SHINee is scheduled to make a comeback this month with their highly-anticipated third album, "Dream Girl". Their third studio album will be split into two chapters. The first chapter titled "Dream Girl - The Misconceptions of You" will be released digitally on the 18th and physically on the 20th; the second chapter titled "Dream Girl - The Misconceptions of Me" will be released sometime in April. Both chapters contain 9 songs each, for a total of 18 songs combined.
Introduction
To hype up the release of their comeback after 11 months, Melon created the "SHINee Music Spoiler" event at Olympus Hall on the 14th. A music critic, composer, music program PD, fashion editor, members of the press, and more were present at the event and expressed their interest in SHINee's new album. The 100 fans in attendance were able to listen to six of the nine new tracks on "Dream Girl" prior to the official release, as well as a song and a medley of three songs from Chapter 2. SHINee put on fantastic live performances and held a brief Q&A session at the event. Two of the directors for the album also made an appearance to give a basic explanation about the concepts and meanings behind the project. Director Lee Sungsoo from SM Entertainment's producing department shared information about the songs and their meanings, while Director Min Heejin from SM Entertainment's visual and art directing department introduced SHINee's visual concept.
Message to Fans
Jonghyun
Thank you for coming~~^^ This music was prepared with a lot of effort.
I hope the music will make you excited. Please listen to it~~!
Minho
Thank you very much for coming to our music spoiler~
We’ll become an improving SHINee. Be careful of the cold in this chilly weather~^^
Taemin
Thank you for coming. We’ll show you good performances through our promotions in the future.
Onew
For coming here personally to listen to our music, thank you.
It’s an album we created by working hard with a lot of staff.
Please enjoy it.
Key
We’re releasing a full album for the first time in a while.
We worked hard to prepare it and to add a lot of the members’ opinions and colors.
Please listen to it and have a good evaluation on it.
Spoiler
At 5PM, the lights dimmed in the venue and the first song "Spoiler" began to play. It is the first track of the album and Jonghyun participated in writing the lyrics. Key hinted, "The first track 'Spoiler', which Jonghyun hyung wrote the lyrics to, introduces a lot of the concepts in our album." It includes all the names of the 18 songs off the two albums. Director Lee shared that the introduction from the hybrid track "Sherlock" can be found in "Spoiler", which had been planned since the beginning. He explained, "We created 'Sherlock' by merging 'Clue' and 'Note' into one song. This time, we experimented with combining two albums of different personalities into one. So you can say this album is an extension of Sherlock."
SM Entertainment Producing Director
Director Lee said that this album was able to be created because SHINee's previous albums exist. He has worked with SHINee since their debut album and shared his perspective on how all of the staff and SHINee did their best while preparing the first album. For the "Romeo" album, it was Jonghyun's idea to create a storyline with the order of the songs. He wants fans to see this as an extension of "Sherlock". He revealed that "Sherlock" wasn't originally planned to be a hybrid of "Clue" and "Note". They tried around 20 combinations with different songs until they got the final product.
The third album is split into two chapters with Chapter 1 titled "The Misconceptions of You" and Chapter 2 titled "The Misconceptions of Me". Chapter 1 is about "my misconception of you", "the misconception of the world wrapped around me", and "the misconception of reality". The lyrics can be interpreted as the dreams, ideals, and visions of the world through SHINee's eyes. It showcases the original SHINee-esque side which everyone is familiar with. Chapter 2 is about "the misconception of me (SHINee)", "the dreams I slowly wanted for myself", and "the misconception of ideals". It evokes the gap between SHINee's reality and dreams and has an overall deep and dark sound, completely opposite of Chapter 1. It was revealed that there are hidden keywords that connect Chapters 1 and 2. Director Lee said, "We included a fun point where you can search for keywords and put them together to create several interpretations."
