Here are my credentials (again): Despite being what I would consider a huge fan of Sunmi’s solo career and a casual fan of a couple of the group’s songs, I’ve never sat down to watch a Wonder Girls music video or heard any b-sides of theirs, so I’m pretty excited for this deep dive! And as you may see in the title, my mother makes her triumphant return, alongside my Dad’s debut, as I was on the couch with a cold when typing this and roped them into watching music videos from 2008 with me. So, let’s get into it!

(Part One)

Single #6: 2 Different Tears

2 Different Tears is the start of Wonder Girls’ sound branching out a bit. The midcentury inspirations, synthy beat, and bright colors are the same, but this time, there’s much more of an 80s sound. Though saying it’s “80’s” only is a bit of a stretch; there’s so much cross contamination across different eras like the 60s or the 80s to create a messy, pseudo-vintage appearance. “It’s like 80s…Jane Fonda workout disco”, Dad said with a laugh. “They have a good sense of humor.” But we all had a few good laughs, whether it was from them climbing up the side of the building in a shot straight out of Mission Impossible or the insanity that was those hairstyles. It’s a bit hard to take them seriously singing the opening ballad lyrics, I have to say. “It’s more Austin Powers than James Bond”, Mom noted. The underlying song is good; it’s got a disco beat, but the video is just so distracting that I can’t really say much more.

Album #2: Wonder World

Be My Baby starts off with a chipper, choppy synth sound that will have you snapping your fingers along in no time, its verses light-footed and springy. Its choruses don’t disappoint either, building on that sound to form an incredibly catchy chorus in a way that encourages you to dance along. “The lyrics are just one hook, with a really catchy back beat,” Dad said. I genuinely started dancing along from my couch the first time I heard it—that’s how you know a song’s good—and later, my parents did the same. It’s a whole different level of production too: better makeup, clothes, snappy cuts, and dyed hair. “There’s great editing happening here”, my mom noted. My Dad mentioned that “Be My Baby” is a song by the Ronettes, and the 60’s influences throughout the song. It’s black and white except for a few tasteful pops of color, and I especially loved the Busby Berkley influences in the spiral at the end.

This is another full album, and may be even stronger than The Wonder Years. I enjoyed the jazzy girl power anthem Girls Girls Girls, the forceful, synthy Me In, and the Lady Gaga esque Nu Shoes. I again had trouble choosing a hidden gem, this time between the brassy, bursting-with-confidence Girls Night Out, which is tailor-made for the dance floor, and the too-catchy-for-its-own-good Stop, with its layered vocal marathons and crying-on-the-dancefloor sound. I mean, almost every song is strong enough to be a single. Do yourself a favor and go listen to it yourself.

EP #2: Wonder Party

“So we’re done with the 60s” Dad said, as the DJ Is Mine started, “and we’re autotuning now” my Mom added. The song, as befits the title, is dance-floor ready from the first moment, something I’d absolutely dance to in my bathroom mirror. The beat is just so good, but… “I don’t really love the lyrics”, Mom said, speaking for both of us. “Making fun of the guys instead of fighting over the guys is more fun”, Dad said. We all preferred the 60s influenced ones, but it’s still fun.

I confess that I didn’t like Like This the first time I heard it; it leans more into hip-hop and trap than any of their past singles have, in a way that, if you ask me, doesn’t quite work. There are parts where it melds a bit more smoothly, like in the main hook, but overall, this is the first single that I would say doesn’t quite work. That being said, the music video is one of Wonder Girls’ best, and as their last before hiatus, it feels like a form of goodbye. Watching everyone dance together in a mallwas really sweet, especially when it came to the kids. “Can you think of another kpop video with this many regular people dancing?” my mom asked. “I just like that they look like regular people, not edited within an edge of their lives.” My father agreed, saying, “It’s not choreographed in the same way as the others”.

From the EP, I enjoyed the peppy, catchy chorus of Hey Boy and the fantastic vocals of Sorry.

