열애중

Ben's "열애중" is a song of present-tense romantic immersion, unusual in a genre so often preoccupied with loss — this is the experience of being fully, actively in love right now. Her voice is among the most technically impressive in contemporary Korean music: wide range, powerful projection, and a control over dynamics that allows her to whisper vulnerability and then open into full-throated declaration within the same phrase. The production is bright and warm, contemporary pop-ballad with orchestral elements that swell at the chorus without overshadowing the vocal. The lyric luxuriates in the immediate experience of love: its weight, its intensity, its capacity to transform ordinary moments. There's a slightly breathless quality to the melody, as if the words are almost too much to contain. Ben occupies a position in Korean music somewhat analogous to a Korean Adele — a singer whose technical gifts are matched by emotional conviction and whose vocal performances function as events rather than background. "열애중" is less melancholy than much of her work, and the joy is therefore all the more striking. This is the song that plays on the commute when you keep smiling for no reason that other passengers can understand.