SuperM Unite: K-pop's Avengers Call For Togetherness On Super One

Halfway through Super One, the initial full-length studio album from the South Korean musical group SuperM, something unexpected happens. Soon following the breakout single “Tiger Inside,” a fearsome composition of guttural growls and clapping beats, cools off, its fiery sound gives way to the twinkling piano keys of the group’s first ballad, “Better Days.” It’s a hopeful song about overcoming hard times collectively, and with its slow-burning, ‘90s-tinged nostalgia, it seems at once outdoors the group’s generally boisterous sound and flawlessly placed. The dichotomous arrangement of the two tracks resonates because the sonic equivalent of reaching the peak of a mountain, then looking out over a cloudy expanse, off to “better days, better days, better days” — and toward forever. You realize the world is so small.


“The lyrics are, sort of, very healing,” the 24-year-old Thai singer Ten says of the track while in a Zoom press conference. Immediately after he speaks, his six collaborators — Taemin, Baekhyun, Kai, Taeyong, Mark, and Lucas — clap and cheer wildly in response. “I think people, once you listen to ‘Better Days,’ you could get that energy that we, us with each other, can make a higher class of day.”


The “Avengers of K-pop” have been making history since they arrived on the circuit far less than per year ago. The initial K-pop supergroup, comprised of seven key members from acts under the parent agency SM Entertainment (SHINee, EXO, NCT 127, WayV), their eponymous EP debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the initial Korean artists to do so with a first release. Their sound became synonymous with the electricity of their earliest, instantly iconic single, “Jopping,” a formula followed by “2 Fast” and “Super Car.” That inherent energy is perhaps what made their work immediately suitable for big-stadium tours: They embarked on their first world tour, We Are the Future Live, months right after their debut, concluding at New York’s legendary Madison Square Garden. It’s also what makes their first ballad such an outlier within their catalog, albeit correctly at house on Super One.


“We all need to come with each other and unite,” 27-year-old Taemin declares of the LP’s core message with the help of a translator. “We all need to come with each other to conquer rather than just the individuals.” That notion resonates immediately and poignantly while the sort speaks to an audience of journalists separated by continents and also a world pandemic; at the end of the chat, they pose for selfies with smiles and peace signs for the digital grid of writers. This experience, a yearning to be with each other while being forced apart, is framed on the bumping, radio-ready English closing track “With You,” which was previously performed while in Global Citizen’s Lady Gaga-curated One World: With each other At House benefit livestream. However the notion appears while in, as on “Tiger Inside,” about unleashing one’s inner strength.


Though collective healing might be the driving theme of Super One, it’s similarly defined by its eclecticism. It grooves into R&B on “Step Up” and “So Long,” while the album’s titular opus, “One (Monster & Infinity),” a hybrid remix, is an all-out banger with a gooey techno beat. The track might give SHINee fans flashbacks: It’s the opening medley of its kind from a SM sort since “Sherlock (Clue + Note).” “When I recorded ‘Sherlock’ with SHINee back in the day, at that time, it seemed like one of the initial times we were doing this, so it felt very experimental,” Taemin adds. “At that time, I was a little bit worried about how this would just be sounding at the end of the recording process… A lot of people might think that combining two songs with each other is, sort of, quite tall of a task, however we were able to do it, and I'm really happy with the results.”


A debut album is a symbolic, defining moment for an artist’s career; on Super One, SuperM are both the sum of their parts while also transcending that, a unique symbiosis among larger-than-life singular talents. And nevertheless, there’s still more for the men to learn along the way: “I'm sure each person feels the same way nevertheless, as artists, any time we begin out our careers, I can't help however to feel that a lot of the moments that we go through feel like we're still attempting to get there, like we're not totally there yet,” 25-year-old Taeyong says. “There are a lot of moments where it might've felt like a failure nevertheless actually, everything was like a step to build up what they have now.”