Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 1

The record

Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 1 is Taemin’s third full-length album, released on 7 September 2020 with nine tracks led by ‘Criminal’. It follows the prologue single Never Gonna Dance Again : Prologue by a month.

The album introduction by SM ENTERTAINMENT, carried on Bugs, says the third album runs from the prologue single through Act 1 to Act 2, and that Act 1 holds the start of an attempt to break a familiar world. ‘2 KIDS’, released earlier as the single, returns as the closing track, and the rapper Kid Milli takes a featured part on ‘일식 (Black Rose)’. The music video went up on the SMTOWN channel on the day of release.

Reviews

IZM’s Kim Do-heon began his September 2020 review with the album’s design. He wrote that Taemin planned the record around a film as its concept and brought in the director of the title track’s music video himself, setting his own name across the credits, and described the sequencing: “Placing ‘Strangers’, which opens with footsteps and a heavy keyboard, and ‘해몽’, in which he plays an elegant tango dancer, to quiet the breath of the two fierce tracks before them, and then joining the large themes of dream, reverie and awakening — the arrangement is meticulous too.” He added: “With this, Taemin’s narrative is remade from a gifted solo performance into a vessel that carries his own story.”

Sophia Simon-Bashall of The Line of Best Fit gave the record 9 out of 10 in her review of 8 September 2020. She wrote that the songs are “just so layered that each listen brings something new”, and that “yet the album remains cohesive, a difficult feat to achieve when working with such contrasting sounds – but, as ever, Taemin manages it masterfully”. The same piece said that even where the songs do not sound like the rest of his discography, “they are unmistakably his and his only – these are songs only Taemin can pull off”.

Idology (아이돌로지) took up the record in its 20 albums of 2020, published on 8 January 2021. Skwib wrote there that “the reason the catastrophe he draws is fatal and yet never feels threatening is probably that it comes from pure aestheticism — not from a trial in the manner of growing pains, not from a sacrifice or compulsion under some mission, not from an obsession with or intoxication by narrative tragedy”, and added: “That is why an album painted in dark colours feels light, even fresh.” He closed by calling it “an album like the fruit of Taemin’s seeker’s path toward beauty”.

Among the tracks

The title track ‘Criminal’ is the most written-about song on the record. IZM’s Kim Do-heon wrote that “‘Criminal’, in a 1980s mood recalling Conan Gray’s ‘Maniac’ and The Weeknd’s ‘Can’t feel my face’, does not stay with the ‘elegant gestures, subtle eyes’ of ‘Move’ but pushes Taemin’s voice and performance — pleading ‘destroy me more’ — to a peak through an urgently churning bass and a smooth progression”, and said the song “is right as an opening title announcing the start of the drama proper”. Idology’s Skwib wrote on the year-end page that the same song “twists the dangerous material of Stockholm syndrome into an alluring myth and lays the ground for the monodrama of the tracks that follow”.

Simdyang of the same outlet took up the song in its 20 songs of 2020, published on 30 December 2020: “The reason ‘Criminal’, with all the stimuli lying in wait in it, can be enjoyed safely is that this complete immersion can be experienced through the fourth wall Taemin has built so firmly.” She closed: “If you were to pick one song that delivers an overwhelming narrative and still gives an immersion that costs you nothing, Taemin’s ‘Criminal’ would be the answer.” Dazed wrote of the song on 19 December 2020 that “unfolding the song with an airy but sinuous gracefulness, Taemin transforms lyrics touched by torment into something scintillating, dangerous, and addictive”, and Billboard wrote on 23 December that “what makes ‘Criminal’ even more compelling is how Taemin controls the chaos in the song”.

Three other tracks were called out by name. The Line of Best Fit wrote of ‘일식 (Black Rose)’, which features Kid Milli, that “the contrast between the rap parts and Taemin’s elegant, seductive vocals make it an intriguing listen from start to finish”, and called ‘Clockwork’ “a beautiful, suffocating piano ballad, equal parts dramatic and understated”. IZM’s Kim Do-heon described ‘네모 (Nemo)’ as 1990s-style R&B produced by Parkmoonchi and ‘Just Me And You’ as PBR&B built on the sound of a tape rewinding.

What happened

Idology’s 2020 year-end feature carried the record and its title track on four pages. ‘Criminal’ appeared in the 20 songs of 2020 on 30 December 2020 and the album in the 20 albums of 2020 on 8 January 2021. That album page says the twenty were chosen by a vote of eight writers from the 171 idol records of mini-album length or longer that the outlet counted for the year, and that no ranking was assigned. ‘Criminal’ also appeared in the year’s music video playlist on 16 January 2021, and in the year’s performance picks on 28 February 2021 Skwib chose the song’s stage and wrote that “a performance that seems to be given in front of the ‘Criminal’ of the song rather than in front of the audience is like watching a thriller film”.

On the English-language year-end pages, Dazed placed ‘Criminal’ third in its 40 best K-pop songs of 2020 and Billboard placed the same song 12th in its 20 best K-pop songs of 2020.

Afterwards

Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 2 closed the third album two months later, on 9 November 2020.