Stray Kids’ ‘THIS & THAT’ Album: All 7 Tracks Ranked

The closest track to a purposely crafted crossover play, “After You” is sung mostly in English apart from some of the second-verse and bridge raps. 3RACHA composed the track with The Monsters & Strangerz and German, who have produced Billboard Hot 100 hits like Justin Bieber’s “As I Am” and Maroon 5’s “Nobody’s Love,” which speak to their clean, uncluttered pop stylings. The euphoric EDM breakdown feels specifically engineered to light up a live crowd and will certainly go off during the tour, but it feels like too safe a song for Stray Kids, who have built a career on delivering sonic surprises.

Stray Kids have built a reputation for specializing in the reassurance song: typically mid-tempo, rock-pop cuts aimed to comfort a listener having a hard day. “I Do” is the group’s latest execution of it, opening with the impact chorus: “I do feel the same pain as you/ Every scar, every wound/ I do, even when you feel alone/ I’ll be right here, never gone.”

Listen closely and one will hear unexpected but lovely, unguarded moments where Bang Chan’s Australian accent come through fully on his vowel pronunciation “every scar, every wound” (giving a special kind of kind of intimacy, whether on purpose or accidental) or Changbin closing out the first verse belting “You thought you had to hold it on your own/ But I feel it too” (delivering one of the biggest vocal moments of his career).

Changbin is also the sole songwriter on this track, which includes loads of English lyrics alongside Korean, a genuinely difficult and impressive feat in a second language one may not yet be fully fluent in.

Stray Kids know exactly how to grab listeners from the opening track, and they’ve been perfecting the practice for years: “Hall of Fame” on 5-Star, “MEGAVERSE” for Rock-Star, “MOUNTAINS” on ATE, “BLEEP” on KARMA. Now, “RUN IT” joins that lineage of anthemic SKZ album openers with what may be the most sweeping of them all: the brass arrangement sound built for stadiums joined by marching drums, and the group’s grandest proclamation to date. Lee Know sings the first declaration, “Run it everywhere, all around the world/ It’s another day, coming on the way,” followed by I.N singing, “Build another city, run it day and nightLive another day, yeah, we on the way/ Around the world, we’ll run it day and night.”

Most of THIS & THAT feels more personal with songs about love, breakups and memories, but this one is Stray Kids’ story, told by Stray Kids — no wonder they named their entire world tour after it.

Feeling perfectly aligned with THIS & THAT‘s August release date, “Back Then” is a late-summer song in the truest sense, with a warm, unhurried, and faintly melancholy sound, boasting a distinct ’80s tilt that feels particularly fresh in Stray Kids’ discography.

At 3:45, “Back Then” is the longest track on the record, with a nostalgic feel and fascinating metaphors (HAN sings at one point that being with this person makes him feel free, like a single cloud) that fully deserve to stretch and take up all the space they need. Written entirely by HAN, it’s further proof of his affinity for rock that keeps surfacing across his solo credits and gives the tracklist a graceful two-song run after “Way Out” before closing with a bang via the “This & That” festival remix.

The weirdest song on the record, but also the most rewarding, “FARMING” is 2:31 of restless and satisfying experimentation. The Bang Chan-assisted beat has a lurching, off-kilter bounce that recalls eras of Missy Elliott and Timbaland at their most creative, complete with pounding rhythmic percussion, machine-like grinding and curious vocal distortions.

Conceptually, “FARMING” borrows gaming and internet slang to comment on hustle culture. Knowing how hard Stray Kids work both as a group and as individuals, Felix’s husky baritone delivering lines like, “Nah, I’mma work, work, work every minute/ Nah, I’mma run, run, run ’til the limit” hit that much harder.

For a band that has released songs about their fear of time, this is the one song here that couldn’t have come from anyone else, while also having more than enough universal appeal to connect to listeners who might feel burnt out on life, but have to keep pushing to make the dream come true.

An undeniable standout, “Way Out” embraces a laid-back groove, mixing electro-R&B production with trap beats while adding guitar strumming so organic-sounding that it creates a fascinating friction between the synthetic and live instrumentation. Bang Chan produced the track with Jun2, a longtime SKZ collaborator responsible for a run of underrated, emotional fan-favorite tracks — “Lonely St.,” “Leave,” “Mixtape: Time Out” — and that partnership has never sounded better than it does on this unhurried goodbye song.

Vocally, “Way Out” also showcases some of Stray Kids’ best moments, like Hyunjin and Bang Chan harmonizing on the quad-lingual line, “Sayonara, adiós, jal-ga, au revoir,” which is recreated later by Felix and I.N in the duo’s own timbre. The bridge also boasts another must-hear musical moment when the production cuts, barring some slick trap and hi-hat beats, and the vocal line of Seungmin and I.N shines with a tender, all-too-short falsetto spotlight.

Stray Kids grooving with the music and mixing their different vocal colors make a powerful musical statement that feels somewhat lost in today’s boy bands, with this track bringing the octet’s obvious musicianship to center stage.

Musically, Stray Kids have built a reputation for loud, maximalist music, giving their albums names like Maxident, Circus, and NOEASY (the last title being a play on the word “noisy”), with their singles historically coming in like K-pop wrecking balls.

Yet the most intriguing part about THIS & THAT‘s title track is how little it does. Its laid-back hip-hop structure invites the listener in with the guys’ delivery landing somewhere near mumble rap, in the best sense, that it’s easy enough to sing, rap, or talk along with by first listen. The repetitive “this or that, this or that” refrain is exactly the kind of hook that can easily lodge itself into clip after clip on social media and gives the track far more appeal to actually crossover in a meaningful, mainstream way than a song like “After You” does by so clearly trying to lean into trendy Top 40 radio sounds.

The accompanying music video piles on additional curiosities with the members puppeteering an army of headless dancers between shots of full-force group choreography. At this point in Stray Kids’ career, leaning into and embracing restraint is truly its own kind of flex.