S.M. THE BALLAD - 숨소리 Breath (feat. Taeyeon & Jonghyun)

S.M. THE BALLAD - 숨소리 Breath (feat. Taeyeon & Jonghyun)

Overall Score : 3.7 / 5 

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After promoting their artist by their own group, S.M. Entertainment assembled their vocalists and produced S.M. The Ballad album, now Vol. 2, which consisted of several ballad songs with multiple verse of language. This song, "Breath", was the title track which promoted in South Korea and performed several times in the music shows. The song was also a soundtrack to the upcoming movie produced by, none other than, of course, S.M.Entertainment. The Korean version of "Breath" performed by Girls' Generation's Taeyeon and SHINee's Jonghyun.

I usually have a soft spot for a good duet song. Let's see what this song's capable of.

• Musicality 4.5/5

The song started with a piano intro, accompanied with the soothing sound of violins. The male verse, Jonghyun's part,  then began with soft sound. Afterward, percussion and drums added, resulting a slow beat to accompany the female verse sang by Taeyeon. The first verse ended with a beautiful synchronization between the two singers.

Then we got to the chorus where the music were getting stronger and richer, still with slow beat. Both singer sang together in this part. Without having a voice battle, they'd perfected each others' melody, producing such a precious part of the song.

Perfect Harmony

A short guitar interlude brought us to the next verse. Back to the softer pre-chorus sound, both singer continued the story, singing a shorter but equally beautiful verse as the first one, and then brought us back to the second chorus.

Then we had the ending bridge, with more dramatic music and vocal. Started with Taeyeon's soulful interpretation, then Jonghyun's, who managed to performed high notes phrases smoothly, and ended with their harmonization.

The last chorus was the climax with stronger sound. The music then moved to a slower beat and sound, giving space to the duo for the ending, then all the music instruments concluded the song beautifully. 

Off to the climax

The structure was not a new formula for ballad song, but it was surely effective. The soft music and the soulful vocals able to carry the song's emotion well. I really liked the harmonization between the two singer, proofing their musical knowledge and skill. The simple sound and tone of music paired well with the meaningful vocals.

As much as I liked this composition, I kept thinking how the song would sound if there's not to many musical instruments involved, bared to just 1 or 2 instrument and more focus on the duo's vocal, to make it more pure. Perhaps with that arrangement the song's emotion could be accentuated a bit more.

• Lyric 5/5

This song had such a beautiful lyrics, perfectly picturing the suffocating feeling of separation, of letting our partner go, the feeling of not knowing what to say to each other after, and satisfied just to hear each others' breath.

It started with Jonghyun part, as the guy, who was unknowingly phoned his ex-spouse for the first time after a while, but just couldn't say anything and just let out a sigh.

Then it continued to Taeyeon's part, as the female spouse, who was surprised with the call, curious about the guy's whereabouts yet also couldn't say anything. Her tears fell down just hearing the sound of his breath.

The chorus was when both side express their longing for each other; the moment when their memories came back with tears and they didn’t know what to do, their promise to let each other go, and their desperate request to at least be able to hear each others' breath.

"Because it hurt so much, we promised to let each other go"

Next verse, sang consecutively by both singer, described the story that they're barely passed through daily life with heavy heart. Despite that, they couldn't tell each other, afraid they'd make the other worried.

The ending bridge concluded their feeling of having so much to say but couldn't say anything, pretended to be okay and comforting each other in pain, and that they're only happy because they hadn’t really let each other go.

"Sigh.."

The detailed and descriptive story was beautifully crafted into this song's lyrics. The song captured both guy's and girl's point of view without being biased. Although only portrayed a short moment of a couple, but, as we all might know,  a moment could brought so many emotions, which were defined here. The lyrics able to deepen the song's character and fit perfectly with the music and vocal.

