REVIEW: CIX – Movie Star & HELLO Chapter 1: Hello, Stranger

The titles I had in mind for this…OMGGG

Uh so… Hi. Long time no update lmaooo. I took another break that ended up being longer than I expected. But I’m back and ready to get back to business. As usual, there’s sooooo many groups, songs, etc to talk about.

I’ve decided that while waiting on new music videos to discuss fashion wise, I’d talk about some older releases. I’ve been dying to talk about CIX “Movie Star” and now’s the perfect time.

While on my break, I’ve been rethinking how I write my post. The main reason I created ATK was to talk about Kpop, not just fashion.

I’ve been fighting myself over how I can articulate my thoughts. I’ve tried some different formats.

I think my favorite post to go back and look at are the ones that mesh music and fashion together. Not just one or the other.

Well, I do enjoy just talking about news and rumors on the podcast, but that’s another can of worms I’m keeping closed for now.

Anyway I think going forwards when I do my reviews, if I tend to talk more about the album than the clothes, I’m just going with it.

If I talk more about the clothes because the album or song wasn’t it, that’s okay. I just need to write more and be active on here, omggg.

So yeah…every once in a while I have to reassess what I’m doing with this site and if I’m happy with the direction. If not, I try to make changes to get back on track.

And if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear it. This is more of me just thinking out loud and trying to publicly hold myself accountable. SDFGHJKL let’s move on.

CIX had NO business releasing such a flawless debut song and album. HELLO Chapter 1: Hello, Stranger and “Movie Star” was released on July 23rd, 2019.

It’s been almost two years as of me writing this, and this song and album still sound so fresh and get me hype every time I hear it. “Movie Star” is one of my mom’s favorite Kpop songs.

So for those who aren’t familiar with CIX, let me give you a quick background on them. CIX is a boygroup under C9 Entertainment.

The group members are BX (leader, main rapper, and vocals), Seunghun (main vocalist and dancer), Yonghee (vocal and visual), Bae Jinyoung I affectionately refer to him as Baejin personally, but I’ll be calling him Jinyoung throughout this post, (lead vocalist, dancer, center, and of course face of the group), and Hyunsuk (dancer, lead rapper, vocals, and youngest aka maknae).

The most well known member is likely going to be Mr. Bae Jinyoung of Wanna One fame. If you don’t know his name, you’ve definitely seen his face if you’ve been in Kpop since 2017/2018. But I think it’s important to talk about BX and Seunghun’s predebut experiences before CIX.

BX (Lee Byounggon) a YGE trainee, appeared on Mix Nine and finished 9th back in 2017. He had a place in the YGE wining group, but YG (the man himself) decided to cancel the group.

But then there was another YG survival show where both he and other YGE Seunghun trainee competed on the show together. However, neither made it into the final group, Treasure.

Seunghun apparently later went on to compete in ANOTHER survival show called… STRAY KIDS (Mnet show) and WTF why am I just now finding this out as I’m doing research for this post?!!

Anyway, well that didn’t work out either. But WOW WTF…I’m uh kinda a Stay now. So I’m slowly learning more about Stray Kids as well. 2021 has been a weird year.

Something else I was unaware of before doing more research was how well CIX did with Hello, Stranger numbers wise. The album reached number 2 on Gaon charts.

Sold 70,000 copies in two months, and they got their first music show win in 6 days on the Show.

THAT PUTS THEM AS ONE OF THE FASTEST GROUPS TO GET A MUSIC SHOW WIN, THAT’S HUGGEEEEEEE. On top of all that, the tickets for their debut showcase allegedly sold out in 30 seconds. 16,000 fans were trying to get tickets. Love that for them.

All that domestic success but CIX in general are super underrated and underappreciated. Especially with international fans, and I want to help change that narrative.

So today, I want to do a deep dive into my current favorite CIX album and one of my favorite Kpop albums and debuts in general.

Let’s get into it!

What You Wanted

I prefer you listen to the studio version first. But because I discovered there was a live version of it, I had to include it in this post.

The stringed instruments are the first thing to hit your ears with “What You Wanted”. Such an epic beginning for an album.

I don’t usually listen to this album in order from start to finish. “What You Wanted” is one of my most listened to CIX songs. I don’t even need Spotify stats to confirm, I know it to be true.

Along with the strings, Jinyoung’s voice is the first vocals we hear. One of my favorite things about CIX’s music is the influence of R&B in their work.

Jinyoung in particular has such a deep voice that’s perfect for R&B and more soulful sounding songs. Him kicking off the song is genius in my book.

Seunghun’s voice is a tiny bit higher than Jinyoung’s. Idk how to describe it, but it shines.

Yonghee, and Hyunsuk have similar vocal keys. Yonghee’s voice is a little more raspy, and I love that. Hyunsuk’s adlibs of “What you want, what you want, yeah” send me every time. BX’s rap is so good.

You can’t help but to bop to the flow. I wish I knew who does the English rap. I think it’s BX. But I love it. Some may find it cringy, but the song wouldn’t be complete without it. 20/10 love the song to death.

