“Good at Love” is a Japanese song released by TWICE, a popular girl group from JYP Entertainment. It’s the fourth track from their third Japanese full studio album Perfect World. The song was officially released on July 28, 2021. Despite drifting away from TWICE’s innocent and cute image, the song has brought a different unusual charm. The rap at the beginning as well as the multi-layer choir-like harmony make the song have a little more edge and unique character. “Good at Love” is one of the rare moments in TWICE where Mina is the lead singer and successfully impressed ONCEs with her over-the-top singing skills. Following the success of BDZ and TWICE’s three Japanese compilation albums selling more than 250,000 units, TWICE decided to release a new Japanese album in July 2021. It was first announced through social media that TWICE will release a new Japanese album. Within the few days of late June, JYP Entertainment released mysterious teaser photos of the individual members to entice TWICE Japan’s fans with the new album release. A teaser video was also uploaded on YouTube.
The official news release for TWICE’s new Japanese album titled Perfect World was posted on TWICE Japan’s official website on June 12, 2021. On July 7, 2021, the information video was officially released. At the same time, the official tracklist was revealed on TWICE Japan’s official website. “Good at Love” was listed as the third track of the album. A day later, the audio preview for “Good at Love” was also introduced in the “Perfect World Spoiler Video.” The video was available to stream on YouTube as well as TWICE Japan’s official website. In the same video, TWICE Japan also provided a short description of the song as a “cool sound that sings uneasy feelings of a girl who struggled at love.”
The Perfect World mini-album was officially launched on July 28, 2021, and shortly became available to stream on digital music platforms. The track was composed and arranged by DEEZ, SAAY, and YUNSU. DEEZ is a Korean R&B songwriter who previously worked with SM and JYP producing songs for Girls Generation, NCT, EXO, and Miss A. Yunsu is another Seoul-based composer who collaborated with K-pop artists like SHINee and Baekhyun in the past. SAAY (Kwon Sohee) is a Korean R&B singer-songwriter. She produced her own songs most of the time and previously had experiences collaborating with K-pop top artists such as Baekhyun, Ravi, and Punchnello. All three composers had previously collaborated to write Baekhyun’s single “Bambi.” In most cases, the songs that they produce are within the R&B genre. “Good at Love” is a fusion of R&B and hip hop with a hint of electronic music. The consistent slow beat and chants make this song a lot more lively. The musical composition of this song was heavily inspired by late 2000s hip hop songs. The composer also added some quirky elements to the music. For example, all different instruments are saturated with an electronic sound effect towards the chorus. The multi-layer harmony that goes throughout the song makes it sound a bit edgy. The other special aspect that needs to be highlighted in this song is the subtle harmony in the chorus by Mina and a couple of other members that is incredibly soothing and also sounds very pleasant to the ears. At the same time, Momo and Mina also aced the falsettos. Despite the melody sounding a little creepy with all the whispering, these give the song a whole new different character (bold and daring), hence making the song stand out from any other song that was ever performed by TWICE. The lyrics of “Good at Love” were written by Mayu Wakisaka, a prolific J-pop singer-songwriter, composer, and lyricist. She also previously wrote lyrics of “Knock Knock (Japanese Version).” The lyrics try to tell the story of a girl being stuck in a stagnant stage of a romantic relationship. The song clearly expresses a girl’s uneasy feeling and confusion on whether she has done enough to please her love interest or if she has not yet succeeded in satisfying her partner’s romantic desire. The lyrics align with the main message of the album which is all about the process and struggles of “transmitting various forms of love.” In terms of line distribution, Mina and Jihyo are the lead vocals in this song. They both sing 13-14% of the song which lasts around 28-30 seconds per person. On the other hand, Dahyun has the least lines in the song. JYP Entertainment did not produce a music video for this song. This is simply because “Good at Love” is not the single or title track of Perfect World and TWICE already produced a MV for the album singles “Kura Kura,” “Fanfare,” and “Perfect World.” Instead, JYP Entertainment uploaded the audio version of this song on TWICE’s official YouTube channel once the song was released online. Recently, the audio video surpassed 500,000 views.
The song has not been performed yet in public as TWICE is currently focusing on promoting the lead singles “Kura Kura,” “Better,” and “Perfect World” on television and off-air music shows. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, TWICE has not gotten a chance to go on a tour to promote this new album yet, so there is no concert performance for this song. The song has ranked in a top position on Line Top 100, Japan’s most popular digital music platform daily chart. However, “Good at Love” ranked low on other music charts such as Apple Music, iTunes, and Genie.
“Good at Love” Weekly Charts