• Performance

Music Video 2.5/5 

Being a single that's also a soundtrack to a movie, the music video was divided into 2 part; the singing duo on some sort of broken castle set, and the cuts from the movie. I was not that fond about the idea of putting cuts of the movie in the music video, let alone the movie itself was not available yet when the single was out. I thought that it would restrict the song's interpretation, the song then had a great possibility to be directly associated with the movie, unable to become a successful standalone single.

For the singing part, I found that it's a pity S.M.decided to used (yet another) abstract set for the MV. Having such detailed lyric, this song could be projected well into the daily life of ordinary people. Using more down-to-earth set, with everyday utilities, could made the audience feel more connected. For starter, the male singer could be portraying the lyrics, in his room, or perhaps in a bar/cafe, holding his phone, and just sighed. The female could just be on her way back from daily activities, or just simply in her room, receiving his phone call, and without a word, tear up. Then they'd be singing from their own set, engrossed in their feeling. Of course this required a bit of acting from the singers, but I didn't think it’s an issue. 

S.M. re-useable set

Or to take another way, they could emphasize on the music and shown the musician playing their instrument accompanying the singers.

Aside from that, could I complained regarding on how the agency always wanted their artist to be shown perfectly? Is there such thing as too perfect? As gorgeous as they were, I couldn't see a single pore or natural wrinkle in both singer. If you want to draw ordinary people's attention, would it be better to have a bit of resemblance with them? With us? No?

"You can't see my pores"

"I'm wrinkle-free"

Well, their make up artist and costume coordinator should be given a fortune for their outstanding work, but perhaps, a little down to earth guys? And maybe more contextual, more adjacent to the song's content next time.

Live Performance 3/5

Of all their performance, I chose 2 of them to be reviewed. One would be their performance from KBS Music Bank 14th Feb 2014.

For this performance, the set were created to mimic the castle-like set on the music video. In white themed set, both singer first performed on the second floor platform of the set, then to be moved down the stairs, to the first floor.

MV-like set

Both Jonghyun and Taeyeon was wearing a soft brown and white themed clothes. Jonghyun was wearing soft brown jacket-sweater with white shirt and pants, while Taeyeon was wearing a brown sweater with white short skirt.

Although there were slight mistakes on the performance, like Taeyon's off timing for the harmonization on the second verse, but overall the performance was okay. Generally they managed to performed the song safely. There wasn't much interaction between the two, but their eye contact was enough to give the audience the chill. Another plus point were the fake snow and shining stairs. That added a nice touch to the performance.

Then there was their performance on KBS Music Bank 21st Feb 2014.

The set was simple enough with foggy floor and ball lamps all over. Other decor were just a digitally projected frame with chandelier inside, and some visual work on the background. To be honest, I didn't get the correlation between the set and the song.

For this performance, Taeyeon wore a soft-pink warm furry sweater and equally furry black-and-white short skirt. While Jonghyun wore a floral beige suit with a white shirt and fitted pants. They're both standing on a shining platform, and they stood there for the entire performance.

This is it?

Jonghyun's intro was a bit shaky, and continued to be a bit out of focus in this performance, he seemed to be in a struggle. I thought there's a bit of a problem with the sound system by that time. The voice's power for the two vocalist was not equal, resulting Jonghyun's voice to overpowered Taeyon's, disrupting the harmonization. The second verse and chorus was skipped in this performance, so after the first chorus, they went directly to the ending bridge, climax, and ending.

I thought this performance was a bit off. Perhaps because it was the 2nd week of their promotion so they're not paying that much attention as they were on the 1st week. The set was, well, too simple, and as stated before, a bit unrelated to the song. The duo's interaction was minimal and there's also lack of movement from the two. A little too bland, even for a ballad.

After seeing the performance, my thought was, instead of trying to mimic the music video set, again, why not portraying more casual situation, to be similar to the lyric. Another idea was to have the real musicians accompany the performance. Or wouldn't it be more interesting if there's one or two dancer gently performing or to act the song, that with assumption to have the singer acted the song live was too much. Overall, nice performance to completed the promotion, but could be better.

That's what I thought, what do YOU think? Please post your comment below :)