Tyoosday. It’s….Tyoosday. And the very last one in this project at that! We are continuing the theme of week four (four?! How did I do that???) with the next soloist on my list. Guys, gals, gays and theys, it’s IU.
Who is IU? Well I’m glad you asked, because that’s the point of this segment. IU is a Korean soloist, born Lee Ji-eun in May 1993. As has occasionally happened with the idols on this list, it means that, in the fantasy world where IU and I go to the same school, we’re in the same year group. Though quite what would have propelled her to attend St Luke’s Science and Sports College is beyond me (no offence to any alumni, but like, come on). She signed under LEON Entertainment (no idea, obviously) who are now known as Kakao M, and are owned by the Korean mega-corporation Kakao, in 2007. From both her Wikipedia page, and the presentation one of my students once gave about her, I know that IU actually experienced some hard times growing up, moving in with her grandmother for about a year when her parents were struggling through some significant poverty. In the true fairy tale pop story, it was her love of singing that propelled her towards the music industry at a young age, even though she failed several different company auditions. Her determination obviously won out though, as now her popularity as an idol has earnt her the nickname “Korea’s little sister”, and she has reached up to third place on Forbes magazine’s Korea Power Celebrity list. Not bad going at all. Oh, and the name? A joining together of ‘I’ and ‘You’, symbolising how music brings people together. Duh.
Her style is described as initially ‘girl next door’ and sweet, with Spotify worryingly speaking of “ballads and light pop” in a way that braces me for yet more pianos and strings. Luckily, as her career has been pretty long, there has been a lot of development since then, with mentions of genres as diverse as folk and disco coming into the mix. As long as it’s not all slow, and we don’t have too much cutesiness, we should be alright.
The First Song
That would be Lost Child, released all the way back in 2008, when IU and I were both starting out on our GCSEs in my insane fantasy land. Now, according to Wikipedia, this song, and the EP it came from, were not successful in terms of chart positions, or IU’s own opinion. In my opinion? Whilst, yes, it is slower, and, also yes, it is very 2000s, this song had enough drama to propel itself into something more interesting than the normal ballad. Something about the actual structure of the melody is really beautiful, and the more electro beat underscoring the usual violins and pianos adds an extra flavour. There’s a lot of drama in the chorus, not hurt at all by the addition of some subtle synths. This doesn’t sound like a failure to me, so it’s intriguing to see how her sound well develop from this.
Five of the Big Hits
Once again Reddit, I thank you. It’s pretty clear from just a glance at IU’s work that she’s made a huge amount of music, aside from also being a pretty successful actress too, which I forgot to mention earlier. I’ve tried to go for a mix of the stuff that really defined her career over the years, and the result is this list: Nagging, Good Day, Twenty-Three, Palette and BBIBBI.
I’m going to try bothering to be chronological once again (oh the novelty!), meaning that Nagging, apparently one of the songs that really pushed her into the spotlight, is up first, from 2010. Spotify confusingly translates this as Nitpicking, which is annoying. There doesn’t seem to be a video for this one, so I watched a fan-made lyric video. It’s also key to know that this song is a duet with boyband 2AM member Seulong, and takes the structure of a couple singing about the problem of her nagging at him. The tone of the song is relentlessly upbeat, though of course don’t forget those early 2010s strings and a dash of piano. The melody climbs to a joyous sounding chorus, which is slightly odd as IU’s character is largely complaining about, to my mind, ridiculous stuff like ‘making sure you’re not talking to other girls’. But hey, we are in Korea here. I didn’t quite get the overall message of the song, but as the man continues to sing ‘let’s stop’ and tells IU that he wishes he could carry her around with him in his pocket (apparently a good thing), I’m guessing that they resolve her nitpicky ways? Well, whatever they do, the song is built by cheeriness, and is fun to listen to, shaky storyline aside.
Speaking of shaky, next up is 2010’s next song, and the one that broke IU through to huge success, Good Day. When listening, it took a hot minute for me to realise what was going on here: this song is straight up disco. We have a strong, thudding beat, rich, snappy strings, a subtle bass, occasional notes of electric guitar and keyboard, and regular percussive flourishes. Baby, you’re in Funkytown. The vocals are strong and full, with some impressive high notes hit at the song’s climax, and even with light backing singing to really hit the theme home. This song is wonderful, so fun and cheery, and the video features both snow and a parrot. I don’t know why, and I don’t care: I love it.
I had similar love for 2015’s Twenty-Three, which takes the same disco sound and makes it slightly tighter. The song opens with simple drum beats and electric keyboards, with IU singing in relaxed mode on top of it. Disco strings creep in, and by the chorus we’re back to full sparkle territory. The video is distinctly playful, featuring IU ripping a tablecloth of a well-laid table (god K-pop videos love well-laid tables), playing a game of William Tell, and even facepalming a birthday cake. At points in the song she devolves from singing into playground style speak-taunting, but rather than being annoying, it’s well done enough to simply fit with the song’s cheeky tone. Another hit.
