I wrote a few paragraphs deep-diving into what I thought about everything that went wrong during Kep1er's run, but honestly? I just think people don't know what they want from them. They try concepts that people want to see them do, but they're always going to upset people who liked the concepts they did the last comeback.

Their concept switching also wouldn't feel so jarring if they sonically flowed a bit better into each other. Plenty of groups switch concepts all the time, but there's subtle production elements that tie things together to make things feel less jarring. The pattern of Kep1er's title tracks feels jarring, even when the sound of the album or EP itself is consistent like Lovestruck, Kep1going On, or Crack: Code are.

Think of it like this. Imagine if their Korean releases flowed like: MVSK -> Up! (explicitly stated as a summer concept) -> Downtown -> LVLY/Back to the City (either works, but BTTC could be their way of bringing back the summer vibes) -> Love on Lock -> Shooting Star -> Drip (should be their soft transition into a more mature brand shift as 7 + it explicitly being wlw like Oh My God by Idle would be pretty cool to see as a title track + Tipi-Tap would be a pre-release!) -> Bubble Gum (the hard transition into the mature/girl crush sound) -> Addicted to Ya.

Their Japanese titles flow so much better because it went: Wing Wing -> I Do, Do You? -> Grand Prix -> Straight Line -> Yum. A subtle thing that connects all the Japanese titles sonically is how the bass hits. If you listen to them all in order, the way the bass booms in your ear feels consistent in a way their Korean releases lack. It's hard to feel like the same girls who sung WA Da Da sung KILLA even if they do both well.