Following the solo releases of Jeong Eun Ji since 2016 and the solo debut of Oh Ha Young last year, the next member of APINK to go solo is Kim Nam Joo. When I first heard that she would be making her solo debut, I wondered how Kim Nam Joo would differentiate herself from the well-known name of APINK and establish a new image of herself under her own name, with her new solo single, Bird. Well, it is time to have a closer look at both the song and music video to find out just that.

Unfortunately, Bird fails to excite me. If I was being generous, Bird would be considered a ‘decent’ song, at best. But Bird is just so boring and lackluster that I tend to fall to the more negative side of the ‘decent song’ descriptor. Upon first listen to Bird, I could hear the hint of (G)I-DLE Soyeon’s influence. And while it seems like I am part of the minority when it comes to her songs, Bird is probably her weakest associated track yet. It felt like a track originally intended for (G)I-DLE, but the management and group decided it was best to part ways from this flat song. Aside from use of the wooden wind instruments throughout the song and the acoustic guitars in the bridge, everything else just felt generic to me. The instrumental failed to give much hype and the Eastern-influenced chorus could have been more dynamic by a mile. The bird sound effects felt a little annoying, especially as it went on. The song’s melody was pretty weak. Save the pre-chorus melody though, as I felt there was a decent climb within it that alluded to what I had expected to be a good drop. for the chorus (which Bird did not deliver). But that weak melody essentially rubbed off onto Kim Nam Joo’s vocals, which was at large pretty boring throughout the entire song. Hook-wise, the song didn’t have much, so I am pretty sure Bird will be long gone from my memory once I wrap up this review. Bird failed to impress or chirp up my day.

The music video fares a lot better in comparison to the song. Despite going with the basic choreography and closeup formula, the closeups are captivating given the story that I have managed to get out of it. To me, we see Kim Nam Joo wear white in the beginning to represent innocence and a newly born bird. As the music video goes along, we get different evolutions of the ‘bird’, which I could guess represents the many phases we have in our lifetime. But finally, just before the final chorus kicks in, we see Kim Nam Joo in her final ‘bird’ form, which is evidently quite elegant and mature. This represents her ‘rebirth’ (which was what the song was all about) is complete. Aside from that, I really liked how they used the one set at the start and end, but changed the lighting and colours to just give it a complete different feel.

The choreography is pretty decent. This ‘decent’ is more positive, in comparison to my other use of the same word. I really liked how she shows her strength and power through this choreography, and especially how she fits it in with the song she had to work with. Nothing really stood out for me individually, but the performance as a whole did.

Song – 4.5/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 7.5/10
Overall Rating – 6.2/10