If you like motorcycles, fake lightning effects, and a beat that absolutely slaps, Yunho’s Follow might be for you.
True Colors, Yunho’s first mini album, released just last month, but he’s been around K-Pop for far longer than that. He debuted in 2004 under DBSK (also known as TVXQ), which means his entertainment career spans the better part of two decades. It’s exceedingly rare for an idol to last this long, and even rarer for a song released 14 years after debut to still display a level of raw energy and excitement that Follow basically exudes from every pore. Also, holy crap, is that a freakin’ theremin at 0:30??
Yunho’s stage name, U-Know, is a relic from the era of K-Pop when everyone needed some kind of gimmicky stage name. Thankfully, that’s mostly fallen by the wayside in the years past. But this is proof that Yunho is part of the old guard of K-Pop now; he’s had years of experience to draw on for this solo album, and it shows.
In many ways, Follow feels like a throwback to the early 2010s—especially songs like TVXQ’s own Mirotic and Keep Your Head Down, the latter of which was TVXQ’s big comeback in 2011 after losing more than half of their members to a bitter contract dispute. The displaced members would go on to form JYJ, and release some bangers of their own.