ATE Review: An Explosive Expansion of the Stray Kids Universe
When it comes to Stray Kids’s musical multiverse, ATE both travels through and messes with space and time.
Some of the most summative lyrics of the Stray Kids Music Video Universe are in “MEGAVERSE”: “First, second, third, fourth wall / We’re breakin’ them all.” Those lyrics are a prime example of the group’s layered wordplay. They use the “breaking the fourth wall” expression to acknowledge their awareness of playing parts in a fictional story, they nod to the metaphorical wall-breaking their lyrics are routinely about, and they nod to the literal wall-breaking that is part of multiple music videos. Adding even more meaning is the song these lyrics come from; the title refers to both a musical multiverse and a “mega verse,” the ability to pack a punch lyrically! While listening to Stray Kids’s music, it is easy to picture the group winking and smirking as they sing and rap about their multifaceted, “mega” impacts. Stray Kids know exactly what they’re saying and doing, yet they enjoy not putting the public entirely in the loop.
As described in a previous album review, Stray Kids’s music videos erase the lines between where the performances start and end:
“The planets in their story’s ‘MEGAVERSE’ are not distinct circles; they are more like nesting dolls. The level of reality each character is in is not always the same… It is more accurate to describe Stray Kids’ behavior as not switching roles… so much as blurring the lines between them. After all, the elementary-aged musicians preparing backstage for their concert while Stray Kids narrate [in the ‘LALALALA’ music video] can be seen as younger versions of themselves!”
Watching the “LALALALA” music video leaves people wondering, “Do Stray Kids play the little kids preparing for the concert, do they play the all-seeing narrators, or do they play a third role?” The answer is yes! Rather than play one role after another, Stray Kids take on multiple roles at the same time. They never fully sever the “musician” identity from the other ones, and because they do not cleanly delineate between when they are performing and when they are not, the whole world in “LALALALA” is their stage!
Stray Kids never leave a piece of themselves behind, always intentionally overlapping their spheres of life. Likewise, ATE’s songs and videos portray Stray Kids as both showmen and onlookers, both the purveyors and targets of their own actions. ATE is the most Stray Kids of Stray Kids albums, not despite its ambiguous layers but because of them.
Wearing Many Hats
The ATE-era trailer shows the members getting a negative fortune cookie message, dealing with lots of bad luck, then getting a positive fortune cookie message and seeing their luck do a 180. Complicating this seemingly straightforward storyline is the fact that the members watch FELIX in a commercial for those fortune cookies; “FELIX the famous actor” coexists with “FELIX the down-to-Earth friend.”
An ATE-era “Mashup Video” also shows FELIX in an odd position. He resides within a physical album copy that a little girl picks up off a bench, and the video ends with him winking and gesturing for the viewers to “shush” about his whereabouts. It is as if he has snuck into a fictional world within the album book’s pages and knows that the viewers know this, but he wants the viewers to pretend that they do not! Meanwhile, copies of the album FELIX is inside of are packaged and shipped by other Stray Kids members; they appear to exist in the “real world” outside of FELIX’s 2D one. Yet another dimension appears to be involved due to some scenes taking place in a blank, white space. This plain setting that appears suspended in time looks similar to one in the multiverse-focused “LALALALA” video. Essentially, Stray Kids are playing characters in a world where Stray Kids are also a famous musical act; they play stars and members of the general public at the same time.
Having coexisting roles is a central part of the “JJAM” video premise as well. The members play enigmatic, spooky-movie-ready characters who appear splattered in blood at the same time as they appear to be just covered in jam! They play both movie characters and themselves, busy cooking up new musical treats!
Worlds Colliding in “Chk Chk Boom”
The music video for “Chk Chk Boom” is even more meta, with the Stray Kids members making the news in more ways than one! It starts with a “CCB News” broadcast hosted by Ryan Reynolds, who introduces himself as such (“Ryan Reynolds here”), despite being dressed as Deadpool. The ticker at the bottom of the broadcast both sets the scene and accidentally sums up the premise of the Stray Kids Cinematic Universe!:
“Unique drawings and installations that almost seem like art pieces have appeared… Experts from various fields have gathered to find the cause of these phenomena but have yet to identify a clear explanation…”
Reynolds’s real-time coverage of this unfolding phenomena is dependent on what Stray Kids do. I.N is the most overt about playing the role of an instigator, even gesturing to his cell phone while on camera to get Reynolds to call him mid-show! Just a few of the many other ways Stray Kids cause chaos and confusion: FELIX’s gestures appear to trigger explosions (bringing to mind the grenade-throwing in “Give Me Your TMI” and the bomb in “SUPER BOARD”); CHANGBIN appears in a room full of picture frames before appearing in a mobile world within one of those frames; and each time a car speeds by, the number of visible members dancing on the sidewalk behind it changes. What they are up to and what will happen next remain anyone’s guesses!
