Song Review:: Kang Seungyoon (WINNER): PAGE 2- ME

-

  • Release date: 2025 November 03
  • Album tracklist: ME, FOLLOW ME, LOVE PLAY (Feat. Seulgi), SEVEN DAYS, S.A.D, PICK YOU UP (Feat. Eun Jiwon), SAY IT NOW, CUT, HOMELESS, MULLY MULLY, LIE TO ME (Feat. Ho Ryun), BUSY BUDDY, SKY ROOF

  • Album runtime: 44 minutes

 So for the first release of November, we’re going to go with the leader-maknae of WINNER to start off with. I feel bad for him in general because that is an unenviable position to be in. I’m also curious to see (eventually) what a post-military, full group WINNER is like, but that will be something I wait for. In the meantime, I’m actually excited to see what Seungyoon is like as an artist. WINNER is one of those groups that I’m interested in, but I just haven’t done a whole lot with. YG groups as a whole seem to be like that for me. But this will give me a good sense of him so that it’s easier to get to know the whole group. This is his second full album. The first one was back in 2021 and was on average about three-and-a-half minutes long. This one still has an average over three minutes, though a little bit shorter than the last album. But that’s okay because the title track is almost four minutes long. Already, I’m loving him. This is a gift. Now I just need to like the music and this will be golden. I am a little delighted that he has a song with Seulgi on the album. Just for the record.

(BUSY BUDDY has strings. I’m in love.)

(And he’s also got a song with a former member of Sechskies, one of my favorite first gen groups, so I may actually have to buy this album.)

It’s a gorgeous song. It feels a little 00s/10s. Actually, and when I realized this I laughed a little, it reminds me a little bit of Teenage Dream by Katy Perry. There’s nothing specifically concrete that makes me go “This is just like Teenage Dream!” It’s more in the rhythm of the flow of the song, especially around the chorus. That’s what’s similar. It’s a surprisingly understated song in terms of the instrumental. The chorus is the most bombastic part of the song easily, but it’s not the biggest part of the song right there (spoiler, it is with the vocals). I’m almost not even noticing the instrumentals for the most part because they almost disappear. It’s nice. I like it. It’s just a little baffling.

Okay. So. I’m assuming this man is a vocalist judging by this song. He’s actually got quite a lovely voice so having this song on repeat for the entirety of writing this review is the exact opposite of a hardship. He dips up into his falsetto with fair regularity, but most of the song is a lot lower, so there’s a good contrast in capability there. But that chorus, especially the end one, is so vocally rich and layered. There might even be a little bit of a key change, which, if there is, makes me happy as a clam hooked up to valve sensors. I don't actually know if they're happy, but I assume they're living their best lives just doing their clam thing and being better than machines. Sorry. A bit of a ramble there. Anyway. The song is absolutely gorgeous.

That's a cute music video. It feels very much like a slice of life with some fun jamming sessions to boot. But it's also just such a soft music video with joy radiating out of it. It's nice. I like that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Halloween Spookening: 2025 Edition

-
Image
 It's the most wonderful time of the year!  I'm back with a new selection of Halloween themed or generally spooky songs for you all! Have I spent the year looking for new songs for my playlist? Yes. Yes, yes I have, so if you have anymore suggestions for me, give me the creepy doll songs, the predatory wolfy songs, the haunting and the eerie. I love my Halloween playlist and I listen to it all year long, but October is the official start of when I don't get weird looks from people for listening to it. I am so excited. I get to pull out my Halloween nail polish and the glow in the dark stickers. It's a good time to be me, and also hopefully you as well. So the Halloween recs for you for the year 2025 are: Welcome To The Other Side by DPR Ian (C-Clown) Yes, he's Australian, but he was in the K-Pop group C-Clown, which is one of my beloved 2012s, so I'm counting him. Also, this song is super spooky with dramatic strings at the beginning and artistically applied au...
Read more