Hitchhiking + Punch Drunk Love
The second track that was played was "Hitchhiking", composed by the same person behind Girls' Generation's "Genie" and "I Got A Boy". The song is about taking a time machine in order to find love that has been scattered throughout outer space. Along with the members' adlibs and unique lyrics, the song features the use of an analogue synthesizer. Fans who heard the song said it's the highest in terms of pitch out of all their songs. "Punch Drunk Love" was another song that was revealed today. The song compares falling in love to boxing and contains bright lyrics, a cute melody, and a lot of harmonies. Contrary to the first two songs, "Punch Drunk Love" created a smoother atmosphere in the venue.
SM Entertainment's Visual and Art Director
Director Min had a vision for SHINee to escape from the typical concepts done by SME. She wanted to develop a fun image for SHINee and aimed to have them break away from the basic idol image. An artist’s visuals do not solely depend on their stage outfits. Establishing an identity was crucial, so the Director stressed a creative spin on a natural and free approach. Nothing was ever done or created without a reason and she enjoys it when fans interpret those points.
In order to not give off the vibes of an SM artist, they usually ask underground photographers, assistants, and even students who are passionate about their work. It's now common for the artist's label to collaborate with fashion designers for stage outfits but SHINee was actually the first artist in Korea to go that road when they started working with Ha Sangbaek. They even borrowed Ring Ding Dong stage outfits from Hongdae bands and filmed the Lucifer MV in a Hongdae studio.
When talking about "Sherlock", Director Min went straight to the topic of exposure. She said they didn't expose SHINee just for the sake of exposing them. Like she mentioned before, they simply wanted to show SHINee's natural side, having them be just as they are. The artwork within the album itself isn't meaningless. Director Min drew them based on the conversations she shared with the members or the thoughts she had about the members she sees on a regular basis.
"All the members are now adults so I wanted to give them a more serious look," Director Min shared. Their album jacket picture represents the members' fantasies. It encompasses the dream girl they're searching for as well as their inner selves. She did her best to help the members be able to use artwork to express what they couldn't describe through words.
The 'Dream Girl' is not simply just a girl. Director Min described the dream girl as a projection of SHINee. "When we look for ideal types, we usually find someone who is similar to us or completely different from us. So when we search for our dream person, we are actually searching for another side of us." To put it another way, it'd be, "Who is the me that I am looking for?"
Aside + Beautiful
The spoiler event continued with the spoilers of the powerful ballad "Aside" as well as the fresh and catchy song "Beautiful". "Aside" has actually been played in the background during the "SHINee's Wonderful Day" episodes along with "Dynamite" and "It's You".
Jacket Shooting + Making of MV
A video of the members on the set of their album jacket shoot and MV filming scene was shown. There was footage of them sleeping, waking up surprised and in a daze, then going back to sleep. A pony joined SHINee for the shoot as evident in the teaser pictures. Minho played with the pony a lot, even riding on its back and patting it on its head. Key, who was watching this scene, told Minho to act like this on a regular basis. So Minho patted Key’s head and told him how pretty he was.
Then came the MV filming footage. The matrix camera made its return to SHINee’s MV once again. There were three outfits that were evident: the first being casual wear, the second being colorful clothes similar to their teaser picture outfits, and the third being black and white suits.
Can’t Leave
The lights dimmed once again and the fans cheered for SHINee. They sang "Can't Leave" live which will be included in the Chapter 2. People were unable to take their eyes off of the members as they delivered a great performance full of emotion and fantastic harmonies.
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Talk Session
After they finished their only live performance of the night, Key shared that they were quite nervous and compared his feelings to when SHINee had just debuted. He hopes that there is a good a response because they worked very hard on it. Jonghyun revealed that the album is almost complete. It turns out that all of the members worked on the album in some aspect. Onew shared, "Minho and Key worked a lot on the making of the rap. Taemin focused on the choreography and Jonghyun on writing lyrics." The company and the members communicated well during the preparation process of the album and they are satisfied with the results.
Taemin described the album as one where each member's individuality shines through their voices. "We know each other best so a lot of our opinions went into this album," Taemin revealed. Jonghyun, who was beside Taemin, chimed in with, "Taemin's delivery of the lyrics is good. Minho's falsetto is really nice these days. Key is good at English. We know each other's strengths so we split the parts up according to who can shine on what. We had fun working on the album."
