Stray Kids hopes 3rd LP "5-Star" can inspire confidence and courage

Stray Kids (JYP Entertainment)

Stray Kids returned with their third studio album “5-Star” on Friday, eight months since their seventh EP “Maxident.”

“It took us around two years to release a studio album after the second one ‘Noeasy,’ because we took a lot of time in choosing the songs that would appeal to Stay and also all of our members,” said Changbin of Stray Kids through a press release. Stay is the name of Stray Kids' fandom.

Despite their worries, the new album helped Stray Kids write themselves into K-pop history by logging 5.13 million preorders by Thursday-- the highest number to date.

This follows the success of their previous EPs “Oddinary” and “Maxident,” topping the Billboard 200 charts twice in a row.

“The driving force behind our success is the love sent from Stays around the world. Sometimes we feel pressured to do better but we know that the attention is love toward us. We are more eager to do better onstage,” said Hyunjin.

“We embarked on our careers because we love to do music, and that’s what keeps us moving forward. We are thankful to have such high expectations, and we hope to grow as artists that can be of help to others through music,” said Seungmin.

The album is comprised of 12 tracks led by “S-Class,” which was produced by Stray Kids’ producing team 3racha. The team consists of band members Bangchan, Changbin and Han.

“We wanted to make a song that best portrays who Stray Kids is. We want to help people tuning into our song to gain confidence. We worked really hard to compose this title track,” the 3racha members said.

“Our producer Park Jin-young really loved the song. He even came to see us shoot the music video for the title track to support us. The song is special and shocking.”

Other tracks in the album are of diverse genres including hip hop, pop, electronica and ballad to embody Stray Kids' broad musical spectrum.

“I wrote the lyrics to the sidetrack ‘Super Bowl,’ which is made up of addictive sounds, and also the side track ‘FNF,’ through which I tried to convey what I felt when my home country of Australia experienced an immense wildfire outbreak,” said Felix.

For the first time, Stray Kids included English songs, the side tracks “Super Bowl” and “Youtiful,” in their album.

“The track ‘Youtiful’ is written with a beautiful message that we wanted to convey to our fans worldwide. We wanted to gift them with the message that they look beautiful as they are,” said Bangchan.

Stray Kids collaborated with rapper Tiger JK for its side track “Topline.”

This is not the band’s first time working with Tiger JK, as they performed together at the 2022 MAMA Awards.

“We were so happy and honored to collaborate with Tiger JK. His rapping and rhyming lyrics were unbelievable,” said Changbin.

The Stray Kids members expressed hopes that this new album would contribute to their growth as artists, and be remembered by many as a good album.

By Hong Yoo(yoohong@heraldcorp.com)