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| K-pop singer HyunA released her fifth solo mini-album "A'wesome" Monday. / Courtesy of Cube Entertainment |
By Kim Jae-heun
K-pop diva HyunA returned with her fifth solo mini-album "A'wesome," Monday, making an appearance in a little over a month after 4Minute disbanded in June. She easily proved that she did not need the group members to support her in sweeping all the local online music charts.
"I performed in 4Minute for seven years and, now, it is time for us to pursue our own goals," said HyunA during a press meeting at the Cube Entertainment headquarters in Seongsu, Seoul, last Friday. "4Minute received such a big love from fans all over the world and I will try my best not to disappoint them."
The album consists of six songs, including the title track "How's This?" The new song instantly topped seven Korean online music charts including Mnet, Bugs and Naver Music as soon as it was released at midnight Monday.
The singer-songwriter Seo Jae-woo, who previously wrote the singer's hit solo "Red," produced the title tune with musician Big Sancho and HyunA herself wrote the lyrics. The song plays trap hip-hop in saxophone riff with exciting beats added to make an addictive verse.
HyunA took part in making the album by writing lyrics for all the tracks for the first time.
"This album was not a short-term project. I worked on the song ‘Do It!' for over two years and I wrote the lyrics for ‘Flirt' a year ago. I learned that it is different to sing stories that I felt myself and expressed," said HyunA.
The K-pop star also tried some indie style this time with singer-songwriter Seonwoo Jeong-a, who composed the fourth track "Morning Glory," featuring indie musician Qim Isle.
Rapper Hanhae of Phantom collaborated with HyunA in the sixth track "Wolf," which is an example of emotional hip hop music. The first track "U & Me" is a light song in easy beat and the singer suggests listening to it while resting at home.
"It took long time to decide the concept for this A'wesome album. Then I recalled I've been doing good in summers and people called me ‘summer queen,' so I tried to put together the positive feedback with summer vibe in this album," said HyunA.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the singer's debut and she wants to focus on making music that she likes and her fans like. HyunA first appeared in the K-pop scene as a former member of JYP Entertainment girl band Wonder Girls in 2007 when she was only 15. Now that she has turned 25, she feels that she has shared how she grew up as a singer with her fans.
"It is a special case and I am setting a new goal every year. Before I debuted, it was my goal to make my debut, and afterwards I aimed at winning champion titles on television music shows and I hoped for a chance to perform as a soloist.
"But when you try to do everything perfectly, it gets very tiring. And now I want to take steps slowly and achieve small things first without too much anticipation. I just want to share trendy music with my fans," said HyunA.
When the press asked the singer about what she would look like after 10 years, HyunA said she will be 35 and she is going to still be young. However, she did not dare to guess in more detail as she does not know what could happen to her tomorrow.
