Potpourri: Monsta X (2018-2019)
Part 2 of the boyband's retrospective covers their busiest two years yet, a maturation of their sound, and a surprise exit.
This is part two of the Potpourri series dedicated to Monsta X. For Part One, click here.
Between Monsta X receiving their first win and until the next time they'd come back in March 2018 with The Connect: Dejavu, one world-shattering event happened, one that fans call "paving the way": BTS made the United States a viable market for K-Pop.
Now, to be clear, paving the way implies arduous construction work. BTS wasn't the first group to promote in the United States. K-Pop tried that a whopping ten years prior: Se7en, BoA, Wonder Girls, and Girls' Generation all toured and promoted in the US, but it didn't lead to much success, nor did it make Korean entertainment companies think that was a viable path to follow - certainly not while Japan was there, right next to South Korea, with a much more stable audience and surefire success. In the case of Wonder Girls, a common opinion at the time was that their US promotions actively killed the group's momentum - one that JYPE seemingly agreed on when Wonder Girls came back in 2015 with the album title Reboot. And you may think that Psy’s Gangnam Style would have done the trick, what with peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, but no such luck: it was treated as a joke song. But 2017 was a different time. BTS was big, their marriage of maximalist pop music and the calling card of "authentic storytelling" appealed to fans en masse, and their entertainment label Bighit/HYBE was savvy enough to bank on it. So here was BTS, fresh off the immensely successful second full-length album Wings, coming back in September 18, 2017 with a new series titled Love Yourself: Her and the EDM-tinged DNA - a brighter, cheerful cousin to I Need U. Two months later and long after the traditional promotional cycle for DNA, they took this song to another place: the American Music Awards. This performance was in Korean. Thanks to the massive engagement of BTS's fandom ARMY, the song landed at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 - nine spots over the peak of Wonder Girls' Nobody, which had previously been the highest K-Pop song on the chart. But that was not where the door was officially bust open. It was when BTS promoted Mic Drop, a B-side of Love Yourself that was noisy and boisterous (oh yes, you've read this before)… in English with a remix by Steve Aoki. That remix made the already rock/electronic song more electronic in turn. First they debuted this song on the Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA for short), then promoted it on American morning shows such as Ellen DeGeneres' morning show. Then rapper Desiigner, who enjoyed chart success with the runaway hit Panda, hopped onto the song, and voila: Mic Drop peaked at #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. You hear that? That's the sound of everyone scrambling up. BTS may not have done the hard part of construction, but they tested the road, declared it safe, and cut the ribbon for the masses. Two examples of groups following that path: NCT 127 going from the menacing, dark Cherry Bomb (to Touch, which was part of the NCT 2018 Empathy project... so let's ignore that) to the confident but bright Regular, indebted by Cardi B's massive hit I Like It; Monsta X unrecognizably going synthpop for their debut American single. But in either case, at some point, when talking about the big boygroups of the third generation of Korean Pop music, Monsta X came in third, just after BTS and NCT 127.
April 2018 also saw the debut of G-IDLE, spearheaded by Jeon Soyeon, a Produce 101 contestant. She is massively involved in her girlgroup's musical identity and, for a while, was everywhere on their titles. They debuted at #1 on the domestic music charts with Latata, and G-IDLE were one of the architects that moved the needled from melodic to boisterous. The other group was Blackpink, who released their smash hit DDU-DU-DDU-DU in 2018. Bang Bang Bang had passed the torch over to Mic Drop, and now that ghost loomed over boygroup music. Monsta X's, not so much. They were already noisy! But it did mean that Monsta X's time in the limelight loomed just around the corner. That's until... but we'll get to that later.
