Song Review:: Kang Daniel (Wanna One): Glow to Haze- Episode

-

  • Release date: 2025 June 16
  • Album tracklist: Movie Star, Episode, Love Game, One Call Away, Little Bit Lost
  • Album runtime: 14 minutes

 I'm late with this, but I've also been putting off listening to this until I could write the review. His voice is incredible, y'all. Ever song I've listened to by him has hit my brain so perfectly well, I'm glad I live in a time when I get to even hear it. Also congrats on the wins!

Old timey and a little crackly. I like it. Now, let's see if we get that in other places in the song. And the answer is yes, so it's not a one off and I'm satisfied. There's a weird little quirk to the instrumental, and I mean this in the least insulting way possible, but in places, it sounds like Baby's First Midi Keyboard, or at least like a preset on a keyboard. You're obviously going to go, "But Fangirl, that's pretty insulting." To which I respond, "Yes. But it reminds me of my childhood and learning to make music on keyboards, so the positive association with those memories is actually a good thing, especially when combined with the crackling that reminds me of my grandparents, who gave me the keyboard in the first place." The chorus steps away from both the crackling and the midi keyboard vibe, which provides a pleasant enough break to be distinct that it textures the song well.

Thank goodness for the ad-libs to give the song some variation in the vocals. He's got an excellent voice, it just feels like the song is restricting him a little bit. We've got the narrow band of notes problem. He does dip a little lower, but I'm restless listening to it because it's got hints of his skill, but the spots where those hints exist never actually push it far enough to be fully saturated. It does however feel a little seductive, but again, it doesn't feel like it fully commits to it. It's flirting with seduction.

This is what we call a music video, friends. I thought I had an idea of when this was set based on his costuming, but the space suit is throwing me off a little. It's fascinating though. It's like Night at the Museum meets art thief meets matchmaker? I don't know. But it's delightful. Truly.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the B-Sides:: BoA: Start Over

-
Image
 This one is for my personal indulgences, because I wanted something first gen and I wanted something fairly recent. So, I'm going with Queen BoA, all hail the queen. The song does turn five this year, so it's not completely recent, but she's also got her 25th anniversary this year and I'm hoping she releases something for that. She also debuted at the age of thirteen, but we're not going to talk about that because then I'll be a little too filled with The Rage on her behalf and these are supposed to be not-rage-filled moments. This song comes from BoA's tenth studio album, Better, released in 2020 to mark her twentieth anniversary. Eleven tracks, of which Start Over is the ninth, for a total of thirty-eight minutes. Produced by SM the Dude and Marcus Andersson (who has produced for LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT, Demi Levato, and VCHA, among others) and written by Lee Seu Ran (who has written for BTS, TxT, IVE, Everglow, NCT, Super Junior, and GOT7, among others), Rosi...
Read more

Who is this Random Person Reviewing K-Pop and Why Does Her Voice Matter in the Cacophonous Discord that is the Internet?

-
     Much like a recipe blog, this K-Pop review blog depends on the path leading me to where I am at today to dictate my tastes and how I perceive the world. Unlike a recipe blog, I'm not going to start every review with fifteen pages of backstory to get to the good stuff that you would actually care about.      You'll get the full fifteen (this is a joke, I don't think it's that long) pages up front, so you can decide for yourself if I'm worth listening to. There are a lot of voices out there. I'm merely one of them. Hopefully somewhat entertaining, but considering it took one of my friends four years to realize I was fun, I'm not holding my breath on that one.      So, who am I, and why should you care? Because my story isn't extraordinary. Well, it is because it's mine, but there are at least thousands, probably millions of other stories like it. Maybe something about mine resonates with you. But I do like to think I have some credentials ...
Read more

GREATEST HITS:: NU'EST W (NU'EST): HELP ME

-
Image
 Sentimentality here. The fifteenth was their anniversary, and Baekho left Pledis on the fourteenth, and I had my car accident on the thirteenth. It has been a rough few days emotionally and while I had a plan to do another group, the car accident confirmed for me that I should just do this for their anniversary, even though typing for long periods of time (such as doing this) hurts my wrist. And I picked a NU'EST W song, because the W stands for waiting, and that's what we're doing: waiting for them to come back. And I'm not masochistic enough to do Where You At , which got them their first win at all since debut, or Deja Vu , which is so beloved that it also got performed as five later. NU'EST W is the subunit formed after their appearance on Produce 101 S2 until 2019 with the return of Minhyun to the group. The album, Wake, N, hit number on the Korean charts, and this song got a win on Music Bank, which makes it the subunit's fourth win. In 2018. In December ...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 01/15 - 01/21

-
Image
  Most of the music shows are back on, which means the live stage performances, which I love best, are back in almost full force. We get more variety again! So, this week had another triple crown, which is exciting because once again, he got it without promoting the song other than the one performance. We got two first wins for songs, which is absolutely delightful for the groups. I'm so happy for them. On After School Club, Allen and Taeyoung rejoined as MCs with Aron for WEi, a five member boy group that debuted in 2020. There are some very cute dimples going on, some excellent English skills, more going for Taeyoung's MC job here, and some throwing the other members under the bus. That's always fun to see.  As always, the links in the chart go to my reviews. Show Champion: N/A MCountdown: BOYNEXTDOOR "If I Say, I Love You" (note: this performance is from the 250109 episode) Music Bank: BSS (Seventeen) "CBZ (Prime Time)"  Show! Music Core: G-Dragon (BI...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: Fin.K.L: To My Boyfriend

