“Killer” by Key, Wednesday, April 19, 2023

In high school I spent a good deal of my lawn mowing money on CDs, like many of kids of my generation and before. A brand new CD cost anywhere between $10 and $25, often depending on where you bought it, but also some retailers would sell lesser-known albums at a discount. On a few occasions, a band would issue a re-release and/or a repackaging of an album. This could happen for remastering with new technology not available when the record was first released, anniversary editions of popular records, or most frustrating were deluxe editions not available during the album's initial release. These deluxe editions held bonus tracks, often a new radio single that didn't make the original album.

PROMISE YOU WON'T REGRET. First, it is important to distinguish between bonus editions exclusive to a store. Artists have released exclusive b-sides on these annoying marketing gimmick, selling one edition at particular store, leaving devote fans to buy every edition of the record. While I think that this practice is predatory, I think that when an album is released with multiple editions from the beginning, listeners can choose which version or versions they want to buy based on the bonus content. For example if you have to choose between a live concert recording, an exclusive new track, or remixes, you can guess which one based on your experience with that artists. Rereleases, though, trap listeners into purchasing mostly what they have bought before and don't allow the listener the full story as to whether or not the record was complete in the first place. The first album that I remember getting a repackaging was Skillet's Collide. The 2003 record broke Skillet to Active Rock radio and with their signing to Lava Records, the band released a new version of Collide with different colored packaging and a new track, "Open Wounds," which would be the band's follow up single to "Savior." At the time, I thought that the band's decision to re-release Collide was the right thing to do in order for the band to get the attention I felt they deserved. But then they did that with their next album, Comatose, with the track "Live Free or Let Me Die," but to be fair, Skillet did give fans a live DVD and several acoustic tracks for the cost of buying the album again. In 2009, Anberlin used this tactic unsuccessfully to push a cover of New Order's "True Faith" to the radio by releasing Blue...I mean New Surrender (Deluxe Edition).

THE ASHES OF DEAD EMOTIONS ALL COME BACK TO LIFE. In the streaming era, when music is subscription-based, deluxe editions are welcomed to our listening routines. Take for example how Taylor Swift wasn't happy with how folklore ended with "hoax," so she added the song "The Lakes," or that Acceptance's Wild, Free features three new excellent songs that rival the original ten tracks on the record. But K-pop takes the concept of the deluxe repackaging to its capitalist conclusion, selling full-album merchandise as if the original record had never been released. Today's song, "Killer" by Key happens to come from one of those repackagings. Last summer, Key released his second record, Gasoline. The visual direction of the record followed the "retro futurism" introduced in Key's 2021 EP, Bad Love. The album pushed two singles, starting with "Gasoline" and "Another Life," with "Gasoline" being the only track to chart. Then in February of this year, Key rereleased Gasoline with three new tracks rather than saving them for his next EP or record. The new version of the record updates the artwork. Rather than the Stranger Things-looking album cover for Gasoline, Killer features AI-generated artwork--an animated Key riding a motorbike in what looks like the packaging of a video game. The new lead single, "Killer," in my opinion, is a lot catchier than "Gasoline." "Killer" seems to take influence from The Weeknd and '80s synth pop and lyrically it seems to be influenced by several Michael Jackson songs. The performances Key gives in the music video and on music programs also seem to reference the "Smooth Criminal." While there's nothing deep here, it's certainly killer production.

Music video: