ACE

The record

ACE is Taemin’s first mini album, released on 18 August 2014 with six tracks led by ‘괴도 (Danger)’. Having debuted with SHINee in 2008, this is the first record he put out under his own name.

The album introduction by SM ENTERTAINMENT, carried on Bugs, says that the SHINee member is starting solo work with this record, and credits EXO’s Kai with a featured part on ‘Pretty Boy’. The music video went up on the SMTOWN channel on 15 August 2014, three days before the release.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) ran the record as two writers’ short notes in ‘1st Listen’, its 28 August 2014 column on the records of 11 to 20 August. Yu Je-sang traced SM ENTERTAINMENT’s long use of Scandinavian writers from the late 1990s, then wrote that “Taemin’s record shows exactly what the ideal middle ground is, from the cover image to the title track ‘괴도 (Danger)’ to the performance on stage”. He closed his note: “This album carries songs that are not Korean, not foreign, not even SHINee’s — they are Taemin’s.” Cho Seong-min wrote in the same column that “you can tell the album, and not only the title track, was made with long and steady care”, and added that “the tracks hang together very well, and thanks to the concept as a whole and the meticulous finish you feel in each song, at some future point when you no longer have to think about today’s trend and you listen again, you will certainly find this a very good record”.

weiv covered the record twice. Three writers’ notes ran in ‘weekly weiv’ on the same 28 August, and Bleuk (Park Jun-woo) filed a full review on 11 September. Han Myeong-ryun wrote that “‘괴도(Danger)’, where the sense of Thomas Troelsen — who is good at using layered tracks — comes through, stands out”, and added of the song: “Above all it is a rare track among recent SM releases that does not tire you out however long you listen.” Kim Yun-ha wrote in the same column that “on this album Taemin sings and dances like a new creature born of thousands of images — from Anglo-American pop with Michael Jackson at the front, through 1990s J-pop, to today’s K-pop — mashed and layered on top of one another”.

IZM’s Jeong Yu-na, reviewing the record in its September 2014 issue, took up the make of the title song: “The title track ‘괴도’ deliberately keeps the chorus vague and lines up a vocal that mutters mechanically.” The same piece read the repetition as “an intent to drill the words in across the whole song rather than land one impact”, and continued that “when this incantatory quality is joined to the choreography it creates a synergy that brings the performer forward”.

Among the tracks

The writer who spent longest on the title track ‘괴도 (Danger)’ is weiv’s Bleuk. In his 11 September review he wrote that “‘괴도(Danger)’, being the title track, holds a tightly calculated flow, and although the gaps between verse, bridge and hook are considerable there is no sense of a seam”, and noted that the song’s many points connect naturally. The stage for the song was picked for Kim Yun-ha’s personal best in Idology’s year-end round-up of 14 January 2015, where she wrote that “every charm of ‘rootless K-pop’, from A to Z, was in that stage”.

The opening track ‘Ace’ carries lyrics and backing vocals by TVXQ’s Changmin, and Bleuk described it as “an R&B track grafting a style that was popular from the 1990s to the early 2000s, which is also a style SM has been putting out steadily of late”, before calling it the most fully realised of those songs. The same review took up ‘Pretty Boy’, on which EXO’s Kai raps: “The spare hip-hop arrangement, the distinctive horn sound and the FX filling the space between instruments are foreign to the rest of the tracklist,” he wrote, adding that the hook and the vocal succeed in erasing that awkwardness. IZM’s Jeong Yu-na wrote of the same song that the tension Kai and Taemin build together makes it “the hidden weapon of the middle stretch”.

‘거절할게 (Wicked)’ is a Kenzie song. weiv’s Han Myeong-ryun wrote that it “works as a lubricant across the whole record through a melody that turns the feeling around at around two minutes forty”. Of the closing track ‘소나타 (Play Me)’, Bleuk wrote: “The last song, ‘소나타(Play Me)’, is Underdogs-brand pop-R&B and takes the direct route, putting the vocal line at the centre.”

What happened

Idology’s 2014 year-end round-up picked the record in three places. In the writers’ personal bests, published on 14 January 2015, Kim Yun-ha chose the stage for ‘괴도’ and Masitneun Pahita chose the album ACE for their personal bests. Masitneun Pahita wrote there that it is “a fine record in which an idol’s personality, concept and performance become one — I think it could take every title of 2014 for itself”. In the round-up’s second instalment, published the same day, Oyo picked the record under a heading for the year’s artists who did well on their own, and wrote: “My unstinting applause to Taemin (and SM Entertainment) for a record that is plenty enjoyable to listen to even without watching the stage.”

Afterwards

The next solo record was the first full-length album Press It, a year and six months later on 23 February 2016.