Song Review:: Big Ocean: Follow- Flow

- November 12, 2024

Release date: 2024 November 12

Album tracklist: Flow, Glow, Blow, Slow (Feat. Young K (DAY6))

Album runtime: 12 minutes

THEY ARE FINALLY RELEASING AN ALBUM. I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED FOR THEM. For the uninformed, they're K-Pop's first hard of hearing group, and they're awesome. If you want to get to know them, I highly recommend getting on their TIKTOK page about 11 am KST. They usually do lives about 3-4 times a week and those lives range from the fans getting to sit in on (muted) dance or sign language lessons to care package/gift unboxings from the fans to drawing time. You never know what they'll be doing. And I think they're eventually going to be getting another member, so learning the current three now is good for when the next one joins. And they dropped it at 2 instead of 6, which means I am awake for it. Still giving up sleep, but staying up is a lot easier than waking up. Shout out to my night owls!

Clearly all of their singles have been under three minutes, and this new title track is no different because that is rounded up.

I'm so proud of them. You know? I tend to see if they're on a live if I can't sleep especially these days, but a few months ago, I was practically nocturnal and watched their lives all the time and their fans literally got to see them put in the hard work during their lessons or practice. And this is the culmination of that hard work so far. It genuinely feels like when one of my students works hard learning difficult material and takes a test and they do well on it. I feel like that with xikers too, who release early dance practices when they're still learning the dances, in seeing the early struggles and the later finished product. I'm proud of the perseverance and determination exhibited even though I know it's a second-hand pride. And I'm also pleased with the company for taking it slow with them as this is their first group, and I'm sure the learning curve is steep. Better to be cautious than crash and burn because they tried to run before they could walk (or just complete mismanagement like with Pledis and NU'EST). I was hoping for at least one other new song in the mini album, but having it be just the singles released since debut in one place is a good indication of the care the company is taking with them, especially when two of them were full adults doing adult things like jobs and college before they became K-Pop idols. Next step: a mini album with multiple new songs.

Okay. Enough of this. On to the analysis.

The piano at the beginning is cute as well as the sound effects, and I appreciate it a lot. When you listen to songs on repeat like I do, having a tag either at the beginning or the end is a great indication that the song has actually come to an end, and it's starting over. There is a funky guitar hanging out with the drums that I'm a huge fan of. It's not always obvious, but it's subtly there basically the entire time. Audience participation clapping is always something that I look forward to.

Is this fully in English? Am I hearing this correctly? Nice. So normally I'd leave this for the music video section, but if you actually read the credits on the music video, you'll notice something interesting. And I have an explanation for that because I read an article a couple of months ago on it. One of the difficulties of being hard of hearing is with pronunciation of words, and for a singing group, that includes hitting notes accurately. So the company trained one on the members' voices in both English and Korean. The above article goes into more detail. I highly recommend you read it. I'll give you a moment. This one is less necessary reading, but still cool, on them being invited to the AI for Good summit in Switzerland next year.

And now that you've read it, the group is unlikely to ever have any big belts or breathtaking vocals (but not impossible, I'd love to see if they could belt in a few years). Which is fine. Other groups right now aren't either. And likely because I spent so much time this summer listening to them talking (and mostly in English; I joked to my Stay friend that the lives were their English practice time and now I'm wondering if that's actually accurate), I can tell that there are sections of this song unaffected or mostly unaffected by their aide. It was actually the first thing that caught my ears on the first listen. Performing this live, I think it would be unfeasible to expect live singing, but as there are other groups out there that lip sync when they perform that don't have the same challenges Big Ocean have, it would be hypocritical to expect them to. So that shouldn't be too much of an issue either. The vocals largely sound like they've only had regular autotune applied to them, which again isn't too different from quite a few other groups, and the end product is a comforting, pleasant song that fully matches the lyrics.

So this is what they were doing when they were in Paris. Sneaky, sneaky. It wouldn't surprise me if I missed the live where they were filming it, because it wouldn't be the first time they put on a live while they were filming a music video. I'm a huge fan of the fact that their outfits are ocean colored for a few sections of the song, as seen in the thumbnail. Teal, blue, it's very nice and cohesive. This is just a happy song. The choreography is happy. The music video is sunshine and smiles. It's just something to bask in. AND they used ISL (International Sign Language) for the first time in the music video, so their official repertoire includes KSL, ASL, and now ISL. And it was filmed at the National Institute for Deaf Youth in Paris. These guys are so cool.