As this is my first time experiencing a comeback as a Miracle, naturally I’m stoked! And because I’m me and I’m kinda extra about these things, of course I wanted to write out a review of as many aspects of Oh My Girl’s May 10 comeback as I could. I started this once Track Film One was released to the group’s official YouTube as a teaser towards the eventual comeback and grouped everything as I saw fit.
Naturally, all of this is my own opinion, and you are entirely entitled to disagree with me! I hope you enjoy, and be sure to give Oh My Girl’s new EP “Dear OhMyGirl” a listen!
Also, please note that in the case of Instagram posts, most links will be to a Tumblr fandom blog. This is due to the fact that the Instagram posts are spread over multiple posts, and it is significantly more of a pain to link upwards of six Instagram posts when I could just link one or two Tumblr posts with the same content. Not to mention, Instagram keeps locking me out after a while since I don’t have an account.
Track Films and Other Teasers: 9/10
One of the first teasers we got for this comeback was a photo associating the songs from this EP with Track Films. I didn’t know Track Films existed until the first one was released and I realized, “oh, wait, so these are films. For the different tracks on the album. Yeah, that makes sense!” I never claimed to be smart, alright? The Track Films were uploaded to the official YouTube account in the weeks leading up to the May 10 debut with some other teasers thrown in as well. I’ll be discussing them in chronological order.
Starring my ultimate bias Jiho, Track Film One: Hi! My stranger, released on April 24, certainly gave us some mixed messages about the concept of the comeback. With some darker themes at the beginning and end, yet fun spring vibes in the middle, it left Miracles wondering what the concept would end up being. Of course, there’s always the duality of both, and as we know well, Oh My Girl can pull off cute and dark concepts very well. Alongside that, we have what I think of as ominous music, and I wonder if that’s going to be part of the “Invitation” track, which this Track Film is associated with. Additionally, the Korean in the description of the video translates to “Different appearances. Hey, hey! My stranger,” really leaning into the dual concepts theory—though I used Google translate, so maybe take that translation and all other translations with a grain of salt. Ultimately, a very good way to start off the Track Film series!
April 25 had concept photos released to the group’s Instagram, which served to display more of the concept: a rainy spring day, which does play into the lighter parts of Track Film One. With these and Track Film One, there’s a good balance of cute and dark concepts.
Track Film Two: To. My spring, You’ll have a dense forest, released on April 27, stars maknae (youngest member) Arin. Paired with “Dear You,” here we have nothing but spring vibes, which I think suits Arin very well! While I wish we had gotten a closed-caption translation of her narration, I did translate the description again: “Grow up facing the sky, and go without your eyes.” I really have no clue what that could mean for the album! Commenters on the video think that the track “Dear You” is going to be a fairy track with a more ethereal spring feel, which I can absolutely get behind. That sort of feeling reminds me a lot of the ethereal concept of “Secret Garden,” one of my top ten favorite tracks! Very pretty imagery throughout the video, and really shows how much Arin’s grown up since the group’s debut in 2015!
Track Film Three: My Lovely rival. Power up my best player, released on April 29, stars rapper Mimi and main vocalist Seunghee and is very interesting for a couple of reasons. Not only does it deviate from the concepts of the other two Track Films, but there are a couple of instances that I thought of as callbacks or potential foreshadowing. First, though, the overall concept: retro video games and arcades. The only other instance I can think of with the video game concept is Oh My Girl’s subunit, Oh My Girl Banhana, with their music video “Banana Allergy Monkey.” This is one of the callbacks, with the other being the banana plushies within the arcade game. This, of course, leads me to wonder if we’re going to have a track with just the subunit (consisting of Binnie, Arin and Hyojung). It’s very likely that I’m looking a bit too far into that, given that neither Mimi nor Seunghee is in Banhana. I also found the alien stickers interesting given that the alien theme is what we’ve seen with a lot of the promotional material for this EP, therefore supporting the “out of this world” concept. Furthermore, this is the Track Film associated with the song “Quest,” so it makes sense that Seunghee and Mimi star in this film given that Mimi wrote the rap for “Quest” (discussed further down). The Korean translation from the description is roughly, “You walked up front, my lovely rival,” and it’s at this point that I started to wonder if these are going to be lyrics in the songs associated with the Track Films. I never claimed to be good at spotting these things.
