ONEUS and the “A Song Written Easily” Comeback
On March 24, 2020, ONEUS released their first single album IN ITS TIME and the music video for title track “A Song Written Easily.” While the single album only features “A Song Written Easily” and the B-side “Hide and Seek,” both tracks saw the boy group experimenting with new sounds, as they had done with previous releases.
The Music Video
The music video for “A Song Written Easily” opens with ONEUS at various locations in a city at night before shifting to the members on a beautiful island, and the video ends with the shift from the island back to the city. With the track featuring an interesting Latin flair meets tropical pop vibes, it’s no wonder that a majority of the music video features ONEUS either dancing or exploring the island, and the soft, flowy outfits complement the track’s sound nicely. While it may not seem there’s much going on with this video, the sheer beauty of it is undeniable.
ONEUS also released a performance video for “A Song Written Easily” on April 11, 2020.
\The Comeback Performance
ONEUS had their comeback performance for “A Song Written Easily” on M!COUNTDOWN on March 26, 2020. For this comeback, the group only performed “A Song Written Easily” during promotions. ONEUS wore the denim-heavy outfits seen at the opening and closing of the music video for this performance of “A Song Written Easily.” While not as iconic as some of the more flowy, summery outfits they wore in the video, ONEUS rocked them all the same as they performed in front of a diamond-like structure featuring images of a field of flowers.
The Legacy
Shortly before the release of IN ITS TIME, it was announced that ONEUS would compete on Mnet’s reality competition Road to Kingdom, where they placed fourth overall.
Unfortunately, the group didn’t take home any music show wins for this release. Compared to other ONEUS title tracks, it’s difficult to determine if “A Song Written Easily” performed better, as well as, or worse than other releases. If you take the view counts for all of the ONEUS music videos on their official YouTube channel as well as 1theK’s channel and Stone Music Entertainment’s channel, there are music videos with double or triple the amount of views, with debut “Valkyrie” sitting with the most views and “A Song Written Easily” sitting near but not at the bottom.
But just taking music video views into account isn’t enough to determine the success of a comeback, especially since only three ONEUS tracks have appeared on any Gaon Chart. The first title track to appear was “A Song Written Easily,” peaking at No. 79 on the Gaon BGM Chart, which ranks background music sales and is one of the components of the Gaon Digital Chart. Afterwards, “To Be Or Not To Be” peaked at No. 20 on the Gaon Download Chart and “No diggity,” their most recent comeback, peaked at No. 146 on the Gaon Digital Chart. “A Song Written Easily” is also the group’s highest charting track to appear on the Billboard U.S. World Digital Song Sales Chart, where it peaked at No. 11. In comparison, “To Be Or Not To Be” didn’t appear on the Billboard U.S. World Digital Song Sales Chart at all while “No diggity” peaked at No. 18 and is their lowest peaking title track on the chart.
With all of that said, an argument could be made that, while this comeback may not have been as seemingly successful for ONEUS, it set the rookie boy group up for continued success and exposure, especially after their appearance on Road to Kingdom. We can only hope that, as ONEUS continues to release songs, that more and more people will come to appreciate their talents and catchy music.