The Connect: Dejavu
Let's recap: a Monsta X song opens with some synths - blunt or ominous - and then percussion kicks in. Wonho is usually the first to sing, a husky baritone. Minhyuk, a frail tenor, follows, and then Hyungwon, whose vocals are halfway between Wonho's and Minhyuk's. Shownu takes over for the prechorus, a strong and dramatic-sounding baritone, perhaps here I.M and/or Jooheon have a little hypeman moment, and Kihyun, a tenor, gets to sing in the chorus. That's his domain, and he sweeps it with some assists by two others who get one line. Then for the second verse, the rappers join: Jooheon, a tenor who is fiery, and I.M, a baritone who takes a detached route. For the bridge, Shownu and Kihyun sing (or they don't sing and Jooheon/I.M rap instead), and there's Kihyun again, all over the chorus. Song over (or I.M finishes it). It's a template with few flexible parts, and the three Korean titles that followed Dramarama don't do much to tweak it. For a fan, there is no need. For a non-fan, that makes jumping in to their discography not as enticing, especially when K-Pop - both as a whole, and within singular artists's discography - has a lot more diversity to offer. (But I said what I said - consistency pays off in dividends.) The Connect: Dejavu, part two of the Code duology, has the lead single Jealousy. The only difference that this song has to other Monsta X titles is that this one goes very heavy on the synths and is almost funky, somewhere between Eurovision Song Contest kitsch and 80s pop music drama. And, this time, there is only Kihyun in the chorus. It is a great song, but I feel a world of difference between the first time I heard it and now, where it simply slots in nicely with the rest. Monsta X has a template, and they always followed it.
With Jealousy, nomen est omen. The Monsta X members like this girl, but she acts flirty to guys other than Monsta X members. A little jealousy, Kihyun shouts with the kind of jealousy that lets you know that's more than just "a little". Even the word elongates and turns green of envy: jealousyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. It's all-consuming. How dare she look at other men or talk to them? Wonho, in a truly hilarious move, breaks the unity of seven members representing one protagonist by asking, Why did you talk about Shownu again just now? When he was asked about this line in a radio show - why did he sing it, isn't it allowed to like more than one member - he said no. The reason why? "Because Shownu is mine." (Wonho has a flawless understanding of fanservice.) Jealousy's music video is not a continuation of Dramarama. It is also drenched in blue and cuts between members before you can focus on their faces in earnest. I have no clue what it is supposed to communicate, but the dancing is cool.
Though Jealousy doesn't go there, there is a poor attempt to bring the time loop aspect back to finish the series in the "music film" that makes extensive use of Destroyer, a rock-influenced B-side. I don't think anything that the music film does here finishes in any way what Dramarama began, and I don't know why they all want to save Hyungwon - who is now trapped in a subway (?) - when Hyungwon tore the couples apart in the first place, but I like the Arrival-inspired set that Wonho and Kihyun are in quite a bit and I also enjoy nonsensical code that is meant to change the space-time continuum.
All that said, The Connect: Dejavu is an incredibly strong release. It is also the first time Jooheon would don a different name tag for his raps - Jooheonie one hunnit (which also sounds like Jooheonie won-hani, you want Jooheon-ie in Korean), which would eventually lead to a change of his stage name, from just Jooheon to JOOHONEY. Musically, there are two main streaks in The Connect: one of letting go and having fun - the rave-esque Fallin' and closer Special - and one of trying to get their lover back in their lives. In that manner, it actually does tie to some of the themes that In Time and From Zero brushed on in the previous release. Musically, there is a clear thread here also - though Destroyer doesn't fully commit to either rap or the big chorus, the pop elements carry over to Crazy in Love, and If Only, though lighter, borrows some elements from soft rock the likes of Coldplay and Oasis. The emotional centerpiece of the album, though, is Lost in the Dream. It utterly commits to the bit, full of melancholy especially with strings in the bridge. This helps both Jooheon and I.M slot into the song - something that doesn't happen a lot - but it also brings in the other members. This release is possibly the first time one can hear Minhyuk's thin vocals for longer than a minute (combined, not separately, I'm afraid), and it is also a release where Shownu in particular sounds much more in control. His turn in Lost in the Dream lends an almost life-or-death feeling to the song. That happens to be my favorite strain of K-Pop, and it is also the strongest point in Monsta X's discography.
