Wanna listen to a story?

넌 나만의 꿈을 담은 Story (You’re a story in my dreams)

Love Story

4 Season Project 季

KYUHYUN (규현)

Available on all leading music platforms

25 January 2022

6 Songs

“Love Story” (4 Season Project 季) is the 4th mini-album by KYUHYUN (규현) and is the album for “PROJECT : 季” (“PROJECT : Season”) where KYUHYUN released a new song for every season from 2020 to 2021. The mini-album comprises 6 songs, representing the different seasons, with each song matching the feel/mood for each one. And also a big Happy Birthday to KYUHYUN whose birthday was just a few days ago!!

Jhanea: I was introduced to KYUHYUN by KDrama OSTs (ex. “Confession is not flashy” from Hosplay) and Super Junior (Let’s go ELF xD). I never really listened to his songs until a few weeks ago when I heard “깊은 밤을 날아서 Flying, Deep in the Night” and I was immediately drawn to his voice. Even without fully understanding the lyrics of each song, I could feel the emotions from his vocals alone. Upon learning that he was gonna finish his Season project, I immediately anticipated its release.

Ria: When I first listened to the album, I was immediately taken by KYUHYUN’s vocals. He has a really nice cool voice that’s really soothing. It really made me fall in love with the song a lot more. The second time I listened to the album, I read the English translation of the lyrics and immediately realized that this whole album is a story. Whether it be a story that has a good or bad ending, I’ll leave it up to you.

Jhanea: Moving on… (pun intended) Let’s talk about and break down the songs a bit for this review.

연애소설 (Love Story)

Ria: This is essentially the beginning of the story. Taking a closer look into the lyrics, we see our main lead reminiscing and wishing for a romance story in his life.

This song was pretty with the instrumentation being one of my favorites from the whole album. I really love how clearly the instruments can be heard. The piano, violin, guitar, among others really stood out and carried this song. However, for me, the melody was a bit slow so it actually made me kinda sleepy.

Jhanea: A very creative way to start this mini-album. It feels like you’re opening a love story yourself through this first song and makes you anticipate what you’ll uncover in the rest of the album. The instrumentation for this song was what really caught my attention, I love how smoothly it was building up the instruments from the start to the chorus. It’s a very well-built ballad song with complete vocals, instrumentation, lyrics, and emotions. Also, being the last song to be released in this album, it fits as the “closing” song very well as it, in a way, sums up the whole story of the previously released songs.

커피 (Coffee)

Ria: It’s a fake first date. The start of the singer’s relationship wouldn’t be too good because of his situation. Loving your long-time best friend who’s attracted to someone else never ends well. But I like to see the song as really good imagery of what he hopes their relationship can be. So it's their first date, they're having coffee, but not really.

What really got my attention in this song is the cute melody. It really got my attention and made me kinda sway in tiny to the song! So with me getting sleepy in the previous, this is definitely waking me up a bit.

Jhanea: The song that makes me crave a cup of coffee after listening to it. It’s the type of song that I hear in cafes and instantly gets my mood up. I agree with Ria about the swaying. “커피 (Coffee)” will make you unconsciously sway to the music as you to it. It also reminds me of lo-fi, but also not at the same time, I think it has the overall feel of lo-fi songs that makes the listeners want to chill. I can see why it’s a “spring season” type of song.

투게더 (Together)

Ria: Like what the title says, the main leads are now in a relationship.

What struck me is how this song encaptures and really showcases KYUHYUN’s vocal ability. I love the upbeat tempo that matched his vocals and the ups and downs showed his vocal range. And this song has one of my favorite images in this whole album. This song definitely is one of my top songs on the album and this made me get up and dance. I’m definitely awake now.

Jhanea: A perfect summer song to listen to when the sun is bright in the sky and there’s a bit of a drizzle. It’s usually the song I love to vibe with when I’m stressed. In a word, this song is “refreshing”. From the notes, the lyrics, to its deviation from Kyu’s usual genre. It comes very close to the pop-rock genre I think (???) and I love how it still fits Kyu’s voice, especially when he reaches those very satisfying high notes while keeping it upbeat. The soft synth beats in the music added further to the lightness of the whole track. The lyrics also give off a sense of love and affirmation, saying that no matter what, I’ll always be here. We will get through it together.

내 마음을 누르는 일 (Daystar)

Ria: Continuing on with the story… they broke up :(

From the lyrics, we can clearly see a sad song and it is a sad song. If in Love Story I was a bit sleepy, here I am just crying really really hard inside. All factors tie together to being quite sad – melody, instrumentation, vocals, lyrics. And once again, the instruments shine a lot in this song. The piano and violin is the first thing I heard and to be honest, these are usual instruments used to emanate a sad atmosphere. Cry with me in this song :”(

Jhanea: Here comes the sorrow and sadness huhuhu “Daystar” is a very sentimental song fit for autumn. Compared to the previous songs, it has very soulful vocals and piano melodies that could tug at one’s heartstrings.

