Flavor Profile: NELL

I had every intention after doing the Flavor Profile on Dreamcatcher last year to continue this as a regular series, but alas that was not in the cards. However, I am forcing it into the cards this year. This month I’m focusing on an indie/alt rock band out of Korea, NELL.

NELL and I haven’t been with each other for that long, but the time we’ve spent has been magical and wonderful, and I think everyone deserves to be listening to the greatness that is this band.

NELL is not a new group by any stretch of the imagination, as they’ve been together since 2001, consisting of the same four original members:

-Kim Jong Wan (김종완): Vocals, guitar, keyboard
-Lee Jae Kyung (이재경): Guitar
-Lee Jung Hoon (이정훈): Bass, keyboard
-Jung Jae Won (정재원): Drums

While performing at a club, Seo Taiji scouted them to be the first band on the label Goesoo Indigene (under his entertainment company). In 2006 they signed with Woolim Entertainment until 2016 when they moved to their own independent company, Space Bohemian. NELL has released 11 studio albums, and 3 EPs as well as a slew of singles and songs for OSTs (Good Wife, Beautiful Gong Shim, and 2 Weeks).

NELL is nothing like Dreamcatcher in the way that they aren’t an idol group (with all the extra things that idols have), and there is sadly not a lot of interviews and information out there about them outside of their work, so I’m going to spend the rest of the post talking about some of my favorite songs and videos from them. Much like DAY6, there isn’t a bad NELL song, so it’s easy to focus on how incredible their music is.

I‘m not lying when I say that I can listen to any song at any time, but since they do have such an extensive amount of music I decided to go through what’s on Spotify and made a playlist of my faves:

But my favorite song of the moment has to be ‘The great escape’.

Since they both were at Woolim at the same time, NELL has done some collabs with Epik High. My favorite is ‘Lost One’.

But this unreleased song, ‘Untitled’, is really good too:

Basically any NELL x Epik High collab is worth a listen.

They just released an album last October, “Colors in Black”, which is fantastic (it made it to my end of the year top album list), but my current favorite album is their album, “C”.

I made a playlist of all their MVs and tried to put it in order when released, but it’s not essential to watch them in any sort of order. I just felt it would be beneficial to see their change in music and development. Some of the older music videos are harder to find, but there’s plenty NELL out there to consume:

I know sitting through the entire playlist can be pretty daunting (it’s a lot), so I pulled out some of my favorites that I think are worth watching:

-‘White night’ stars Im Soo Jung, who was just in the drama Search WWW. I enjoyed how brutal the music video is with the lyrics about heartbreak and the longing of wanting someone back in your life again with the feeling of it consuming you: your life falling apart and your inability to breathe.

-I really like when their videos have a focused plot, and ‘Four times around the sun’ does this exceptionally well. The song is about heartbreak, and not getting over lost love and the video really conveys that message, in a very dreamy almost storybook way.

-’Star Shell’ has that really cool 90’s vibe to it with the camera footage and how it’s just random clips of random people. It actually fits the song nicely in that way, as it has an older rock/grungy vibe to it. The song is about not allowing others to hold you back in what you want to do, no matter. “Lift up your head, raise up your voice. You’re stronger and more beautiful than anyone else”. I really like it a lot.

-Not only is the animation in the ‘Full Moon’ video incredible, the song is incredible. It is a very close second to ‘The great escape’ on my top songs list.

-’See U In Five’ is from their newest album, and the music video is just so magical as the members are shown to be performing underwater in the ocean with whales and fish swimming around, almost as if they are a sunken ship that is stuck in the same position as when it sunk. The song is about missing someone and trying to find the time to go see them. The literal “We haven’t seen each other in a while, we should meet up” but never can find the time, and the realization that time is slipping away and there aren’t more chances to meet. I just love the way they decided to show the effect as it’s more of an overlay. It’s almost got the same storybook feel as ‘Four times around the sun’.

And finally, I’m going to leave you with some extra videos of NELL performing live, because NELL is really great live. I hope this post gave you a little bit more of a path to help guide you in the greatness that is NELL and help understand the type of musicians NELL are and got a true sense of their musical style. They are an insanely talented group and deserve way more attention.

+++