XG | RaeRae Reacts
IS THIS LOVE
XG turned a bright love song into a seven-woman memory machine.
Quick facts
- Artist: XG
- Original album release: AWE, November 8, 2024
- Digital single: March 7, 2025
- Music video: March 10, 2025
- Label: XGALX
- Members: JURIN, CHISA, HINATA, HARVEY, JURIA, MAYA and COCONA
- Video director: Ziyong Kim
Watch the official video
The official player is click-to-play and does not start audio on its own.
The song is lighter than the question
“IS THIS LOVE” first appeared as the closing track on XG’s second mini album, AWE. XGALX describes the original through its forceful synth sound, upbeat rhythm and storytelling. That is accurate, but it undersells the trick at the center of the record. The track sounds breezy while the singers remain completely unsure of what is happening to them.
The hook circles the title question instead of delivering a grand declaration. This is not a confession from someone who prepared a speech. It is the moment before the speech, when every physical reaction feels suspicious and somebody has to ask whether the problem is love.
The pulse moves easily, the synths keep the surface glossy and the arrangement leaves room for curiosity rather than heartbreak. XG usually arrives with enough authority to make a room sit up straight. Here they let the song float. The restraint is the point.
The March 2025 single also included a piano version. XGALX said that arrangement uses warm melody and open space to dig further into the song’s emotional core. The contrast confirms how sturdy the writing is. The original works as bright pop, while the piano version exposes the ache underneath the same question.
The video turns love into stored data
The video does not settle for a conventional crush story. It moves through images of the members together, fragments that resemble recorded memories, school-age references and a futuristic system that appears to preserve or transfer what they have lived through. The editing makes the past unstable. A sweet memory can become an experiment before the viewer gets comfortable.
That changes the title question. Love can mean friendship, trust built during training, the bond among seven members and the relationship between XG and the history they carry as a team. Japanese outlet Natalie described the video as the members experiencing different kinds of love and asking what love is. The video earns that wider reading without labeling every scene.
Director Ziyong Kim builds the piece like a scrapbook fed into a machine. Warmth and artificiality interrupt each other. The synthetic-looking morphing passage is the most divisive choice, but official sources do not identify its production method. This review will not turn an appearance into an unsupported technical claim. Whatever process made the sequence, its function is clear: the archive stops behaving like a trustworthy archive.
Seven voices, one shared question
CHISA and JURIA give the melody warmth. HINATA keeps her phrasing light. HARVEY adds an unmistakable edge. MAYA and COCONA bring rhythmic bite without turning the track into a rap showcase. JURIN supplies composure even when the lyric is confused.
The strongest visual evidence is collective. XG’s answer is not a boyfriend reveal. It is the fact that the seven of them are still carrying the same memories. Continue with the existing canonical pages for JURIN, CHISA, HINATA, HARVEY, JURIA, MAYA and COCONA.
RaeRae verdict
Best detail: The contrast between the easy synth-pop pulse and a visual archive that cannot stay stable.
Complaint: The morphing sequence pulls attention from the human footage long enough to make the emotional thread harder to follow.
Final call: A warm song with a strange, ambitious video. XG asked whether this is love and made the group itself the most convincing answer.