2017’s Palette follows, featuring K-pop superstar G-Dragon of Big Bang (probably the biggest boyband K-pop had ever had until, well, you know who). Interestingly, this takes up a similar idea to Twenty-Three, as now twenty-five year old IU muses softly about her likes, dislikes and place in the world now she has reached this milestone. The song is a delicate groove of a track, with no bombast at all to suit the more introspective tone. The production is just lovely, and G-Dragon’s rap, talking to IU about how she need not be worried about her age and how he understands as someone five years older, fits amazingly well. This is minimalism done right.
We finish this five hit list with 2018’s BBIBBI, written to commemorate ten years since IU debuted. Again, this is just an extremely well made song, once more in the minimal style we started to see with Twenty-Three. Wikipedia describes this as alt-R&B, which I can see: the beat is slow and calm, with electric keyboards adding spare melody to accompany it. The rhythm has a little more sway in the chorus as IU repeats the last word of each line to create some catchy riffs. You can feel from the attitude in her voice that she’s portraying a laid-back approach, backed up by lyrics assuring that she has her barriers, and that she’s not interested in haters or gossip. It’s particularly cool to see a song portraying these ideas without a hint of aggression: normally this message would come through as loud a hip-hop track as possible. Not here: IU clearly understands that subtlety and craft will always deliver your message with that much more sly a punch.
The Latest Song
Just three weeks ago, IU released her latest single, Celebrity. She has definitely taken up the minimal, sharp approach as the years have gone by, and here is no different. The song has some zippy little synths underlying things, along with a nice, deep, melodic hook for the chorus. Her vocals often hit delightfully high notes here- there doesn’t seem to have been any belting for a while. I wouldn’t say it impacted me as much as her earlier stuff, but there’s absolutely nothing to complain about.
The Latest Album
Yaaay, another EP instead of an album! Not that I’m saying I don’t want to hear as much of IU’s work as possible, but I do write a lot of these at night, and ya girl gets tired. In 2019, IU released the six-track EP Love Poem. And wow, what a mix we have here.
The first track, unlucky, is an eccentric little piece, beginning with almost one note only being plonked away at on the piano, kind of like that forgettable band The Feeling did back in the UK in the 2000S. The vocals are particularly soft as the song hops along, with the chorus layering the production a little more, the backing piano chilling out momentarily. It’s a sweet little jaunt of a song, while the following one, The visitor is a slower, slinky nineties jam. IU’s voice is sometimes edited with that ‘on an old radio’ sound effect, and here the backing guitars are delightfully lazy. If unlucky was skipping along, The visitor is strolling leisurely, dragging its hands along nearby hedges. The staccato punches of the words in the chorus add an attitude that takes the song to that sultry level, rather than being dull.
The next song is the single Blueming, which feels a little more like a throwback to her earlier sound. Here the nineties sound similarly comes from the backing guitars, only here they are jangling and tinkling out a fun little hook. The little roll of drums gives it that extra sense of joy, and ultimately, I figured out why I was thinking nineties: the song reminds me of Texas’s Inner Smile. Smiley is definitely a word that fits this song.
Above the time, the following track, starts off as a very standard ballad, albeit one with a beautiful melody, especially in the chorus. We get the sneaky introduction of drum machines as the song goes on, violins sneak in, all so normal so far. But then, just after halfway through, there is what I can only describe as a folk break, with fiddles and acoustic guitars. It sounds like something out of a fantasy film, and I liked it. Sadly, it’s only there for a moment- it would have been cool to hear a whole song like this.
The EP closes with two ballads, Lullaby and Love Poem, and whilst these types of songs will just never be my favourite, I will admit that these two are great examples of the genre. Both keep gloriously stripped back, Lullaby to just piano and vocal, Love Poem adding in the gentlest guitars and drums, which is how I think this kind of emotional tone is best shown. Keeping the songs this calm allows the beauty of IU’s vocals to shine through: for me Lullaby had a slight edge in doing this due to just how simple it was. It’s not my favourite IU, but it’s still ridiculously high quality.
Thoughts?
OK, I totally get it. There is a reason IU is so wildly popular in Korea, and it’s because she knows what she’s doing. Every song I’ve heard is constructed perfectly, well balanced, and showing her off to her best ability. I loved the full disco we got at times in the earlier days, and how this bloomed into cool groove and sly funk later on. She evens makes me like ballads…sometimes. When I asked about IU on Reddit, more than one person noted how difficult it was to narrow down which of her hits were the ones to try out, saying that she just has too much range, and too many good songs to listen to. From what I’ve sampled, I can see their point, and am excited to delve into more of their recommendations. Thank you Reddit citizens, and also, thank you IU. You’re clearly a legend.
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