Ladies, gentlemen, and assorted forest sprites, I’m back! My little break for the last month was very much unplanned but very much needed. Life just got away from me a bit, but I’m happy to report that I’ve returned and I’m so excited to get back to music. One of these days I’ll get better with updates. Will it be today? No.

Eric Nam is a rarity in kpop for a few reasons. Not only is he American—specifically from Georgia—but, like IU, he debuted only as a soloist and not as part of a group. Also, he has the all-too-rare distinction of having already graduated college by the time he became an idol (2012), and beginning his career at 24 (frankly, a very nice change from years of my covering groups where half the members are underage). In 2023 he formed the production house DIVE Studios with his brothers, which is the host of several podcasts and also a mindfulness / mental health app called Mindset. In his spare time, because apparently he doesn’t sleep, he’s an actor, and does both live-action and voice for animation. If you watched the recent Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, you’ll recognize him as the voice of Aang.

That was a lot. Still with me? Ok. Good.

So finally, here are my credentials: Like a lot of people who became kpop fans around the 2019 / 2020 era, I first learned about Eric Nam through DIVE Studios’ interview program The Daebak Show, where he’s interviewed a lot of my favorite artists, both in English and Korean. Though I’ve known he was a singer too, I didn’t become a fan until recently, and I figured that since his new album is coming out soon, now would be a good time to write this review. So, let’s get into it.

EP #1: Cloud 9

Like I said before, I’ve only recently become a fan of Eric Nam’s music, so I really didn’t know what to expect with his early career. But it definitely wasn’t this. First, Heaven’s Door’s all in Korean, which sounds like a stupid thing for a kpop blog writer to comment on but I’m used to hearing him only speak (and sing) in English. And besides the fact that he’s a solid fifteen years younger than I’m used to seeing him—and looks younger still, the song opts for the kind of acoustic pop R & B that’s most often found in drama soundtracks. To be blunt, between the glasses, the oversized sweater, and the very early 2010s filter, I feel a bit like he’s about to pause the music and ask if I have a minute to listen to the word of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Sorry, man.

I will say, that despite how young he is, his voice is still very much his. My Korean isn’t good enough to know if that’s just how he talks or if he has an accent or something else, but even if I heard this with my eyes closed I would immediately know it was him.

From the EP, though I enjoyed both the gospel influences of the Prologue and the vocals in Erase, because I’m me, my hidden gem was the synth-based Mirage. (Though, I did laugh quite hard at the “hey girllll” hook. It’s 2010s kpop. What can you do?)

Single #1: Ooh Ooh

I’m eight seconds in to the music video for Ooh Ooh when I pause so quickly I feel like there should be a record scratch sound effect, because somehow, someone thought to themselves: Hmm. You know what this needs? For us to start off the MV with a shot of Eric’s stomach, then like five seconds of his Mickey Mouse underwear (nope not kidding) while he attempts to pull up his jeans, thereby showing us his stomach again. I swear to you, if someone walked into my room at the exact moment I was watching this, they would swear that I’m watching an adult film. Now that we’re—-no, wait one more thing. I would like a word with the costume designer, because who decided that all of his pants should be cut like five inches above the ankle? It doesn’t look vintage, it looks like he’s a thirteen year old forced to perform at a talent show.

Okay, now that’s over with, onto the song itself. Ooh Ooh actually quite a solid kpop song. It’s very of its time, that’s for sure; the brass, the only English being “oh pretty babayyyy”, and so on, and I could have done without the feature, but I’m not mad at it. It’s fun, it’s catchy, and when just listening to it without the….everything accompanying it, I like it a lot more.

EP #2: INTERVIEW

Off the heels of Ooh Ooh comes Interview, with a similar fun, colorful aesthetic but a much more laid back way of looking at it. Not that I think it would be easy to make an MV stranger than Ooh Ooh, to be clear, but I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. As someone who started learning Korean through music, I loved the clever way the video displayed the lyrics without sacrificing the comic book inspired animations and transitions. The best way I can describe Interview was that it sounds like an English pop song in Korean. Some kpop songs have an undeniable “kpop” element to them even in their English versions, but this one would, I think, sound indistinguishable if the language was the same. That’s not a bad thing, to be clear, and this isn’t a bad song, but I have a limited appreciation for this kind of laid back coffee shop sound.

From the EP, I had a clear hidden gem right away in Stop The Rain. It seems to be a popular title, because several of my other favorite kpop songs have similar ones: DAY6’s Stop The Rain, eaJ’s When The Rain Stops Following Me, and of course Wendy’s magnum opus When This Rain Stops. I feel like I should make a playlist.

