“I think about giving up almost every day.” Coming from SOYEON, who over the years has built a good part of his public identity on the exact opposite — control, writing, production, responsibility, the ability to know where he wants to take a song before that song even actually exists — it is perhaps the phrase that best describes 1st Full Album (What a Wonderful Life). Not because SOYEON decided to stop, but because this time he stopped hiding how often he thought about doing so.
Her first complete solo album was born precisely from there, from a period in which, she tells Panorama, there were moments in which she thought she had really reached the end. Then, almost simultaneously, the opposite awareness: «I realized that I really have a wonderful life. I want to continue living this wonderful life.”
It’s a contradiction that SOYEON doesn’t even try to resolve, because after all (What a Wonderful Life) lives right inside that distance: wanting to give up and wanting to continue, being afraid and choosing anyway, seeking freedom precisely when creative freedom seems to become more difficult.
It’s not a record designed as a collection of singles. SOYEON deliberately chose the full album form because they know the opportunities for solo promotion aren’t endless, and when that window opened, they wanted to bring in as many sides of themselves as possible, filling the project with songs instead of narrowing it down to an easily readable identity.
The comparison with 1st Mini Album (Windy) is inevitable, but for her the difference is not simply sonic. Until that project, she explains, she composed thinking a lot about how it would be perceived by others. This time the transition was different: «I really stopped worrying about how I would look. My way of thinking simply became: let people see me for who I am.”
And that’s probably why (What a Wonderful Life) doesn’t even try to sound tidy. Rock, hyperpop, disco, more analogue sounds and band arrangements end up in the same space without the anxiety of finding a single definition. When asked what the thread is that holds such different musical worlds together, SOYEON almost laughs at the premise: «People often tell me that my mind goes all over the place. I think this album captures that chaotic world of mine.”
«I’m gonna quit my job»
The most immediate center of this story is ‘I’m gonna TOESA (Narr. KIAN84)’, built around a phrase that, at least on paper, would seem to have little to do with pop: I want to quit.
The idea doesn’t come from a strategy, but from a conversation with SOYEON’s younger brother or sister. “I asked him: ‘What is the one thing you would really like to say during this time? What is it that you would like to shout more than anything else?’ The answer was: “I’m going to quit my job”». From there, the resignation theme became a song.
But it was only after she wrote it that SOYEON began to understand what it really meant to her too. Listening to it again, she says, she realized that the point wasn’t simply to leave a job, but have the courage to make a decision.
«At a certain point I started choosing what seemed safe to me because I was afraid. Through this song I understood that even choosing to leave can require courage, and that it can be a challenge in itself.” This is how, in his story, the concept of “quitting” changes meaning: not necessarily surrender, not necessarily failure, but a choice that can be just as difficult as staying.
The presence of KIAN84 as narrator is not accidental either. SOYEON wanted someone capable of telling her “Don’t lie to yourself” without making that phrase sound like a slogan. The choice fell on him because, he explains, «if someone had to tell me, it had to be a person who really lives life with a sense of romance. For me KIAN84 embodies that spirit more than anyone else.”
The sound of ‘I’m gonna TOESA (Narr. KIAN84)’ also looks back. SOYEON talks about a specific period in Korea that he remembers as particularly romantic and he wanted the atmosphere and character of that era to remain in the song. It’s not just aesthetic nostalgia: “It’s also the period in which I fell in love with music for the first time.”
Thinking about giving up and not being able to do it
When the conversation turns directly to her, the response is less reassuring and much more interesting. We ask her if, during the making of the album, there was anything she would have liked to leave behind — perfectionism, the expectations of others, the need for approval, perhaps an old version of herself — and SOYEON doesn’t choose one of the options.
«I honestly think about giving up almost every day, but I’m not really a person capable of making the decision to give up. I believe this album was born from those feelings.”
This is perhaps where (What a Wonderful Life) becomes more autobiographical than it might seem. SOYEON is used to writing using characters, points of view and narrators that allow her to continually shift the boundary between what belongs to her and what belongs to the song. This time, however, he doesn’t try to create too much distance: «(What a Wonderful Life), as a whole, is a story that started from my emotions».
Then there is another paradox which concerns her role as author and producer. The more creative control you gain, you might think, the freer you become. For SOYEON it doesn’t work exactly like that.
“The more I create, the more I feel that it can become difficult to feel completely free.” It’s also why she continues to look for ways to get back on the move, using a new name when needed, trying something different, deliberately choosing what seems most difficult to her. And above all, it continually shifts the recipient of the test: “Rather than proving something to other people, I think I want to continue to prove something to myself.”
In the end we return to the starting point, to that word that runs through the album and which risks being interpreted too easily: courage.
We ask her what she can say (What a Wonderful Life) to those who feel they have remained too long in a job, a relationship, an identity or an expectation that no longer belongs to them. SOYEON does not respond with advice. He responds with a line from his music: “Eventually we will all grow old, and when we look back on this day, it will have been a romantic day.”
Then he only adds: “I hope that sentence can give people a little courage.”
And that’s probably the most accurate way to read 1st Full Album (What a Wonderful Life): not an album that says to give up everything, nor one that says to hold on at all costs. Rather, an album born at the moment when SOYEON began to question whether continuing and leaving are really two opposite forms of courage.
