Last week, AKMU’s Chanhyuk pre-released the slow burn Out Of My Mind as a teaser for his second full length album. The album has a retro, synth-kissed sound with an idiosyncratic flair different from the hyper-commercialized 80’s revivalism that took over pop music in the early-2020s. With that said, title track Vivid LaLa Love (비비드라라러브) is less dependent on synth and more focused on Chanhyuk’s quirky delivery.
Ever since his debut as part of AKMU, Chanhyuk’s songwriting has boasted a unique flavor that can’t be found anywhere else. I could easily imagine Vivid LaLa Love as an AKMU single and it might actually work better with two distinct voices driving it. As a solo Chanhyuk track, it still pops. Vivid LaLa Love invites us into his world in an easygoing way. The melody is immediately hummable and repeated so often that it’ll be lodged in your brain whether you want it there or not. The strummed percussion adds to this rhythm, giving the song an obvious throughline.
On the negative side, all this repetition is… well, repetitive. There’s only so many times you can sing “vivid lala love” and make it sound fresh. The track wears out its ideas quickly and loses inspiration about halfway through. What starts out as a genuine toe-tapper ends with me getting distracted by whatever else is going on around me because the song never really goes anywhere.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 7.75 |
