Yoon Ha, a ‘music ecosystem’ restorer resembling a puffer fish… 3D practical ability that surpasses 2D theory :: Sympathetic Media Newsis ::

20th anniversary of debut this year… 7th regular album ‘Growth Theory’ Hwa-ryong-jeom-jeong

I started working after getting inspiration from the mangrove trees I found in Australia.

Debuted in Japan in 2004 with the first single “Yubikiri”

Re-examining the worldview of singers after ‘Event Horizon’ in 2022

“Exploring is the ‘realm of Nodaji'”

“I want to collaborate with aespa… I can’t refuse Karina”

“I’m also thinking about going into the producing field”

(Seoul = Newsis) Reporter Lee Jae-hoon = The world view filled with the solid narrative of singer Yoonha (Go Yoon-ha) is not two-dimensional.

It makes us realize that the place we currently live in is three-dimensional, and that time is added to create a fourth dimension. Younha, who is celebrating her 20th debut anniversary this year, released her seventh full-length album ‘GROWTH THEORY’ to commemorate this, and it solves this high-dimensional equation.

As proven by ‘Event Horizon’, which has been brought back into the spotlight while going against the grain, Younha’s rock music is imbued with a sense of nostalgia, a sense of longing for the past. ‘Growth Theory’, released on the 1st, the 20th anniversary of her debut, is the second installment of Younha’s ‘Theory’ trilogy, which was presented 2 years and 10 months after her 6th album ‘END THEORY’ released in November 2021.

Younha debuted in Japan before she did in Korea. On September 1, 2004, at the age of 16, she released her first single “Yubikiri” in Japan. The following year, she entered the upper ranks of the Oricon daily single chart with “Hokiboshi” (Comet), earning her the nickname “Oricon Comet.” She played the piano and guitar herself, presenting a band sound, and became synonymous with “teen rock” or “teen pop.”

In 2006, she released her domestic debut single, “Audition.” Her representative song, “Waiting,” was included in this single. In particular, Younha was brought back into the spotlight as the title song, “Event Horizon,” from the repackaged album, “End Theory: Final Edition,” released in March 2022, caused a reverse-run syndrome.

Younha has also been celebrating her 20th anniversary this year. Starting with her first KSPO DOME solo concert, she successfully completed the nationwide tour ‘Twenty’ and the small theater concert ‘Younha (潤夏): Shining Summer’. Currently, Younha is presenting a different kind of music appreciation through the ‘2024 TEAMBOTTA Exhibition ‘Howlim: Arim’s Time’ DIRECT BY YOUNHA X TEAMBOTTA’ to commemorate her 20th anniversary.

This album goes through all of these processes. It contains a total of ten songs, including the title song ‘Sun Fish’, and Younha’s gaze, which combines science with music, is turned towards the ocean and its various creatures.

In particular, Younha used storytelling to tell the grand journey of a girl, a puffer fish, and a small, old yacht in this album, which she produced.

‘Sunfish’, which delivers the message that it is enough to follow the path that you fiercely believe is right rather than the evaluation or standards of others, with the material of puffer fish (SUNFISH), swims through ‘Mangrove’ reminiscent of a waltz, ‘Spiral of Death’ made up of intense rock sounds, ‘Cape Horn’ for those who take on challenges, ‘Eunhwa’ combining the sounds of accordion, whistle, janggu, and kkwaenggwari, ‘Curse of the Rocket Equation’ with a brisk rhythm, ‘Coriolis Force’ sung with a cynical vocal, ‘Life Review’ that heightens emotions with dreamy sounds, ‘Shadow of the Cloud’ about separation and memories, and ‘New Year’s Wind’ about gaining courage on your own, leaping toward the sun above the sea.