The video ends with the Stray Kids members casually sitting at and around Reynolds’s desk. He nervously asks them if they’re in need of a new, “older, less agile member,” before giving the camera a thumbs-up.
This scene has much more to read into than what meets the eye! First of all, Stray Kids’s love for Deadpool goes back years; the group had a Deadpool-themed performance on the show KINGDOM in 2021. This year, there has been extensive cross-promotion, with Stray Kids contributing to the Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack, Reynolds making the music video cameo (Hugh Jackman also has a brief cameo, dressed as Wolverine), and Stray Kids participating in the movie’s South Korean press junket.
This context about the pre-existing connections between the Stray Kids members and stars of Deadpool compounds the fact that Stray Kids’s lives outside of their music videos are always incorporated into those videos. They do not leave their status at the door when telling a new fictional story. While it would make more sense for Stray Kids to either be only addressed as such in the video or only addressed as the troublemaker characters within the news broadcast, they choose not to do that, hence why Reynolds implies their status as “Stray Kids the band” with his question about becoming a member. It is equally meaningful that Reynolds introduces himself as Ryan Reynolds while in his Deadpool costume; he could have easily had a cameo either entirely as himself or staying clearly in Deadpool’s universe. Everyone keeps a foot in several worlds, intentionally keeping it unclear how deep the “show within a show” format goes.
Layers of the “MEGAVERSE”
Besides playing characters who exist in each other’s worlds in surprising ways, Stray Kids’s multiverse is maintained through changes to the size proportionality of settings and props. In “S-Class,” they teleport into a graffiti-covered alley - or so it seems! The camera turns askew and reveals the “real” Stray Kids are actually dancing around the miniature display; the graffiti-covered setting is just a diorama. Now, in “Chk Chk Boom,” Stray Kids are once again in a vandalized alley, resurfacing questions about whether or not the ones present there are the “real,” life-sized Stray Kids. It doesn’t help clarify matters to see some graffiti appear only after CHANGBIN pulls it into the frame, as if it were on a garage door!
The possibility of a shrunken-down version of Stray Kids existing in a miniature world that is shaped by the life-sized Stray Kids appears more likely when watching another “Chk Chk Boom”-era music video: “MOUNTAINS.” In that video, the members gather around a city diorama. They mess with it by playing chess with the miniature skyscrapers and reaching a hand down into it in a way that somehow pierces through the “real” sky too. This brings to mind the master-puppeteer-like giant who looms over them in “LALALALA.”
A Track-by-Track Breakdown
The ways of summarizing Stray Kids’s music videos also apply to their songs on their own. Stray Kids treat both their video surroundings and the alphabet as their playthings; they analogize about their seismic impacts; and they often nod to their older material in their newer material, which is bound to happen when artists intentionally erase the lines between their past, present, and future selves.
As is their habit, Stray Kids’s album title has multiple meanings. “Ate” is a slang term for someone who has excelled (“They ate that!”), a reference to the number eight (Stray Kids has eight members), and a return to the theme of songs like “God’s Menu.” The ATE-era song “JJAM” is similar to “God’s Menu” in the ways it compares “cooking up” new and “savory” songs with food. Also, the ATE-era trailer includes the line “Who ate the luck?” Given the fact that Stray Kids all have the same kind of luck at the same time (first all bad luck, then all good luck), the answer is “All of them ate!”
The opening track, “MOUNTAINS,” also addresses Stray Kids collectively. The song brings to mind many past lyrics about climbing to the top. “Your neck must hurt from only looking up,” they say in “TOPLINE.” “My career reaches a new peak,” they declare in “Hall of Fame.” They keep their “shoulders held high like Mount Everest” in “Charmer.” And now, they sing proudly about having their “[h]ead[s] above the clouds.”
“Chk Chk Boom” sounds like classic Stray Kids in some ways but different in others, particularly with a new-to-them emphasis on Latin musical influences. The line including the word “lobos,” which is Spanish for “wolves,” simultaneously nods to this new sonic direction and their 2021 song “WOLFGANG.” Making the reference even more meaningful is the fact that “WOLFGANG” is a song they performed on KINGDOM, the show that arguably led to 2024’s Deadpool cross-promotion!
