Album Review: Kwon Eunbi- Color
ManelyKpop hiatus is officially over! Sorry, I had a pretty wild March, sick for a week (flu), throat issues, then my work just got a little hectic along the way. But I am glad to be back, and happy that I get to talk about this song and album, without further adieu.
The Music Video
I love what this video does with the contrast of light and dark, it’s really visually engaging and helps to highlight Eunbi dancing a little more than door did, outside of it’s incredibly cool lift. The tutting in the chorus looks amazing performed by silhouette specifically, and was a great cinematography decision. And actually, Eunbi looks effortless in her dancing generally, it’s really impressive. On top of that, I think the styling is interesting and engaging and lets Eunbi be more of a woman than a girl, which is nice since she is in her mid twenties.
The song also plays with that same idea of contrast too, it has this simplicity to it that just fuses into quietly, and eventually dramatic, high energy moments. It’s musically cohesive across the song, dance, and video in general, which means the director and choreographer did a great job. The clear highlight musically is the end of the song, when the energy just takes off it’s an incredible moment that catches you off guard in the best way. But I don’t want to ignore the chorus, which is a great example of a well executed anti-drop in an industry that is addicted with, but often fails at doing, anti-drops.
Rating: 9/10
Song is fantastic, choreo and video do a great job of enhancing it. This is what I’ve been wanting from Eunbi after a cool but niche debut with Door and builds on what she did with Esper greatly. Eunbi was such a great powerful energy and is fantastic at bringing maturity without being over the top, and that’s what we need more of from her, she can be pretty unique to the industry, and as long as she brings that the music can change and I’ll still be pleased.
The Songs
The Colors of Light- While this is just an intro track I want to point out the cool way it transitions from the light strings of Door into the dreamy neon-textured synth of Glitch, it’s a cool way of moving from the last album to this one.
Glitch- As mentioned above, fantastic. Eunbi's best music video song.
Magnetic- Nice vocal showing here, Eunbi gets to move around a decent portion of her range and is pretty smooth throughout. The string beat is really cool, and there’s this really subtle descending bass in the chorus, I could barely even hear it so much as feel it through my fairly high quality headphones, that really makes me happy.
Colors- Despite being the track that shares a name with the album, I’m happy glitch is the promoted song. Don’t get me wrong, Colors is a fine song, but it’s safe and slow, really not my speed personally, and I think that Glitch and Magnetic both do a better job of showing off Eunbi’s strengths than this song does. Her vocals over the last chorus are really pretty though.
Speed of Love- I prefer this as a slow jam over Colors, it has some more unique musical flavor, I feel like I can sit in a crowded field at night and wave a lighter to this song. At the same time, I can also imagine sitting in that same field empty during the daytime and just watch the grass gently sway in the wind. In some ways, aren’t the crowds with lighters just grass in the wind? What a romantic thought, yeah, this song is good.
Off- It’s that time again, as with every album review, I feel very obliged to talk about the big picture of album composition. This is the third ballad in a row of 5 songs, there’s an extreme energy dropoff that never comes back. The last song should be a hooky kicker that makes you want to come back for more, or, if you want to end slow, you have to not end on 3 in a row. Anyhow, this is, despite the bad album structure, a really soft and gentle song that is super pleasant to listen to, it’s a light stream through a forest at sunrise. I don’t love ballads but I’ll listen to this and Speed of Love again in the future, they’re both really pretty songs.
Rating- 8/10
I admit I am torn between a 7.5 and an 8 but have decided to round up. While I’m not huge on Colors, the amount of ballads, or the album structure, the intro and the other 4 songs are quite good. Glitch is a fantastic song to promote, and the pacing at least all ties together pretty well even if I disagree with it, there’s no jarring music jump between any of the songs. I also really love how much Eunbi gets to show off her range of talent through these songs, although she’s a great dancer, she’s a good vocalist too, and can bring strength and gentleness in equal spades. I hope that we continue this trend of songs that she’s been on starting with Esper, and I hope to see how her sound keep evolving beyond this.
