2009: The Year My Life Changed (Reviewing Every SHINee Album, Part 2)

I started listening to K-Pop in early 2009, when a friend of mine shared a link to SHINee's Replay on my Facebook wall. (She also shared some stuff from TVXQ and Super Junior, whom I also like). I was almost immediately entranced. Luckily, I joined the SHINee World just in time for their second mini-album to be released, which was entitled Romeo. The title track was a song called Juliette, which was a cover of a Corbin Bleu song called Deal With It. To be honest, at the time I thought the colorful skinny jeans and tie-dye t-shirts were kind of garish and ugly, but over time it grew on me. The influence of their style on my life cannot be overstated. Within months, I too was wearing brightly colored skinny jeans. They looked truly awful on me, but I felt like a celebrity.

1. Talk to You - Opening with a rap from Minho, the first thing I notice is a sort of Latin beat with a heavy synth. The chorus features the harmonies that SHINee is famous for. Their voices almost sound like the synth, not because of autotune, but because of the kind of whispering tone that they're singing with. The English portions of the lyrics are mostly good, the only odd line being "Talk to my body," but we'll just say that it's metaphorical. The bridge is pretty, as well, sounding a bit more organic than the rest of the song. Overall, I'm going to say that the song isn't that memorable, but there are definitely likeable parts, such as the rap outro from Key and Minho.

2. Juliette - I actually love this song, but maybe because of the heavy nostalgia. Jonghyun wrote the lyrics, and as I said, it's actually a cover of a Corbin Bleu song. The backtrack is so electronic and hypnotic sounding. It's catchy, it's got some of that classic grunty singing from Jonghyun, it's got a great long note from him as well, and powerful ad libs from everyone. "Da da da da dadada," as the outro is so catchy, too!

3. Hit Me - This has the sound of early SHINee R&B tracks, very similar to many of the songs on their first album. I think that Taemin's voice sounds particularly cutesy in this song for some reason. There's a beeping in the track that reminds me of a hospital monitor, which is a bit odd. Maybe the song is about some sort of medical trauma, but I've never looked up the English translations of the lyrics, so I have no clue! (Well, I looked it up, and no. It's not about medical trauma). I love the outro, though. Onew sounds so pretty and pained in particular.

4. Senorita.- Key opens the song with some poorly pronounced, but still understandable Spanish. If Talk to You had a sort of Latin vibe, this song definitely has more. It has a funky acoustic guitar instrumental, but as we get into the chorus, it becomes more bombastic and full, like a street festival. There's lots of great falsetto in the pre-chorus. Minho's rap has some of the worst English in the whole discography, but the rap itself is one of his more impressive efforts. It's fast!

5. Please, Don't Go - This song is a duet between Onew and Jonghyun. The song is slow and soft at first, but builds to the chorus, which is a powerful harmony between the two. Their voices really capture a pained emotion. Neither hold back, and it makes for a very memorable ballad.

6. Romeo + Juliette - I love the simple beat, I love Minho's opening rap, I love Taemin's cute auto-tuned voice. The song has a nice balance of electronic sounds and autotune with their natural voices. Key ate up his rap and his long note. Onew and Jonghyun share a harmonized long note that's really cool as well! The vocals in this song stay impressive in spite of the synthetic sounds. This is one of my favorite songs on the EP.

After ROMEO's release in May, SHINee came back with another EP in October entitled 2009, Year of Us. If the ROMEO era influenced my personal style, it was nothing compared to this album. They pivoted from their fresh-faced, youthful, boy-next-door look toward something a bit more emo or punk feeling. That year for Christmas, I asked for combat boots. I even wore my hair like Minho's, with his wazy little ponytail.

1. Y.O.U. (Year of Us) - I always loved this song. I love the simple, heavy beat and Onew's soothing and sweet opening vocals. The song is slow and romantic, but catchy. The chorus of "You"s is like ASMR to me, very relaxing, but not boring. The harmonies, as always, are on point. I actually made a music video from clips and gifs of SHINee with this song back in the day. Of course, it never left Windows Movie Maker, but I still remember the clips I used. (LOL).

2. Ring Ding Dong - This song needs no description. It's probably SHINee's most famous song, notorious for being a relentless ear worm, banned during exam time since it would so severely distract Korean students. The sort of African-inspired, heavy beat feels like it gets into your very bones. The english portion of the lyrics are odd. "Ring Ding Dong" is pretty much just gibberish, and "Fantastic, Elastic" is likewise nonsensical. But who cares? It's iconic! This song blends auto-tune with natural vocals seamlessly.

3. JoJo - Taemin was very much still in his cutesy voice phase during the recording of this album, but it really suited the vibe of this song. The song starts slow, but picks up the pace quickly. It has a sort of sad and upbeat vibe all at the same time, somehow. The song is catchy, just like the previous two songs on the EP. There are portions of the backtrack that sound like video game music. It's a unique song overall and really memorable to me.

4. Get Down - This is a "duet" between Key and Minho, a rap song. As far as I know, this is the only song they recorded as such. I wish they would have done this more and featured their rap more heavily in other releases. The chorus is not really lyrical, just "na na na"s, but it's good, because the song is really supposed to be rap-focused. I particularly like Key's verse, since there's a lot of English and most of it makes sense.

5. SHINee Girl - The chorus of this song is so upbeat and happy, almost jazzy sounding. The tempo of the chorus is so fast, it's hard to keep up. The verses are slower, but aren't long before we're back into the swinging chorus. I find the title of the song kind of cringey, but the song is so fun anyway, that I cannot complain. This is probably not one of their more popular or memorable songs, but it's honestly a lot of fun due to the tempo. Makes me want to dance and wag my finger in the air.

6. The Name - This is a duet between Onew and some other guy that I don't know (Kim Yeon-Woo). Onew's voice is so pretty and soft. I normally don't prefer super slow ballads like this, but his voice just sounds so soothing and easy. It seems to come out of him smoothly, like butter. It's that low-effort sound that you know takes a lot of work to perfect. The other guy's voice is pretty too and harmonizes beautifully with Onew's. I sing along with this one without even realizing.

I love 2009, Year of Us as a mini-album. I think the name of the album is appropriate, as for me 2009 was the year I discovered SHINee. It really was "our" year. I'm amazed by how strong their vocals were just a year after their debut. They obviously improved as the years went by, but they were doing some seriously impressive stuff, even back in the early days.