Yuta Nakamoto debuted as a kpop idol back in 2016 (ten years ago, let’s all scream about that), and since then has been a part of the mammoth kpop boy group NCT, specifically its sub-units NCT 127 and NCT U. He officially debuted as a soloist in 2024.

Here are my credentials: So, I know I’m on record as not really being a fan of 127’s music, but I have always been fond of the members, and on the whole, I really like their solo careers. Yuta was always one of the members I didn’t know much about, so I’m excited to learn more.

(Note: this review was initially intended to come out when Yuta’s Ember did, which was *checks notes* four months ago, great, but your girl had a bit of a months-long depressive episode and now it’s February. You know how it is. Either way, here we are, I am armed with tea and Prozac, let’s get into it!)

Single #1: Butterfly

“I wish I could go to Neverland. I could be young forever. A Lost Boy…” So begins Butterfly, not technically Yuta’s solo debut, but the first solo song he wrote, composed, and performed, so it’s where I’m starting. Fittingly, it’s also the first song I heard of his, in NCT 127’s excellent 2023 documentary The Lost Boys. The song teeters on the edge between your typical rock-influenced kpop track and something altogether more unique, anchored by Yuta’s voice. The chorus is simple, but it works, especially paired with the performance video (labeled “Live Sketch Movie”), which is much the same. I don’t know if Yuta being shirtless doing the whole thing was entirely necessary, but I’m not gonna complain. We can pretend the point is the giant butterfly tattoo covering his chest.

EP #1: Depth

Off The Mask was actually my morning alarm for a while, so trust me when I say that I had an almost Pavlovian reaction to the opening note. The song doesn’t pull its punches, raring to go with a full backing band from the first second. It’s unusual for a kpop idol to veer so heavily into rock, but then Yuta’s never been a typical kpop idol in the first place. His voice is honestly a great fit for the sound, too.

The music video is painted in shades of bright red, fiery orange, and broken glass, and not only is the song itself all in Japanese, but the MV works in small showcases of Japanese aesthetics and culture (the samurai hats, the characters made from the wooden window frames, etc) that are a very nice touch. Not to mention the several moments of complete and abject drama, or that he spends half of the runtime either shirtless or veering close to it. Because of course. Though it’s not my favorite song of his, Yuta’s not wrong when he says that it shows you exactly who he is.

From the EP, it was so difficult to choose a favorite. There’s the emotional, acoustic rock Goodbye, then Prisoner, which would be right at home in an anime, and of course, album opener Last Song. It might surprise you to find that such a forthright, bombastic collection of tracks begins with a ballad, but its build is nothing short of gorgeous. My hidden gem, though, was Bad Euphoria. Between that excellent guitar riff, Yuta’s rockstar growl, and that pounding beat mixed with synths, it’s pretty damn hard to beat.

EP #2: Twisted Paradise

After how in-your-face and how intentionally Japanese Off The Mask is, I wasn’t expecting either the jauntiness of the piano or the English that begins Twisted Paradise. The way Yuta flits back and forth between English in Japanese is really impressive. The song altogether a lot more typical of a kpop idol than Depth was, but that obviously doesn’t make it bad. In fact, it reminded me a lot of Taemin’s Sayonara Hitori, from the flowy dance moves to the quasi-ballad elements to the aesthetics of thrown paint and rose petals. All in all, it’s an interesting meld of pop, rock, and even a touch of funk and jazz that took me by surprise, and I like that it gives him room to show off his singing talent. I don’t think I’ll be going out of my way to listen to it, but that’s alright.

I have to admit, though, that what I feel for Twisted Paradise is nothing compared to how much I like the single’s b-side, When I’m Not Around, which we’ll get to in a minute, don’t worry. I also enjoyed the two live performances included from Yuta’s tour, especially Bad Euphoria.

Single #2: When I’m Not Around

So, as mentioned above, When I’m Not Around is technically a b-side and not a fully-fledged single, but 1) I really like it, and 2) Yuta has probably a total of three official singles if I didn’t do some finagling, so here we are. There’s a lot of things that are great about When I’m Not Around: its racing beat, its clear influence from 80s glam rock, and its truly pitch-perfect guitar.

And of course, its live video from Yuta’s Japan tour only elevates the whole thing. Yuta’s first and foremost a performer, who knows how to work a crowd, and seems to delight in head-banging and finding increasingly difficult-to-sing-from positions to scream-sing from without breaking a sweat. As a singer myself, I can personally attest that trying to perform while sitting, kneeling, lying down, or, in Yuta’s case, crouching between the legs of his bassist (no, I’m not kidding), is way more difficult than it looks. Either way, the song’s a lot of fun, and it made me really want to see him live one day.

Album #1: Persona

Ember comes on the heels of some of my favorite songs of Yuta’s, so to be honest with you, I wasn’t so sure how it would stack up. With a guitar as 10/10 as ever and a music video that spares no expense for drama, its use of distortion and calls to action in the lyrics feel like a worthy successor to Off The Mask. I don’t think Ember’s as strong as its competition—it doesn’t quite have that same drive that songs like Bad Euphoria or some of the b-sides we’ll talk about in a minute do—but it’s still a pretty damn good song.

With Ember comes Yuta’s first full album, Persona, another deep dive into the pressure of fame complemented by heavy rock. Likewise, it was once again hard to pick a hidden gem. There’s the bass-driven album opener New World, the mile-a-minute Knock Knock, and the sometimes-emotional, always-powerful If We Lose It All Tonight. But, shocking absolutely no one, my favorite was Get Out Of My Mind, which combines Yuta’s typical rock sound with a moving synthpop one, combining into a coming-of-age-roadtrip-worthy song that’s everything I love in kpop wrapped in a black bow.

Verdict: TL;DR

I’m glad I did this! As mentioned, I didn’t know that much about Yuta before this deep dive, but I’m happy I changed that. I was a little short on time for this review, but I watched the behind the scenes of his recording Butterfly and Off The Mask, as well as as a bunch of live videos from his recent tour. Like I mentioned in the When I’m Not Around section, every new thing I watched made me even more determined to see Yuta perform live one day. I have no doubt it’d be an amazing show.

My Top 5 songs were When I’m Not Around, Bad Euphoria, Off The Mask, Get Out Of My Mind, and Prisoner, with New World and Knock Knock as hidden gems. Yuta gets a 9.25 out of 10 from me, which is way higher than I was expecting. But sometimes a song (or ten) just come around at just the right time for you to fall in love with it, and that’s exactly what happened here.

It’s unusual I cover something so rock-heavy on Married To The Music—this is a kpop blog after all—but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yuta is a rockstar, in the truest sense of the word; his music is the kind that should be listened to in one of two ways: blaring through car speakers while pushing 90 on the highway (not that I’d ever) or screamed through a crowd of fangirls at a frequency that could shatter eardrums. And I mean that as the highest compliment. This is honestly my favorite review so far this year, and I don’t expect that to change for at least a solid couple of weeks.

Next time, after two Japanese reviews, we’re back to the land of kpop with a boy group. Tschüss!