The Thrilling Return of Taemin
“Guilty” is Taemin’s first EP since returning from the military. Why this is his most unnerving work yet.
The legendary soloist Taemin is often revered for his ability to surprise. This transformation from a shy maknae of SHINee to the wildly ambitious performer he is today began incrementally. First, with the release of the single “Drip Drop” in 2016, which introduced an alluring sensuality and control in his choreography. In 2017, he mastered these qualities with the sublime “Move”. But his most powerful and cinematic era is “Criminal”, from 2020. Taemin is at the top of his craft here because of how he melded the music and choreography to create something that felt dangerous. This was not a release that stuck to the gimmicks of K-Pop, but rather was a slow burn of steady calculation. Listen to it today, and it still holds up as a magnetic work of art.
After two years in the military, Taemin returned to K-Pop this spring for SHINee’s comeback. This era was difficult for SHINee, though, as Onew, the group’s leader, has been on hiatus since June. As a result, it was up to Key, Minho and Taemin to carry the new EP “HARD” on their own. Yet SHINee, like Taemin, have never been a group to play things safe, and “HARD” argues that perhaps the only competition SHINee has in this industry is each other.
Look no further than Key as perhaps the only idol who can truly challenge Taemin’s artistry. The two compliment each other in their differences: Key, whose aesthetic is a glorious, over-the-top excess, matches Taemin’s mysterious aura. While Key often uses sci-fi or horror concepts as a metaphor for his interior world, Taemin has harnessed his body as his main tool of expression. He is a dancer who can shift your eyes around like you’re watching a magic trick. His skill as a dancer was the first thing I noticed when I saw him perform at KCON this year. His fluid, lithe movements made him look like he was floating across the stage.
On “Guilty”, Taemin, who is now 30, lures you in with these moves. This is a seductive album, and one that calls back to some of his earliest music, like “Press It”. Just like with his best work in “Criminal”, Taemin uses his body to unsettle you. The song’s music video is an unnerving artistic vehicle that scrambles your brain, sometimes resembling the aesthetics of Gaspar Noe’s film “Climax” where dancers gather for a party that dissolves into madness.
Set inside a dormitory that could resemble the military or a K-Pop training center, Taemin presents himself as a puppet as hands reach out to position his head and body. In one shot, a black sheet is wrapped around him obscuring everything but his head. It’s an illusion of isolation and control. But the power struggle seems to be greatest between Taemin and himself because often, he is distorting his own body. He reaches his hand up through his shirt to reveal his abs and cocks his head to the side. It’s a tinge of madness and twist of the senses. As dancers coalesce around Taemin in the dormitory, they begin to move in one fluid motion. As the best Taemin videos go, fire is also involved.
If this sounds like dark subject matter, know that Taemin has never stuck to bright, conventional themes. What has always made him such an alluring performer is Taemin’s ability to perform uncomfortable topics – the painful ending of relationships (“2 Kids”), the way that love can swallow you whole (“IDEA”), or how he aims for pleasure and destruction (“WANT”). “The moment you take me in you’ll be thirsting for more,” he teases in the opening lines of “WANT”.
Sex has also always been part of Taemin’s work, too, but never in such a straight-forward way. Instead, sex is often viewed through the same lens of a performer like Madonna. Taemin often questions why we’re so afraid of pleasure and why it can cause so much pain. Since 2017, too, he’s embraced his androgynous looks. “My body shape is like that of a dancer’s,” he told Billboard that year. “It’s not too masculine or overly muscular and I wanted to take advantage of that.” Similar to Madonna, too, is how sex is often depicted as a forbidden fruit, like the peach that Taemin bites into on the album cover. Only, as he’s grown older, Taemin has wanted to push through repression. “The Rizziness” showcases this swagger. “You know I got that touch/ Swallowing you whole,” he warns.
He’s softer, though, on “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not” and “Not over You” ( 4BOUT, a friend of Bias Wrecker, directed the vocals), which best showcases his smooth, rich voice. I’ve missed this voice since he enlisted two years ago, and it’s welcoming to hear it again, in such clear form, on “Guilty”.
Whenever these topics begin to feel too heavy, Taemin knows how to shift to new angles of perception. “Blue”, the album’s closing track, is both a reference to SHINee’s fandom color and a shade of depression. “The more you lose, the harder it is,” he reasons, but he’s finding new meaning in the weight of his experiences. His fans, who “Blue” seems to be dedicated to, waited for Taemin through his difficult enlistment period and supported him as he grew to believe in himself as a singer. Taemin’s influence is unmistakable in K-Pop, but I think he’s just now beginning to see his worth.
“My own blue is filled with light”, he sings in the closing lines of the album. After spending over half his life in the industry, Taemin sounds not like a hard-lived veteran, but a wide-eyed ingénue ready to feel it all and heal himself through his music
