Battle of the B-Sides: AKMU: Whale

 Coming to you from The Form, this one has been on the list for a while, but I was waiting for a good spot for them. With them having left YGE after eleven years, and with the recent batch of these fun little posts, this one feels like a good spot. I haven't heard this one, so I don't know how the communication between those songs is going to work, because while I'd like to say there's no rhyme or reason to these other than "Look at how amazing these songs are", I cannot help but try to build them like chapters in a book with a logical flow of events so that you the reader do not get overwhelmed by having too much of the same thing for too long. I didn't get anything other than the song from whoever submitted this one, but that's okay! I'll just go with what I can find and what I think is cool.

For those who are unaware, AKMU is a brother-sister duo who debuted back in 2014 under YG Entertainment. They won K-Pop Star 2 and got the offer to sign with any of the Big 3: YGE, SME, or JYPE. They have since gotten the nickname "Nation's Siblings", which is a huge honor. Lee Chanhyuk is the elder brother and Lee Suhyun is the younger sister, and quite frankly, the pair of them are hilarious, but we're worried about the music right now. I do recommend their content though. They're funny.

Whale comes from AKMU's third full album, SAILING, and released in 2019, their first album following Chanhyuk's discharge from his military service. We have a very short credits list here with only a single name as writer and producer: Chanhyuk. Has he worked on songs for other artists? Of course! Treasure, Bang Yedam, IU, Nayeon, Winner, Zion T, Colde, Big Naughty, Younha, and a fairly recent name that I think you'll recognize, BABYMONSTER. You'll notice a lot of them are YG affiliated. Again, they've been at YGE for a while, and he's a talented songwriter. 

I've never had the sense that a song needs the context of the album quite as strongly as this one. I'm having some thoughts and I'm going to try to put them into some semblance of an intelligible flow, but first, I'm going to step back and take a listen to the songs immediately preceding and succeeding Whale because I want to see if that feeling is correct. 

Okay, I'm back.

That's fascinating. 

They lead into each other so well. The guitar here is the main through-thread, though it starts bright and energetic before flowing into Whale's energetic softness, then morphing once again into bright softness. Whoever was the one in charge of ordering the songs did an incredible job because they fit together so well and the flow is great.

One of the really cool things about Whale is the fact that the sliding whistles mimic whale song and add a haunting bit of softness to soothe what is otherwise very grounded and stable. Combining that with the piano and the violin, you get something that is actually really richly textured for how simple it is. There aren't a lot of different instruments and layers, and rarely do you have more than two or three. So it makes the spots where you get more layers both more noticeable and meaningful. 

I've said this before and I'll definitely say it again, but one of the strengths of the co-ed group is that you get both female and male voices. As gross and disgusting as the character is, Whatsisface from Pitch Perfect has an excellent point that an all-female group cannot hit low notes like male voices can, and while the male voices can sometimes hit notes in the female range with their falsettos, it's hard on the voice to do that. Enter, the co-ed group, where you don't have to choose. 

This isn't a song that punches you with big vocals and power belts. Instead, this is a song that places an arm around your shoulder and gently points out how pretty the ocean is and how lucky whales are, where sometimes we get Chanhyuk on his own, sometimes Suhyun on her own, but a lot of the time, they're together, which is a great metaphor for the lyrics. 

I know poetry isn't my favorite, and I also recognize that that is a limitation that I have, but this is fully an ode, and it is a beautiful one. It never tips into melancholy or wistfulness, just quiet admiration. And I love that. We need more songs that are like that, so I'm glad this one exists. 

This one is a fancam for Indie Radio, Live Forest, which I may have just discovered existed. I actually love the fact that the microphone is a little bit weird because it very clearly indicates live vocals. The other very clear thing that you can hear is their respective vibratos. 

You know me. I love hearing clear and obvious vibrato.

But we also get to hear them singing along with the whistling, and that's something that isn't as obvious in the studio version. 

The funny thing about this is that by the end of the song, they're both vibing and moving to the song, but he started his restlessness so much sooner. She can at least kind of stand still. He clearly cannot, and that made me smile. 

So 1theK did their own vocals only, MR removed video. Insert the requisite three paragraphs about the suspect validity of MR removal, blah, blah, blah. Pretend I've done that. 

Again, he is so active and expressive, even though he's sitting down. I don't think he stops with the moving and the wiggling, but they're both fun to watch because of how animated they are.

And vocally? That's beautiful. That's so beautiful. That's so unbelievably beautiful. They've got such different tones and they blend so well together because of those differences.

Okay, let's go with a proper performance now, this one is a few years later in 2021. He's not moving quite as much in this one, and I'm wondering which variable made that different. Was it because he's further from his discharge? Is it because it's a proper stage performance? Is it something else entirely? I don't know. 

But the song is, in general as you've heard, just beautifully performed. This is one that I'd take my earplugs out at a concert for so I can hear those vocals with my own two ear holes. 

This one is a fancam from their Hanghae concert in 2019. This version has a saxophone added to the arrangement, and that's something I can get behind. 

That lighting is incredible though. I want you to know that. If it was slightly more ripply, it would look like they were underwater. And I love that they're doing military for this. They both look so good.

He's a little bit restless here for this performance. I'd be curious to know if this is just normal for him across the board, because there's been an element of that, sometimes quite strong, across all of these.

And before you think that I'm spending the entire time focusing on him, I adore her voice. It's so clean and clear and just generally firm that I could listen to it for several hours. I'm just apparently fascinated and fixated on how much he's moving.

This is another fancam, but I want to use this one to specifically highlight Suhyun. First of all, she is so pretty here. Her dress, her hair, the way the wind occasionally catches that one bit that's down. Perfectly lovely. I love it. I do hope that she wasn't too cold with her shoulders being exposed like that because there are a couple of moments when she looks like she might be.

Second of all, I could swim in her voice. I really could. Pun only partially intended for a song called "Whale". 

Thank you all for reading. And, submitter, I deeply apologize for how long this one took me, but I wanted it in a good spot where it could get the attention it deserves. Thank you so much for your patience, and I hope that you enjoyed this. I can't make sure you see it, so I hope you run across this at some point.

If you too would like me to cover a specific song, leave a comment, drop me a message somewhere, or you can submit to The Form. I love seeing what songs people love because often it's me getting to know a song deeply for the first time, and then I get to yap about how awesome they are too.