Song Review:: Ilhoon (BTOB): The Adam- Michaelangelo

• Release date: 2025 April 30

• Album tracklist: MIND, Thoughts in hands, Lullaby, jamesdean, Dance, eve, Long way, MICHAELANGELO, INVITATION, OASIS, moonwalk, The Adam

• Album runtime: 36 minutes

 Fine. Yes. I've put this off long enough. Average runtime is at the three minute mark, which means some of those songs are very long indeed considered moonwalk, jamesdean, and Lullaby are not long and are in fact below the average. The title track is not one of them.

Strings. This instrumental is kind of a wall of sound, but quietly intense about it. There are a lot of different elements to it, but it doesn't try to fling you onto a bullet train going at speed. It's in enough Korean that I can't quite tell what it's about, and I'm also not actively trying to see what I can understand, but it feels like a quiet plea with grasped hands and wide eyes brimming with unshed tears. It takes a bit to get going, staying with the drum set for a good thirty seconds before Ilhoon actually begins more than the soft verse that lingers with the instrumentals, but the strings bridge that final gap before letting his voice take the lead and then waiting to step back in. There's also a very strong sense of indie to the song, which makes sense considering things. 

I'm going to say it. I'm not overly a fan of the autotune. I don't like the distance it makes in his voice, and while I recognize that it is a stylistic choice, especially since most of the singles he released leading up to the album's release also use that, it also feels like it's his way of holding something at bay. Now, I say that knowing his...vocal history, shall we say, so there are some things that I could say about it using the biographical school of literary criticism, but in the interest of time, I will simply say that I don't like it, but I understand it. Now, that being said, his smooth, lyrical, melodic rapping style is on full display here and I'm halfway in love. Not that that's difficult, because I think he might be my bias wrecker from BTOB and that's ridiculous because I started listening to the group after he left, but it generally creates a very soft note to the song, one that I would enjoy regardless because of my usual distaste for rap in general. It's something I've been working at, aided by the fact that so many of my favorite members across groups are the rappers. Something like this helps to bridge the gap.

That wasn't just a music video; that was a freaking movie. We've gone into auteur mode, not just indie film. The amount of symbolism here. The lyrics. The visuals. It's really hard not to look at this through certain literary criticism lenses when it feels so raw and personal, and also this isn't the space necessarily for me to go into analysis, but I will say that the symbolism of others chipping away at the dried mud (which I think is meant to represent stone) but being wholly ineffectual until he begins to take it off makes me want to cry. Making your own fate is a choice, as he says, but no matter how buried and immovable you think you are, you can always make that change through your own hands and choices, but it's on you to make that change. Almost five minutes of music video. I'd feel spoiled if I didn't admire him so much.