With MY WORLD, aespa is literally screaming that it’s time for the world to take them seriously. Already major players in the k-pop genre barely three years after they debuted with the single “Black Mamba,” you can imagine that this EP will either be raising the bar on what they’ve got to offer to the world or lowering it. Let’s just say they raised the bar to a place where not many artistic hands can reach.
The opening track, “Welcome To MY World,” like the rest of the songs on the EP, is bilingual. Elevated by the careful production and the girls’ frankly beautiful vocals, the song’s catchiness is not lost on any listener. And to make sure that they’ve got their listeners hooked from the get-go, the intro is a sweet vocalization designed to get stuck in your head enough for you to want to replay the song twice, thrice, a dozen times?
“Hey baby, welcome to my world / Beyond where feet fear to tread / It’s a new world / You and me, face to face / In different languages / Your truth remains the same / Again, feels like we are one,” they sing in the softly building track of what it’s like to introduce someone to YOUR world.
The single is accompanied by a video featuring the translated lyrics in English, and while it’s different from the other videos fans have grown to associate with aespa, it still was praised for its simplicity. The video shows the members of aespa, Winter, Karina, Giselle, and Ningning, going on a vacation and discovering new things and experiences. At the end, they encounter an animated figure in the woods – probably a nod to the girls having a correlating avatar of themselves existing in the virtual world.
The following song, “Spicy,” is perhaps more upbeat than the languid rock-influenced trap-pop of its opening track, “Welcome To MY World,” and true to its name, is about being “too spicy.”
“Salty & Sweet” – another single released to tease the album – is about having everything you need to ensnare a lover. It also talks about being up for the ride for the sake of sampling a “different treat”: “I can’t refuse, I can’t forget a different treat/The feeling is real, it feels strange, a meal prepared for you.”
“’Til We Meet Again” rounds out the 6-song effort by saying goodbye, and “’til we meet again,” let the power of music connect us.
Arriving on May 8, the sound and visuals on this new album are both designed to move away from the dark, futuristic “cyberpunk” style and aesthetic of aespa’s previous EPs Savage and Girls. It is also meant to feel like an introduction of the group from their virtual world of Kwangya to the real world. Since their debut, the group has been marketed with a sci-fi narrative that makes them stand out from the rest of their musical counterparts. But with MY WORLD, aespa will be ditching the metaverse for a more “naturalistic terrain,” with a tweet announcing that “Aespa is in the Real World!”