NME’s latest stars of The Cover, TWS, have compiled an exclusive playlist to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.
The South Korean boyband are on this week’s (June 30) edition of The Cover, a weekly manifestation of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read the profile of TWS here, written by Tássia Assis and featuring photography by Yoon Songyi.
To accompany The Cover, TWS have curated an exclusive playlist for NME featuring some of their favourite encouraging, uplifting songs. Titled ‘Songs That Give You Courage To Try New Things’, the collection kicks off with three K-pop tracks chosen by Shinyu, including TWS’ own ‘Hey! Hey!’, as well as ‘CBZ (Prime Time)’ by BSS and ‘Limit’ from Yerin Baek.
Dohoon continues the K-pop love with ‘Start Over’ by Gaho (also chosen by Kyungmin), as well as ‘Blueming’ by IU and the boyband’s own debut single, ‘Plot Twist’. Youngjae also picked one of their own songs, including ‘Countdown!’ in the playlist, but otherwise switches to Western pop with Justin Bieber’s ‘Life is Worth Living’ and Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)’.
Hanjin curates a moody selection with songs by Taylor Swift (‘The Archer’), SEVENTEEN (‘Cheers to Youth’) and Lauv (‘Modern Loneliness’). On the other hand, Jihoon’s upbeat selection for the playlist includes Tori Kelly’s ‘Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing’, RAYE’s ‘Worth It’ and ‘Go!’ by SEVENTEEN’s DK. Finally, Kyungmin wraps things up with Panic! At The Disco (‘High Hopes’) and RIIZE (‘The End Of The Day’).
Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.
In this week’s The Cover, TWS open up about their distinctive wistful sound they like to call “boyhood pop”. “Our music captures the emotions that relate to being inexperienced and uncertain, but it also shows the experiences that you get as you go into adulthood,” Kyungmin tells NME. “And because our music embodies this significant transformative phase of life, it resonates deeply with the current generation navigating similar life stages and challenges.”
TWS also touch on following in the footsteps of those that came before them in the South Korea entertainment industry, especially as the first boyband to debut under Pledis Entertainment since K-pop phenomenon SEVENTEEN. “They taught us to be grateful for each other and to respect each other,” Jihoon says. “As a rookie team, I guess you might not know this early on, but we were able to learn this from our [seniors].”
Find out more about TWS in the full Cover story here and see who else has been on The Cover here.