Song Review:: Jackson Wang (GOT7): High Alone

•  Release date: 2025 February 12

• Album tracklist: High Alone

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 It feels like just last week GOT7 was having their full group comeback post-military discharge. And while I think that we've still got the maknae to go, though that's mostly just a guess on my part and I could be wrong, it was relieving to see them doing one on principle. Now, Jackson has dropped himself a single, which I'm curious about. I don't know that I've heard any of his solo stuff before, so this should be rather interesting. This is also marked E for explicit, so I'll be sure to let you know in what capacity that is warranted.

There's a fine line between water instrumentals and space instrumentals, but I'm pretty sure that this one falls under water instrumentals. There's a density to the echoey instrumentals that feels more of water than space. The garbled static at the beginning is well-utilised to bring to mind old radio shows, but the rest of the song doesn't fit under the same category, which I think is a missed thematic opportunity. Instead, we have a lot of repetition that reminds me a little of my favorite video game, at least the beginning of it, and the watery echo, but while I understand how the repetition is meant to represent a sort of spiral that the speaker can't break free from, I'm not overly impressed by it. It doesn't grip me the way I like with excessive drama, but I also don't see this song as not doing what it sets out to do.

All English track. And, yes, that explicit rating is warranted with multiple swears. Jackson Wang's voice matches well with the genre, but with the lyrics the way they are (the amount of endless repetition, rather than the swears, I feel like I need to specify for clarity), I'm not a fan of what the song is doing. I understand what it's doing, and I'm sure the fans are going to be in love with it because there's a quiet, heady desperation to his voice that is likely to drive them bonkers. I just want more variation with what the song is doing with his voice. Rather than keeping him to his falsetto nearly the entire song, it would have been nice to hear him take a step back from the dreamy, heartbroken instrumentals that we're hearing and belt or growl or do something to fight back.

The important word here, I think, is "spiraling." And how certain things (and it's a spectrum of things really, from drugs to celebrity) can make you feel like you're helplessly drowning with no hope of escape even though you're surrounded by people who could help you, but are instead just watching. However, I also love the storyline going on here. Its presence scratches an itch I've known about for a while, but haven't had satisfied from a lot of recent releases. There isn't a happy ending to this though. In any way, shape, or form. And it does end with the line "the deepest wounds are not from your enemies", in case you can't read cursive. I also really like how the word enemies trails off. It gives "final entry in a depressing journal" vibes, which I love. And it's a glorious five minute short film to boot. Yes.