PIECE
Monsta X's first foray into the Japanese market was the Japanese version of Hero back in 2017. (Starship had every right to skip Trespass and Rush.) The first original Japanese single bears the title SPOTLIGHT, released January 31, 2018, which borrows the same whiny sound of Trespass, but couples it with the classic Hero songwriting. After that came PUZZLE, a brighter sound that Monsta X utilized a lot for their Korean B-sides. The first full-length for the Japanese full-length bears the title PIECE. It arrived a month after The Code: Connect and has five original songs in total. The rest are all Japanese versions of titles we've already covered - Shine Forever, Stuck, Ready Or Not, Hero, and Beautiful. It's hard not to think of this album as cashgrab. But artistically, Monsta X would go for a firm dichotomy of noisy and cute for the Japanese market, and you can tell with this release already. Of the original songs, Aura straddles the line best. It is essentially EDM and full of these empty-sounding drums, and there's horns and whatnot in the Kihyun-led chorus, but the skittering synths in the verses give the song a bright feel regardless - you will not be surprised to hear that Wonho kills it here, but I also love Minhyuk in the pre-chorus, who seems like an especially great fit to the production. In either case, following this release, Monsta X released two far superior songs for the Japanese market in the fall - and we won't be able to talk about them all the way until sometime 2019, because that's when the corresponding album came out. What a hilarious rollout.
Take.1 Are You There?
Did you notice how Monsta X just can't seem to stop doing series? So far, we've had the blue flower trilogy (The Clan) and time loop shenanigans (The Code - The Connect). For their second full-length, which was split into two parts, the "Take" series centered on the lowest hanging fruit for a seven-membered group - the seven deadly sins. (No, Jealousy is not part of it.) The brighter half of the two, Are You There? is once again more of a quest to find a lover - and the rejection of it altogether following a breakup. For their special film, the most striking image here is a single door at the beach, as if opening it would lead to water. It sets the scene quite nicely to the opener to the album: Underwater, which has slowly pulsing synths and the pleading, are you there? that give the album its title. But although Underwater is moody and atmospheric, Monsta X's eighth member returns to the mix after the chorus and utterly detracts from the mood: you guessed it, blunt horns. And so we set the stage to the other side of this album - the one that rejects. Lead single Shoot Out is intense. It turns Monsta X back to the Jooheon and I.M show with scraps for the other vocalists. But those horns are cold and demanding, the percussion sharp and hard like the click of a gun, only briefly pausing for the prechorus for a stunning turn of the vocalists (all four are excellent, but I especially like Shownu and Hyungwon) exploding in the chorus quite satisfyingly. Yes, this is aggression, but also dramatics. Once again, the breakup of the lyrics sounds all-encompassing in the vocal performances, something like life and death. Albeit more archetypal than all other Monsta X titles before, I find Shoot Out one of Monsta X's most accomplished title tracks, and the boob vibration of Shownu in the beginning is nothing short of iconic. Though it must be said, "excuse me, I'm walking like zombie" (and all that AAVE in the rap, my goodness) is not one of Jooheon's lyrical highlights. Not even the worst, I'm afraid.
