Shin Hye Sung (Shinhwa)

Shinhwa has returned with their 13th album since debut. The album itself was released in two parts. The first part was released back in October 2016, as Unchanging Part 1 – Orange. The second part, released on the 5th of January 2017, comprises of all the songs released as part of Unchanging Part 1 – Orange and five new songs, including Touch, the title track for this album.

I am a little torn about the track. Once again, it is a track that doesn’t really appeal to me vocally. Honestly, that aspect is quite forgettable. But the track does stand out for other reasons. The EDM based instrumental is something that the boys haven’t really done before. It’s modern and trendy, suiting the current times. Going hand-in-hand with the instrumental is the structure of the song. The main reason why the instrumental does stand out is that there is no chorus to the song. Instead, the beat drops and we get a very complicated but powerful instrumental break each time. It is a little different, but it isn’t the first time an unconventional song structure has caught my attention (Check out Rainbow’s Black Swan). That being said, with no chorus, the song felt empty and did lack that hook. While the instrumental breaks were interesting, they didn’t do much to fill that empty void that the chorus would have filled from the start. Half of me is disappointed for that reason, but the other half did fall for that uniqueness.

The first thing I noticed after watching the video for the first time is that the video is very slow. I understand the slowness during the verses of the song because the verses are slow. But the scenes for the instrumental breaks are just too slow. Those parts sound almost as if it is choppy, fast-paced and impactful. But the video didn’t match those feelings. The majority of the video consist of the guys acting sad and heartbroken. There really isn’t anything to complain about there, but it does make the video become more boring if I was to continually watch it. There were a few scenes added where they act a little angry (with the now cliché ‘slow-motion-of-the-object-made-out-glass-smashing-on-the-floor’ or the ‘damage-the-mirror-somehow-and-stare-into-a-cracked-mirror’). But like the instrumental breaks, they don’t do much when it came to captivating me. The anger I guess ended up being a little more extreme by the end of the video. The guy burning the letter from his lover ends up burning his house out and the guy who lied in the bath tub (which again is in the middle of the room) completely flooded the room.

The dance looks cool and very precise. It matches the beat of the song really well. I have to admit, though, it does look pretty slow and lazy (at the instrumental breaks). The dance doesn’t really peak until the end of the song during the two solo parts. But still, the dance looked cool nonetheless.

Song – 6/10
Music Video – 5/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 5.5/10

Shin Hye Sung has returned back onto the stage by himself for solo promotions with his brand new mini album. For those who don’t know, Hye Sung is the main vocalist of the band Shinhwa which made their debut back in the late 90s. He made his official solo debut in 2005 and since then have been a highly sought after vocalist.

roco drama is a very slow song. A little too slow for my liking. I can’t really seem to get into it. The slowness really prevents me from “feeling the beat or the music”. Personally, I feel like if the song had a somewhat faster tempo, the song would have been more enjoyable. Once again, it sounds like a song that you could hear in a more cafe like setting. But given my circumstances where I listen to songs on a daily basis to avoid being bored or to enjoy my work more, this song just does not do it for me. It’s rather soft and the clicks that we hear throughout the song gives off a nice contrast.The vocal work of Hye Sung is pretty much on point. Not once did I think his voice was a problem. To me, he sang the song within his own range and did not, at all, push his voice to the limit to impress people or to show off. Nonetheless, he did manage to impress me with what I heard, just not really digging the song as I would like to.

The darkness of the video fits in really well with the video. I love how the light bulb places the attention on Hye Sung in the video and love even more the effects to make it look like a cloudy night or foggy. Honestly, a dark background plus one glowing light bulb sounds quite boring, but to me looks really abstract and simple in my point of view. There really is not much else to the video, beside that. There are a few extra scenes of what seems to be random but from what I can tell, it fits in with the lyrics. There really isn’t that much else to the video. The song gives off a sense of a heavy plot in the video, but I guess that is not the case.

However, the video is also very dance oriented. The dance is pretty nice to watch. His face throughout the dance is very serious and there is this mysterious side to it as well. I think the sexy concept describe the dance really well, but it is more of an urban style of dance. The use of the chair is not that spectacular, but it places the right amount of emphasis on the artists and how the back up dancers dance around the chair adds the emphasis on the artist as well.

Overall, pretty good comeback. Song could have been better, the video was simple and the dance was pretty much solid. 7/10