I recently reviewed I Got Love by the solo queen herself, Taeyeon from SNSD. And with that amazing song as just her pre-release for her very first solo album, there are obviously high expectations for her entire album. But wait, this just marks her first solo album, My Voice? Given her status as a digital chart killer and the many (ain’t going to attempt to list them here) songs that she released? Obviously, this is long solo album is long overdue. If that is the case, I smell an album review coming up.

Fine is her title track for this album and it is one fine track (no pun intended… obviously). The song sounds like a Taylor Swift influenced track, with the acoustic guitar and pop ballad vibes, something that I will admittedly say that I miss from the world class act. This song takes it back to her solo debut days for me. The structure is quite similar and the way she delivered the songs are almost the same. But what makes this song good is that it focuses on good music and if we are talking about Taeyeon, amazing vocals. Her vocals in this song will blow you away. The track does start off slow and quiet. But as she launches herself into the chorus, she obviously doesn’t hold back. The chorus itself is quite different to the verses, as it is layered with bass and more instrumentals (other than the acoustic guitar). Towards the end, when we get to the peak of most songs (prior or during the final chorus), she takes it one step further with amazing ad-libs and high notes that literally took my breath away. Taeyeon has put out tracks that have disappointed me before, but when it comes to songs just like this one or any of her ballads, you can probably never go wrong.

The video itself shows Taeyeon walking around and clearly having thoughts in her head. From the rest of the video, we can probably tell that those thoughts are in regards to her lover, who has left her. We see try her best to move on (through scenes of her walking around the store and on the streets) but memories of him just start coming back to her. Now, to address the scenes where everything appears sketchy and unrecognisable (to her). I think they mean two things. The first is that everything around her is different now. Life with her boyfriend is different to life without him. The second is that she is slowly moving on (as indicated of the scenes towards the end where the sketchiness comes back, but blots out his face). We see her still thinking about him while she works on set. But she pushes through, finishing the photoshoot as professionally as she can after taking some time out. In the end, we see her pull out a glass and drink water from it, opposed to drinking whatever from plastic cups when she was with her boyfriend. This signifies that she has moved on completely. What I love about the video is its aesthetics. It makes the video look wonderful and gives it another level of depth. It’s not your typical ballad video, but the way everything came together (camera shots, transitions, filters, editing etc.) really captured the emotions from both her acting and the song itself. Just another video made for Taeyeon that makes the standard for all videos harder to reach.

I just saw a live performance on YouTube today of the song and wow. Do expect an album review to come out either later today or tomorrow.

Song – 10/10
Music Video – 10/10 
Overall Rating – 10/10