The biggest strength of the album lies in the second half, specifically in a three-track run. Myself, the last of these, is a murky EDM-esque track that kind of recalls British group Hurts at points, though not interested in reaching their heights. Thankfully, the blunt electric synths are gone and Jooheon & I.M float over the song like the other members. Kihyun sounds perfect on this track especially. Oh My, the song before Myself, is a track that sounds frankly very Middle Eastern in the percussion, a prototype for better and louder (and more Turkish) to come. And then there's MOHAE, Korean for "What are you doing". MOHAE dethroned all previous fan favorite B-side tracks, and it's not hard to see why: the warbly synths and falling piano notes make for a headrush of a chorus. Wonho, Shownu, and Kihyun trade off lines in the chorus, (Minhyuk gets to sing near the end, which is lovely), and all of them sound fantastic. The rest of the verses are fine, nothing to write home about, but the chorus sounds like a revelation. Rounding out the album is Heart Attack, a straightforward pop track with a militaristic percussion that I'm not hot about; I Do Love You, co-composed by Wonho, this one the obligatory cute B-side that bears another stunning vocal performance from Shownu; and By My Side, the song for the fans with gurgly synths I can't stand. The Korean version of Spotlight closes out the album. Overall, it's not exactly a record I care much about, but it has some obvious highlights that deservedly have their spots on fan favorite lists.
Take.2 We Are Here.
K-Pop in 2019 was the point where the genre utterly stalled. This was the year of audacious chanting, blunt synths and metallic percussion that fans quickly dubbed "pots and pans", trap breakdowns, rapping that took over most of the verses, and a vocal that takes over the chorus less singing and more screaming (that is, if there even was a sung chorus, because the anti-drop chorus was very popular and almost always a blight to the music). If that all sounds Monsta X went there before - sans the anti-drop, thank God - that's because they did. (Meanwhile, NCT 127 went against the grain and released straightforward pop that year.) BTS, on the other hand, went full Billboard with Boy with Luv and it resulted in all of K-Pop ignoring the music they did. I genuinely think Monsta X was ready to move to the A-list domestically and internationally. But Take.2 We Are Here's lead single, Alligator, does not introduce a new idea for anyone. That thing I said about sequels with Monsta X unfortunately strikes yet again (and will one last time), as Take.2 We Are Here brings in more budget for the visuals, but has nothing to spend on the music. If I said that Shoot Out was archetypal already, then Alligator sounds like everyone involved went autopilot. It just sounds like Monsta X doing Monsta X things. I like it, but that's because I like the template. Still, it's really hard not to argue that Alligator stalls Monsta X musically. Horns, raps, vocals getting scraps, Kihyun chorus. The hook of the song is Alli-alli-alli-gator. Jooheon's first line in his rap is: "Hello, I'm an alli-alli-gator". The music video has the seven members in seven separate sets... there's vague allusions to the seven deadly sins... Shownu sets a car on fire but has an unfortunate haircut... Kihyun has telepathic powers or something... Minhyuk is surrounded by roses (ha, get it, beautiful man with beautiful roses?) and Wonho looks like a walking sex god in the music video. There are so many sets on this music video. So many glamour shots. Can somebody who is good at the economy please help Starship budget this? My Monsta X is dying.
This album doesn't exactly rank high on fan lists, but that's not to say that it's overall bad - in fact, song by song, I probably listen to this album more often than Are You There? I find Ghost a little on the nose with a flat chorus, but that's about the only song I'd skip. No Reason offers some of Wonho's best songwriting for the group yet, and this soaring pop approach musical palette is the closest he'd come to his own solo music later. Give Me Dat is a classic Monsta X B-side that has Wonho open with more force in his vocals than ever before - and Shownu after that is simply cherry on top. The song after that, Turbulence (but listed on Spotify as the Korean Nangiryu) is a menacing B-side with an explosive chorus (you already know who's sweeping over it). Rodeo is for the club with a really cool chanting bit from Jooheon in the chorus (!). Stealer is even more intense, delivering a synth-drenched dramatic chorus and never lets up - probably Monsta X's best bid to win a hypothetical Eurovision Song Contest. The vocals here are overall very strong, and it's a joy to hear more of Minhyuk and Hyungwon, who, in turn, sound stronger in their delivery than before. But the song I want to highlight is Monsta X's first foray into the American market. Play It Cool debuts on this album in Korean, produced by none other than Steve Aoki, who had previously remixed BTS's Mic Drop. Play It Cool is more reserved than Mic Drop is, a refreshingly straightforward dance approach with a cool instrumental chorus. Jooheon sings here, and not unsuccessfully so; he'd go on to sing more and better in later tracks. The English version appeared three months later, but was credited first as Steve Aoki, rather than Monsta X, so it's not really the debut single of Monsta X's American discography, only a sign of what was to come.
