Song Review:: Lee Seokhoon: Renewed Purpose: After Growing Up

• Release date: 2025 August 26

• Album tracklist: Under The Moonlight, AFTER GROWING UP, EVENING PRIMROSE, It must be love, Whisper

• Album runtime: 17 minutes

 You know, I don't know why it's always so entertaining for me to find judges from the variety shows releasing music. Obviously they do, and obviously they're good at it, and obviously they know what they're doing, or they wouldn't be the judges. But much like with Onestar, this was a surprise. Still, I haven't actually heard him properly sing before and my expectations are practically stratospheric. But at the same time I understand that you can have the instincts, the training, and the technical knowledge and not be able to practically do a thing yourself. So let's see if he passes the practical. I assume he will. And also, he restores my faith because the title track and two other songs are nearly four minutes long. There's one that's barely two, but it's not the title track and the others are so long that the average is still about three and a half minutes. Ish. I'm estimating.

Ballad. You know, I'm not surprised by this. You know what I am suprised by that I haven't heard in ages? Only a violin, which I haven't heard in ages in a K-Pop song. I'm pretty sure those are maracas as well, which is fantastic. Very soft. Very emotional without getting in the way of the vocals. There are so many fantastic pieces and parts to this instrumental, which really allows it to just move so well. There was actually a point where the instrumental sounded like it was doubled, like I had two different sources playing. I didn't, which pausing the song proved, but that was interesting.

He passed the practical with flying colors. I wasn't expecting him to have such a sweet, clear voice with a gorgeous vibrato. It's nice. I don't actually have a lot of notes here because I'd rather just bask in his voice.

It's 100% storyline, and while I don't want to say it's just sad, it's making me feel the sad feelings. For others, this could be a happy music video. I am not one of them. But then, I find the concept to be sad. Time passes unrelenting and undeterred, with what we once thought to be an eternal, constant certainty became, as most things do, a temporary moment we can look back on with grief, fondness, or relief.