WINNER, a boy group containing of 4 members – Jinwoo, Seunghoon, Mino, Seungyoon, recently released their second album, “EVERYD4Y.” The album includes 12 tracks and its title track already topped the Korean music charts within three hours of its release!
Their first track, “EVERYD4Y,” has tropical house vibes and a faux-reggae tune. Although this is their title track and typically, title tracks receive a lot more love than the rest of the album, they actually got some backlash from their fans for this track. WINNER is known for having stunning live vocals to the point that the fans joke that they “ate” their album/recording. However, when their fans heard that this track included a lot of autotune, they were slightly disappointed that WINNER used it on top of their remarkable voices.
“EVERYD4Y” is by far my favorite track on the album because it’s so catchy. The only section of this song I don’t like as much is when the second rap section starts.
The next track on the album is “AIR,” a song consisting of a echoey main verses and synth drips. This song has a lot less strong beats and instruments playing so you can hear their voices quite clearly. It has very chill pop vibes to it.
“AIR” is followed by a track called “HELLO.” Before I continue talking about this track, I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing a pattern of capital-lettered track titles – maybe this was to make the album look more minimalist and classy? I’m not really sure why, but I’ve got nothing against it. Anyways, “HELLO” has a playful tone, but it seemed less structured compared to the other songs on their album. I guess this is intentional since you can kind of tell how much fun the members were having recording it.
“TURN OFF THE LIGHTS” is a solo song by the main rapper in WINNER, Mino. When I listened to this song, I wasn’t to surprised by how it turned out, but I was surprised by his singing voice as I hadn’t heard it before. Mino is very popular because of his rapping and known to dabble into R&B more than the other members in WINNER. Therefore, “TURN OFF THE LIGHTS” sounds more R&B than house and has a little bit of a ballad and beat-laden pop tune to it.
“LA LA” sounds like every other anthem-ey song out there by a boyband. It has a fun and uptempo beat so it expresses an overall party and reckless vibe. I would say that this song is my least favorite even though it’s one of their main singles from this album. Although it became a hit as soon as it was released, it’s just so predictable that it kind of makes me cringe? Just not my cup of tea I guess.
Next up is “FOR.” As I mentioned earlier, WINNER is famous for their vocal abilities and that’s how ballads really make them shine. Unlike most of the other songs on this album, “FOR” is a lot simpler in terms of instruments and vocal editing used. It’s a lot rawer and seems to mainly consist of an acoustic guitar along with their voices. This whole track is soft sounding even in the chorus when they layer each other’s voices and include a couple falsettos instead of overwhelming their listeners with their powerful voices.
“WE WERE” seems like the perfect track to be in the middle of their album. It sounds wistful and kind of conclusive, but I guess it also works as “break” of some sort in the album. Since most of WINNER’s albums are approximately 6 tracks long, I would have expected it to be the last track if this album was just as long. It’s interesting that they situated this track right before “LUXURY” since the latter has tropical house vibe with a little bit of reggaetón.
If I’m being completely honest, I still haven’t figured out what I think of “LUXURY” yet. It kind of gives me “LA LA” vibes because it’s sort of anthem-ey, but it also doesn’t.
“MOVIE STAR” is track 9 in the album. It includes light rap and a catchy tune in the pre-chorus and chorus by the main vocalists on the team. The most interesting part of this song would be the bridge because that’s where they whip out acoustic guitars (??) which they didn’t hint at any other part of the track. Still added a cool and unexpected touch though.
The next track called “SPECIAL NIGHT” brings back a disco tune through their beat and melody. Its an overall joyful and fun song and is co-written by one of the members, Seunghoon. Track 11, “RAINING” was originally released in Japanese and is a softrock break-up song where the verses by the rappers and the pre-chorus sound wistful and gloomy, but the chorus sounds almost uplifting.
“HAVE A GOOD DAY,” the last song on the album and another song that was initially released in Japanese has similar vibes to “RAINING.” It sounds confessional and heart-felt, but unlike “RAINING” which is about a break-up, this song is about someone who died.
Overall, WINNER never fails to work hard and release great songs every time. Although they don’t have as much of international popularity compared to artists like BTS and BIGBANG, they are huge in Korea because their music is a lot gentler and relaxed compared to the other two.
Sources:
https://www.allkpop.com/article/2018/04/mv-album-review-winner-everyd4y
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/k-town/8280896/winner-eclectic-second-album-everyd4y