It has already been three years since Produce 101 season 1, and a year since I.O.I. The group created in the show dissolved, all the members took different paths from acting to continue as a solo artist. It’s unarguable that the ex-members are all talented artists, and some of them are doing a really good job in their actual projects, in this collection of reviews I will analyze some of them and give my opinion of their music.
I feel almost obliged to start the review series with Chung Ha (청하), her last release under MHN entertainment the mini album “OFFSET” and continuing the success of “Don’t wanna know” has become a big contender this comebacks season, fighting with big names like Sunmi and IKON and Red Velvet and getting fourth place on M Countdown with the main track “Rollercoaster”, an electro-pop song where we can see the improvement especially in vocals since the last year and the already amazing performance Chung Ha always do.
Now, speaking of numbers, the title track “Rollercoaster” hit on charts, #6 on Melon and #1 on Bugs and Genie, the song “Why don’t you know” got some criticise due to the resemblance to Taeyeon, this time I feel she found a more signature sound and don’t get overwhelmed by the beat as happening on the last album, they emphasise this in the production to help the beat complements her voice unlike her first project, with that being said still feel she needs to work on her voice projection to compete against the big names on K-pop.
The first track “Offset” is an intro to the album, there’s almost none participation of Chunga except some harmonization, then we found “Do it”, The intro guitars reminds me a lot of the reggae feel of wonder girls “Why so lonely” what gives a really good feeling at the beginning of the song, as the chorus approaches the signature electro beat build and connects fantastic with the powerful vocals on the chorus where shows my theory of the emphasis this album had on showing Chungha voice, the track was one of my favorites ones of the album and all the discography.
As fourth track, we found “Bad boy” which begins with a kind of electro-swing rhythm (I apologize for inaccuracy of musical terms, I’m not a musician) I got some JYP feels from this, especially the vocals, this one keep the trend of the album to enhance the voice of the ex IOI member, it’s not a song I expected to hear on the album but it was a good experiment.
Finally, a ballad called “(너의 온도) Remind of You” for close, we found softer vocals on this one accompanied by a great piano where the range of Chunga is showed, nothing especially important in this track, it fulfills my expectations but felt this is not a genre where she can compete right now
I’m sure we will stay tuned about her future projects, we should remember she’s only 21 years old, the improvement of her sound creates me higher expectations for the next projects, and soon probably she will be an important name in the rising artist’s list.