On May 1, we were given more “Dun Dun Dance” concept photos that seemed to suggest the cute concept and a spring feel, like Track Film Two. So given all the promotional material, it really was tough to tell what the concept will be. And given that there are so many concepts, there are so many possibilities! In fact, it might be a situation where each song has a slightly different concept instead of the EP having a single concept (such as their single album, “A-ing,” having a summer concept).
Released on May 2, Track Film Four: My little confession stars vocalist Binnie and shows the same dual concept of the first Track Film, going between the springtime setting shared by parts of Track Film One and Track Film Two and the darkness of the other parts of Track Film One. As commenters on the video pointed out, the music and concept of this Track Film are somewhat reminiscent of “Remember Me,” which so happens to be one of my favorites of Oh My Girl’s title tracks. The music does sound a little mysterious, much like Track Film One, and the imagery throughout the video supports that. Moving on to the Korean in the description, the translation is “You didn’t know how to stand up, how to swim, how to hold your breath,” which affirms the theory that this is one of the lyrics in the song “Swan,” which this Track Film is associated with.
May 3 brought a lyrics spoiler for “Dun Dun Dance,” which was posted on the official Instagram. Roughly translated (thanks again to Google translate), that’s “Dun Dun Dance (x3) / I want to dance with you under the sky where the meteor pours like rain / just you and I / leaving the Earth on your back and rising to your heart’s content / crazy crazy crazy / we do long dances, all of us are weird / yeah like strangers who pretend to be people / oh baby,” which then repeats over on the spoiler image. I think this supports the “out of this world” concept from the promotional material and Track Film Three, and I’m looking forward to hearing the beat that goes along with it! Definitely worth spending twenty minutes on puzzling out the lyrics from the image and typing into the translator.
Song previews were posted next to both YouTube and Instagram on May 7, but I’ll discuss those more under each song’s section. Altogether, though, there’s a spring/summer, sort of ethereal concept at play with all of them, and made me super hyped for the songs!
Released on May 5, in Track Film Five: We are all weird, a little bit like stranger pretending to be a human (which seems like one of the lyrics above), we got to see YooA really leaning into the spring and mystery vibes the song previews gave us. We also saw the crown image used in the original Track Film list (linked above), which I thought was a cool tie-in. Some commenters on the video compared it to her solo album “Bon Voyage” and the music video for the title track, and I can kind of see the resemblance. To be honest, I’m not sure what else I can add here that I won’t say while discussing the preview further down, so I’ll move onto the Korean translation from the description: “Remind the earth with your back! Don’t dry it. Now my mood is feel so high~” I’m very excited to hear the whole song!
On May 6, we were given more promotional photos on the official Instagram. Apart from looking amazing, as usual, I don’t really think they add anything to the concept, though I do notice a sort of black-and-white motif like the light and dark in Track Film One. Keep in mind, though, I’m new to concepts and identifying them, so I may have this wrong.
Finally, we have Track Film Six: Oh. I’m so sorry. Play with me in the dream, which was released on May 7 and stars leader Hyojung! As obvious from the title, this Track Film is associated with “My Doll (Hello, Play in Your Dreams).” It starts off with a sort of unsettling feeling (at least, in my opinion), but soon reminds me and other commenters on the video of some of the scenes in the music video for “Remember Me.” Of course, it’s a bit hard to tell whether it was meant to be spooky given that it’s a little hard for Hyojung to fit in dark concepts at times, but nonetheless this Track Film looks amazing! In fact, it gives me the same late-spring, early-summer feeling as the other Track Films and song previews with notes of a carnival and fireworks, which I always look forward to in the summer. Other commenters noted that it reminded them of childhood memories, which I also feel from the video, which makes me wonder if this song is going to be about nostalgia. The translation from the description is simply “Play with me in a dream,” so I definitely think it’s possible. That wraps it up for the Track Films!
