Song Review:: Joochan (Golden Child): Rise & Shine- Rise & Shine

• Release date: 2025 October 26

• Album tracklist: Rise & Shine, Still thinking about you

• Album runtime: 13 minutes

 In my quest for Halloween songs, I came across the group's music video for Burn It. No spoilers, but that's a full movie, and y'all need to see it. Anyway. Joochan is a busy beaver. Multiple musicals, several OSTs, radio DJ. He is very active, and it's really rather impressive. This isn't his debut (he's actually on year 7 of being a soloist), but I do really like Golden Child and want to make sure to highlight them. I may not know any of their names (except for Joochan now), but when I run across their music, I expect to like it. And I usually do. So, the run time looks good, but the title track is under three minutes. It's a hilarious contrast to the other two songs on the single, which are both nearly four minutes long. 

This instrumental had me physically bopping and bobbing to it almost immediately. That guitar is doing good work with the rhythm of the drums. It's at minimum foot tapping. And the best part is that even though the song has a lot of energy and consistency throughout the entire thing, the ending shifts. We get some softening, we get rhythm changes, and we get shredded guitar that's less noticeable than I would have liked because the drums overshadow them a little bit. Still, despite that, that's a minor nitpick.

His voice is a lot quieter than I would have expected for the volume of the instrumental at the beginning. But, I don't care as much as I would have otherwise, because he shows off vibrato. His voice isn't oversaturated with it, but when he extends the notes or slips into more of a legato, that comes out to play strongly. He didn't hold that high note as long as I was expecting, moving into the final bit, which means we got no vibrato on that part, which is a shame, but I really do love that the song shifts there and that it's reflected in both the instrumental and the vocals. And that's a high note. It's really satisfying, him moving up to it, but then I really love singing scales like a weirdo, and I also love hearing them being sung, or played. 

What a happy slice of life music video. That's amazing. Have a hug.