khoa | empathy - d.o. (Reply)

pre-listening thoughts

based on his song recs: i went in fully expecting this genre. all ksoo listens to is the world's worst sadboi white pop and has been a belieber since birth so i assumed he wouldn't do rnb sorry to everyone else LOL

rose

rose is actually a cute song. im not sure if it was best used as a title track, but compared to the album it doesn't seem any more or less like a title if you get what i'm saying? as in, none of them sound particularly suited to being a title
instrumental is so fucking annoying i cant get over it. wish they used a different guitar finish
i think the pacing is so...weird...it could have been slower by 10% and been MUCH better
overly abrupt ending? could have used a repetition of the chorus
the instrumental is both too stripped back AND too much at the same time, prob because it doesnt modulate. needed to be a little bit slower. could have benefitted from switching up and maybe even bringing in soft strings for the bridge

i'm gonna love you (ft. wonstein)

i hate wonstein's voice sorry this is super biased. World Worst Timbre
i'm also not sure that bringing wonstein for the bridge rather than containing him in the verses + chorus was the best use of his voice
the more stripped back guitar sound works much better here
verses are better than the chorus, but i appreciate them layering more sounds for the chorus
ksoo's little quavo moments are just atrocious
another abrupt ending?
more pacing issues
sounds very much like an american radio ballad from 2016. this becomes a recurring theme

my love

clean mixed and upper register, and i appreciate the switching between upper and lower register, especially in the bridge
hearing piano was fun
the song goes...nowhere
another abrupt ending that could have been dragged out much more. pacing issues round 3
this sounds like an 88rising ballad abgs would post on their finstas simping over their ugly boyfriend kevin nguyen who cheats in chem and wears exclusively pacsun and baseball jerseys. do what you want with that information

it's love

rather than pacing issues it feels like he's rushing through the song. there's a strangely restless energy for what is supposed to be a love song he needs to #relax
going into minor key as he was riffing (? i didn't learn music in english so i don't know if thats the right word for it) for the bridge for a second was a very good touch and creates some contrast
guitar layering as you get deeper in the song and the soft orchestral sounds are nice and help build up the song
speaking of buildup, he did a great job using vocal technique to build it up towards the end
yet another 2013 song...i understand this is really 2010s slow pop but i do wish he did something new or used updated instrumentals because this shit really sounds like reproduced but otherwise unchanged shit from the sm vault years ago

dad

for some reason this is rhe most modern/not dated sounding song on the ep
emotion is clearest on this song -- i think it's because this is very obviously a different type of love being expressed, so it stands out on the album
i like that production on his voice was more intimate, they kept in his breathing and natural pauses
pacing is more relaxed on this than it is on the rest of the album
i wish they pulled the instrumentals on the verse right after the bridge OR added more instrumentals to the last chorus to create a more dramatic effect

i'm fine

sounds like a what do i call you (2020) rejected track in a good way! or well, i guess not really if you consider a reject track to be a negative thing
electric guitar is a nice touch
slight raspiness of voice matches the coffeeshop feel of the song
doesn't really go anywhere but that's not a bad thing because whoever produced added instrumentals as necessary to push it forward

rose (english ver.)

sounds like a 2012 white pop song i would hear in a youtube grwm. this is not a bad thing necessarily -- it reminds me a lot of debut ksoo, when he still had that bright flower-boy-next-door energy and performance style
gorgeous pronunciation considering he straight up does not know english but he's always been very good at matching phonemes in general so i'm not surprised

si fueras mía (it's love, spanish ver.)

you can very obviously tell that this is the original way the song was written because the language matches the sound more naturally
my spanish is rusty but i think his pronunciation is good lol

tldr

my condolences to jihyun sorry your husband made the most boring album ever made
this album would have slayed in 2016 during the height of Deanisms but it sounds old as fawk in 2021
i have no clue why the pacing is like that and also why its SO forgettable
varied guitar sounds through the album are nice. it sucks they used the most obnoxious one for the title track for some reason but now that i'm through the album i get why they used rose -- it's the most memorable track on the album. which doesn't say much because i cannot remember a single song
that being said -- it's a very dated album. it very much sounds like 2010s slow pop and while that isn't a bad thing, i wish they had tried updating the sound at least slightly (see: sawayama updating what is, at its core, 2000s pop into a more fresh interpretation)
congrats on your debut kyungsoo <3 i'm glad you make music you like and i'm glad youre happy! next album lets please update the sound ok...LOL

:)