Song Review:: SHINee: Poet | Artist- Poet | Artist

• Release date: 2025 May 25

• Album tracklist: Poet | Artist, Starlight

• Album runtime: 6 minutes

 I wanted to take a second to let this song rest a little before I did a review on it because that's where I am sanity-wise. Seventeen years active in the industry is more years than some of the recent debuts have had alive on the planet, and I'm so proud of SHINee for being able to stick together this long. Also, I'm a little excited to be able to use the forward slash button on the keyboard. I never get to use it. I don't even know what | is actually called, that's how little I get to use it. It's just the fun symbol. So as a completely unrelated note while I try to distract myself from the emotions of this song, thank you for that, whichever member of SHINee named the song like this. On a more serious note, this song was written by Jonghyun, and the other members left his voice in during the bridge, so all five of them got to participate in their seventeenth anniversary comeback. 

There's an almost tropical vibe to the song. The instrumentals are so chill, and it's only during the chorus when the energy levels get a little bit of a shove, but otherwise it's quite loose. There are the occasional shifts to designate various sections, which is good both to differentiate them and also to provide different textures for the song, which we should all know is something that I'm very into. 

Again, Jonghyun's voice is in the bridge, which really is enough to bring a tear to the eye. What's cool about this song is the way their voices are stacked and layered together. Sometimes we get solo voice, sometimes we get active harmonization, and sometimes we get almost a call and response. Vocally, we have a lot going on, more than the instrumentals have, which personally I think is a good thing because it would be really easy to make the sound of this be completely chaotic and too much. Instead, the vocals get center stage the entire time with so much variation that it is soothing something in me. 

The song is flavored with Jonghyun and what SHINee has gone through rather than being heavily saturated by it. Instead this is a celebration of their seventeen years and an acknowledgement. It does speak honestly of the different sections of their past, including one where the house is crumbling and falling apart around them which couldn't be a stronger metaphor if they tried, but it would be difficult. But also, it's the rule that if a group is doing choreography in water, it's going to be fire. Which is ironic.