K-pop Goes February: Day 28- Jeong Sewoon

My angels, it’s the final day of K-pop Goes February! What a musical ride it’s been, how much I have learnt about this most fabulous of genres, and how painfully aware am I that reviews take a long time to write! In all seriousness, I’m really glad to have done this, and even more glad to have done it all to time and within the structure I set myself. I’m not usually the queen of sticking to plans or schedules, so just to see that get pulled off is a miracle in itself. Thank you to anyone who’s commented on any of my posts on various channels, given recommendations, or, most importantly, given any of these a read. I do put quite a bit of time and effort into them, so knowing that they get read is a real bonus.

But don’t worry, before I babble on Oscars-speech style, we’ve still got one more soloist to finish out the month with! For the last time, girls, guys, gays and theys, let’s have a look at a new (for me) K-pop artist. To wrap it all up, here’s Jeong Sewoon.

Who is Jeong Sewoon?

Ah, the last time I’ll be asked that question. How bittersweet. As if I’ve been asked that specific question many times. Anyway. Jeong Sewoon is particularly interesting to me because, coming from an initial Reddit recommendation when I was plotting out all of the artists for this project, I myself had absolutely never heard of him. This is unique among all of the twenty-eight artists that I’ve looked at this month, as all of the others rang at least some little bell in my head. This is not the case for Mr Jeong, though this of course means that I go in with absolutely no preconceptions.

Jeong Sewoon is a South Korean singer songwriter, born in 1997 (offensively younger than me), who rose to fame through participating in a talent contest. Don’t think we were going to get away from a fiddly origin story at the last minute, you simpletons! He appeared on series three of K-pop Star (I mean, didn’t we all), making it to the finals as part of a duet before being eliminated in the finals in 2013. He was then signed by Starship Entertainment to prepare for debut as a soloist. In a lovely little finishing flourish, this is a company that I’ve actually heard of quite a lot, given that they manage Monsta X, managed SISTAR, and are also responsible for Cosmic Girls, who I reviewed in week one. Yay for me. He also appeared on the second season of our old favourite Produce 101 in 2017, and, while popular, failed to make it into the final boy group the show was designed to create. So this means that, so far, I can make out that Jeong is someone with charm to do well on a reality show, but not necessarily enough to win over the big guns. I can’t find anything on the two websites I bother looking at that describes his style, so I guess this means that I’ll just have to completely define it for myself. God I work hard. Let’s go…

The First Song

As Jeong Sewoon is but a mere lamb at twenty-three, his career didn’t take off until 2017, a year that in my head is pretty much yesterday but is actually about four years ago. His debut track was a song called Just U (shout out to the text speak), which actually featured rapper Sik-K, meaning we’re in for another collaboration. And yes, I do not know who Sik-K is.

The song is a fun little slice of groovy pop, beginning with rich acoustic guitars that provide the meat of the instrumentation throughout the rest of the song. The song is well layered, and Sik-K’s contribution to the second verse adds a nice change up in the vocal tones we’re hearing. Jeong is smooth and fun enough in the chorus, and the backing is energetic enough without getting messy. It’s not massively distinctive, but it’s nice enough. And there a lot of cactuses in the video, if that’s your jam.

Five of the Big Hits

From what I can tell, Jeong Sewoon is not a hugely popular artist, something I guessed from never having heard of him. Because of this, there weren’t many recommendations regarding his work, so I did some patching together myself from the usual channels. I ended up going for Baby It’s U, Say Yes, When It Rains, It’s You and 20 Something. It’s worth noting here that there aren’t actually many more singles made by Jeong than the ones I’ve mentioned, so hopefully this will give me a fuller impression of his output.

First up is Baby It’s U, from the before times of 2018. This is a gentle EDM song, again beginning with a bass layer of rich acoustic guitar melody, before adding in a clapping rhythm to build the pace to the light-synth euphoria of the chorus. Jeong’s voice is notably strong here, and again, whilst not anything revolutionary, it did get me doing an embarrassing little dance while watching the video. No cactuses I could spot though.

When I was looking for Baby It’s U on Spotify, I got myself confused as I realised his most streamed hit has the incredibly similar name of It’s You. Essentially the same title, but minus text speak. This song is also from 2018, though in this case it’s from the soundtrack to the popular K-drama What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, which may explain the stream count. I know a lot of soundtrack songs (commonly called OSTs, or official soundtracks), tend to be ballads, and sadly it turned out that this one was no different. I really want to have the talent to pick out something in these songs that goes beyond ‘it’s slow and there are pianos, sometimes plus violins’. But I just can’t. Jeong’s voice is nice here, steady and coping well with the high notes, and the piano is, you know, also there, but that’s about all I can say for this. I guess that this kind of song would have a lot more meaning if I’d watched the drama it was attached to, but alas, I haven’t.

