Song Review:: Choi Sungyun (Golden Child): Aurora {Debut}

• Release date: 2025 December 13

• Album tracklist: AURORA, AURORA(Instrumental)

• Album runtime: 7 minutes

 He apparently went by Y in the Golden Child days so if you're looking for it, you may need to write his name and Y, but I'll also hold out tentative hope that Golden Child isn't done because I really like them, you know? And even if most of the members leave, that doesn't mean they've left the group. Look at MAMAMOO. Still, congrats on the solo debut! This is super exciting! Whoo!

I get my instrumental time! Yay! At the risk of making a bad pun, this is a very chill time of a song. It does mean that the level of the song is mostly very consistent, though there are multiple points where the guitar and the drums get paused to let the piano gently carry the song. It's genuinely very pretty with an earnestness that makes me excited to hear the lyrics and the vocal melody. But the instrumental also has a melody, which delights me so much. I love it when we get instrumental melody.

Oh, I'm in heaven with his voice. This is gorgeous. I hope people go and revisit Golden Child because that voice needs to be on display both as a soloist and in a group setting. He's not relying heavily on really high notes, although the song does sound high, but at the same time we've got some luscious notes with some beautiful vibrato just touching some of those held notes. I love the presence of vibrato, as we all know, but I never grow tired and hearing it and talking about it. Which means you all get to suffer with that as well. We've got a little bit of a rasp with his voice too, which makes me wonder if he's a rapper as well as obviously a vocalist. Actually, he reminds me a little bit of BTOB's Hyunsik, which is a very high compliment.

Ooh, we have storyline! We also have sections of black-and-white and also in color, and it's interesting because while it starts off black-and-white, when it goes to color, it doesn't stay there. We actually have a bit of a back slide into the black-and-white again before the music video ends in color. And it's almost enough for the film analysis trained part of my brain to wake up, but since this isn't necessarily analysis mode, it's not fully there right now. Beautiful music video, by the way. It's delightful to see for a debut song.