Yoonha’s latest ‘Growth Theory’, which deals with growth theory, seeks coexistence through better solidarity through this process. This is actually a matter of faith. The belief that if we sing of hope, the world will become better. Yoonha uses this as a driving force and seeks practice through songs, not theories. Like the mangrove forests that serve as breakwaters along the coast and protect us from storms, it instills the will that music will protect us firmly and makes the tree of faith grow. It is moving toward the restoration of the ecosystem. This is also connected to our healthy popular music market. In the domestic music industry, where genre bias is particularly severe, Yoonha has been going back and forth between various fields like a puffer fish and has been steadfastly enriching the ecosystem with her music. The following is a Q&A between Yoonha and reporters at a recent cafe in Jung-gu, Seoul.

-I’m curious about your thoughts on the album release and 20th anniversary.

“I worked on it for a whole year. Thanks to the (big hit) ‘Event Horizon,’ my company was very understanding. I secured enough time to work without being overwhelmed by too many schedules. So this time, I did what I really wanted to do without regrets. It became the most spectacular album in my discography. I don’t know when our 20th anniversary came. ’20th anniversary’ makes me sound so middle-aged, so I decided to think of it as my ‘second twenties.’ When I think about ‘what I want to do when I’m twenties again,’ I get really excited. So I’m doing whatever I want without any regrets. I went on a trip to Australia in the middle of working on it. I recharged a lot then. I was very impressed by the nature. The first song I worked on out of the songs on the album was (the first track) ‘Mangrove.’ After that song, I was sure that I could work like this.”

-What specifically did you want to do?

“I’m still searching for it. There are many cases where ‘I want to do this’ and actually doing it are different. This time, I entered the gymnastics stadium (Keith Podome) that I wanted to do, so I’m looking forward to going there one or two more times. I want to try working on something that large. And I wanted to make this album a ‘rock album.'”

-This album feels like it’s focused on the Earth.

“The full story will be revealed in the repackage. I started working on it in more detail starting from the last album repackage. There’s a girl. She could be a projection of me. There’s a scene where this friend is in a classroom with a comet that’s about to crash into Earth, and the comet sees the girl and enters a black hole, sacrificing itself. The story begins when the girl, who had been on the edge of a cliff for a long time, realizes reality as she sees the comet she had been communicating with disappear into a black hole. She can’t miss those things forever, so she comes to her senses when she returns to the real world. After that, she’s on a cliff over the sea and wonders ‘which path should I take’, and then she sees a ‘mangrove’ tree and gains courage. The story begins from there.”

-Netizens come up with various interpretations of Yoona’s albums, lyrics, and titles online.
“I tried to give it a deeper title with the feeling of ‘Take this bait’. In the past, there was a culture where it was felt that the topics I dealt with were maniacal topics, but these days, I feel like it has expanded into an area that anyone can chew on, listen to, and savor, so I’m personally very happy.”

-‘Event Horizon’ has become such a hot topic that I think you’ve had a lot of different thoughts.

“When I entered the top 100 of the charts, I felt a sense of relief. I felt proud and good thinking, ‘I worked hard so they’re listening to me like this.’ But when (the chart rankings) started to go up, I was scared. Since I stayed at the top for a long time, I thought, ‘Oh, this may not have been achieved through my efforts. This is just luck.’ I started to feel a sense of indebtedness and I think I felt a lot of pressure from that. I started to worry about things like, ‘What efforts should I make next?’ and ‘I should do something at least to return the love I’ve received, but what should that be?’ I think I started to feel anxious from then on. But I thought that I should work quickly rather than raising my price. When you say something like that, companies usually don’t accept it well because it’s a business relationship. But the company was very understanding and gave me a lot of time, so I went to Australia. In fact, I went to see the Milky Way. But there was something that you can’t see in Korea. There is a mysterious tree called a mangrove. It is said to be a tree that grows by drinking salt water. So I started to empathize with the tree. I became interested in how the sea creatures and microorganisms come and go through several ebb and flow tides, and how they sacrifice themselves to create their habitat. I wondered what the life of a tree that cannot move while being soaked in salt water would be like. I thought about what it would feel like if it had a personality, and I felt that what I felt was small. So I started working while thinking, ‘Don’t be too burdened, let’s get back to what I have to do.’ Someone told me not to go near the mangrove tree because it smells bad. There are many pretty trees like lime, orange, and lemon trees, but I became attached to the mangrove and I also received support.”

