Advice

The record

Advice is Taemin’s third mini album, released on 18 May 2021 with five tracks led by the title track of the same name. It is his first solo record since Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 2 six months earlier, and, as Idology set out, it came two weeks before his enlistment.

The album introduction by SM ENTERTAINMENT, carried on Bugs, says the title track ‘Advice’ is an R&B track that lays a piano line and a choir over a trap beat. Taeyeon takes a featured part on ‘If I could tell you’, and the music video went up on the SMTOWN channel on the day of release.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) ran the record on both the album page and the singles page of ‘Monthly : 2021년 5월’, published on 18 June 2021. On the album page Erin read the title track as closing the story the two preceding full-length albums had opened: “With ‘Advice’ he ties off the story of the selves in ‘Criminal’ and ‘IDEA’ and warns, in an aggressive register, that the other person is not to give him advice.” She closed by writing that, before the long break ahead of him, Taemin had used the record to firm up his position and his image as a performer within K-pop.

On the singles page Yemi wrote: “Taemin’s performance has, across his whole career, twisted the fixed ideas about gender while overwhelming the viewer with sheer finish.” She ended: “Having proved his range through 2020 and 2021 in the group and on his own, Taemin showed his own settled direction to the last and closed the activity before his enlistment.”

The Kraze’s J. Ventinilla, writing on 24 May 2021, set out what the song is made of: “To break down the song, instruments such as strings and piano play an integral part of the song which is enhanced by hip-hop beats.” Of the video the same piece said it is “like all his others, primarily focused on the sharp and quick choreography”.

Cielo Perez placed the record 11th in Paste’s 30 greatest K-pop albums of all time, published on 11 September 2023. She wrote that “Advice is a great assembly of dance-pop and R&B—and the Seoul singer/songwriter weaves a great tapestry of distinctive, catchy dance stylings”, and added: “From piano instrumentals to trap segues, Advice is a brilliant showcase of Taemin’s range and ambition.” The same entry called it “an arresting spectrum of guitar riffs, string arrangements, synths and a push and pull between maximalism and minimalism”.

Among the tracks

The title track ‘Advice’ is the song Dazed placed 22nd in its best K-pop tracks of 2021, published on 20 December 2021. The entry, by Taylor Glasby and Marija Marc, reads: “Piano notes swiftly climb and fall, staccato lyrics jostle, and Taemin pushes his voice into his upper register on this unsettling track with its intimidatingly beautiful video.”

Idology’s Erin set out how the later tracks lay the title track’s edge down: “‘Light’ neutralises the sweeping charisma of ‘Advice’ and weakens its aggression, and that keynote carries on into ‘If I could tell you’, where warmth stands out.” Of the closing song she wrote: “Last of all it carries ‘SAD KIDS’, which acknowledges the fumbling wandering of the past plainly, closes the album and settles the past year of activity.”

Afterwards

This is the last record Taemin released before entering military service. Five years later, on 31 May 2026, Idology returned to it in ‘N년 전 이달 : 5월’, and Yemi opened: “There is usually no artist who puts out an ambitious record with two weeks left before enlistment, but Taemin did.” The same piece wrote that “‘Advice’ went on to establish itself as Taemin’s signature song and became the highlight of his 2026 Coachella stage”, and noted that the stage followed the piano accompaniment of ‘Frankenstein’, then unreleased. ‘Frankenstein’ was carried on PHASE 1 : Soft Violence, released on 31 August 2026.

Paste wrote in the same entry that the record “would go on to hit the charts in Japan, South Korea, the UK, the US and Finland”, and that it “fully solidified TAEMIN’s artistry beyond his work in SHINee and SuperM”.