I've been meaning to write about "Rain", SM Station's most successful release so far, obviously by the All-Kill Queen Taeyeon, but I decided to wait until the annual celebration of her life (which, as we all know, is a beauty).
So first of all, a happy birthday to my favorite K-Pop artist (my favorite Korean person!) 김태연. I hope you're enjoying your favorite pastime of just relaxing in your room, a pastime that I have embraced as my favorite as well, and by that I mean relaxing in my room, not in your room, though being in your room would definitely be a dream come true for me.
Before I leave to ponder on that interesting scenario some more, let me just give a few comments on "Rain". It is an awesome song. They very wisely decided to avoid too much repetition and kept the lyrics of this slow jam dynamic yet cohesive all throughout. It reminded me of how much better some K-Pop songs sounded after I've sliced off a lot of extraneous bits using Audacity. There are no extraneous bits in "Rain".
Tayeon's delivery is perfect, and combined with the shortness of the song left me with a feeling reminiscent of a very nice dream. I don't think many singers could reach the proper balance of power, restraint, and technique that I feel is necessary for a song like "Rain". It's a song that could have easily been boring or annoying at the hands of a less capable artist, but Taeyeon made it shine.
As for the music video, it was suitably chill and relaxing, except for the really weird waterbending scene at the end where big computer generated blobs of water were hovering in the air. Taeyeon's short hair was pretty cute, and her fluffy sweater and short shorts made her somehow look both innocent and sexy at the same time.
Over all, I think "Rain" reflects Taeyeon's real personality more than "I". Both songs are great, but I feel like I'm peeking into melancholic introverted Taeyeon's inner life in "Rain", whereas "I" is what people want to see from K-Pop Idol Taeyeon. I guess it's apt that she barely promoted "Rain", because sometimes a homebody just needs to take a break from all the outside noise in order to read a good book or two. Hopefully she gets lots of rest before she has to embark on yet another set of promotions.
Oh, and I read an interesting theory somewhere regarding Taeyeon's song choices: 나 (I) + 비 (Rain) = 나비 (Butterfly), which is very appropriate given Taeyeon's fondness for butterflies. Cool coincidence, yeah?
