Taeyeon is nominated for Best Vocals and Best Female Soloist in the 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards. Support Taeyeon and your other favourite artists by clicking here to vote for them. Remember, voting closes on the 31st of December!

Taeyeon joined the December comeback lineup on Tuesday with her solo release on Tuesday, What Do I Call You. This, and her fourth mini-album, follows her previous 2020 releases which includes Dear Me (the lead single from her repackaged Purpose album), her Happy single and her #GirlsSpkOut Japanese comeback. So Taeyeon has been quite busy during 2020, which has lead to her nominations for Best Female Soloist and Best Vocals in this year’s KPOPREVIEWED Awards (link above – and apologies for this shameless plug here). On with the review.

What Do I Call You moves away from Taeyeon’s pop ballad or straight ballad sound and opts for a more indie sound, which I thought was slightly different (though definitely something in her willhouse, given that she has released songs of this style before. The song is primarily driven by acoustics and then some mid-tempo beat that is brought into the song via percussion. It is a simple combination, but one that I thought was actually quite nice and pleasant. The only downside is that it doesn’t really give the song an opportunity to peak, with the song’s momentum plateauing once the percussion comes into play. Aside from that, the only element to really left discuss is Taeyeon’s vocals, which is superb. As mentioned above, she is nominated for Best Vocals in the 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards and What Do I Call You definitely consolidates all the reasons to why she deserves the nomination (and possibly the category overall – but that is up to you). Her vocals really bring the song’s melodies and add to that pleasantry note of the song. Another splendid song that adds to Taeyeon’s repertoire.

The music video shows us the story of Taeyeon in a post-break up limbo, unsure what to call her ex whom she still has lingering feelings for. In response to this feelings, Taeyeon signs up for this service that erase her memories of this ex (which is the panda wearing mask person). Interestingly after getting her memories wiped, she enters a hallway that brings her back to the first time she interacted with him at a party, where I assume they begin another relationship. To further back this ending up, she plays a toy crane machine and regains the same orange diary that she gave up in the memory wiping service. Likewise the polaroid of her and her ex that was hanging on her wall at the start as found still hanging on the wall at the end of the video after the memory wiping process. It is interesting video and I thought it was a clever twist at the end.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 10/10
Overall Rating – 9.4/10