Who Do U Love? (feat. French Montana)
So after BTS bust the door open, NCT 127 followed things up quickly with the English version of Regular that they extensively promoted in American morning shows. Monsta X also had an English version of Shoot Out at the end of the Are You There? album and appeared at the Jingle Ball of New York City in 2018. And we've already gone through Play It Cool. That dance vibe that they chartered there, though, would go to incredibly icy depths, with their actual American debut Who Do U Love?, released year after Regular and almost two since BTS's Mic Drop. Who Do U Love? features French Montana, which is a baffling decision considering he has never been a rapper popular on the charts or with hip hop fans, but it means that Monsta X's rappers are relegated to singing. For Jooheon, this is a revelation. He opens the song - a reedy tenor that is a great match for the sound palette: airy synths, short snaps, and a drop that is a stronger take on Charlie Puth's Attention, a bouncy bass while all of Monsta X sound like one airy, eerie chorus asking: Who do you love? Is it him or me? Cause I can't take the pressure anymore. I am a sucker for choir-like vocals. When done right, it can sound otherworldly, and in the case of Who Do U Love?, it's a preternatural calm, a foregone conclusion made: that woman does not love this protagonist in any way, and he (possibly a side piece?) knows. Who Do U Love? is one of my absolute favorite Monsta X songs, easily top five, and the fact that this sounds nothing like a Monsta X song makes it so singular. Some of my favorite vocal moments on here are Hyungwon's baritone and Minhyuk's line in the prechorus (dare I say the first time he actually sounds comfortable on a title track?). But Jooheon’s adlibs add just the right amount of pizzazz to the chorus. French Montana delivers a rap verse that is quite hated, but I honestly find it hilarious. The lines "Now the beef cook, like Gordon Rams'" and "My two things fighting like Monica and Brand'" have me in stitches every time I listen closely to the song. I.M? Uh... um... uhh... have I mentioned the sets? Seven members, seven sets, Wonho admiring himself in a room full of CRT screens, Minhyuk is in front of a Turkish rug looking absolutely scrumptious? Right. This is not the last time an American rapper hops onto an English Monsta X song. But a lot of time would pass until then, and the other English tracks do feature I.M. Just not as a rapper.
PHENOMENON
Now I could have placed Livin It Up right after PIECE just like I did with Who Do U Love, which was also the lead single to a horrifically long rollout of English album ALL ABOUT LUV. But chronologically it fits better to connect Play It Cool and Who Do U Love? than to go from PIECE to LIVIN IT UP. So here it is: the first Japanese album called PHENOMENON with its lead single from a year prior. LIVIN IT UP is funky, just like Dramarama and Jealousy, utilizing a distorted bass to guide most of the song. And then bright synths kick in. Unlike Dramarama and Jealousy, it's not dramatic, it's about having a good time on a Friday night. The celebratory tone suits Monsta X quite well, but doesn't do much to change the overall template. The song, and the fact that Minhyuk and Shownu trade lines, actually reminds me a bit of Love Killa, a song I'll cover later. (Minhyuk sounds very good on this in the prechorus, by the way.) But that music video... my Japanese isn't the strongest, but why does everyone look disinterested when the song is about... livin it up? Nice buttslap at the end there, though.
The title track of this album, X-Phenomenon, confirms the route Monsta X went for their Japanese releases: amp up the noise and do not look back. Accordingly, the Korean title tracks that made it on the Japanese version are Alligator and Shoot Out, so I guess it's fuck Jealousy lives. The results are... mixed: X-Phenomenon is kind of like NCT 127's Chain except it has an utterly baffling beat switch in the chorus, FLASH BACK has a whiny flute sound at the back that sounds like Oh My but to lesser effect, and Carry On is yet another cute B-side that Monsta X did better before. I think of this collection, I like SWISH best, which goes into Livin' It Up territory with flat horns and rumbling percussion employed throughout. The middle eight with the rhodes on top is very inspired.