Album #3: Reboot

I Feel You takes Wonder Girls’ breathy sound to brand new heights, for a minimalist pop sound that could be a Korean Chaka Khan cover (and I mean this as a compliment). Despite thinking that it’s not one of their boldest titles, I can’t deny that it’s catchy. Also, I can’t help but respect that they’re playing their own instruments here, which is all too rare in kpop. Although, was it really necessary to make the music video so ridiculously sexualized? No. Part of this is the fact that my mother teaches classes on gender studies and thus has schooled me from a young age on the male gaze, but come on. “I don’t know when a leotard became the uniform for female pop stars…women feel like they have to and that’s bullshit,” Mom said. My parents both noted the similarities with Janet Jackson, Chaka Khan, and Robert Palmer; “They should be sued by at least three artists” Dad said, pausing often to point out the various inspirations in the MV.

This album is Wonder Girls’ third and final LP, and is just as great as the other two. I enjoyed the nostalgic vocals of Rewind, the otherworldly instrumental of Loved, and the string-led Remember. This time, we have three songs on the “battle of the hidden gems”: the at-first breezy-then-more-forceful Candle with its subtly addicting hook, the flirtatious John Doe with its brassy interpolations, and the dramatic, sweeping One Black Night. It’s hard work to make one twelve-track piece feel cohesive and not overly long, much less three; they have a winning streak with albums for sure.

Single #7: Why So Lonely

Why So Lonely, funnily enough, was the first Wonder Girls song I ever heard, and until this deep dive, the only MV I’d watched. Abandoning their usual synth pop and disco style for a laid-back R & B sound infused with reggae, it’s not what I would expect from Wonder Girls but it works anyway. “The upstrum on the guitar is very similar to reggae”, Mom noted, miming strumming her bass. We actually disagreed on this one; while I really enjoyed it and the MV got a couple laughs out of me, my parents were not fans.

“It’s like they got a completely different director,” Dad, ever the filmmaker, said, pointing out the different approach until he finally decided to look up who it was. (It turns out, he was right. The same man directed Why So Lonely and I Feel You, while the directors of the first few often repeated). “It doesn’t look like fun, they look miserable,” my mom sighed, “Two thumbs down”. I think the key issue is that it feels very Sunmi, like something she’d release in her solo career, something that’d feel right at home in her Heart Burn album, and not really a Wonder Girls song. “There’s only one band that should be killing pizza delivery guys,” Mom huffed, “and it’s not them”.

From the single, I enjoyed the beachside sound of Beautiful Boy.

Single #8: Draw Me

“Who has a song like this?” My mom asked as we started Draw Me. “SHINee, Super Junior?” “Everyone has a song like this.” It’s a good song, because it’s the Wonder Girls, and we watched a fan made video of them throughout the years which was very sweet. It made us all smile. The vocals, of course, were the star of the show here, and there isn’t much else to say. We didn’t want to end with this MV, so instead we ended by watching a medley of them performing Nobody, Tell Me, and I Feel You as a band on stage.

Verdict: TL;DR

I’m glad I did this! I had so much fun with this deep dive, because it’s always great discovering a group who makes great music that makes you feel great too. I watched little clips of their (insane) 2012 movie for some laughs, and I was looking for their documentary, but I couldn’t find it. Let me know if you have. And of course, it wouldn’t have been half as much fun without my parents, who not only sat through ten music videos of very varying quality but were nice enough to let me include their thoughts in my review and then play me various hits of the 60s and 80s to show me the influences they’d mentioned. They’re the best; don’t tell them I said that.

My Top 5 songs were Girls Night Out, Be My Baby, The DJ Is Mine, Headache, and So Hot, with Candle and Why So Lonely as honorable mentions. Wonder Girls gets a 9 out of 10 from me, which is way higher than the 8-8.5 range that I was expecting, but feels deserved. They have such a distinct sound, one that was really at the forefront of 2nd gen kpop in a way that I don’t think they get enough credit for. There were a couple missteps, but overall they have a very consistent, very uplifting discography that just makes you want to dance, exactly what I needed on the 10 degree day I wrote this. My parents felt similarly; they preferred their middle-of-career hits and 60s influences, as well as the humor in their videos from then. We all had a great time, and I’m sure Wonder Girls will slowly make their way onto our various playlists.

Next time, we’re onto the exact opposite kind of kpop band: a decently new boy group. Tschüss!