All-around, I think the promotional materials did very well in terms of getting fans hyped for the comeback! I’ve seen nothing but positive comments on the videos on YouTube—well, the ones from English-speaking fans, at least, since my browser didn’t give me an option to translate the comments written in Korean and I got a bit lazy at that point. However, I’m only giving the promotional materials a nine out of ten because I honestly couldn’t figure out a solid concept until a handful of days before the comeback. Because some groups have concept storylines, and I honestly have no idea if Oh My Girl’s done this before since I’ve more or less taken everything at surface value before now, it might’ve been good to show a more cohesive concept Additionally, it caused me some confusion that the tracklist and order of Track Films were different, and gave me some pains in playing around with the layout of this article. But even so, all of the promotional materials and teasers led me to become more and more excited, so they definitely did their job and looked phenomenal doing it!
“Dun Dun Dance”: 10/10
The preview for this song reminded me of a late spring, early summer party, maybe a pool party, the kind where there’s good music and good company. The video along with it confirmed to me that there’s an “out of this world” concept, especially towards the end of the video. It just made me that much more excited to hear the whole song!
The music video teaser, posted on YouTube on May 8, doesn’t tease much of the song, but still does its job in getting fans excited! With the imagery shown, I can say with certainty that the other Track Films contained scenes from this music video … which I probably should have realized ages ago, but oh well! Commenters under the video have already proclaimed “Dun Dun Dance” as SOTY (song of the year), and it isn’t even being released for another two days at 5:00 a.m. EST (which is 6:00 p.m. KST)! And I mean there are lots of comments about that which literally all say “DUN DUN DANCE SOTY,” sometimes upwards of six in a row from different commenters, so I think it’s safe to say that the fans are hyped.
Another teaser mix, which I didn’t anticipate since I don’t think it was on the schedule of teasers, was released on May 9 and contained other parts of the music video and part of what I think is the chorus of the song. All I can say is that the commenters claiming “Dun Dun Dance” as song of the year already are definitely heading in the right direction! It’s bound to be a bop!
…
THIS WAS SO WORTH THE WAIT!!!
“Dun Dun Dance” literally rocketed up to somewhere in my top 20s, maybe even top 10, with the music video. Just as commenters suspected, it pays homage to at least a few of their older music videos such as “Secret Garden,” “Remember Me” and “Banana Allergy Monkey” and all-around has a very fun vibe. This is dance music for sure, as you can probably tell from the title, but listening to it for the first time put me in such a good mood! Because of that, I’m giving this song a ten out of ten for a job well done as always!
“Dear You”: 7/10
The preview for “Dear You” reminded me somewhat of YooA’s solo album “Bon Voyage,” specifically her song “Far.” That’s my favorite of her songs, so I’m definitely looking forward to hearing this whole song. It feels kind of like a breezy spring day and brings to mind the image of cotton, if that makes any sense.
Just as suspected, this song reminds me of “Far,” and upon further investigation, I couldn’t find any common ties. Either way, I think this style works well for one of the slower songs of this EP, just as “Flower Tea” worked as one of the slower songs for “Nonstop.” I think my favorite moment was when the guitars kicked in towards the end! All-around this is a nice song, definitely calming, so I’ll give it a seven out of ten.
“My Doll (Hello, Play in Your Dreams)”: 8/10
The song preview reminded me of what I’ve heard of lofi music (which, admittedly, isn’t much) and also of a slower, more lowkey version of what Oh My Girl accomplished with “Nonstop” and “Neon.” Paired with the springtime imagery, I’m very much looking forward to it, and I have a feeling it’s going to be one of my favorites on the album!