-The title song ‘Sunfish’ is taken from the English name for the puffer fish, sunfish. Why the puffer fish out of all the fish?

‘I think that’s where the emotion lies. I knew that the pufferfish is weak and dies quickly, but I didn’t know its English name was ‘sunfish’. I thought I should learn more about this guy, so I looked up a lot of information, and there were a lot of things I didn’t know and misunderstood, and this guy is more amazing than I thought. Ordinary fish have a set range, right? This guy moves back and forth from the surface of the water to about 800m deep, and has the luminous nature of deep-sea creatures. It’s like luminescence. It also shines when it receives sunlight. Its lifespan is 20 years as an adult, so it coincided with my 20th anniversary. More than anything, I thought, ‘This guy could be like the sun of the sea.’ I want to be a great person as vast as the sky, and an infinite person who can do anything, but reality is not like that, so there are many painful moments. But I began to think that even if I couldn’t aim for the sky, I could at least aim for the sea that leads to the sky, and I could at least try to become the sun of the sea.”

-After 20 years of doing it, is there anything you feel like you know what a singer is?

“Singers seem to be people who just have to sing. These days, I think a lot about ‘what is real art?’ In fact, art is not in the realm of ‘food, clothing, and shelter.’ It is in the realm of luxury. Here, I worry a lot about ‘what kind of value should I give it?’ and especially ‘when giving something in a capitalist society, it shouldn’t be too idealistic.’ That’s when I started thinking of myself as a ‘machete craftsman.’ I will continue to write songs and continue to sing, but I think it’s important not to get tired as much as possible. People often say ‘row when the water comes in.’ But if you only row when the water comes in, your forearm muscles might get damaged. Thinking of it as a long-term race and finding a line where you can do this consistently is equally important regardless of your job. I hope I can find that and continue singing.”

-Why do so many people like Yoon Ha for a long time?

“I think luck really is a thing. I also think that it was all just luck. These days, the people I’m so thankful for are my fans. I decided to call them ‘Holics’, and they’ve worked so hard. They’ve seen singers go through slumps, seen them struggle while changing companies, and shared their various worries with them. In fact, if they’re not family, you give up on them. There were many times when I felt sorry. But no matter what they said, they never left and continued to raise this singer, so I’m grateful. Sometimes when I think about that, I feel like crying. I’m so thankful that they waited for me and supported me until I reached a certain level. When I performed at the sold-out gymnastics stadium, I thought that this is what a wedding would feel like, even though I’ve never been married before. When you have a wedding, you feel like you have this many relatives. It felt like even people who just passed by came and said ‘congratulations’.”

-There is almost no English in the lyrics of this album. You use mostly Korean, Hangul. It was also the first time I saw the song title, ‘Saeokbaram’ (Wind blowing from the east).

“I’ve always admired rock stars since I was young, so I’ve thought, ‘Why wasn’t I born overseas?’ There are countries where bands are the foundation and guitarists are popular. I think I resented that a little bit when I was young. But I think it’s just that times were different. The world has opened up through the internet, BTS is very active, and Korean singers are promoting our country’s prestige, so many people are listening to Korean music. So I think, ‘Now you guys should be jealous too.’ It’s like, ‘We have such beautiful words.’ While searching for my own charm, our own charm, I was born and raised in Korea, so I can express it in Korean. Since foreigners might not know, I thought I should work with more pride in this. There are parts in the song where English has to be used. For example, the word ‘rocket’, or to bring out the nuance and rhythm. But I try to work in Korean whenever possible.”

