Let's talk about ATEEZ
Is ATEEZ as successful as they could be? An investigation...including a review of their new album, Golden Hour: Part.1!
ATEEZ have been around since 2018, and are a solid fourth generation boy group. They have a rabid international fan base and they tour often in Europe, so it would make sense for me, a Europe based Kpop stan, to get into them. Especially since HYBE seems to still be boycotting concerts in Europe and since, during Quarter 1 of 2024, I became a feral stan of their labelmates xikers. I figured it was time to ATEEZ a proper try.
As I’ve done with Itzy and Enhypen, I’ll be doing a deep dive into their history and an analysis of their quantitative success. First let’s start with an overview of members and their agency. ATEEZ is managed by KQ Entertainment, a small agency whose only other group is xikers. However, they do have two sublabels: Seven Seasons, formed in 2013 to exclusively manage Block B (an interesting spin on the labels/artists separation I’ve recently explored), and KQ Produce, a label for their in-house producers and songwriters - in particular, note EDEN is managed here.
Alright, so ATEEZ debuted on October 24, 2018 with 8 members. Interestingly for such a large group, five out of eight members were all born in the same year - 1999. There are two older members born in 1998 (leader, main rapper, and center of the group Hongjoong and visual and oldest member Seonghwa) and one younger member, maknae main vocalist Jongho, born in 2000 who you may have seen go viral last year for breaking apples in two with his bare hands while singing. Half of ATEEZ have main dancer designations - Yunho, San (also lead vocalist), Mingi (also main rapper), and Wooyoung. The final 1999er is visual Yeosang.
So what strategies has a small agency deployed to make ATEEZ stand out in a crowded market and actually survive where many other small agency boy groups quickly fold? Let me tell you what, I keep researching this and I keep finding more and more interesting details about ATEEZ. Let’s list them out here:
Half the group are designated as main dancers and all the rest are also incredibly skilled, so ATEEZ have focused on allowing individual members’ charisma to shine through in their dance moves rather than focusing on synchronization as other groups like Seventeen have.
EDEN (remember him, from KQ Produce?) has produced the entirety of ATEEZ’s discography alongside a team of in house producers.
ATEEZ rappers Hongjoong and Mingi frequently collaborate on songwriting and occasional production. In a recent album, every member of ATEEZ was involved in writing solo and subunit pieces.
ATEEZ also works closely with the same dance crew on (almost?) all of their choreographies, BB Trippin, which I believe is a dance crew that formed to support Block B and continues to work with Block B as well as ATEEZ, Zico, and other artists.
A big part of the ATEEZ mystique is the strong lore and storytelling through their music videos.
They have never released more than 3 versions of an album. This is so admirable and is actually something I control for in my scoring of album sales because it can so easily artificially inflate sales - Itzy released TWENTY versions of their bestselling 2023 EP Kill My Doubt and Enhypen have been releasing ten versions of each album lately. I love that ATEEZ only release 3 versions and I hope they stick to that!
So….members involved in songwriting/producing, individual charm, lots of lore, same team of producers and choreographers…is this giving anyone else major BTS vibes?Let’s dive into their history and discography. For brevity’s sake I’m only going to focus on their Korean output, but note that they have released 5 Japanese albums and singles (which gives them points in their quantitative score, don’t worry).
So in October 2018, ATEEZ debuted with double singles Pirate King and Treasure and an EP, Treasure EP.1: All to Zero, produced entirely by EDEN, Buddy and LEEZ.
I need to urgently interrupt this article to tell you I just listened to Pirate King for the first time and freaking LOVED it!! What the heck?!?! Is this one of the best debut songs of all time? At the time of their debut, the Pirate King music video got 88,000 views in its first 24 hours. Here you really see the impact of being from a small agency - the debut MVs of Itzy and Enhypen got 17 and 9.4 million views in the first 24 hours, respectively. ATEEZ did not chart and did not win any music shows for either of these singles.