-
Image
 Let's go back in time a little bit to May of 1998, before a lot of newer idols were born. And by newer, I mean, this song was released about two weeks before SinB of GFriend/VIVIZ was born. Fin.K.L is one of those groups which had the Korean name decided first, with the English name to follow, which is why the English meaning is a little confusing (Fin Killing Liberty). Still, they'd end up being one of the greats of the first generation of K-Pop and an act to help break ground for future girl groups and soloists to move further into various markets.  Welcome, Fin.K.L. Their name in Hangeul is the only reason I have any idea of how to pronounce their group name (핑클). This was also the group that saw the start of Lee Hyori, now an accomplished soloist in her own right, as well as Ock Joo-hyun, a celebrated musical theatre actress; Lee Jin of the drama and variety acting persuasion; and Sung Yuri of the drama and film acting persuasion. They've all done very well for themsel...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: MAMAMOO: Starry Night

-
Image
 Coming up as we are on March 15th, I'm starting to get emotional. Between certain anniversaries, and a certain member leaving his company on the group disbandment date, I'm not doing incredibly well. So, for the dopamine hit, I picked a group that has very little connection to my boys, other than having two more 95z and their maknae being born within days of one of the members, but also one that I already love. MAMAMOO is the girl group version of my emotional support group, BTOB, and I'm into the emotional support right now for myself.  So I picked an emotional support song because I need it and I'm sure that someone else out there needs it. Starry Night  is, as the post title suggests, the title track for their EP "Yellow Flower" from their Four Seasons, Four Colors series (which serves to highlight each of the four members, beginning here with Hwasa). It kind of feels like half the album got a music video of some sort, something I think is super cool, and ...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: Jin (BTS): Heart on the Window

-
Image
 My first BBS request! I just saw some of the memes being made about their performance and the amount of space between Wendy and Jin, and I just have to say that they're hilarious and the amount of trolling I'm seeing from the fans gives me life. The timing is actually really helpful for me to get into fan mindset. This request comes from a user on Reddit, who simply said there was too much, they were obsessed, and then linked me to an appreciation post they'd done. This is what I like to see, and it gave me a very good place to start: Jin and Wendy's voices. As a side note, Jin really does have the perfect trot voice. This isn't even in that genre or anywhere approaching it, but that honestly doesn't change this fact about him. If he's willing to give us more trot or trot-adjacent, I'd be a happy camper and eat it up. Heart on the Window comes from Jin's debut album and is the fifth track between a soft rock ballad and a full fat ballad. With the t...
Read more

Song Review:: Taemin (SHINee): Eternal- Sexy in the Air

-
Image
Release date: 2024 August 19 Album tracklist: G.O.A.T, Sexy in the Air , Horizon , The Unknown Sea, Crush, Deja Vu, Say Less Album runtime: 21 minutes      As the inaugural review for this new blog, I had to go with Taemin. I know this is a few weeks late, but better late than never and it's at least still in August. Hello, and welcome!      As his first album under the new company, I'm sure most fans approached it with mild or moderate hesitation.       Luckily, I don't necessarily think we need have worried too much.       The song opens with some grindy electric guitar, an element I have to admit I'm a fan of in general. It reminds me of a science fiction dystopia film at night in the rain during a chase, which is a specific image for me that isn't at odds with the music video.      The verses lose that guitar, turning into more of a generic trap sound that unfortunately loses my attention, but turns...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 04/23 - 04/29

-
Image
  I am super late with posting this, but in my defense, I GOT TO SEE 8TURN THIS WEEK AND THEY'RE AWESOME AND VERY PRETTY. And very funny. And very, very good dancers. And their vocals? Took my earplugs out a couple of times just to hear some of those notes better. Myungho has a set of pipes on him, let me tell you. Color me impressed. Anyway, we got some first song wins this week, which is delightful. There are only three groups that got wins this week, and all three of them debuted last year, funnily enough, so that's good news for the kids. I say kids. They range from roughly 23 to 14. Big spread of ages. I'm not entirely pleased with all of those ages, but regardless of that, I wish the groups' continued success as they continue to learn and grow and become better artists and hopefully well-rounded people. For the ASC performance as After School Club is still on hiatus, I just scrolled randomly and landed on Cross Gene, which was interesting because the episode was f...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: MBLAQ: Stay

-
Image
 Summoned for you directly from The Form, it's ironically a song from the same album that I've already done a BBS post from. I chose to do Darling  because of the roulette wheel and shuffle, so that one's on me. But apparently someone out there in the world really likes this album to slide the title track my way as well.  So, I was technically focusing on the repackage album of this for Darling , so you get sort of new information. Released in 2011, this was their first full album. Containing a grand total of thirteen tracks and a runtime of 43 minutes, which averages out to a little more than three minutes a song, it's at a good length, even with the first track dropping the average. It did pretty well on the charts, peaking at second on the Gaon weekly chart and third on the Gaon monthly chart. No music show wins with it, but that doesn't matter because music show wins are not the final dictator of love for a song.  Flashing Lights warning for the music video. Gro...
Read more