Battle of the B-Sides:: NU'EST: Thank You (Evening by Evening)

 Whichever LOVE sent this in and specifically requested I time this release to come out when Minhyun gets out, I love you. GUESS WHAT EVERYONE! MINHYUN HAS BEEN DISCHARGED. I try to avoid the caps lock, but I'm honestly so happy I could cry. 

Thank You (Evening by Evening) is the fourth track from their fifth mini album, Canvas, which sold a grand total of 10 first day units and was released in 2016. I'll let that sink in for a second. The things you learn, and honestly, I couldn't be prouder of their survival with that little factoid. Writing credits include Bumzu, who recently won Legendary Producer at the 2025 AAAs and is most well-known for being Seventeen's producer alongside Woozi but also has done songs for Jin (BTS), Block B, TWS, 2PM, fromis_9, NCT Dream, Pristin, EXO, and Rain among others. Also with the writing credits is Jo Jayoung, who along with Seventeen and NU'EST songs as well, also has songs for UP10TION. And then the most surprising credit and I'm suddenly realizing why you chose this song for Minhyun's return, Minhyun himself. Wow. Nice. That's actually really cool. I'm a little surprised JR didn't write his rap, but I don't think he's quite as possessive of his rapping as some other people.

So, as you might expect, I've heard this song before. I love this song. It's actually my favorite from this album, which means that when I saw this request in The Form, I almost cried a little. 

Why is it my favorite? Go to 1:44 in the track. It doesn't even start off like a normal K-Pop song because we have harmonizing and ad-libs even at the beginning, but it gets so layered and stacked specifically after 1:44 that not only do we have the vocalists harmonizing with the melody, but we have JR rapping as harmony to the vocalists. This is the height of what I want to be hearing from K-Pop groups because they are groups. They can harmonize and build on each other's voices in a way that you simply cannot do with a soloist unless that soloist also has back-up singers. Also, and you know I was going to mention it, they're all showing off their vibratos. Except the rapping, but that's fine. 

And I recognize that I'm completely biased here, unapologetically so, but this is an unbelievably beautiful song. It starts off swinging for the fences because that is aggressively high, and shows off both Minhyun's very solid falsetto and Baekho's incredible range because he's hitting the same notes as Minhyun, but he doesn't have to go up into his falsetto because he has an incredibly scary range. Like, Baekho is harmonizing underneath Minhyun, until he scoots up into unison with him, and then it's his part of the melody.

The entire song is like that, and even though so much of it is held in the backtrack, that also means that there's no reason why this song specifically couldn't be done a cappella. One of my dearest K-Pop related wishes is for them to actually sing this a cappella. I would ascend. Of course, that would also mean that they would have to get back together, so it's a case of two birds with one stone and as you can imagine, I'd be a little bit more than okay with that. 

I'm also a little bit amused that JR's part is one of the only parts in the song when there's only one person doing something. 

The other thing about this song specifically is that it's a fan song in a fan album. Canvas is the second of their trilogy of fan-specifically dedicated that is represented by a knight and his queen (the first one was Q Is, and the third was Happily Ever After). And this is the fan song for the album, so you can imagine the amount of sappiness that comes out of a group known for being wonderfully sappy and sentimental. This is the love song to end love songs. 

It's just beautiful, you know? 

Ugh, I'm so glad that you get to learn about this song. 

Thank you, LOVE.

The interesting thing is that if you go back through their lives, you can find almost the exact times when they were on Produce 101 Season 2. Which means that this could have been one of their last performances as five before they reunited two years later. If it wasn't their last one, then it was really close to it. 

This is a fairly static performance, with no choreography, but that also means that there's nothing to distract us from how gorgeous this is. That being said, thank you, cameraman, for focusing on the spot of live harmonization with Aron and Minhyun while Baekho is singing. It's a little amusing that JR just has to stand through through most of the song. 

For this clip, I'm about 99% sure they were lip syncing. I hope I'm correct because otherwise that's not fair. But that's fine, because they were playing and being dorks, but even with them being playful and dorky, this is what I want from this song. OT5 version with the live vocals instead of relying on the recorded backtrack for the harmonies.

That also means that JR would get to do more than just stand there. 

But honestly, it's good to see them being lighthearted, especially given that this was October of 2016. They're cute and fun. 

I was going to put this in the middle, but then I realized that the flow of this worked better to have the encore song at the end. This is also my first time seeing this video and I'm completely fine right now. So fine. I'm not fighting off tears or anything. I'd just like to remind you that this album sold 10 first day copies and less than two years later, they performed in front of 16,000 at the Olympic Park Stadium over their sixth anniversary, then by the end of the year, they were in Jamsil. Then a few months after that, they sold out the KSPO Dome. 

I'm so proud of them, even if I came late.

There's one point in this video, where all four of them are singing together. I know this one is long, but it includes their farewells to their fans. This is what I want from this song, and it's still not enough because it's not all five. But it's close to what I want from it. They're singing together, and while this is still a performance, it's obviously more comfortable than the first video.

It's also supporting my frustration with Baekho's recent solo releases because this is what his voice is actually like. Ren's vibrato was on full display, proving how solid he is. And there were a couple of Aron's belts where he was holding that mic so far from his face. And JR's soft little rap and the amount of emotion he's got on his face almost the entire song? 

He gets out in less than ninety days, by the way. I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do for that. 

And last but not least, when they were going around and bowing to everyone, it's very cute that they were in sync with their steps. 

Well, thanks, everyone for sticking around while I got sappy myself. But Minhyun has been discharged now! And thank you again to the LOVE who suggested I do this now. I think this was a perfect choice.

If anyone has anymore suggestions for me to cover, drop a comment or submit it via The Form! I hope you enjoyed the song with me! 

It's really such a pretty song.