Song Review:: Taeyang (BIGBANG): QUINTESSENCE- LIVE FAST DIE SLOW

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  • Release date: 2026 May 18
  • Album tracklist: BAD, LIVE FAST DIE SLOW, WOULD YOU (feat. Tarzzan & Woochan), MOVIE, OPEN UP, LOVE LIKE THIS, YES, NOW G.O.A.T, 4U
  • Album runtime: 26 minutes

 It's been a hot minute since he released an album, right? I also need you to know that I now just randomly say "I am a good boy" because of this man. That runtime actually isn't as bad as it looks because the title track is over three minutes, the song with Tarzzan and Woochan (who are at the same company as him and I'm glad that he's taking the kids under his wings) is over three minutes, and the last track is over three minutes. It just happens that one of the songs is under two-minutes, which admittedly isn't great, but it's not the title track, so I don't care what the b-sides are doing for time. 

We've got a little bit of a skittering beat going on here, which is not entirely unexpected, but it's more of a disco skitter than a hip-hop skitter, but I also wish I could place exactly where I recognize this from. It's incredibly familiar. It also starts off pretty calmly and chilly, so there's a lot of different textures and variations going on in this song.

I absolutely adore that he says "Call me BIGBANG" in this at the beginning. Vocally, the "one two three four" part reminds me a lot of another song, and it feels like a rock band of some sort. But we've got a bit of different vocal textures, including both singing and rapping, but it's always unmistakably him. And that's with not being super familiar with his voice generally. 

Dong "I'm actually shy about my body" Youngbae. The man looks good in a cowboy hat. While this feels like a vibes and visuals music video, it's very obviously a thematic one.



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