babyMINT: the Taiwanese girl group making irreverent, irresistible pop bangers

babyMINT are game for whatever. The Taiwanese girl group’s biggest single, the absurdly titled and TikTok-viral ‘​Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい’, is stuffed with musical ideas: an opening cheer routine set to retro video game synths, a playful rap about eating your vegetables, and a rave breakdown that trails off into cathartic screams. Watch babyMINT’s six members lazily floss and tackle the song’s head-banging choreography alongside its maximalist production, and you’ll find yourself breaking into a wide grin.

babyMINT formed via Next Girlz, a Taiwanese reality competition between six trainee girl groups that aired last year on YouTube. Over 12 weekly episodes, they went through near-constant stylistic switches: no idea felt off-limits as they put their whimsical and eccentric flair on trendy sounds like hyperpop and drum’n’bass. Reflecting on the show, they consider it a learning experience. Each round’s experimentation helped solidify the babyMINT concept and made them more self-assured on- and off-stage. “This is babyMINT,” asserts Vikky, “we are weird and we accept it.”

The six members who made their official debut as babyMINT last month – LIN (who was formerly known as Lin Lin in the now-defunct K-pop group Cherry Bullet), Vikky, Siena, PX, XuXu, and Yun – gravitate towards different styles. Asked about their favourite Next Girlz performances, the results vary: LIN mentions their Jersey club remix of Karencici’s ‘Nobody Loves U :(’ while Yun declares ‘ICKY蛙化 °(╭╮)°’ as her favourite thanks to its powerful drill beat. For Siena, it’s the dynamic ‘GrAb Me If U CaN!!’ while Vikky and XuXu select ballad ‘No Way’ and the aforementioned ‘​Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい’, respectively. PX, after hearing everyone’s responses, proudly states that they’re all her favourite. The different answers aren’t just a measure of each member’s unique tastes, but of all the various concepts they embraced during Next Girlz.

Their performances in Next Girlz were collected in the December compilation ‘Loading… FUN!’, which is packed with thrilling oddball production choices and razor-sharp hooks. It occasionally can feel disjointed. To Vikky, “every song is another babyMINT,” while Siena says the album chronicles the group’s journey to narrow down their concept. babyMINT didn’t win Next Girlz, but the resulting compilation has since gone on to receive unexpected acclaim in the Mandopop world: ‘Loading… FUN!’ and ‘​Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい’ were nominated for Best Album and Best Single respectively at Singapore’s FreshMusic Awards.

Another version of babyMINT was introduced in August with the drop of their official debut single ‘BOOOOOORING’. The sparky electropop track is about trying to get out of dull, repetitive routines, and during their chat with NME, the group are more than happy to reproduce for us some of the meme samples in the track’s background. As they talk about the song and its accompanying video inspired by The Matrix, they sound more confident about their direction. “We want to show that there are no limits to what we can do,” says Vikky.

There are a lot of small details in ‘BOOOOOORING’ and its music video. What were your favourites?

XuXu: “During the recording of ‘BOOOOOORING,’ we added a lot of phonetic meme sounds. Every ‘boring’ is different and represents each of our personalities. The producer, lyricists, and choreographer give us a lot of space for our creativity. They are all very considerate of our ideas.”

PX: “We have a really cool stunt in our choreography. It’s a 360-degree flip performed by six members. It’s in reference to the classic movie The Matrix, paying tribute to a clip where they flipped and knocked down all the bad guys.”

Vikky: “In our music video, all the guns shoot gummy bears. I feel like it’s very unique and it shows that we are just doing fun things, just playing around. I feel like we are giving a deep message, but using funny methods. I’m French and so our producers wanted to add that into the music video. So I have a baguette and a croissant almost everywhere.”

Siena: “That was the first idea he came up with when creating this music video.”

Vikky: “And I thought he was joking [laughs].”

“This is babyMINT: we are weird and we accept it” – Vikky

Yun: “I had a lot of [high-pitched] ‘boring, boring, boring’. And that sound is from when we were chatting with each member. Our producer was just like ‘this sounds very good’ and just used it. I have a meme sound [imitates Steve Carell] ‘no, God, please, no.’ We were just chatting and we didn’t know that sound was recorded.”

How does ‘BOOOOOORING’ differ from some of the songs you performed on Next Girlz?

Vikky: “I feel like on the show we were still searching for what our concept is. Every stage, we have a different concept. Now we are all united. We have a song called ‘​Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい’ that was an unexpected hit. So after that, we came out with the idea that we are suited for a more cute and more quirky, weird concept. This is why we think that we are very experimental, because we are trying a lot of unique concepts. Our new song ‘BOOOOOORING’ is darker, the concept is more cool and it just combines everything we had to do on the show.”

LIN: “I think we now have a stronger sense of unity. Next Girlz was more about preparing for the stage and we were only just starting to get to know each other. This song ‘BOOOOOORING’ is the result of us having developed a stronger team relationship. Viewers might not be able to see it, but to me, the difference is enormous.”

In one episode, when you first hear the title ‘​Hellokittybalahcurrihellokitty美味しい’, you all look shocked. What was your first reaction to hearing that song?

LIN: “Our first reaction was… [makes shocked expression]. This song’s title is very game-like and dynamic, so we thought, ‘what a cute and interesting song.’ Before we heard the chorus we were still smiling, then when it got faster, instantly the corners of our mouths twitched and we thought ‘what is this…’ [laughs] But because the manager was beside us, we were like ‘wow… so cool.’”

“Since our mentors give us lots of creative space it helps us to be more confident when being ourselves” – LIN

Vikky: “And honestly when we were first listening, everyone was like ‘what? what? hello kitty what?’ Like guava and curry, these two things don’t go well together.”

Siena: “Because I joined the group later, I hadn’t participated in the previous stages. I was looking forward to being part of this performance. But when I first heard this song, I said, ‘I don’t want it anymore!’ We had a lot of doubts. The previous songs were prettier concepts and suddenly this was an otaku concept. When we saw everyone’s reactions, we didn’t expect that so many people would like it.”

You work a lot with producer A.F and choreographer Xiao Du. What’s your working relationship with them like?

Vikky: “They all listen to what we want and are very considerate. They don’t push us to do things we don’t want to do. For example, the turn in ‘BOOOOOORING’, which is a very dangerous move, she was very scared if someone would get injured but we were like ‘we can do this move, we got it.’”

LIN: “I feel like they’re like life coaches. When we doubt ourselves doing these things, they don’t question if we’re doing it wrong. Instead, they tell us that bravely experimenting is the best. Everyone, including our company, pays attention to our ideas, as well as our physical and mental health. I feel like this is something we need because our eccentric style often makes us doubtful if we’re doing things the right way. Since our mentors give us lots of creative space it helps us to be more confident when being ourselves.”

I know Vikky and LIN participated in writing lyrics for ‘La Nueva Era’ and XuXu composed the violin part on ‘No Way’. Is that something you’d like to participate in more?

XuXu: “In ‘No Way,’ I wrote the violin part. I have been studying music since I was a child and have studied composition. Our music producer gave me the opportunity to write this section. ‘No Way’ is a very different song for us because we didn’t usually perform lyrical songs. I added some of my interpretation of the music and was very happy to get this opportunity.”

Vikky: “For our first performance, I wrote lyrics in Spanish and LIN wrote the Korean rap. I feel like if we can, another song would have lyrics in maybe French, Spanish, Korean, or Japanese. Why not? We want to try new things.”

babyMINT’s new single ‘BOOOOOORING’ is out now

The post babyMINT: the Taiwanese girl group making irreverent, irresistible pop bangers appeared first on NME.