Q&A Session
A question board was brought on stage and each of the SHINee members picked a question.
Onew’s question was "Who do you think is the best looking in SHINee?" From 1st place to 5th place, he chose Key, Taemin, Jonghyun, himself, and Minho. Minho had on a serious expression when he found out he was 5th place. Onew explained, "Compared to my looks, he has no flaws. So I was jealous and picked him." However, Onew then made an unexpected change and told everyone to reverse the list, crowning Minho as the true 1st place victor among the members in terms of looks. Minho happily hugged Onew then wondered, "Did my expression change too drastically? I am happy." As for being in 5th place, Key asked, "Isn't this too unfair?" to which Onew told him, “It may be unfair but these are hyung's thoughts, so just listen.”
The second question chosen by Taemin was "What is SHINee's dream?" Taemin shared, "My dream is to find something happy. I want to find something I won't regret as I live." Onew said, "Dreaming about pigs is definitely the best!" Minho followed with, "It's already been 6 years since we debuted. As we grow older, I want to keep doing music together. SHINee itself is a dream." Jonghyun answered, "I want to be a musician. I want to sing and play instruments. I want to let many people listen to my story. I still think I'm in the learning stage and I'm going to do music until I die." Onew joked around again and commented, "I hope you do your best so you can play the piano with your hair." Key answered, "I want to live well no matter what. I want to have fun and be happy."
Jonghyun’s question asked if there are any fun stories while shooting “SHINee’s Wonderful Vacation”. He went to an amusement park in Japan and was having fun. But as time went by, more and more people began to recognize him. Jonghyun ended up wearing a Spiderman mask and played to his heart’s content. Key asked if he’s talking about the mask that is currently in his room to which Jonghyun confirmed.
The following question asked what their secret weapon is to which Minho responded, "The album itself will be our weapon. We'll show two different colors for the albums and want to hear that we're able to digest such a type of music." He smiled as he said there are a lot of nice songs and that we should look forward to them.
Key’s question asked whether SHINee still does their chant (“We are going, ultra SHINee transformation!”) before going on stage and to do it now. Key said they still do it. Onew made it up in 3 minutes when they were in the car. Since they started with it, they said they can’t change it anymore. One of the members said it’d be funny if they do the chant when they’re 30 years old. Onew said he has five years left until he’s 30, to which Key responded, “You only have that much left?” He then proceeded to pick another question from the board which read, “Why are you so good looking?” Key smirked with an “Oh, stop it.” Then SHINee got together to show the audience their chant. Everyone did it loud and clear but Jonghyun was being sloppy so Minho teased him about how he wasn’t doing it properly and how he’s embarrassed about the chant. Jonghyun defended himself by saying it’s not true and that his pronunciation is usually bad.
Chapter 2 Medley
Chapter 2 will be released sometime in April but fans at the event had the opportunity to listen to a medley of 3 of the songs. It definitely had a darker vibe than the songs they heard thus far.
Dream Girl
The dance track "Dream Girl" was created by Joombas Music Factory who has worked with Justin Bieber in the past. Producer Shin Hyuk revealed that "Dream Girl" is of an acid electro funk genre. SHINee's powerful choreography and dancing skills have always been highly praised by the public. "Dream Girl" was choreographed by "Sherlock" mastermind, Tony Testa. He included standing mics for this dance which is a new challenge for SHINee. A video was shown where the group was practicing the "Dream Girl" choreography in their practice room. They dragged around the stands almost the entire time, pushing it away with their foot and bringing it back. It is yet another restless choreography that is sure to impress the fans and the public.
Ending
SHINee came back on stage to bid everyone goodbye. Onew has supposed to say “Melon Premium” but instead said “Melon Promise” and gave everyone a good laugh. Jonghyun covered for him by saying, “It means we should make a promise.” Onew continued with his ending speech, thanking everyone for coming to the spoiler event and telling them to look forward to their album release.
Sources: Asia Today, Review Star, Sports Seoul, StarNews, Yeonhap News, Fanaccounts 1, 2
Written by: kimchi hana @ shineee.net
Edited by: joAnnwashere @ shineee.net
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