by SM Entertainment’s female artists gathered for ‘Girls On Top (GOT).’ Girls on Top is a project that gathers and scatters by theme. The first project group introduced to mark the new year was ‘GOT the beat,’ which gathered under intense dance songs and performances.
The group consists of 7 members from the 1st to 4th generations of K-pop, including Asian star Boa, the national girl group Girls’ Generation Taeyeon and Hyoyeon, 3rd generation girl group Red Velvet Seulgi and Wendy, and 4th generation girl group Espa Karina and Winter.
In celebration of the new year, God the Beat presented the new song ‘Step Back’ at ‘SMTOWN LIVE 2022’ held on the 1st. This is a hip-hop R&B song with repeated bass and instrumental variations. Taeyeon, Wendy, and Winter performed a high-pitched battle with attractive vocals on stage. Hyoyeon and Karina gave a chewy rap, and Boa, Hyoyeon, and Seulgi performed a fantastic performance with a dance break.
However, their bold appearance and lyrics that do not fit their performance are causing controversy. In the lyrics, contents are warning other women to keep their hands off my man, such as “You must have done something for a while,” “My boyfriend is another level,” “You are like poison to good men,” “It’s not the place for you to flirt.” make up the main SM explained, “It directly expresses the image of a woman with high self-esteem in love with her lover.” Still, some fans also criticize “Is it a woman with high self-esteem to occupy a man by discriminating against another woman?”
The project’s name, Girls on Top, was taken from the song ‘Girls on Top’ released by BoA in 2005. ‘Girls on Top,’ which was sung by 19-year-old BoA at the time and written by Yoo Young-jin, contains a message that shows the image of a confident woman by throwing away the prejudice that women are powerless. BoA sang, “I don’t want anyone to pretend that I am who I am,” “I want to be proud of myself as I am,” “Half the world, women will make it,” and “I want to walk forward confidently.” BoA also picked ‘Girls On Top’ as one of her favorite songs. Ironically, Yoo Young-jin was also the lyricist for ‘Step Back, which came out with lyrics with the opposite vibe 17 years later.
