Song Review:: Chanyeol (EXO): Black Out- Back Again

• Release date: 2024 August 28

• Album tracklist: Black Out, Hasta La Vista, Ease Up, Back Again, I'm on your side too, Clover

• Album runtime: 18 minutes

Finally getting around to this review... a month late. It's fine.

Okay, that is a short song, clocking in at just over two and a half minutes. 

I dig the instrumentals. They're doing a lot over the course of two and a half minutes. And by a lot, I mean I think I hear four different genres. It's an ambitious amount and not what I would have expected, but given the opportunity to flex something, you should flex it. This song features hip hop, airy R&B, rock, and rap. I think that's R&B in that section, anyway. I absolutely could be wrong. Like I said. There's a lot happening. And I like that it's followed by a much mellower song to serve as a palate cleanser.

There are at least two different sections of the song that I would love a full song for. The others I feel a lot more ambivalent about, but they're not genres I generally listen to, and I wasn't impressed by them. The vocal gymnastics he would have to go through to perform this song though is what I am impressed with. Those are a lot of different genres, after all. Even if I don't particularly care for the song itself, I'm going to be impressed by that.

My problem is with how short it is. None of the sections get a moment to breathe.

That is a chaotic music video. Not even going to lie, my ears turned off  for most of it so that I could focus on what was going on. It's a thing they do sometimes. It's both convenient and inconvenient depending on the context. But this music video? That is an action movie. I'm not sure if it's a serious one or if it's one of those framed narrative action movies which is a movie inside of a movie. I don't know if he has any acting aspirations, but I think he'd do well as an action movie star if this is any indication.