Review: Taemin - Advice

Taemin has been everywhere recently. Since September, he has released two full-length solo albums, one solo mini-album, been part of two full-group albums, a full-group album repackage, and a special single comeback. He also might feature in an upcoming group mini-album. In other words, he has been ridiculously overworked. Now, he is entering his obligatory military service, which will be much closer to a vacation than what he has been doing currently, and that says a lot.

At the same time, the shocking thing is Taemin's quality across the board. Any look at his solo career will show a growing artist, and I slightly underrated his single Idea, while Criminal stays solid. Now, before I get onto Advice as a song, I must note that Taemin absolutely has one of the best looks in K-Pop in recent memory with this comeback. It mixes Visual Kei hair, with a degree of stylishness, while still saying uniquely Taemin.

Advice is driven by its piano meets trap groove. It's an idea that has popped around quite a bit in music before but never really been fully embraced by an A-List K-Pop artist, surprising given how omnipresent trap is in K-Pop. Advice, however, just takes this as a template, and uses it for a more atmospheric beat, with heavy vocoder and ambient synths. And despite appearing quite straightforward, the beat is cleverly split, between melodic piano segments, moody trap segments, and their combination in the chorus. This atmosphere could be slightly better developed but is a great template to build on.

In comes Taemin's voice. It is strapped with vocal effects, but Taemin's undeniable charisma still shows. His delivery is split between chants, nasal, falsetto, and posturing forms of delivery. While the overall structure followed becomes noticeable on later listens, it is an absolute joy to uncover it on the first listen. He stays restrained throughout, but with just enough passion to create a sense of urgency.

Lyrically, Advice is a song about obsession, with them staying just ambiguous enough so that it could refer to stalkers, obsessive fans, anti-fans, or any aggressive follower of any sort. At times, the lyrics end up a lot more confusing than needed, such as the torso line (possibly referring to Taemin's tattoos), but it does not overall weaken the song too much.

Taemin's impact on the industry will be missed while he is in the military, but Advice is a great single to keep us active while waiting. Advice may not be fully original, but its subdued yet aggressive performance is worth noting.

Rating: 8.5/10

Image Source: Glitter