Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Jun.K, better known as the main vocal of 2PM, has just released the title track to his first self written, composed, and produced studio album, ‘MR. NO <3‘. The title, “Think About You“, is a heavily hip-hop influenced R&B track, a style dominating the R&B sound right now in Korea.
Going into this after seeing some of the teasers, I was partially thinking, “Please don’t mess this up!” While I like a lot of music coming out of Korea in the hip-hop/R&B genre, a lot of what is trending within this sound has become so overwhelmingly trendy that it’s dominating the market to the point of monotony.
Luckily, I really think Jun.K has done an excellent job of taking the good aspects of these trends and using them appropriately to his advantage. The verses flow nicely, and while the syncopation that he uses isn’t anything new to R&B, it is still done well. He uses obvious trap influences in the chorus with the bark of certain lyrics in the background (along with “Ay!” and “Woo!”), something that can easily end up taking over a song completely to its detriment, but it never became off putting or burdensome. The dramatic drops within the chorus were also done without ever sacrificing melody or the overall structure of the song. and this paired extremely well with the the slower emotional build-up in the pre-chorus that is mimicked in the post-chorus to take us back down from the dramatics.
Overall, the song takes you on a successful build to a really catchy, dramatic, and trendy chorus that was immediately stuck in my head. I was already sold by the time we got to the bridge, and from there Jun.K simply takes it home, using the opportunity to show off his abilities.
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Visually, let’s get the obvious out of the way first: those braids look stupid on him. It’s a distraction, and I am not here for this Taeyang lite. It’s crazy to me how much better he looks with his actual hair. Literally, why?
Moving past that, though, I really liked the bold red and white scenes. Not only because he actually looks attractive there, but because it stands out within the music video without looking out of place. This is probably due to the way they tied in red throughout, making multiple sets and scenes appear completely cohesive while still being entirely diverse. From heavy red lighting to cosmic swirls to images of bursting fireworks in the background of the choreography scenes, it really helped tie everything together visually.
The choreography shots, by the way, looked fantastic. Him being shirtless is also probably welcomed by many, and I expect nothing but utter objectification from the K-pop community.
The only criticism besides his hair that I can make is that the slight plot that was present couldn’t have been there at all and I wouldn’t have noticed or cared. I realized this as I looked through some screencaps and said to myself, “I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about that.” Sorry, floating space girl.
“Think About You” is a passionate and trendy R&B track paired with a visually striking music video, despite some poor styling choices. All in all, I’d consider this a solid success for Jun.K. He managed to meet trends without bending to them to the point that the song was lost among the crowd, and that’s promising for his first solo effort in Korea.
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