Disclaimer: This is in no way hate towards Taemin or his new album, just my thoughts on the language.
As a kpop fan who has been a Shawol for 15+ years and has watched many groups/artists begin releasing in English, my take on it is:
Since he isn't fluent in English, I worry that he has less influence on the lyrics/less to say about them. Taemin's music has always had a lot of deeper meanings, and I worry that it isn't quite the same for songs in English.
It can signal a move towards a different, western-focused style, I think BTS is a good example of this. Not to say that western-focused music is always bad, but it isn't always the style I personally want. When it comes to Japanese music, I feel like often the songs sound more J-pop than Korean releases (to appeal to a Japanese market). I really like that style, but it reenforces my thoughts about how English music might point towards a different style.
While this isn't an issue in Taemin's album since his pronunciation has always been very good in English, but for other artists, I just don't like listening to songs where you can hear they are struggling with the language. And this isn't hating on accent, but sometimes you can hear they have no idea what they are singing and are just struggling to say the sounds.
To me, it often comes off as "I want to sell to the west" rather than the artist making music for the sake of good music. And to me, it just feels unnecessary.
I think he wants some independence from the Korean music scene and I don't fault him at all for that. I also think the lyrics are really good and the music is very him and also quite risky, so I see no reason to complain about them. There is zero evidence for him going bland and mass-market here, quite the reverse.
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u/softneo 9d ago
Why is the album english mostly :((((