Nine years after debuting as part of NCT Dream, Haechan is finally releasing an album of his own. He’s a huge R&B fan and worked with a small team of collaborators to craft a suite of songs that honor that genre. It’s a sign of shifting generations that the template for male soloists has gone from Michael Jackson/Prince to Justin Timberlake. This feels like a major downgrade to me, but JT’s Justified is a legitimately great album and Haechan’s CRZY is heavily influenced by its lead single Like I Love You.
Haechan has one of my favorite voices in NCT. It has so much character and texture and his performance carries a natural sense of showmanship. Those strengths are well-suited to CRZY‘s lithe, guitar-driven presentation. On the whole, the song is fast-moving and fun. It relies more on vocal flavor than dynamic melody, but that’s par for the course when it comes to K-pop this year. The chorus is slight but effective, weaving through the strummed percussion of the guitar.
However, CRZY is such a Y2K homage that its more modern elements stand out in a negative way. I like the brief switch-up in verse two but don’t understand why the beat has to pull back so strikingly during the pre-choruses. This needlessly wastes momentum and triggers a reset rather than a thrilling continuation of the verse. And as punchy as the guitar is, CRZY‘s truncated refrain just can’t compete with the epic hooks it’s clearly inspired by. Luckily, Haechan’s effortless charisma carries the day.
Hooks
8
Production
8
Longevity
9
Bias
8
RATING
8.25