Follow - Find You
Follow - Find You came with a pre-release - serious business in the K-Pop world. Find You is a piano-led, emotional song I'd firmly place in the adult contemporary category - not quite a ballad, but grown, sad music. It's easily one of Monsta X's slowest moments, and the music video paints an extremely sad picture alongside. Hyungwon has a nice time with his friends (the rest of Monsta X - no wait, you haven't heard of this before), and at the end of that night his parents come pick him up. Then out of nowhere, a car crash happens - the horrific kind. Hyungwon is rushed to the ER and eventually wakes up, but his parents do not. He's devastated. Back at home, he tries to drown out the pain with various painkillers. His friends, thoughtful as ever, stay over with him to keep him company, and in one of the loveliest scenes, Minhyuk notices that Hyungwon smiles and gestures it to the rest of the group. But just that is not enough to drown out the grief for Hyungwon, and late at night he wakes up seeing visions of subway wagons and clocks. His father was working on a clock, actually; a wristwatch, bulky and not meant to be worn... he clicks on it, he is thrown into the water? And... uh.. yes, he is the man in the umbrella. Everyone is sad. I honestly had to bust out laughing at the fact that the lore came back like this. But Find You is one very sad song, and as a pre-release, it is one very misleading hint of what was to come with the lead single.
Follow is the loudest Monsta X has ever been. It takes ten seconds at most for them to chant "Follow-lo-low Follo-lo-lo-lo-low" before a disembodied robot voice going Fire leads to... well, halay. Halay is the Turkish name of a folk dance in which people come together, hands joined, and dance in a circle. One foot moves up, then the other, then people move together. Crucial to this folk dance is the zurna, a wind instrument that brings out a flat, whiny sound - and it's all over Follow. The press release of Follow was talking about traditional Korean instruments, and the taepyeongso indeed sounds like the zurna, but is a little deeper in tone. From the clips I've seen, it doesn't especially inspire high-energy dances. Halay, however, very much does. I'm willing to believe that the lo-lo-lo isn't inspired by Mahmut Tuncer's halay song Lolo, but it's a funny coincidence! The song itself rests upon the flute, teasing it constantly and building up until the explosive release. The most insane bit of this song is... well, there's two: Wonho singing like that in the bridge, and then the tiki taka, hrgh, hrgh part of Jooheon and I.M. You either enjoy the approach Follow has or you find it overly noisy; me, I've danced halay to it. The music video... seven sets, seven handsome men, and Wonho again looking like a sex god. The parts that reference the passing of time with the shadows and the eclipse look simply stunning. When I say Monsta X was primed for superstardom, I make my case with the incredibly compelling Follow.
Like the name suggests, Follow - Find You is a neat divide between the loud and the forlorn, and all of it has a high production sheen. The Find You slate includes the acoustic guitar-driven heartbreak jam U R and the slinky, misty Mirror, the last track that Wonho penned on a Monsta X release - and the only time Shownu has a writing credit. Originally debuting on the We Are Here. world tour, Mirror was conceived as a unit song between Wonho and Shownu. The main conceit of this track is a singular, sad saxophone, Careless Whisper-style. The percussion leads the verses alongside watery synths mixed under it. Man in the mirror, Wonho sighs, I hate it, I hate myself. Even when warbly synths add some texture to the chorus, it's a very hazy breakup song. Shownu and Wonho are both airy and sound incredible. And the concert performance... oh yes. Something very gay is afoot. I don't care for the album version and I do not care for the raps added on top of it. On the Follow side come some of my favorite Monsta X B-sides overall: the funky Monsta Truck, the zurna-led Disaster, and the best iteration of the Stuck sound, Burn It Up - the arpeggios and Minhyuk's voice really make it for me, but spare a thought for that breakbeat pre-chorus too. Between these two sides is See You Again, which is sad but also uses a tropical pop sound as the chorus drop. It's possibly their best EP to this day: a true crystallization of their sound and their musical ideas. Yes, other EPs have better tracks, but this is the definitive Monsta X sound from top to bottom.