-Younha wrote the lyrics for all the other songs alone, but for ‘Eunhwa’, her younger sister, Go Yoonjin (CEO of Production Artrack), was listed as a co-lyricist.

“I had a few lines of lyrics left. I couldn’t think of any, so I asked my younger brother, who is a writer, ‘If you think of something good, can you write down a few lines?’ and that’s how it was completed.”

-‘Eunhwa’ used various instruments such as accordions, whistles, janggu, and kkwaenggwari.

“‘Eunhwa’ is not a song that came from just my idea. I could never have made it alone. It’s a song that makes me think that the performer should also have the copyright. My friends who play multiple instruments were so excited that they brought all the instruments and spread them out like this, saying, ‘Choose one and I’ll play it for you,’ and that’s how it ended. It was a fun project.”

-You seem to be serious about exploring theory.

“The driving force behind my work is curiosity. For me, exploring is a ‘realm of nostalgia.’ I didn’t graduate from high school properly, so I took the qualification exam. In fact, I went to middle school sporadically because I was going to auditions. In college, my professor was nice, so he let me graduate. I never really studied properly. But I don’t think I’ve ever had fun learning like this, except for entertainment. When I stepped into this field and started looking at this and that, the algorithm only showed things like that. It’s so much fun to look at. It’s also great to compare what scholars say. Also, the listeners these days are incredibly sophisticated.”

-What was the biggest difference between this album and the last one?

“I thought it would be a bit more extravagant this time, and I wish it could be a bit more tangible. For the 6th album, I wanted it to feel like you were in some kind of subconscious or dream, like ‘Inception,’ but for this album, I wanted it to feel like you were really in the ocean. I wanted it to feel like you were on a boat together, and I thought it would be nice if it was to the point where you couldn’t tell if it was fantasy or reality. When mixing, I used methods that brought the vocals forward evenly instead of pushing them back.”

-Do you and the puffer fish have anything in common?

“I’m similar to Koragseongi, who dabbles in everything from the surface to the deep sea. I’m especially greedy musically, so when I get greedy, I dig into every genre. I haven’t tried everything from ballads and rock to hip-hop, but I’ve done featuring, fashionable music, and even EDM. As a result, when asked, “What comes to mind when you think of Younha?”, answers varied greatly depending on the generation. Although I’ve come to the center since “Event Horizon” did well, I’ve always felt like an outsider in every genre. There are people who have roots in every genre. Isn’t there something like that in Gaepokchi?”

-I wonder if the trilogy was planned from the beginning. The 6th regular album ‘End Theory’ is the beginning of the trilogy, and this ‘Growth Theory’ is in the middle.

“At first, I didn’t plan on making it a trilogy, so I thought of ending it with just ‘End Theory’. But the conversation came up due to a business relationship, and I thought this could be an idea, so I thought it would be great if we didn’t think of the ending as the end, but rather developed it hopefully. Since we came from space (‘End Theory’) to the ocean and Earth (‘Growth Theory’), I think it would be nice to move to a smaller space next time. Like a home, a colony, or a family.”

-If you hadn’t done music, would you have become a scientist?

“I guess it didn’t work out because I didn’t study well. Haha.”

-Do you have a song of your own that gives you strength when you listen to it?

“I don’t listen to my songs that much, but sometimes I listen to them again by chance because the algorithm shows them up or people around me talk about them. In particular, ‘Comet’ was so embarrassing 10 years ago. Her fashion was weird, her shoulders were narrow, and she sang the song with a look in her eyes that said, ‘I won’t give up.’ But I had a chance to watch the song again recently, and I got emotional. I thought, ‘It must have been hard for her to go to Japan alone at that age and do that.’ I started to understand how her fans feel, and I felt grateful. Because she (former Younha) went to Japan, I am where I am today.”

– In the past, Yoon Ha seemed like a thoughtful and mature person, but a bit dark and cynical. But now, she seems brighter and more relaxed.

