Is Lee Soo-Man afraid of getting old?

I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in many of SM’s releases over the past year or two. Most notable are two SM Station x 0 singles back-to-back with the word “young” in the title.

• “We Young” – Chanyeol x Sehun – Sept 2018
• “Young” – Baekhyun x Loco – Aug 2018
• “We Young” – NCT Dream – Aug 2017
• “Young and Free” – Xiumin x Mark – July 2017

I would say MAYBE this comes from NCT Dream being the youth unit, but NCT Dream only put out one of these songs. Most of these include members of EXO.

So maybe it’s not Lee Soo-Man who’s having the crisis, but EXO. They’re getting to the point where they can no longer push out military service (I believe Xiumin is required to enlist this year) and are staring down the results of what happens when a group is scattered through military enlistment. Super Junior has been doing a decent job of picking back up the pieces as the members end their service, but it’s still a somewhat scattershot approach.

Perhaps I’m trying to ascribe to much meaning behind why there are 4 songs with incredibly similar themes and titles. (I probably am.) But I’m curious as to why there are songs from two different groups that have the exact same title. Is this an SEO thing? Is the Chanyeol x Sehun version going to be a remix of the NCT Dream song? (We’ll find out.) (I’m hoping it’s a Chanyeol original, tbh.)

When you add NCT Dreams “Go” and “We Go Up” to the mix, it further muddies the SEO waters–let alone someone’s ability to remember the actual titles of the songs.

Part of me wonders if this is a byproduct of an overly refined system, in which the syntax “We ____” has tested well and in which concepts of youth and going places have also risen to the top. Watching how SM iterates on a theme, it almost looks to me like they’re putting out multiple variations, waiting for one to stick.

I don’t know anything, really, about the behind-the-scenes of the pop music industry so take that with a grain of salt.

I see patterns and can’t help but speculate on them.