I like it. It’s decent pop music.
In his early career he did a bunch of K-Pop stuff, and that sounded like K-Pop. Y’know? I don’t know how to say anything more about that. I think it was pretty pleasant and solid K-Pop, but also such is the nature of K-Pop, that it’s quite consistent and formulaic and pleasant. Western pop is also that way, and both genres still have lots of room for exploration and different weird and cool sounds, but both genres I think also have a pretty steady core that just kinda sounds exactly how it sounds, and Eric Nam’s K-Pop never strayed away from that sound. It sounded not just like K-Pop, but like K-Drama theme song K-Pop. A very particular sound.
And he did a good job at it, I think. Later in his career he shifted to songs in English, to a more Western pop style, and I think that he was much more hit and miss with that. When he did it well (There And Back Again, Confessions of a Lonely Heart), I thought it was actually pretty solid and I liked it a lot—definitely more than the K-Pop stuff. When he did it less well (mostly just his first effort, Before We Begin), it felt bland and a little bit loosely put together.
There And Back Again is really not a full length album, but I’m counting it as one in conjunction with its “reimagined” version. I listened to the original, then the “reimagined” version, and then I listened to them together, ordered so that each song would play twice in a row: original, and then “reimagined.” Listening to them both together that way was actually something I found hugely enjoyable and engaging. I felt like I got to pretend to put on my little producer hat and pick out the elements I felt worked and the ones that didn’t. It is interesting to me how much I enjoyed that given how much I tend to dislike covers, remixes, and acoustic versions of tracks. Probably more than anything else that is telling of how my own biases subconsciously alter my experience of music. What can ya do.
Confessions of a Lonely Heart is super solid, I feel like he really locked in for that one. Maybe it’s not actually much different or better than his other stuff, but I feel like it just fit together more smoothly here than in any of his other stuff. If all of his stuff had been on that level, I would’ve probably given him a pretty solid A-. Maybe a high B+ if I were in a mood, but definitely not lower than that.
As it is, not all of his stuff was on that level, so I think the B is appropriate. There’s stuff I think is pretty good. There’s stuff I think is fine. There’s some stuff I think is eh. By and large I’m favorable disposed toward him, but there was also not really anything in his music or lyrics that got me personally attached to or invested in him. Thus the B.
Eric Nam complete, now listening to: Tate McRae
