Before the new song on October 26, a RIIZE starter guide: seven takes on 'Emotional Pop', from 'Get A Guitar' to 'Do your dance'

RIIZE releases a new song on October 26. It's a prologue single, coming ahead of the group's second full-length album in spring 2027. We picked seven songs to hear before then. When RIIZE put out its debut single in 2023, the group introduced its music as a genre of its own called 'Emotional Pop'. That phrase shows up in the Bugs album notes for every one of the seven songs we picked. Only the words placed next to it change from song to song. Line those words up, and you can see the feelings this group has brought out. There were seven members at debut; today there are six: SHOTARO, EUNSEOK, SUNGCHAN, WONBIN, SOHEE and ANTON.

At a glance

Year	Song	'Emotional Pop' in the album notes	Watch first
2023	'Get A Guitar'	The history of 'Emotional Pop' begins	0:00 the guitar's 'VOLUME' knob
2023	'Talk Saxy'	'Emotional Pop', armed with honesty	0:06 'TALK SAXY' in light bulbs
2024	'Love 119'	'Emotional Pop' full of heart flutters	0:42 a "You will fall in love." text
2024	'Boom Boom Bass'	'Emotional Pop' in even more colors	0:12 a bass smashing a window
2025	'Fly Up'	'Emotional Pop' filling 10 tracks	0:03 'PLEASE KEEP QUIET'
2025	'Fame'	A passionate 'Emotional Pop'	0:35 the 'record line' knob
2026	'Do your dance'	Widening the reach of 'Emotional Pop'	0:16 a bedroom TV

2023 · 'Get A Guitar'

The title track of the debut single, released on September 4, 2023. The headline of the Bugs notes reads, "The history of an original genre, 'Emotional Pop', begins!" Describing it as a genre that turns the members' many feelings into songs, the notes also set out an ambition to grow from 'Emotional Pop rookies' into 'Emotional Pop artists'. The song tells how members drawn together by the sound of a guitar become one team. A retro synthesizer (a keyboard instrument that makes electronic sounds) and a funky guitar rhythm take the lead. The music video opens at 0:00 with a finger turning the 'VOLUME' knob on a white electric guitar. Apple Music

2023 · 'Talk Saxy'

A single released on October 27 of the same year. The Bugs notes called it "'Emotional Pop', armed with honesty." It's a song that speaks up, plainly and confidently, about being drawn to someone you don't know yet. From the intro, a saxophone riff (a short melody that repeats) hooks the ear, backed by 808 drums (deep, heavy electronic drum sounds). At 0:06 in the music video, the members dance in front of giant letters spelling 'TALK SAXY', densely studded with light bulbs. At 1:18, the stage shifts to a red room with speakers lined up along the walls. Apple Music

2024 · 'Love 119'

A single released on January 5, 2024. This time, the notes call it "'Emotional Pop' full of heart flutters." The song compares a first love that arrives out of nowhere to an emergency (119 is Korea's emergency number), and it samples the band izi's 2005 song '응급실' ('Emergency Room'), lifting a passage from the older song and placing it in the new one. At 0:42 in the music video, a phone chat shows the date 'Monday, January 1, 2024', and under it a text that says, "January 5, 6 o'clock. You will fall in love." The date in the text is the day the song came out. At 4:01, the members, lying side by side in the snow, toss snow up into the sky, and in the next cut, that scene moves inside an old tube TV in a dark room. Apple Music

2024 · 'Boom Boom Bass'

The title track of the first mini album, 'RIIZING', released on June 17, 2024. The album notes say its eight songs bring 'Emotional Pop' "in even more colors," and give this song the subheading "This time, RIIZE picks up the bass guitar!" The credits bring back all four composers of 'Get A Guitar' (Peter Wallevik, Daniel Davidsen, Ben Samama and David Arkwright), along with PhD on arrangement. The music video begins with a bass guitar lying on rocky ground. At 0:08, Earth hangs in the sky above that ground, and the bass crosses space and, at 0:12, smashes through the window of a music shop marked 'FIND THAT BASS'. At 2:08, the breaking-news caption 'GIANT BASS GUITAR FALLS FROM THE SKY' comes up on a TV, and the six members look up. That's the scene in our lead photo. Apple Music

2025 · 'Fly Up'

The title track of the first full-length album, 'ODYSSEY', released on May 19, 2025. The notes lead with the line "An original genre, 'Emotional Pop', filling 10 tracks, including the title track 'Fly Up'." 'Fly Up' is a dance song that calls 1950s rock 'n' roll to mind. Its lyrics say the six members will get closer to more people through music and dance, without prejudice. At 0:03 in the music video, a door with a 'PLEASE KEEP QUIET' sign is pushed open, and inside the library, everyone is dancing together. At 2:11, a member jumps over a box marked 'DO NOT JUMP'. One by one, the 'don'ts' get broken. Apple Music

2025 · 'Fame'

The title track of a single released on November 24, 2025. The subtitle of its notes reads, "The birth of a passionate 'Emotional Pop'!" It's a single that won't hide even the anxiety and emptiness that came with growing up the hard way. According to the notes, 'Fame' sings of the ideal the group hopes for as 'Emotional Pop artists': sharing feelings and love, rather than fame. The name the debut notes set down as a goal has now become the subject of a song. Musically, it's in the rage style (a branch of hip-hop led by synthesizers that sound like they're tearing), with rough electric guitar laid on top. At 0:35 in the music video, a finger turns a knob, just like in the first shot of 'Get A Guitar'. This time the knob reads 'record line', and around that shot an LP (a vinyl record) spins, with 'FAME' handwritten on a strip of tape. At 3:34, a guitar burns behind the end credits. Apple Music

2026 · 'Do your dance'

The title track of the second mini album, 'II', released on June 15, 2026. The album notes predict that its six songs will "once again widen the reach of the original genre 'Emotional Pop'," and they reread the meaning behind the group's name, 'Rise & Realize' (growing together and making dreams come true), as 'Rise to Realize': realizing things as you move. Over a roughly distorted 808 bass (a low electronic bass that sits underneath everything), a chorus repeats as if it couldn't care less. David Wilson (composition) and dwilly (arrangement) are names that also appeared in the credits of 'Love 119'. At 0:16 in the music video, the camera pulls back, and the group dance so far turns out to be playing on a bedroom TV. In that room, with its red curtains drawn, the members dance. Apple Music

October 26, another prologue

News of the next single first came out at 'Ch. RIIZE : ON AIR', the fan meeting for the group's third debut anniversary, held September 12–13 at Inspire Arena, Incheon. When the show ended, a special video previewed the second full-length album for spring 2027 and, ahead of it, the October 26 prologue single, and SM Entertainment announced the same plan on September 14. NONOL wrote about the video left behind after the fan meeting that day, too.

This isn't the first song to carry the word 'prologue'. The debut single's notes called 'Memories', which came out two weeks earlier, a "prologue track." It was a song that carried the time the members spent practicing together as they took a first step into a bigger world. On August 26, RIIZE released 'Sunburst', its third Japanese single. When the song came out early, on July 27, the subtitle of its notes was "'Emotional Pop' you can count on, even in summer." It'll be worth watching which feeling ends up next to that phrase in the notes that come out on the 26th.