It’s definitely been a while since the soloist released an album, though he’s being still been active in the music industry with dropping singles here since his last album in 2013. The R’n’B singer-songwriter has been around since 2011, then signed with Amoeba Culture from 2013 to 2016 when his contract ended and changed to YG’s sub-label The Black Label.
Zion.T has been growing steadily in popularity over the years, gaining more recognition in South Korea over the extent of his career and now also on an international basis too. With the release of his newest album ‘OO’ this month, he’s already had received success on Melon and also even on the UK album chart!
For this week’s SOTW, we’ll be looking at Zion.T’s title track ‘The Song’. The soloist returned with a tracklist of 7 songs for his EP, which included the featuring of rapper Beenzino and G-Dragon, both of whom he had collaborated with in the past. It’s been greatly anticipated and there must have been speculation over whether his music style would change. Though, it is an essential part for artists to be able to have the freedom to explore and to keep evolving.
For this song, immediately upon listening, there’s no gimmicky or drastic changes – not that’s something you would expect from Zion.T anyway if you’ve listened to his music before. It’s a simple, relaxing song to listen to. And on the lyrical side of it, it’s was quite interesting to read, and that’s something about K-pop where you can never really expect what’s going to be sung or rapped about – speaking of which, there was a little segment of the song when Zion.T did rap, which did help to add an extra spin on the music. While there’s no hidden depth in the lyrics, it seemed like his honest thoughts been written down. Even with the opening sentences ‘I hope this song doesn’t get popular, I hope people won’t memorize the lyrics’, that triggered my attention, which could suggest that when music gains interest, the meanings behind it can fade away into the background and be forgotten about. It has that potential of blending into mainstream music of people mindlessly singing the song, but not really having a grasp of what the lyrics is saying.
One of the first things we noted about this MV was there’s a lot going on, though it’s much more quirky the longer you watch it. The production level for this video must have given him more opportunities and resources to harness on the ideas he had. The lyrics matches well with the MV, particularly in the beginning where the words ‘A week ago’ are written, when Zion.T muses on how previously he must have been listening to this song, where there was no pressure of hearing the opinions of others on his music, but now it’s been released it has now been opened up to the scrutiny of the public.
The ending also ended on a cute note, as he sung ‘It’s your song’ over and over again as he inched slowly over to the girl. Overall, it was a refreshing song and MV, and something that we recommend for you guys to check out!