From the first few notes, I knew that my prediction about this being one of my favorites was true. Additionally, I was also right that it sounds a little bit like lofi, which really works for their voices. If I remember correctly, they haven’t had a song that sounds a bit like this before, so this completely new sound is now only new to me, but new to other Miracles. As the song plays on, it quickly becomes one of my favorites, rising in the ranks. As commenters on the video said, yes, this is that song on the EP.
“Quest”: 7/10
When the tracklist was released on April 26, I was interested to find out that this was the only track crediting Mimi as one of the lyric writers. Since she sometimes writes her own raps for songs like “Closer” and “Liar Liar,” among others, naturally I became excited to see what she came up with this time. And that’s before I even knew what the song was going to be about! That’s how good she is.
I can’t say that the song preview for “Quest” reminded me of any of their songs in particular, but it did remind me a little of a blend between their slower songs and songs like “Dalla Dalla” by ITZY. Personally, I think that’s a great blend, and since this is the song with the rap Mimi wrote, I’m of course hyped to eventually be able to sing (and hopefully rap) along with it.
Compared to “Dun Dun Dance,” this one has a much more lowkey, slow sound to it, but is full of Oh My Girl’s energy nonetheless. I’m not gonna lie, usually the style of this song and songs that sound like this in English are the ones that I tend to avoid. However, I’ll make an exception for this, if only because of Mimi’s rap, which as predicted sounds amazing! I’ll give this one a seven out of ten, since I think this is the kind of track that’ll grow on me eventually, like all of their songs do.
“Who Comes Who Knows”: 8/10
The song preview here really leans into the dual-concept in my opinion, going from what I assume is the chorus to the next verse and showing a couple different styles for the song. Very interesting, in my opinion, and that just means I’ll be all the more interested in hearing the rest of it!
I should note, somewhere in there the title of this changed from “Invitation” to “Who Comes Who Knows” and I’m not sure when or why, so apologies if there’s some confusion because of that.
As another slower song, this one has a different sound than “Dear You,” especially once—I don’t really know what to call it, the beat?—the beat drops. It sounds to me upon first listen that Jiho gets a fair bit of lines, too, which is amazing since she is my ultimate bias. I love her voice so much! The chorus is really interesting, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it before. It would definitely be interesting to see a stage for this with choreography. I’m giving this one an eight out of ten!
“Swan”: 9/10
Right off the bat with this song preview, I love the vibes from this song! I can’t put my finger on what it reminds me of exactly, but this is definitely going to be one of my favorites, so if you know me, expect me to be listening to this almost nonstop once it’s released in full!
I was intrigued right off the bat, since it sounds (if I’m not mistaken) like we’re starting the song off with a rap from Mimi before going into the first verse. As far as final songs on EPs goes, this definitely gives me the vibes of one in the best possible way. I should mention that at first I was a bit wary about this track, since I associated “Swan” with IZ*ONE’s “Secret Story of the Swan,” which I’m not that fond of, personally. But listening to it after all the hype? Definitely worth it, this one is getting a nine out of ten!
Showcase Stage: 9/10
Starting with the “Dun Dun Dance” stage here! Between the fun song, the choreography (which will be discussed in a moment), the outfits and the background, this showcase stage just radiates a fun summer party! However, Mimi wasn’t included in the stage or the “Dear You” stage, as she wasn’t feeling well. Hopefully she’ll start to feel better soon!
In a way, that makes the stage that much more complicated: groups have to redo their choreography when one or more of their members is missing from the stage, and if it was under a time crunch it’s that much more difficult to do. Since Oh My Girl has some experience with redoing choreography due to the departure of member JinE in 2017, I’m sure it wasn’t that much of a problem, but it could be complicated nonetheless.
The “Dear You” stage doesn’t include choreography, but instead showcases Oh My Girl’s live vocals, which are amazing as usual! Again, Mimi is off resting during the stage, so we unfortunately don’t get to hear her live vocals with this stage, but naturally her health comes first! The background for this stage reflects the calm nature of this song and works very well in my opinion, complementing the outfits the members are wearing.