September 2025 Wrap-Up: School's Back From Summer

-
Image
 Hello, everyone! At some point, I'm going to feel confident enough in my Korean skills to have part of this in Korean, but today and this month is not that point.  So the fabulous, amazing debuts for the month. The ones I covered were AxMxP and IDID for the groups, CxM for the Seventeen subunit, and soloists Haechan of NCT , Jinny of Secret Number , Junhee of A.C.E , and Nana of After School . The only group I didn't cover was DNA , which is a co-ed group. Songs I was looking forward to: CxM- You mean my Seventeen bias is debuting in an official subunit? You're expecting me not to be excited about this? Junhee- I've been looking forward to his solo debut since he dropped the Your Idol cover.  Woodz- First release post-military service I've covered because I was very lazy over the summer? Yes, please. izna- These are my girls, y'all. Strong rappers. Vocals that are consistently supported. Exactly what I'm always looking for. Catch the Young- Y'all, I ...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: LABOUM: 빛이 되어쥐 (Be the Light)

-
Image
 Unless I do The Roulette Wheel, I obviously can pick which of the suggestions I've gotten that I'll write posts for. I also have a spreadsheet where I have my posts organized by generation and boy group, girl group, and co-ed. The co-ed groups definitely need more attention, but I'm taking these last few Specialty posts to focus on the girl groups because they're not my natural inclination, and while the Roulette Wheel is weighted equally, I don't like that it's uneven. So, I ignored my normal addition of the B/G/Co-Ed Wheel spin and just did it for a girl group, and I ended up with LABOUM. I'm not sure I've heard of them, so this will be exciting.  LABOUM is a third gen girl group that are younger sisters to U-KISS and Brown Eyed Girls, which is wildly hilarious considering the last GH post I did was in fact for BEG's song Abracadabra . So, that was unintended. 빛이 되어쥐 , or Be the Light  as I will be calling it through this because while it would be...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 10/15 - 10/21

-
Image
  With Chuseok well and truly over for the year, we have all the music shows giving us first place winners on their charts! This hasn't happened in over a month! Also, now that triple crowns have been won, I got to share other performances from other groups! We've got four  first song wins, and one of those is a first time win for the group as a whole! Yay! Baksu! And even though those aren't recent performances for the two IVE wins, I shared them anyway because I like having a full set of performances. Also, with After School Club still on hiatus as far as I know, I decided to give y'all a group I've started listening to more because they've got some nice Halloween-y songs: episode 537 with TRI.BE! They spend a lot of time dancing, and not just to their own songs. This was a fun episode. Not that most of them aren't fun, but the vibes are with this group. As always, the links in the chart below go to my reviews of the songs. Show Champion: ONEWE "MAZE...
Read more

Song Review:: Daesung (BIGBANG): Falling Slowly

-
Image
  Release date: 2024 March 05 Album tracklist: Falling Slowly , Light Album runtime: 7 minutes Ah, a proper song length. I'm writing this before the frantic rush of the next few days in terms of releases, because competition there will be fierce. And also to start to pad out the March releases because somebody had to get a win on a music show months later. I joke. I'm actually very happy for them. And I picked this one because I scrolled randomly, and his was the one my cursor was on when I stopped. I feel like Daesung needs very little introduction. He is the maknae of BIGBANG after all.  The instrumentals for this song are absolutely gorgeous with a lovely acoustic guitar that gets to spend time at the front of the song, before it hands over the reigns to an electric for very strategic sections. But seriously, that beginning is one of the most soothing things. There's a sense of the bittersweet to it, because at no point is there a strong bass driving the song, and the ho...
Read more

Halloween Spookening: 2024 Edition

-
Image
 I love Halloween. It's been my favorite holiday for literally my entire life. I have loved Halloween longer than Sangyeon of The Boyz has been alive, barely because my first Halloween was a couple of days before he was born, but according to my mother, even at the age of not-quite one years old, I have loved it. She dressed me up as a San Francisco 49ers cheerleader. I have pictures.  One of the most important things, then, is finding music that matches the Month of Spookening and horror. I love spooky movies. I love spooky books. I love spooky video games (even though I am a wuss of the nth degree and prefer to watch other people play them). And I love spooky music. THUS, this post is simply going to be a compilation of some of the songs I've added to my Halloween K-Pop playlist. If I were to add all of the songs in there, this post would be ages  long. So I'm only going to add as many as I feel like it. I don't know how long this is going to be. But there will be vib...
Read more

