Jungkook, challenge as a singer-songwriter... His passion became the engine of BTS

Jungkook of the group BTS is drawing public attention by attempting to compose a dance song with the fan song 'Never Let Go', which entered the upper ranks of Melon's TOP 100 chart immediately after its release. He, who used to compose with a focus on calm guitar sounds, is expanding his song spectrum and solidifying his position as a singer-songwriter.

At 1 PM (Korean time) on the 7th, Jungkook released the fan song 'Never Let Go' for ARMY (BTS' official fandom name). As a gift he left for ARMY while serving in the military, his agency Big Hit Music said, "It is a song that expresses gratitude for the love of ARMY all over the world. It contains the message, 'Let's never let go of each other's hands.'" explained about it.

This song is known to be a self-composed song in which Jungkook participated in writing and composing the lyrics. As a result, he now has three solo songs, from 'Still With You' in 2020 to 'My You' in 2022, and this fan song 'Never Let Go'.

Until now, Jungkook has presented calm songs centered on gentle guitar accompaniment. His first self-released song, 'Still With You', is a medium tempo song in the R&B genre, and 'My You' is also a medium tempo ballad song.

Due to the nature of the genre, the characteristic of the self-composed songs he has presented so far is that they do not contain complicated instruments other than the guitar, nor do they have broken drum beats. That is why his voice occupies a very large part in Jungkook's self-composed songs. Instead of a simple accompaniment, there is a variety of choruses, allowing Jungkook's delicate vocal control to be clearly heard.

Through this fan song, Jungkook attempted to compose a dance song in the tropical house genre for the first time. The house genre's characteristics were brought to life by adding a cool synthesizer melody, synth pad, and lead sound on top of a 4/4 kick drum, and the repetitive highlight section made one imagine a performance (dance).

Looking at the melody and composition of the song, it is reminiscent of pop star Justin Bieber's 'Sorry', a representative tropical house song. In both Jungkook's fan song 'Never Let Go' and Justin Bieber's 'Sorry', the kick drum is excitingly broken with a moombahton rhythm in the highlight part of the song. Also, in the same section, both songs have the characteristic of using a 'rim' sound that hits the edge of the snare instead of the cool snare sound.

Jungkook went further and attracted attention by eliminating the repetitive 'accompaniment section', which is a representative feature of house. Instead, he used his own voice saying 'Never let go' as an accompaniment and repeated it several times, forming the highlight of the song. It shows an extreme emphasis on his voice, which is his strength.

Jungkook himself revealed that he was deeply concerned about the highlight section where his voice was repeated. Right after the release of the song, Jungkook said through the fan community 'Weverse', "ARMY, did you receive the gift of the song well? You may be wondering if the hook (the highlight of the song) is repeated for a long time, but in fact, it is a song that was intended to be shown along with a house genre dance. “It’s a performance song,” he said, explaining the song.

At the same time, Jungkook expressed his regret about not being able to film the performance video, saying, "It's unfortunate that I couldn't proceed (filming the performance video) because I didn't have time. I'm leaving a message to ask you to understand that part. I'm blaming myself. It's very hot in the summer, so please be careful of the heat." revealed.

The public said, "Don't worry because the song is good," "Thank you so much for that kind of sentiment. It's amazing," "It's okay because we can see house genre dance later. I'll wait," "We'll have a lot more time together in the future, and we have a lot more to show." Isn’t there a lot? I’m really grateful for the song alone.”

Although Jungkook's 'Never Let Go' was a personal fan song, it was a hot topic, entering Melon's TOP 100 chart at number 21 immediately after its release.

His previously released self-composed song 'My You' became a hot topic on the 6th when the YouTube music video was viewed more than 40 million times, and without any promotion, it achieved over 92 million streams on the world's largest music platform 'Spotify', reaching 100 million won. We are heading towards the highlands. 'Still With You' also recorded 180 million streams on Spotify and ranked first on Billboard's 'World Digital Song Sales' chart.

Having expanded his world stage as a member of the group BTS and as a solo singer, he is growing into a singer-songwriter who is recognized not only for his performance skills but also his producing skills. As he has vocal skills that transcend genres, we hope that his producing area will grow to be able to show his fans a variety of sides without being limited to genres.

Lee Min-kyung, Ten Asia Reporter 2min_ror@tenasia.co.kr