My hopes are higher for Say Yes, a song from just last year in 2020. I am right in my hoping, as this is more in the vein of the first two of Jeong’s songs I’ve listened to. It’s light, frothy pop, with jittering synths in the chorus, some nicely funky guitars in the verses, and even a scratchy electronic hook in the song’s final section. I’m noticing how strong Jeong’s voice is with each song, not necessarily through belting, though there is a little of that, just through the clarity in his voice. Steadiness isn’t the sexiest vocal quality, but it is one you miss when it’s not there.

We have When It Rains next, a song from 2019. And god damnit I cannot get away from these bloody ballads. The wonderful Bias List blog puts it well when he says that there just isn’t much to say here: it’s slow, calm, sentimental, and minimal. There’s a piano, a gentle beat appears after a while, and it’s all much of a muchness. The most I can really bring myself to say is that there are no cactuses in this video, though there is a big, leafy plant in the corner of the café it’s set in. That’s something.

Finishing up the list is one I just picked myself, because hey, I’ve been doing this for twenty-eight days and I deserve some freedom. I went for 20 Something, released in 2018, purely on the basis that this title describes me in a literal sense. Now, this song isn’t strictly a ballad, though I would say it’s only one step away. We have a very soft drumbeat from the outset, and an instrumentation mainly consisting of piano, but don’t worry, this piano does get a little funky in its staccato rhythm in the pre-chorus. The chorus is all ‘ooh’ backing vocals, followed by a sharp little moment on the violins. It all adds up to something I would call ‘easy-listening’ or ‘light jazz’. Not my favourite, but at least it’s not the full B word.

The Latest Song

We finish off with another 2021 song here, in January’s In The Dark. I like the single-string guitar being scratchily plucked for the song’s opening, and the creation of the rhythm through this guitar strumming as the track continues. The song opens up in its chorus to what appears to be Jeong’s signature of acoustic-yet-dancey tunes. It’s an airy light summer bop, nothing that would ever fill the floor, but a merry enough tune to perhaps get the evening started.

The Latest Album

Not quite an album, yet more than an EP, Jeong Sewoon’s latest release is 24 Part. 2, released in January 2021. This obviously indicates the existence of a Part 1, that did indeed come out in July 2020, but hey, I’ve been writing all month, and with a difference of six months, I think it’s fair for me to just focus on the album’s second part. If you think I’m wrong, let me know. But like, kindly please, I am a sensitive bunny.

This album does not deviate at all from the acoustic/slow groove/jazzy genres we’ve already heard from Jeong before, so his niche is only more clear. The first track is the confusingly titled :m (Mind), which, honestly, looks more like a typo than anything else. It’s easy listening to the max, with a gentle drum machine, happily strummed guitars, and even a little whistling hook to underlay the chorus. Jeong’s vocals are in whispery mode, fitting for the song but not exciting me. In The Dark follows, and does do well to come after such a lo-fi track: it emphasises its more up-tempo nature. Fine works with a more insistent and mechanical beat in its opening bars, bringing in electric guitars this time to add funky flourish to the chorus. These are fun, but I preferred the boldness of the opening, relying simply on a vocal and a strong beat. DoDoDo takes us back into more jazz/soul territory, again, especially in its opening piano run. This run comes back to add layers to the chorus, where Jeong sings at his most laid-back: you can pretty much hear the smile on his face. The title displays the overall ease of this song- the ‘do dos’ are the fun little scat moment he indulges in as the chorus closes. For me, this song is the jazzy K-pop style done well, not attempting to show off, dramatise, or overplay its hand. This song is the equivalent of leaning back in a chair in a café on a sunny afternoon.

Find You is next, and again, it’s more of the same acoustic guitar plus gentle beat formula we know from Jeong. The album, and thus this project (pause for gentle sobs) finishes with Be a fool, which, in the vein of DoDoDo, is easy listening to its bones. Pianos and acoustic guitars lazily play away under a calm rhythm, Jeong reverting to the whispy tone that suits this kind of style. There are nice little moments of play from the piano, but generally this is all exactly what would be expected from this kind of song, no invention or left-field turns to be found. It’s a subdued ending to a subdued album, a wondering off into the sunset rather than taking a big dramatic bow.

Thoughts?

Jeong Sewoon has found the styles he can do, and from what I’ve heard, has little interest in venturing outside them. He likes ballads with pianos and emotion, and light bops with mid-tempo beats and acoustic guitars in there somewhere. There is nothing wrong with having this set a style, and hey, he does the bops well, sometimes better than I was honestly expecting. I think that, for soloists in K-pop, these niches are often necessary, and more lo-fi efforts are the most suitable, purely as there is only one voice and one personality to sell stuff with, making anything bombastic or dramatic that much more reliant on the one character you’re working with. Jeong Sewoon has realised that this energy level is easier to work with, and hey, good for him. I can’t say that any of it was especially memorable for me, but it’s also good, solid work for a (still young) pop singer.

Maybe the secret is more cacti.