Three months later, in January 2019, ATEEZ had their first comeback with Say My Name and associated album EP, Treasure EP.2: Zero to One, again produced entirely by EDEN, Buddy, and LEEZ. And here we all of a sudden see a little jump - the MV got almost 600,000 views in 24 hours, and while it didn’t chart in Korea, it appeared on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales at number 8. I think this jump is truly driven by the strength of music and fan word of mouth.
ATEEZ’s exponential growth continued over the course of 2019. Only six months into their debut, they booked an international tour with no dates in Asia, only small venues across the US, Europe, and Australia. Then in June, they released their third comeback, allowing fans to vote between Illusion and Wave as the comeback single. Fans voted Wave (correctly, I must say!) and it was released alongside EP Treasure EP.3: One to All. This was the first album that Ollounder arrived to produce some tracks alongside EDEN, Buddy, and LEEZ. This was a huge turning point for ATEEZ - both Wave and Illusion earned more than 2 million views on YouTube in the first 24 hours and Wave won them their first two music show wins. International promotion really paying off!
ATEEZ didn’t slow down at all for the second half of 2019, putting out two more albums, their first studio album and conclusion (at least for now) to the Treasure series, Treasure EP.Fin: All to Action, which went number 1 in Korea. Accompanying comeback Wonderland didn’t chart in Korea or win any music shows, but it had the highest yet music video views in 24 hours for ATEEZ (2.3 million) and best World Digital Singles Chart result yet - number 6.
Are you exhausted yet? If you’re keeping track, we are one year into debut and we’ve had four comebacks, a world tour, and five albums. In early 2020, ATEEZ had no plans to slow down - they released an album “Epilogue” to their Treasure series that charted at number 1 in Korea, accompanied by a comeback (Answer) that got 4.6 million views in the first 24 hours. In February, their instagram following climbed to 2 million (they had 200,000 followers the month they debuted). They planned to embark on another world tour with planned shows in Asia this time as well as mostly-sold out schedule in North America and Europe. But then of course, the pandemic forced them to slow down.
During the pandemic lockdown, they held a virtual concert in May 2020 with 1.4 million viewers. Then in July, they released the first EP of their new series, Zero: Fever Part 1. Once again, fans were able to vote on the comeback single choice and they picked Inception over Thanxx. Again, the single didn’t chart in Korea, but ATEEZ won 2 music shows and had a top ten result in the World Digital Song Sales chart with Inception. And the music video brought in a cool 10 million views in the first 24 hours. You might notice a sonic shift between eras as well - during the Zero: Fever series, the in house production team around EDEN were joined by other collaborators, including key players Peperoni and Oliv.
In 2020 and 2021, ATEEZ focused more on building their popularity and visibility in Korea, appearing on two popular singing shows. In 2020, they appeared on and won on the show called Immortal Songs, where artists perform covers of popular songs. In 2021, they appeared on Kingdom alongside other boy groups. In March 2021, they released Zero: Fever Part 2, and it looks like their more Korea-focused promotion strategy paid off because that comeback single Fireworks became their first single to chart in Korea.
ATEEZ spent the rest of 2021 concluding their Fever era, with Zero: Fever Part 3 out in September 2021 and Zero: Fever Epilogue out in December - both albums charted on the Billboard 200 - a first for ATEEZ! Associated comeback singles Deja Vu and The Real continued to increase music video views and chart in both Korea and the top ten of the World Digital Songs Chart.
In 2022, ATEEZ embarked on two world tours. The first - their rescheduled 2020 tour, took place in the Spring and was renamed The Fellowship: Beginning of the End. In this tour, they pulled off 20 shows in 8 countries and brought in $16 million. We’re talking venues that were like 15x bigger than their last tour. The second tour started in the Fall of 2022 and continued into 2023. It was called The Fellowship: Break the Wall, and in total it probably brought in close to $30 million. To give you an idea of the growth still happening here - tetween these two tours in Seoul alone, ATEEZ upgraded from 3 nights at Seoul Olympic Hall (capacity: 2,500) to 2 nights at Jamsil Indoor Stadium (capacity: 15,000). LOL. Note that they played their biggest venues in the 2022 phase of this tour, so 2022 will get more tour points than 2023!
