Tiahjohn

The people heralding this album and Kai’s “ability” to genre bend have no concept or knowledge of the genres being employed unfortunately. Otherwise, they couldn’t in good faith brand this as a success. It pales sorely in comparison to its inspirations. Half the album lends itself to global trends leading it to feel gimmicky as it’s devoid of any personalisation or artistic expression. Kpop really might be experiencing an identity crisis.

One issue with the current climate of K-pop is its need to appeal to the West. This results in trend-hopping that comes off as ingenuine, especially since there's no effort to seamlessly integrate it into the artist's existing body of work. This observation is not specific to Kai but a general one. I was hoping that after "Peaches," Kai would have tunnel vision and hone his style, but this was not realized. The album engages with reggaeton and Latin sounds, but given the state of ... read more

Quite a delay, but I think that has allowed the fog to clear. "Peaches" is a fun melodic track accompanied by a beautiful music video that transports you to a fairytale-like space, and the music equally gives you that sense. Unfortunately, the rudimentary level of writing in some of the lyrics is off-putting, but not enough to dim the song.

This is followed by "Vanilla," which I had the highest expectations for following the release of the prologue film. Upon hearing the ... read more