Three days after Find You came out - so before the release of the EP overall - a clip circulated around Twitter, dating back to a signing event on March 2019. Minhyuk and Wonho are sitting languidly on a couch, and Minhyuk decides to interview... Wonho's nipple. Wonho, less than pleased, goes "Me too! Me too!" in English. Laughter. The Twitter caption says, Monsta X Wonho Minhyuk MeToo caricature. In 2019, amidst the worldwide reckoning of sexual assault, you can imagine this did not go well, especially not when the Burning Sun scandal was on everybody's mind that very year. Though Starship initially said that it was a misunderstanding, which is plausible because its a poor English application of the Korean 나도 (na do), which simply means "I too" - so Wonho wants to be interviewed too - the equally real possibility that this was simply trying to deflect from MeToo being used as a punchline (which men were indeed wont to do at the time) meant that Wonho and Minhyuk personally apologised as well. "I did not think about whether what I said could do harm to the Me Too movement and cause even more suffering to the victims and I disappointed and hurt many people due to my careless words and actions," Wonho wrote. "When I think about it now, I don’t know how I could have said something so ignorant."1 But this wouldn't be the last time Wonho came to the headlines in a negative manner, as that same week, Wonho was alleged to owe Jung Da Eun (a person famous for Ulzzang Generation, a show following prototype influencers, but in 2019 moreso for stirring up shit) money and to have been involved in criminal behavior in his youth, including the consumption of marijuana, theft, and serving time.2 Wonho left the group on Halloween 2019, a move he later said he'd done to minimize the damage around the Monsta X and the other members. He later resigned with Highline Entertainment, a DJ subsidiary of Starship. As for the charges: it was true that he was on probation and was involved with the wrong people in the past, but he had not consumed weed, so he was cleared of those charges. You can read more about it here. Thankfully, Wonho has resumed a musical career, this time as a solo artist. He debuted with Losing You in August 2020, released three EPs and a couple singles, and since December 2022 serves his compulsory military service. He is expected to return to the public eye in August 2024. I will cover his slim, but fascinating discography in a separate post. But the hurt still sits deep for fans. Don't ask a man his salary, a woman her age, and a Monbebe (Monsta X fan) how they feel about Follow.
If it seemed like I pointed out Wonho quite a lot, it isn't simply because he has one of my favorite vocal tones of the group (only some). It's because in the group, he was a very active member. He either opens the titles, or is all over the music videos, or leads the choreography. He has songwriting credits on important and much beloved B-sides all across their discography. So his departure left a hole that Monsta X would need to learn how to fill. (Although there is one more release where we will hear his vocals - the English album.) The next and final time we talk about Monsta X, the pandemic will change everything. In a suspended entertainment world, they will eventually come out on top of the pack. Got room for one more?
Translation retrieved from “Starship, Wonho, Minhyuk apologize for #MeToo controversy that fans said was a misunderstanding”, AsianJunkie, October 26th 2019. https://www.asianjunkie.com/2019/10/26/starship-wonho-minhyuk-apologize-for-metoo-controversy-that-fans-said-was-a-misunderstanding/
“Jung Da Eun claims Monsta X’s Wonho owes her ~$26k & Starship denies, Han Seo Hee alludes to him having a criminal past”, AsianJunkie, October 30th 2019. https://www.asianjunkie.com/2019/10/30/jung-da-eun-claims-monsta-xs-wonho-owes-her-26k-starship-denies-han-seo-hee-alludes-to-him-having-a-criminal-past/