Song Review:: BM (KARD): PO:INT- Freak (feat. B.I)

-
Image
Release date: 2025 October 20 Album tracklist: Freak (feat. B.I) , Ooh, View, Move, Stay Mad, Freak (feat. B.I) (Inst.) Album runtime: 17 minutes  Big Matthew! I've got a lot of affection for him and his group because of Dive Studios (as well as the fact that they're one of the few co-ed groups currently active right now), and even though I have a strong suspicion this is not going to be a preferred genre for me, I'm still excited for this. However. There isn't a single song at three minutes and most of them are closer to two-and-a-half minutes. I imagine that if I listen to this on repeat for too long, then the police and/or referee whistle will become a little grating. Well, we might have an answer to that depending on how long it take for me to write this. Although, I will say this for that whistle: it's not entirely regular. When it's happening, it tends to be on repeat, but it's not on the beat. It sounds like it's an eighth note off, between beats ...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 10/01 - 10/07

-
Image
 We're already in October. Goodness. You know, it might be interesting for me to go through and tally how many groups got how many wins this year, and how many times each music show had a winner for an end of year music show summary post. I don't know. I'll have to think about it. That might be fun though. Y'all have all the raw data already and I could make pie charts and bar charts and... Sorry, I'm math nerd-ing again.  Two exciting things happened this week! First, we got two triple crowns this week! The only way I would be happier is if it was for a song that I could have given you more stage performances for, but that is super exciting! Congrats to the group! And, something that I have been rooting for since they debuted in January because they have had the absolute worst luck with timing, KickFlip got their first win! I couldn't be happier! Happy Chuseok, everyone! 추석 잘 보내세요!!! 즐겁고 풍성한 한가위 되세요!!!!  In the spirit of Chuseok, I decided to go with last year...
Read more

Song Review:: FIFTY FIFTY: Day & Night- Perfect Crime {Pre-Release}

-
Image
Release date: 2025 April 29 Album tracklist: Pookie, ADONIS, Work of Art, Perfect Crime, Heartbreak, Midnight Special Album runtime:  minutes  I believe that this is a pre-release for the group because Spotify gave me a notification that the countdown for the album had begun. Which was amusing, but I've also got a suspicion that this one might get a win on a music show. Haven't heard it yet. But I've got a feeling that the possibility is there. If I'm right, I'm going to be rather excited for the group which is the Ship of Theseus. If I'm wrong, well, they have a title track coming out as well soon, so that can be another attempt by the fans. I understand things might be a little shaky, but I hope the seas continue to soothe as equilibrium is achieved once again. Okay, if you give me a song with the title "Perfect Crime", I expect an edge. I expect teeth. I expect either cold, calculating surgical precision or bold, unhinged chaos to the point where th...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: TVXQ!: LIVE YOUR LIFE

-
Image
As I can't tell that there's a discernable actual title track from this album beyond what I've already covered, I'm just going to pick my favorite track of the bunch to review. It's been bothering me that I haven't done one when I was so diligent with the tracks with the music videos. This album is a massive undertaking, and I genuinely don't know which ones are new songs and which are old. But I know at least this one is a b-side because there is absolutely no corresponding music video. Also, what a flex. Twentieth Japanese anniversary. King of Kings, indeed. Now, normally this would be the part where I go sniffing for them performing it, but it's literally such a new song, and I don't think they've had the opportunity to perform it. I thought that about Down too, from their last Korean album, and then I saw a clip a couple of days ago that about made me swallow my tongue. So you just get my thoughts on just the music, because I think that'...
Read more