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Review: SM Entertainment’s RIIZE makes sizzling debut with Get a Guitar

RIIZE, a combination of the words rise and realise, are ready to show the world what they've got to offer in their debut album.

Belinda Poh

| September 7, 2023

Following their pre-debut performance at the recent KCON LA, SM Entertainment’s newest boy band RIIZE made their debut.

RIIZE is a seven-piece band made up of members Shotaro, Eunseok, Sungchan, Wonbin, Seunghan, Sohee and Anton.

Read more: Everything you need to know about SM Entertainment’s newest boy band, RIIZE

Their newly-dropped first single album, Get a Guitar (2023) consists of two tracks. There’s the namesake title number and a prologue single, Memories (2023).

Get a Guitar

RIIZE’s youthfulness and swag are on full display in the music video of Get a Guitar.

Their distinctive emotional pop music genre (as termed by SM Entertainment themselves) and their unique colour set them apart from other SM artists.

Get a Guitar is a funk-pop anthem backed by harmonised ad-libs. And this genre has not been explored much in the K-pop sphere. Musically, it does bring back memories of Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk (2015) because of the guitar riffs and trumpet sounds.

Of late, retro clothing has also risen in popularity. And RIIZE also capitalises on such retro elements in this music video. Aside from sporting the old pomade hair, the melody also features a funky melody.

Memories

The prologue single, Memories, dropped in mid-August prior to the group’s official debut.

The music video features the members’ brotherhood and youthfulness as teens. Members are having fun, just like any other teenager, dancing in perfectly-synced choreography along to the light-hearted and energising track.

It’s one I would recommend for the current summer season.

The track also sends a message of what the boys truly represent. They sing: “East to the South to the North to the West side / We RIIZE”.

Their band name RIIZE, is actually the combination of rise and realise. And the boys are ready to show the world what they’ve got, in what’s just the launch stage of their entertainment career.