History holds a special place in my heart for having seen them in person last year when I got to watch them warm up to perform Psycho on Music Bank. That release was one I wasn't initially thrilled about, but eventually came around to adoring. This one is similar for a lot of reasons. There's the black & white start-off for one thing, and the tracks' common theme of being obsessed with a particular girl who seems to be spurning the narrator's affections. There's one really important difference however, and that difference makes me squint uncomfortably at this release: Psycho admits that this obsessive characteristic in the narrators displayed desire is really frickin creepy, it acknowledges that this sort of thing can be expected to make people uncomfortable and that it's NOT A GOOD OR HEALTHY RESPONSE TO 'ROMANTIC' FEELINGS. Also, the narrator in Psycho has been locked up in a psych ward where he's forced to project his feelings onto his fellow inmates, meaning that no real portrayals of viable relationships with obsessive abuse are depicted... Might Just Die doesn't acknowledge that the obsession is bad, or wrong, or even very creepy. And worst of all, it uses emotional BLACKMAIL to attempt to bully the girl into staying in the abusive relationship, which basically is the lowest of the low in terms of responses. It's far too common in the real world for me to accept it in the fantasy of music, so unfortunately this release has been taken off the table for any score higher than a 4 at best. ABUSE IS NOT SEXY. ABUSE IS NOT OKAY. THE ABUSER IS NOT SAD OR UNFORTUNATE OR WORTHY OF PITY OR EMPATHY. NOT EVER. And I simply cannot support something that depicts an abuser as the wronged party in an abuse scenario. The way the History members hold the girl against her will, despite obvious attempts to fight them off, is rape or at the very least assault; the way the lyrics discuss 'if you leave me like this I might just die', is not sweet, it's sick, and it's blackmail / extortion; and the way she leaves them is not something SAD to cry over, it's something STRONG to celebrate. JiYeong might have been aiming for sadness and regret and whatnot when he wrote it, but he missed the mark by FAR.

          There are a few other things I have to quibble over. While the track is undeniably catchy, it doesn't really go anywhere over the course of the piece, and there really isn't all that much in it to begin with: 2-3 lines per member, and then 15 repetitions of the main line in the chorus... not much depth there. It does effectively represent the mind-set of a man in the throws of obsession, I'll give it that much, but it doesn't elaborate on anything, which makes the blackmail bit stand front and center... Also the saw-tooth synth-waves add a lot of complexity and interesting aural value in some ways, but the over use of them leads to a roughening of the vocal lines that does History's incredible vocalists very little credit. All in all, while I find myself enjoying the drama and getting the earworm of a track caught in my head... this release is really quite disastrous. And with how much I adore History, I find that fact really rather tragic.

Well, I love the little intro piece. It's a very personable way to put the members personalities into the MV without having them break character. I think it's a great way to delineate between the MV available for purchase and the one up for YouTube promotion (being that the one you pay for skips the intro & comes with it and some other BTS footage as a separate file). I also like the silent singing at :15, that was cute.

The styling for this one is interesting, but low key enough to be passable on the street. The sets are all pretty cool, albeit a bit distracting, but they're active enough to keep everything interesting. The choreography has a few funny moments, and some cool moves, but for the most part it's nothing terribly special.

Musically, it's really nice. It's well spatialized and beautifully harmonized. The little dub-step dance break was entirely unnecessary and it didn't mesh well with the rest of the track. Same goes for the first rap, it just doesn't sit right in the song. The second rap sits very well, exposing very plainly how out of place the first rap and the dance break really is. The one thing I do like about it is that it's mixed up the standard song structure, putting the dance break before the first chorus is unique and rather refreshing.

When I first listened to the song, I wasn't a huge fan of it, but the tension in the MV has definitely made me like it more! The Retro stage & stardom motifs, the Fed-style stakeout, the slick styling, all of it worked together wonderfully. They look fabulous in this, Hollywood Glamor is a timeless style and they pull it off very well. The Choreography is lovely, used well in the MV and it plays nicely with the song. It's a very good kickstart to History's career, a solid debut on its own and a great indicator of more to come.