Big Mama

The title track of their debut album, the song that announced the group's beginnings and its resolve to win with nothing but singing, no flashy performance.

• The introduction opens with quiet piano and strings, and as the song moves toward its second half the band arrangement thickens, building the emotion layer by layer.
• The verse (the stanza) flows in a low, restrained tone, and then in the chorus (refrain) the four voices stack up layer upon layer and burst open as if exploding.
• Late in the song, the ad-lib (a passage sung freely, following the emotion rather than a set melody) pushed upward by the member who carries the high notes is a moment talked about at every live show.
• The band sound of real instruments, common in ballads of the early 2000s, fills the production throughout.

A song from the same debut album, painting more passionately a heart that cannot accept a breakup.

• The drums and guitar of the opening first establish the tension of the whole song, and the vocals press the emotion harder and harder on top of them.
• In the short breath-catching passage just before the chorus (the pre-chorus), the harmonies grow denser, foreshadowing the next climax.
• A structure in which the four trade lines back and forth, one phrase each, was a device the group often used in its early songs.

A track from the third album, For The People, it was this song, rather than the showier title track, that was loved for years as something like the group's signature song.

• The Hanja character in the title, 捐 (yeon), carries the meaning 'to take away, to cast off,' and the whole song quietly follows the feeling of setting something down.
• The arrangement, which holds back the accompaniment and puts the voices in front, makes the listener hear the texture of the emotion before any flashy technique.
• The high notes lifted in the chorus are often described as closer to pushing outward while holding back than to bursting out in a shout.
• Though it was never a title track, it has long been counted among fans as a 'true masterpiece.'

The title track of the fourth album, Blossom, released after the move to a new agency, it was a song with broad popular strength, well received even on the digital charts.

• With a crisper rhythm and a simpler chorus melody than their earlier albums, it leads with an easy-to-sing pop sensibility.
• The contrast in temperature between verse and chorus is designed to be wide, so that the song suddenly opens up the moment it passes from the restrained verse into the chorus.

A song from the first album, Like The Bible (2003), it is counted as Lee Young-hyun's own signature song, written, composed and sung by Lee.

• Long stretches carry the song on the voice alone, with the accompaniment pared to a minimum, so the singer's breath and expressiveness are laid bare.
• The long-held high note at the climax is often said to be less a display of technique than a wringing out of emotion.
• The song's mood lived on among fans for so long that a sequel, “After Resignation (後),” eventually followed.

The group's final single, it drew attention on its release as a song composed by producer Jung Seok-won, formerly of 015B, with lyrics by Yoon Jong-shin.

• Like clearing out a drawer, as the title suggests, the song flows in a calm, monologue-like voice instead of a passionate cry.
• The arrangement centers on piano and strings that spread out with a wide sense of space, showing the bearing of a restrained pop ballad.
• Set against the explosive chorus of their debut single, the low, composed tone of the final track was said to lay bare the nine years that had passed.

The digital single that announced the full lineup's return after nine years, confirming that the group still sang in harmony.

• Its arrangement, which spreads the song evenly across all four voices, carries forward the attitude of their debut years, when the strength of the whole group mattered more than any single star.
• In step with an era when music is consumed mainly through streaming and YouTube, it follows the recent K-pop convention of bringing in the vocals right after a brief intro.
• The moment when four voices, reunited after a long absence, lock together without a trace of awkwardness is singled out as the key thing to listen for.