TXT’s Yeonjun made his solo debut last year with the quirky (and ultimately addictive) GGUM. Now, it’s time for him to try his hand at an album. No Labels arrives with plenty of hype in both Korean and international markets and promises to offer a fuller picture of his artistry (and body, if judging by the visual teasers). The new music video includes three songs back to back, but Talk To You has been designated as the album’s title track so that’s what I’ll be writing about here.
Talk To You attempts to blend several genres together. In this way, I hear a ton of influence from Seo Taiji & Boys’ mid-90s experiments — particularly when the song adds heavy guitar to its loose funk beat. As part of K-pop’s ever expanding legacy, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an intentional ode on Yeonjun’s part. But while I admire the vision, I’m not as taken with the song as I hoped I’d be. Like so much of current K-pop, melody is very much an afterthought here, but so is engaging flow. The vast majority of Talk To You is simply Yeonjun vamping over the beat in a halting rhythm.
I get that this is meant to be punk rock attitude and exists in a long lineage of similar songs within the genre, but for Talk To You to work, its production needs to absolutely kill. It has an engaging live band sound but never hits as hard as I’d like. If you’re going to anchor your song with metal distortion, give it to us full force. The drop at Talk To You‘s center is a bit wimpy and the hook is too threadbare to elicit much of a response. It feels very much like an idea in need of a song — an excuse for Yeonjun to jump around and look cool without much else to support it. It’s a shame, because I really think he’s one of the industry’s most promising soloists.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.25 |