Between these two world tours, they launched a new era in July 2022 with the release of The World EP.1: Movement, which charted at Number 3 in the Billboard 200 and was their first ever album to sell more than a million copies (again with only 3 versions!). Comeback single Guerilla (wow ok metal Kpop!) won six music shows, their most ever.
In 2023, ATEEZ had a pretty insane year. They released two albums, The World EP.2: Outlaw and The World EP.Fin: Will that landed at 2 and 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 1 million and 2 million copies, respectively. They brought their massive world tour to an end. Their comeback singles had their best ever results in Korea, charting at 33 and winning 9 music shows between them. Crazy Form earned 19 million views in its first 24 hours. I’m not ATINY and even I thought it was a travesty that Bouncy wasn’t nominated for Song of the Year end of year awards. So let’s take a look at the quantitative “success” of ATEEZ over the years:
You can definitely see a pandemic hit in 2020, and 2021, but their shift in strategy allowed them to keep growing and then cash out in an incredible 2022 - this is the first time we’ve seen an annual score over 100 points from a Kpop group in my analysis! I think the proof is in the pudding because in 2023, ATEEZ was able to slow down and rest on their laurels a bit while still having their second most quantitatively successful year of all time and best charting results. Let’s compare their first four years of activity to those of Itzy and Enhypen.
Here it’s easy to see that ATEEZ had the roughest debut year compared to Enhypen and Itzy, but then an absolutely stunning second year. You can also see that all these groups were promoting during the pandemic lockdown period, but ATEEZ performed the best during the lockdown. While we perhaps don’t see the pure linear growth of the HYBE machine behind Enhypen, it’s impressive that a group from a much smaller agency is able to keep pace with their competition.
So am I an ATINY now? Working through this article definitely made me admire ATEEZ a lot. I think there is a lot to love and I totally get it. But for me, the discography is a bit hit or miss. I really like some songs and others just don’t do it for me. My favorite ATEEZ singles are Pirate King, Wave, The Real, Halazia, Bouncy, Crazy Form, and their latest… WORK.
*****
This brings us to my review of their latest release. In May 2024, ATEEZ launched a new era with Golden Hour: Part.1. It’s an album that is made to be performed live with strong EDM, hip hop, and Latin influences. It does feel a bit retro in that a lot of KPop artists are experimenting with African pop sounds instead of Latin beats these days, but it feels like Ateez are comfortable and in their pocket.
The album opens with Golden Hour, a lovely little interlude that discusses the need to value both the most exciting moments in life and the most mundane moments. I might interpret this as ATEEZ telling themselves “hey we’re entering into our seventh year as Kpop idols, we’re allowed to slow down and find meaning in things outside this life.”
But enough philosophy, let’s jump into some dance music! We kick off the music in Golden Hour with Blind, a Latin influenced electronic pop song. It’s fun! Next up, lead single WORK, which is not as striking as last year’s BOUNCY but it is quite good. The clarinet feature is really fresh and it’s very easy to sing along. I think I love it actually? I love the line “Got a fur coat, so I make it purr” and I think it’s fun to hear ATEEZ singing about being big earners - they’ve worked HARD for this money!
We then have a little vocal interlude with breakup ballad Empty Box and the vocals are lovely! But then we jump right back into the electronic dance music with Shaboom, which pulls a bait and switch by starting off as a raggae-tinged party anthem before dropping the beat into a classic Kpop empty chorus. It’s a drinking/party song - it’s fun! The album ends with Siren - more dance music, also fun! This time, ATEEZ seem to be teasing their haters and critics that they’ve truly arrived -I think when they say “ringing siren” they mean the sirens are going to announce their arrival.
Alright so in total, I like every song on this album and I think it would be fun to see live. The songs experiment with different influences while still feeling sonically cohesive (thanks EDEN!). The only thing is…I don’t see how the Golden Hour prelude or concept flows into any of the content or vibes on this album. I wish there was a bit more thematic consistency, especially if the sonic influences were going to be this diverse.
To summarise - 3.5/5 - I recommend a listen!