Song Review:: Zhoumi (Super Junior): Ex Games

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  • Release date: 2024 November 21
  • Album tracklist: Ex Games, Ex Games - Chinese Version
  • Album runtime: 6 minutes

 As far as I can tell, he's still in the group, although I think he might only be part of their subunit Super Junior M, which is fine. SME seems to run on two models: all the subunits or absolutely no subunits. I genuinely don't know much about Zhoumi, and I'm not sure I've ever heard a Super Junior M song that I knew was a Super Junior M song, so I'm actually very curious about this.

The tracks are just shy of 3 minutes.

Why does this sound like a ballad the Backstreet Boys would have put out back in the 90s? If I didn't know this was Korean, I honestly would have thought from the sound that the song had been released about thirty years earlier. Wow, that just made me feel old. There are some delicious deep notes from the bass, grounding the higher skittering beat from the drums. Other sections of the instrumentals have a very underwater feel to them, which creates a soothing, dreamy vibe to the song.

So this was essentially my first introduction to him, and all I can say is wow. It's a particular pleasure of mine to listen to the older artists because I like the maturity to their voices, and I'm so unsurprised by his inclusion in SM the Ballad with this being the only example I've heard of his voice that it's not even funny. He has a gorgeous, buttery voice that moves through the song cleanly and smoothly. 

The lighting in the music video is absolutely phenomenal. The play with light and shadow, the use of primarily three colors (red, black, and white), the liminality of the space through the lack of an identifiable setting, those elements all combine to produce an absolutely beautiful music video. And I don't know whose bright idea it has been to put the older SM artists in billowing shirts, but I applaud the decision and say thank you. 



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