Movie Star

Awwww yeaaaaaah the review really begins now. I’ll start with talking about the song. Again we have Jinyoung starting the song off, but before that…WE HAVE THE SOUND OF AN OLD SCHOOL CAMERA WITH FILM RUNNING THROUGH IT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

The attention to small details *chef kiss*. So there’s lore that goes with this album and CIX’s concept. I’m not going to get into that because, I’m not, that informed on it myself.

So I’m not gonna talk about it. Just know the songs SLAAAAAAAPPSSSS. A straight banger.

The amount of times this song has popped up on shuffle when I’m in the car, and I have to turn the volume up to like 20 and watch my speed? Too many to count. Someone needs to add “Movie Star” to songs to crash your car to playlist for real.

We all know I’m not musically trained. Lmao. But even if I was, idk if I can explain fully how amazing this song is. It’s like chocolate.

You have to experience it to understand the complexity of flavors going on. You can’t just use one or two adjectives to describe it. 100/10 in my top 3 favorite debut songs for sure.

Movie Star Fashion Review

Fashion wise, there are three main looks. So let’s get into it!

Look 1

I’m not sure what to call this group look. It’s definitely streetwear inspired. But I think it’s kinda ugly. It’s not cohesive. And y’all know I love a good uniform look.

This ain’t it. And that’s okay. It’s great when every look in a music video is a knock-out, but that’s rarely the case for me.

Everyone’s outfits are decent enough to where I didn’t feel like writing a complaint letter to C9.

I think what bothers me the most is Jinyoung’s plaid outfit not matching with everyone’s colors. BX’s look is supposed to look more “Hip Hop” so I understand why his outfit is so casual compared to the others.

But… they couldn’t put him a suit too? They could make the suit edgy. Added some leather and metal accents or even patches. Idk.

Both his and Jinyoung’s outfits don’t make sense to me. But they look good, so it’s whatever. I’m not losing sleep over it, lol.

Look 2

The metal necklace things hanging off Seunghun is what I’m talking about! That’s what should have been added to BX’s look in the previous group look.

I really love his outfit here. It’s second to Yonghee. KING SHIT, getting that Valentino fit. Love that for the maknae!!!

Hyunsuk and Jinyoung’s outfits for this group look is fine. I don’t love or hate, either. I do like BX’s outfit more here. It goes with the others casual looks. Overall, this is my second favorite look in “Movie Star”.

Look 3

*SpongeBob that’s what we’ve been waiting for* I’m so predicable. I love this boring ass look.

It’s simple, extenuates the boys’ handsome features, and doesn’t distract from the performance. Of course, this is my favorite look in this entire video.

Uh, I don’t really have anything else to say about it. 10/10 if I was their stylist, I would choose this too.

Like It That Way

…. I didn’t know remember this song was on this album. I never listen to it. I don’t have it saved. So when I went to listen to the whole album, I had to revisit this song.

It’s not terrible. It’s just a dud. It doesn’t really add anything to the album, and it’s forgettable in my opinion. 2/10

Imagine

“Imagine” does what “Like It That Way” thinks it’s doing. It’s an upbeat party song. You know the album is about to end, but the party isn’t over yet, so don’t stop having fun prematurely, song.

I get so hype when this song comes on shuffle too. I always sing the, “Gives me feeling I can’t explain, ahhhh” part. EVERY TIME. Such a good song, 8/10.

Update April 10th 2023:

As I’m editing and updating articles on ATK, I wanted to see if there were some things I could add to my articles as new info came out, or links broke, etc. I was looking to see if there was backing vocals for “What You Wanted” and looked at all the song credits on Wiki.

Inverness, the “State of Wonder” guy, I wrote a review about that song. I knew Anthony Russo worked on that song, plus a ton of CIX songs. But I never put together that Inverness worked on CIX songs too. Inverness also has credits on “The One”. So shout out to him.

The One

Idk why some of these have video footage from their debut showcase and others don’t. But “The One” isn’t bad for a slower song.

It’s not a full ballad, but I like it and listen to it often enough. Hell, I like it more than “Like It That Way”. 7/10. Pretty good song that I tend to skip a lot of shuffle. But I like it enough to not unlike it. I mostly have to be in the mood to listen to it.

Alright, I hope y’all enjoyed this post! There will be many more like this coming up in the future. Actually, I think the next two will have a similar format.

I had soooo much fun writing this post. I learned a lot.

I really need to make time to watch CIX’s reality shows and other content outside their music.

If you weren’t a fan of CIX before this post, I hope this encouraged you to check them out! The next post is on VIXX.

Another underrated and underappreciated fave of mine. I told y’all, we’re diving deep into groups and songs I’ve been wanting to talk about on here for a few years now.

Idk when that will be up yet, though. Probably next week. I’ve still got some work to do on that one. And by work I mean all I’ve done is written out the title in my notebook, lmao.

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Take care!!!

Ash 💫