Altogether, these stages showcase how good their vocals are and how, instead of having only one visual member, every member is the visual! I want to watch this over and over again for the rest of the day, and even then I probably wouldn’t be tired of it! Therefore, the showcase stages get a nine out of ten!
Choreography: 8/10
Oh My Girl is known for having some tough choreography—I’m thinking of “Windy Day” and “Nonstop” here—that they always pull off. While “Dun Dun Dance” is a bit easier compared to those, it’s still complicated enough that they’ll definitely have had to put in a lot of practice. Props to the girls for continuing on with live vocals with their tough dances, surely it’s not easy to do!
I really want to learn the choreography myself, but looking at it again and again, I know it’ll be a bit difficult for me to learn, meaning the choreography is that good, haha! It looks like so much fun, and definitely looks like the girls are having a lot of fun with it, especially YooA, the main dancer, and Hyojung! Hmm, now that I think about it again, maybe I can learn this choreography…
I’ll give this choreography an eight out of ten! It’s not their most complicated, but it definitely encompasses the fun party vibes of the song and makes me feel energized just watching it! Another job well done.
Line Distribution: 6/10
If you don’t know what line distribution is, it’s essentially how many lines each member has. Since Oh My Girl has fewer members than groups like Twice and WJSN, there’s more of a chance for vocalists (rather than main vocalists) to have a fair amount of lines in each song. It sounds fairly evenly distributed, but I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look to compare to “Dear OhMyGirl.”
Even though there are already videos that do this for each individual song, I took the liberty of averaging out line distribution in the previous seven EPs for each member, not including lines they sing together. In simpler terms, this is the average amount of lines each member has per EP. Here’s where it got me, using this site and its assumed accuracy:
Hyojung has an average of 54 lines; Seunghee has an average of 51 lines; YooA has an average of 45 lines; Mimi has an average of 41 lines; Jiho has an average of 39 lines; Binnie has an average of 37 lines; and Arin has an average of 30 lines.
This reflects their positions as either vocalist or main vocalist (with the exception of Mimi, the rapper of the group) fairly well, though fans usually want to see more even line distribution. I am one of those fans; Arin, Binnie and Jiho have all more than proven they’re fit to be main vocalists as well. To see how this measures up, I took the same statistics from “Dear OhMyGirl” to compare! In “Dear OhMyGirl”:
Hyojung has 41 lines; Seunghee has 61 lines; YooA has 64 lines; Mimi has 54 lines; Binnie has 49 lines; Jiho has 37 lines; and Arin has 30 lines.
That means that Seunghee, Mimi, YooA and Binnie have more lines than average, while Hyojung and Jiho have less and Arin has the same as average. It’s only a matter of two lines for Jiho, though the difference of fourteen lines for Hyojung was a bit confusing to me as I compiled these statistics. I’m used to Hyojung having the most lines (and if not her, then Seunghee or YooA), but for her to have the third-lowest number of lines feels odd. I’m sure there’s a good reason, of course.
So while the line distribution isn’t as even as average—the range for the average is 24 lines, whereas the range for “Dear OhMyGirl” is 34 lines—Binnie does get more lines, so that’s a start for all the vocals to have more lines! So I’m going to rate line distribution as a six out of ten.
Overall: 81/100
You know, I was originally going to have only nine categories before I thought of line distribution, so now we’re doing this out of a solid 100! You’re welcome, haha.
Adding up all the categories, we get a score of 81 out of 100, which isn’t bad at all! I think “Dear OhMyGirl” definitely lived up to the hype and is going to be practically all I listen to this summer. It’s now one of my favorites of their EPs for sure, and I’m going to get right on learning the lyrics. I can’t wait to see their other stages with these songs as they come out!
Well that was a long article, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s my longest! Definitely worth all the work put in if you ask. I had a lot of fun putting this together, so expect this kind of thing for any of Oh My Girl’s future comebacks! Oh My Girl is currently WM Entertainment’s only girl group, but with rumors going around about a new group possibly debuting soon, it’s important to support Oh My Girl and the other groups under WM Entertainment’s label!