Morning, everyone! Well, it’s morning for me; it might be different for some of you, but anyway. Today we’ll be jumping into my review of Lay’s solo song, ‘Namanana’. But as per usual, a little bit of background on the artist first.
Lay, a.k.a. Zhang Yixing, is a member of the boy group EXO. The group consists of two subunits, Korean and Chinese, with a total of nine members. Lay belongs to the latter group, but along with other members, he does branch off to release solo works, as well as act in various films and TV shows. As of right now, the musician has released two studio albums, nine singles, and two EPs. Namanana—his second studio album—was released October 19th, and serves as his official debut in the United States. The album contains 22 songs, 11 in Chinese and then the same 11 songs in English. Upon release, it debuted as the fifth album on the iTunes and charted in 41 countries.
So without further ado, let’s go into his main single and see what we have.
Lyrics
I decided to read the lyrics before actually listening to the song, and it kinda came as a shock to me. I feel like K-Pop songs don’t go for motivational lyrics often; they’re typically love songs, songs about how great the artist is and how hard they work, or those self-empowering ones where the artists express their independence and diss others. Those last ones are usually my favorites, it’s always funny to see how aggressive some musicians get.
Anyway, Lay chose to do a song with a more motivational ring to it. The song essentially talks about how we ought to keep going even when times get difficult, that there will always be hindrances, and we can’t let those get to us. He urges the listener to follow their dreams (it’s a bit wishy washy, I wanted to laugh), and that if they always give it their all, things will work out.
Now, I appreciate the message. I think it’s great that Lay made a song like this, one of encouragement and uplifting thoughts, but there’s one line that had me chuckling harder than I intended: “I’m hot like wasabi”. Of all similes to come up with, he could’ve compared himself to anything, yet he chooses to compare himself to the spiciness of wasabi. Nobody talks like that; I can’t even imagine someone having enough confidence to say that they’re as hot as wasabi and walk away with all coolness intact. Then again, nobody walks around saying ‘namanana’, and I mean, wasabi definitely gets his point across. It’s just that that line in particular is on the same level as BTS’ ‘Mic Drop’ line, “Just so fizzy, we’re like cola”. I don’t quite know what’s up with these food-based similes in lyrics, but I’m not complaining. They crack me up; it’s just another level of utilizing figurative language.
It’s just the start of me chuckling while analyzing the song. As I began listening to it, I found more things that amused me and we’ll get into that right after discussing the overall aesthetic of the music video.
Aesthetics
The video is pretty interesting, opening up with Lay sleeping on a bed in the back of a truck amongst piles of miscellaneous rubbish like packages, lamps, chairs, a fax machine, and chocolate bars. What gets me is that he’s got the chocolate under his pillow. He’s traveling in a desert during the day with chocolate bars under his pillow, that’s a sticky mess just begging to happen. But I’m sure he’s not too invested in the candy, seeing as there’s a flying ship above him. There’s clearly far more important things to worry about.
I can’t tell if I’ve made it obvious enough, but the music video has spectacularly little to do with the song itself. Maybe they were going for the idea that Lay has all these difficult missions to overcome and he’s busy being awesome, delivering this one specific package (or protecting it, I don’t know), which somehow ties in with the whole ‘keep running and doing your best, you’ll get through your difficult times’ concept. Honestly, I think most difficulties relevant to the fans involve not having enough money to keep up with their favorite K-Pop artists, maintaining their grades, and not getting involved in fan feuds on Twitter. I’ve never had to deal with that last one, but I always hear that that’s a big source of toxicity for these fandoms.
Of course, the action driven scenes are punctuated with colorful scenes of fun choreography—and I’m not being sarcastic there, the choreo is great—one even taking place in pink water. I can’t say his missions are very relatable, but it’s stimulating and creative for sure. The scenery correlates a bit to the vibes of the song itself, which I’m going to get into now coz it messed with my mind.
Sound
The song has some sort of aerophone backbone that continues throughout the whole piece, and I think it does well for the verses, but for the pre-choruses and chorus itself I can’t help thinking that it sounds a bit messy. Taking out that flute bit during the chorus wouldn’t really harm the song, frankly, and as I listened, I spent a while trying to figure out whether that actually added to the song or not. It doesn’t. But Lay’s vocals are lovely and hearing the English caught me off guard a bit, since I did the research on the album after looking into the song, but it was a pretty cool surprise.
The rhythm is fun and catchy, but after a certain point, I became convinced that this song is a K-Pop twist on a mash up of ‘Bet On Me’ and ‘What Time Is It’ from High School Musical 2. Combined with the choreography, lyrics, and everything, I swear ‘Namanana’ stands a chance at finding itself on an HSM soundtrack, because the song has very similar vibes to the much-loved DCOM tunes, and as of right now, I’m still trying to figure out if that enhances the song for me or makes it come off as slightly unoriginal. I still think it’s a decent song, but I probably won’t go out of my way to listen to it.
Thursday will see the review of Stray Kid’s ‘I Am YOU’, so thanks for reading and until next time! Also, I’m smooth like edamame beans.
Just joking, I wanted to try my hand at the similes, but you see what I mean? Nobody talks like that; I think I’d lose all my friends if I made that statement. But I had to try anyway.
—Zephyr
Musical Musings 