Hello, happy Thursday! I’m back with a review of Key’s solo debut ‘Forever Yours’. But before going into the song, I’d like to talk about who Key is, because he’s a pretty dang awesome dude.
Key is the stage name for Kim Kibum, a member of the well-known boy group SHINee (pronounced ‘shiny’). He’s been in the music industry since 2008 and he’s explored other areas for his career, including acting and fashion designing. He has performed in dramas and musicals, which surprised me because I’m not used to seeing K-Pop artists have background in theater. It’s pretty cool. In 2015, Key delved into the fashion industry, eventually becoming a fashion designer and a model. He is now the fashion director of his group and he also holds the position as an editor for the Korean branch of Elle magazine. There’s more about him, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go that in depth. If you’re curious about him though, I do recommend searching him up and just do some light reading. There’s some pretty interesting stuff out there about him.
Aside from all this, Key is also completing his post-graduate studies, his major being in “Cultural and Education Contents Development”. To be quite candid, this is all new to me since I’ve never looked into Key’s background, but now that I have, I have a lot of respect for him. He really didn’t stay in his bubble; he’s a versatile artist and incredibly talented.
Here are pictures from photoshoots he has done, and I’ll link his Instagram account as well (he has adorable dogs).
I can’t get over how pretty he is. Alrighty, now time for the review itself.
Lyrics
I love the imagery of this song. I’d originally watched the music video first and since it didn’t have subtitles, I had no clue what the song was really going on about except for one line in the chorus that I could understand thanks to my rudimentary knowledge of Korean. It’s a seriously random video without any context.
Essentially, the guy is saying his heart is forever belonging to a girl he loves, because she is his universe and his life revolves around her. It’s not that overall idea that won me over, it’s how the idea was expressed. There were a few lines throughout the song that made me smile, due to how cute they were. They took a regular love song and made it charismatic through the use of imagery. Some lines I find adorably poetic are “a slightly dazed look with your chin propped in your hands’ palms, you look like you’re indifferent to everything”, “our engines are different from others, when places unvisited wait for us, we pick up the speed”, and “because I keep thinking about you, my day is spent floating on air”. The line about engines brings a lot more sense to the aesthetics of the video, because Key’s in this car and traveling around in space, which confused me initially. As it turns out, it all ties in to that one line of the song, so he’s visiting those places unvisited throughout the course of the video.
Aesthetics
Clearly they weren’t going for realism in this video, but that’s okay. The thing I can’t wrap my head around is his hairstyle. I know K-Pop artists can be eccentric in terms of style, but with no disrespect to Key, his head looks like it has little Cheetos glued on. And what’s even more baffling is that he doesn’t look awful. It doesn’t make a shred of sense to me, but then again, I know nothing about what works fashion-wise. His outfits, mainly the mechanic one, were cool; I enjoyed seeing the ensembles they put together for the video.
As far as the animations go, again, they weren’t trying to make it believable. I have no issues with that, but the video as a whole reminded me strongly of Jonghyun’s ‘Shinin” music video due to all the special effects. The colors and effects used are entertaining, so I wasn’t bored while watching it. There wasn’t any choreography for Key’s video, he spends most of the time either in the car or jamming out in space.
To check out the dance moves, though, I went and watched a live performance. I’m glad I did; the choreo for the song is fun and cheerful, and I don’t typically mention this when discussing lives, but Key has such an amazing stage presence. There’s something about watching him perform that brings a smile to my face. He’s upbeat and it feels as though he’s genuinely happy to be performing onstage, and it’s lovely to see. I actually think I like the live performance more than the video itself; I highly recommend watching it if you’re interested.
Sound
The track carries heavy SHINee vibes. While listening to it, I was reminded of various tracks from their 1 of 1 album, and that’s one thing I think about when it comes to SHINee solos. It has a catchy chorus, very common to ones used by the boy group, and an overall summertime feel. Now, Jonghyun and Taemin have done a good job of establishing their unique sounds independent of their SHINee image, but Key’s feels like something that could be used as a comeback for the group. I don’t know what to expect from him in the future from this music video alone.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The song has strong feel-good vibes and is sure to boost someone’s mood, but I guess what I’m getting at is that I didn’t get a sense of Key’s individual music style from this debut alone. That could even be the reason behind it; as it’s a debut, it’s possible that he didn’t venture out too far from his regular musical zone, because that’s what’s been successful for so many years. Or it could be that what has been firmly established as SHINee’s style does represent Key’s style as well. I’m not entirely sure, but I am curious to see what he comes out with in the future and whether it will vary greatly from everything he’s done so far. All in all, it’s a poppy song overflowing with optimism and beautiful vocals (Soyou did a great job on her parts, their voices go together quite nicely), so I do like it. I just can’t listen to it too many times in a row because of how pop influenced it is.
That concludes it for today’s review! I hope you enjoyed and I’ll be back next week with a review for Jennie’s solo debut. Until then, take care.
— Zephyr
Musical Musings 