BTS' Jin's Album Tracklist Ignites Debate Over K-Pop's Trend of Ultra-Short Songs

BTS' Jin has sparked a fiery debate with the release of the tracklist for his upcoming EP, Happy.

After being the first BTS member to be discharged of mandatory military service in South Korea, Jin has been busy working on new music. Happy is due out Nov. 15 and already includes the pre-released single "I'll Be There." However, it was not the song that grabbed the attention of K-pop fans, rather the lengths of the other tracks that are included on the album.

In a preview on Spotify, fans shared their thoughts on the fact that all (except one) songs were below three minutes long.

In particular, fans pointed out the short song trend that has been taking over K-pop songs. Many hated how platforms like TikTok seemingly promoted shorter songs, making it more common for songs which results in much shorter albums.

"Just WHYYYYYYYYY. Why no 3 minutes songs," wrote one person on Reddit.

"It feels like shrinkflation," commented another.

One Reddit user went on to explain their frustration as well as why some of the songs might be shorter.

"Most composers can't do a full song structure sub 3 min unless the tempo is just insanely fast. So parts of the song are cut out completely, making the song feel disjointed and unsatisfying. Songs used to have intros, outros, a proper bridge, and verses longer than 4 lines but here we are. So many Kpop songs would be better with an outro they just don't exist anymore for stupid streaming services to milk as many plays as possible," they said.

One person went on to blame TikTok as the cause of the short songs.

"The Tiktokification of music is one of the worst things that has happened, I HATE IT," they said.

It isn't the first artist to spark fears for the growing trend, as TXT's recent album surprised fans, with the total for six songs being only 14 minutes.

"Nah, this is better, cuz almost 3 minutes long songs - the new txt album is only 14 minutes. 6 song. 14 minutes...," someone else pointed out.

"14 minutes is crazy, thats not even half a lecture bruh," one person wrote on X.

Jin has not responded to the controversy as of now and, so far, Happy is going to be released as planned.

Tags

BTS, Jin