usually self-produced and may feature tracks that fall outside of a group’s existing discographic boundaries in some way, e.g., a focus on solo music. Stray Kids subunit 3RACHA (aka Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han) has co-written most of the group’s songs since their 2018 debut.  HOP , however, expands the self-production responsibilities, with each member getting co-writing credit on their own solo songs, originally performed as part of the group’s “dominATE” world tour set list. In addition to the solo tracks,  HOP  includes two versions of lead single “Walkin on Water,” an old-school hip-hop track reminiscent of BTS’s “Jump,” which ...

GIANT Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 Stray Kids

ATE ALBUM ∙ K-POP ∙ 2024 Stray Kids A confident cross-cultural statement from one of K-pop’s biggest groups.

SKZ-REPLAY ALBUM ∙ K-POP ∙ 2022 Stray Kids This present for fans wraps up web releases with bonus tracks.

MAXIDENT ALBUM ∙ K-POP ∙ 2022 Stray Kids The octet’s latest mini album is worlds away from their early sounds.

  Christmas EveL - EP ALBUM ∙ K-POP ∙ 2021 Stray Kids K-pop’s scrappy upstarts drop a holiday treat in singular style.