Oh, will you look at that: I spend the majority of a column bemoaning the loss of Sistar’s summer songs, and bam, one of its former members comes out with a bangin’ summer song.
Soyou has built up quite the solo discography since—and even prior to—Sistar’s dissolution in 2017, and songs like Some, All Night and Raindrop (among others) are testaments to her strength as a solo artist. So is Bangkok, which she recorded as a duet with Francis. For Francis, Bangkok comes hot on the heels of his solo city pop release, Radio, Play This Song, which I’m absolutely livid at myself for not discovering sooner.
Fun fact: the title of Bangkok does not, in fact, refer to the capital city of Thailand. When taken in context with the lyrics and the visuals of the music video, it becomes clear that it’s a reference to Korean internet lingo; the word bang means room, and kok is a term roughly analogous to “firmly inside”; so the portmanteau bangkok can be translated to “stuck inside a room”. It’s a humorous way of saying “I’m doing absolutely jack shit”, and is also, incidentally, what I’m doing right now.