Layover

The record

Layover is V’s first solo mini album, released on 8 September 2023 with six tracks. The title track is ‘Slow Dancing’. The album introduction says this is the first solo album V has put out under his own name and that it is built on pop R&B, and it calls the closing ‘Slow Dancing (Piano Ver.)’ a bonus track, a piano version of the title track. NME, Clash and Billboard all note that ADOR’s Min Hee-jin worked on the record.

Reviews

NME’s Rhian Daly gave the album four stars out of five on the day of release. After noting that V regularly picks out jazz classics and vintage R&B in interviews and livestreams, she wrote: “That his debut solo album ‘Layover’ pitches up in that smoky, smooth world of yesteryear, then, comes as no surprise.” On how it handles those decades, she wrote that “rather than fix his gaze entirely on the past, though, this release finds V giving these classic sounds his own modern twist”, and closed: “Perhaps V made us wait for this one, but it was thoroughly worth it.”

Writing the same day for Clash, Abbie Aitken scored the record 8 out of 10 and went to its shape. “The best thing about ‘Layover’ is its cohesiveness,” she wrote, and: “The influence of jazz and R&B is evident and the execution is slick.” Of what V held on to, she wrote that “he obviously had a distinct sound that he wanted to stick to, his vision clear inhabiting by his sense of self.”

Billboard’s Jeff Benjamin took up the record in the outlet’s end-of-year selection that December. “Incorporating V’s ingrained love of jazz music (he played saxophone in his childhood), Layover is a considerable departure from any BTS album, presenting the star in a realm all his own,” he wrote, adding that the album “lays the foundation for what promises to be a fascinating solo career for the BTS member”.

Among the tracks

NME introduced the opening ‘Rainy Days’ as a song that “opens with a piano melody that transports you into the dimly-lit glow of a jazz bar, where it could be 2023 or 1923”. Clash wrote that “first track ‘Rainy Days’ sets out like a lo-fi mix found on YouTube”, adding that the comparison is not a bad thing but a way of setting the album’s scene.

Of the title track, Clash wrote: “Based on the 1970s romantic soul sound, ‘Slow Dancing’ begins with a distinctive bass, jumping around as a soft jazz intro calms it down making the bass settle to match the serene ambience.” Billboard called the flute solo at the end of that track an “unconventional but lovely” choice.

The song NME found most interesting is ‘For Us’. “The contrast between periods can be felt most keenly on ‘For Us’, the most interesting song on ‘Layover’,” she wrote, explaining that the pitched-up voices which return midway through signal the key change that follows.

Numbers

On 29 December 2023 Billboard placed Layover at number two in its 25 best K-pop albums of 2023.