I’d also just like to add that this is my favorite music video out of all the MVs released for this project. Despite not having “Daystar” as my top song in the EP, the music video for it just brought up so many emotions from Yoo Yeon-Seok’s acting. Even though I’ve never been in a relationship, I felt like I was going through a break up myself when I was watching hahahaha

Dreaming

Ria: And in the story, I like to see this as the climax (not the break-up).

This is hands down my favorite song in the album!!! I just love the production of the song – the instrumentation, the melody, and the vocals. They all fit together and I love the concept of dreaming and the lyrics. They're still connected to the story but they show how the guy is just dreaming instead and dreaming of their possible story. And plus the concept of dreaming is really unique, I don't think I've encountered many songs like it. I see this song as the part in the story where the main lead reminisces about their happy times together.

Jhanea: A very fun track for the summer, but unlike “Together”, “Dreaming” has more of a classic summer vibe, rather than an upbeat and refreshing one. The song has a very rich melody with very hopeful lyrics similar to a love letter. Overall, the song was pretty lacking for me. There were some parts in the latter parts of the song where I felt that the higher notes were unnecessary. Idk, I loved the message, the tune, and Kyu’s voice, but this song just doesn’t appeal to me as much as “Together”.

마지막 날에 (Moving On)

Ria: And now he's moving on.

This song is essentially the conclusion. And for me, the vocals of this song have such an emotional depth. Even though he’s singing in Korean, I can really feel the emotion, sincerity, and desperation to now move on. Just like the other songs, this is very well produced, all factors are harmonious but what really got me is the emotion. That’s something so hard to do and I really have great respect for artists who can do this. I’ll now be adding KYUHYUN to the list.

Jhanea: “Moving On”, the song that talks about and highlights the pain of moving on ;-; The song is actually a remake of Hong Seok Min’s 2015 single of the same name. When I heard this song, I was in awe at how beautiful it was. KYUHYUN’s vocals were really the highlight of this song and I loved how his voice just kept building up throughout, reaching heights I didn’t expect he could reach. For a ballad, it was very dynamic and it felt like the song itself was going through the emotions with you. The use of classical orchestral instruments in the background also added to the overall captivating experience while listening.

Jhanya: SuJu’s (Super Junior) youtube channel released a Drama ver. for the album, and it just felt so fitting for the whole thing as the album itself, as a whole, is a Love Story about two people. I also find it a bit funny because often, OSTs are made for the drama, but this drama was made for the album as its OST. Only KYUHYUN ahahahaha

Ria: I will be watching that as soon as possible!!!

Each song released in the past years represented parts of the leads in the story which can be seen in the music videos. KYUHYUN 2021 4 Season Project 季 "Love Story" Drama ver., in a way, is a summary of the previous music videos made for Project 季. It’s a short drama made from the album, acting as the OST. The drama tells us the story of two individuals (portrayed by Chae Soo Bin And Gong Myung) who fell in love during high school.

Final Thoughts

Ria: Overall this album showed such awesome production and harmony between all the factors – melody, instrumentation, vocals, lyrics – in each song. And not just that, all the songs were connected with one another and even portrayed such a beautiful story. And I’d really like to say that it isn’t the typical Kdrama kind of story. Super duper happy I listened to this album and I definitely recommend everyone to listen to it too, even though you may not be a Kpop fan. And also! Check out the Drama linked above, I know I will.

Jhanea: As someone who’s been putting SuJu on repeat lately, Love Story is a very nice break from the group’s upbeat and groovy tracks hahaha Kidding aside, this album was such a heartwarming experience. I haven’t really seen/heard of an album (outside Korea) that has the same concept as Love Story, where every song is part of one big, cohesive story which impressed me the most. Listening to the songs in order and watching the music videos are also part of the whole experience, making it all the more impressive. Like KYUHYUN said in his recent press conference, “This four seasons project is a gift of a year’s worth of songs that go with the changing atmosphere of the four seasons in a year.”, and the various tones and colors of the different tracks in the album will definitely keep me listening to it throughout the whole year.

Song Rankings

	JHANYA	RIA
1	Together	Dreaming
2	Moving On	Moving On
3	Love Story	Together
4	Dreaming	Coffee
5	Coffee	Daystar
6	Daystar	Love Story

Rating

Criteria	Jhanya	Ria
Lyrics (2)	1.75	1.88
Melody (2)	2	1.92
Instrumentation (1.5)	1.25	1.46
Meaning (1.5)	1.5	1.38
Originality (1)	0.6	0.58
Relevance (1)	0.75	0.83
Loop Value (1)	0.75	0.83
TOTAL	8.6	8.87
Final Score	87.4