Single #2: Hold Me

Hold Me is exactly the kind of song I expected from its dramatic black-and white cover, a downtempo coffee-shop quasi-ballad. Now, to be clear, like I said above, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this style, but unless the artist does something unique with it, my enjoyment is limited. I much preferred the live band performance, which is available on YouTube. Whatever my feelings on the sound, I can’t deny that Eric does it well. He has a really lovely voice that I hadn’t heard like this before, which was nice.

The b-side, Save Me, is really good. I might even prefer it.

EP #3: Honestly

With Honestly we leave the coffee-shop realm behind and dive headfirst into true-blue pop. With a solid, driving beat and light, floaty vocals, it’s the first song in this review that really felt like Eric Nam to me. You wouldn’t think from the beginning that it would get stuck in your head, but Honestly is the kind of song that sneaks up on you, and by the end of the first chorus, I was tapping my foot along. Though I do wish the chorus was more sprawling instead of going for an instrumental breakdown at the end, it’s a small gripe all in all. And that bridge makes it all worth it. It’s definitely my favorite single so far.

There was a lot I enjoyed in the EP: the build up of Potion, the guitar-driven Don’t Call Me, and of course my hidden gem This Is Not A Love Song a lot. It’s got such an earworm of a hook, and a beat that’s simple but catchy. This EP does something difficult—it manages to be cohesive while still making each song different. It’s definitely a turning point in his music.

Single #3: Miss You / I Don’t Miss You

Miss You, I’m happy to say, combines the acoustic guitar present in Don’t Call Me with the more poppy sounds of Honestly. Though the verses are a little too laid back for me, the chorus rushes forward, and I liked it a lot more than I expected. There’s both a Korean version and an English version, and I think both are good. Of course, I don’t speak Korean fluently, so I connected more immediately with the English version. It’s not really a complaint but I do admit to giggling just a little at the music video for being so very 2019. I have no idea why I found how high his turtleneck was pulled up so funny, but let me tell you, I really did. More seriously, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Honestly, I still think it’s pretty solid.

Single #5: Runaway

Runaway, like Miss You, walks the line between completely him and completely “Kpop”, combining a very American pop-esque folksy acoustic guitar with a light synth sound and a building pre chorus that’s much more at home in kpop. It’s a sweet, breezy song about the fantasy we all have sometimes about running away from our problems and our responsibilities—something I can imagine is only amplified tenfold when you’re under the kind of pressure an idol deals with. The music video is filmed like a home movie chronicling a relationship with messy cuts and imperfect lighting, and it’s just really lovely. It may be as highly produced as some of his others, but it feels much more meaningful.

Album #1: Before We Begin

We finally reach Eric Nam’s first full album, Before We Begin, with pre-release Love Die Young. Remember how I mentioned that it takes a lot for a ballad to affect me? Here’s a perfect example. Pairing classic ballad elements with a slowly growing synth beat and some of Eric’s best vocals, Love Die Young takes the common ideas of heartbreak and death and turns them into a plea to not let the love itself die before its time. There are some quite clever turns of phrase here, and while there isn’t a music video, the lyric video, with its imagery of melting and wilting flowers and exploding color against a backdrop of grey is quite lovely too. I liked this song a lot more than I expected to, and while I don’t know if I would go out of my way to listen to it, I could absolutely see it working its way into my library.

The album’s official single, Congratulations, goes about as far in the opposite direction from Love Die Young as it’s possible to get. Throwing the metaphorical flowers on the grave (see what I did there) without so much as a shrug, it’s a toast to freedom from a relationship long dead, shot to look like one continuous take following Eric around a house party Let it be known, I love a “screw you, I’m better off alone” song, and this is a great example of that. It reminded me a lot of DAY6’s song Congratulations, which has a pretty similar vibe. I kind of want to applaud it just for the sheer amount of pettiness that radiates from the whole thing. Though I could’ve done without the feature, it didn’t really impact my enjoyment, and either way, the song’s still a lot of fun.

I enjoyed a lot of the songs in this album, but the one I really want to spotlight is Wonder. It’s a really lovely song, simple in its execution but powerful in its wondering lyrics about what could have been if two people had met at a better time in their lives. There’s a lot of great lines, but my personal favorite is: “What if I was two years older and you were two more sober”. The whole album feels like a deconstruction of its own sound, and though I have no idea whether it’s supposed to tell one story or if the songs are just similar, either way, it very much succeeds.

Next time, we’re onto Part 2. Tschüss, 안녕!, and Goodbye!