“In the past, I tried to figure out the answers on my own. I think I thought that was the fate of a musician, like ‘middle school syndrome.’ But when I tried to figure out the answers with this much of the world, something didn’t seem right. Little by little, my CEO (CEO Lee Jae-young of C9 Entertainment) taught me some ways to expand and communicate. Through many conversations, he taught me, ‘This is the way to communicate with people.’ That’s when I realized that what I knew wasn’t everything in the world. From then on, I was really excited. When I thought, ‘I don’t have to figure out the answers myself,’ ‘I just have to surrender like this,’ ‘There’s still a lot I don’t know, and I just have to figure it out,’ I felt hopeful.”

-20 years is the age when a person becomes an adult.

“You might be worried that I’ll sound like a veteran, but Mr. Cho Yong-pil is celebrating his 55th anniversary. So I’ll talk endlessly. I think enjoying the present moment is the right way to celebrate my 20th anniversary. I think that after a while, I’ll feel like ‘there’s no more youth.’ I feel like this is the starting point for my future musical world.”

-You have entered the concert world’s holy land, Case Podome. Is there anything else you would like to achieve?

“I think the first thing is ‘Let’s think fun and have fun’. Otherwise, there’s too much work and I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it. When you do something, there are things that come along as side effects. In the past, I thought, ‘I only wanted to do this…’ but now I think, ‘I can’t help it. I’m just going to do it all. Let’s have fun.’ That’s my mindset for the 20th anniversary.”

-You said that you want to continue to show what you see and feel by transforming it into music. Do you feel pressured to express that?

“I used to get really stressed out about that. I think I’ve gotten over it a bit now. I thought, ‘This isn’t just my problem.’ I lived with the delusion that it was just me. I used to think, ‘How lonely the fate of an artist is. How hard it is to not be able to have my own thoughts or ideas and to have to constantly spend time reconciling.’ When I look around me, I see that everyone is living that way. I realized that I’m not the only one who has it particularly hard.”

-When Yoonha debuted, her music was categorized as ‘subculture’ and ‘mania culture’. But Yoonha rose to the mainstream, and cultures that were previously considered subcultures also entered the mainstream.

“It’s so exciting. I loved it when QWER came out too. My friends did so well, but I also thought, ‘This is how it’s going to be?’ I also thought, ‘See, I told you so.’ Haha. People reacted to the sensibility that I liked by saying, ‘Something’s missing,’ or, ‘It doesn’t have a major feel.’ I thought, ‘What on earth is a major feel?’ I also felt sad that foreign singers, unless they’re great artists, don’t come to Korea very often. That’s because singers who tour small halls don’t come. I was also dissatisfied with the fact that various Japanese singers don’t come to Korea. But now, seeing various singers come and sell out their concerts in small halls, I feel so good.”

-If you were to collaborate with an idol group, which team would you choose?

“I’m aespa. Please tell that to aespa. They’re cool. And aespa has their own worldview, too. I think we can do something fun (if we collaborate). There are also cases of Disney and Pixar characters collaborating. I especially wonder how anyone could refuse Karina. She’s the best. I don’t think anyone can refuse Karina. Haha.”

-How satisfied are you with this album?

“There are some parts of the Master that are a bit disappointing, but I’m still 100% satisfied. I want the listeners to feel like they’ve become the main character of this world. When I looked at the comments yesterday, there were people who responded by saying, ‘I’m already the Pirate King.’ There are all kinds of things that happen in life. There are many times when unexpected and unexpected things happen. I also get so stressed out in those situations. When it becomes a part of my daily life, I become incredibly frustrated. I think it would be nice to have a place to rely on in those situations, and I think this album would be great.”

– Are there any additional projects you would like to try?

“I’ve been thinking about going into the producing field lately. I’ve been thinking realistically. I wonder if I can keep up this kind of performance. Of course, I’ll try, but I also have physical limitations.”

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