Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Davichi‘s Lee Haeri‘s pre-release for her solo album was “Pattern“, and that ended up being the best track on her album specifically because it stood out for being an unexpectedly infectious song.
I wasn’t going to pay much attention to “Pattern” because not only was it from Haeri of Davichi, which screams vocal wank ballad anyway, but also because pre-releases are almost universally boring ballads or “deep” and “emotional” songs. Thankfully then, I did get around to listening to it, because it was far superior to the bore of an actual title track, “Hate That I Miss You“.
Haeri effectively reversed things on us, using “Pattern” to experiment a bit. The underlying beat is simple but strong and it drives the whole track and prevents it from ever stagnating. The bells and whistles (like the brief interjections of keyboard) keeps the listeners on their toes, and so does the structure of her vocals, which at times changes pace into something that reminded me of what IU did at the start of “Leon“.
This all builds to the chorus, which is as epic as it’s supposed to be for a vocalist like Lee Haeri. The whole thing has this swelling, grand feeling to it, which is only made more obvious by the added organ effects, and it’s surprisingly catchy and makes you want to listen again just for the climax. The instrumental section following the chorus was a nice way to recalibrate after the ourburst of volume in the chorus, and it re-emphasizes again the pleasant underlying sound before getting back into the verses.
People praise her vocals, but honestly that’s almost a given for me on a Lee Haeri or Davichi track, and it’s the creativity of the instrumental and the vocal patterns (if you will) that make this stand out from the crowd. Basically I love that there was meat to this release and not just four minutes of Lee Haeri proving what everybody already knew about her vocals.
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