In addition to the lyrics analogizing their music to cooking up fresh delicacies, Stray Kids touch on familiar topics in “JJAM” that include taking life at one’s own pace (“A tightly blocked road, just take it slow”) and getting through challenges together (“No one can escape this feeling / Can’t be left out”). They also use a dog-related figure of speech again, saying “Dogs, cows, him or her” (essentially saying “so on and so forth” or “this, that, and the other”). In “SUPER BOARD,” they reference a proverb about a dog ending up “just looking at the roof” if it tries to chase a chicken. The expression refers to how some people realize they have not been pursuing the goals that best suit them; their aspirations need some recalibrating. At the same time, it is a reiteration of Stray Kids’s “Your neck must hurt from only looking up” comment! Stray Kids are saying they are on the right paths for themselves, while the “dogs” are those who literally look up to them, wishing they were succeeding when walking down the same paths! Imitation is getting others nowhere.
“I Like It” also reuses go-to lyric topics. They express contentment about not clearly labeling a relationship, saying it doesn’t matter if it’s “a dotted line [or] a solid line.” Feeling content with the undefined is a common theme in their songs: “Double Knot” expresses a willingness to travel with a “broken compass,” they decide to just draw their “own map” in “Astronaut,” and they repeat their willingness to “draw [their] own true path” in “Lonely St.” Another line in “I Like It” compares a relationship status to an endless game of “Hide and Seek,” a cute and childish framing that speaks to both the “Stray” and the “Kids” parts of their group name!
The rest of ATE continues the habit of making on-brand comments in ways that contain multitudes. Stray Kids take pride in being eternal “Runners,” metaphorically, which thematically mirrors songs like “DLC” (“Trapped inside the narrowed ideals… I better run”), “FREEZE” (“You can’t get anything done / Focusing on what others think… Let others worry about the rules”), and “Muddy Water” (“I just look forward and run”).
“twilight” is the most distinct song on ATE, with its jazz and bossa nova foundations and serious tone, but it puts a suitable period on the statements this album makes. Memories are compared to a pile of ashes, and this comes after Stray Kids have boasted about being metaphorically on fire and cooking up greatness. “twilight” is a humble pivot, and the feeling of a bitter aftertaste is made more acute with lyrics that recognize it is not fading anytime soon, like “[t]his self-talk endlessly hovers in the air.” Even when showing a more vulnerable side, Stray Kids convey the belief that their words have lingering power!
The song “Stray Kids” is a fitting epilogue for ATE and, naturally, has the most self-references. From their group intro, “Step out!” (“There ain’t no last step out”), to song titles (including “Blueprint,” “Lonely St.,” and “Hellevator”), the “Stray Kids” lyrics commemorate the group’s journey. It is a toast “To places still unknown” and confirmation of them being “proud of [their] name.” The music video is a full-circle moment too: They run together towards a school bus, like the one in “District 9” that leads to one of the story’s first dimension-jumps; they use a key to unlock elevator access, which brings to mind both “Hellevator” and the role keys play in entering new dimensions in the ODDINARY-era trailer and “Levanter;” and FELIX and HAN lie on the ground on top of blue, painted wings. This last example of a full-circle moment is particularly touching: “Wings of passion folded for now” is a line from their early-day song “Hellevator,” and CHANGBIN has blue paint on his hands in the “Ex” video. The scene represents the group’s new confidence “straying” while keeping the faith, flying wherever the wind takes them, as long as they can travel together and know their efforts (in this example, represented via painting) eventually pay off.
The “Stray Kids” music video has a perfect ending: They each take a microphone and walk onto a stage to start a show. Then again, their entire musical universe is one endless show, so it is both a grand finale and only the start of Act One!
Ending ATE with an encore of “Chk Chk Boom” (“Chk Chk Boom (Festival Ver.)”) reiterates the ongoing nature of Stray Kids’s myriad stories.
Conclusion
The essence of Stray Kids is defined by playfulness, self-awareness, and limitless storytelling, and ATE epitomizes all three traits. The album is full of examples of how Stray Kids convey multiple meanings in the same lyrics, collapse contexts and combine plots in their music videos, and overall negate boundaries between and among stories and sides of themselves. With these tendencies intact, through the music videos and songs alike, ATE relentlessly and wholly represents Stray Kids.
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