Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Zion.T, one of my favorite solo artists in Korean entertainment, purely for the gold mine that was ‘Red Light‘ back in 2013, has comeback with a style that is a slight turn in what he normally does, but remains average in the end result.
What separates “The Song” from his other releases is the very bubblegum vibe it has. There’s a bit more pep in it’s step than from what I’m used to in a Zion.T release. It’s very much R&B with the elements of funk, however it’s just more happy sounding, like something you’d skip to on sunny days when you want to be extra.
It starts off really chill and mellow with a light piano note and Zion.T’s vocals being layered on top, and the beat finally kicks in around the 1:20 mark; which is my main issue with the song, it takes forever to pick up. But once it does it’s pleasant enough for my tastes. The light guitar licks, organ notes, and violin strings mixed together make the song decent, and he even implements some rapping towards the end which was a nice change of pace.
This ain’t anything that’ll be making my end of the year list, and I probably won’t listen to it more than four times; however it has me interested in the other stuff that will be on his album.
—–
The music video, well, it’s something, that’s for sure. The aesthetic is a strange mixture of the swag in a G-Dragon video, to the goofy over the top-ness of ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse,’ only more demented and if everything didn’t have eyes and a mouth.
“One of us! One of us!”
Is it a masterpiece? Certainly not, and it’s a bit of a “wall-hitting” moment coming from an artist who brightened up one of the shittiest years in K-pop. I’m not happy with it but I don’t hate it either, and it’s pretty much what an average song is to me: playing it safe.
I will say this though: I like that YG Entertainment‘s not taking over his sound,. Sure, this ain’t no jam like “Babay“, “Two Melodies“, “Neon“, etc. … but it kept the general feel about Zion.T’s music, so this could have been worse.
=====
‘OO’ Album
“The Song” Song
