Boohwal

The song that first introduced Boohwal to the world, from the debut album made after the unknown Lee Seung-chul joined. Here began the Boohwal grammar of pairing a hard band sound with a plaintive melody.

• An analog band recording from the 1980s, with guitar, drums, bass and keyboards playing together. Its rough texture, so unlike today’s smoothly polished sound, is worth listening for.
• The clear, straight high notes of Lee Seung-chul, then in the early twenties, lead the song. Heard alongside the thicker voice of the later solo years, they show how a singer changed over time.
• A tender way of speaking, as if calling to someone who has gone, rests on a rock arrangement. It is counted among the songs that showed group sound could hold the emotion of a ballad.

Loved alongside “Heeya” on the first album, it already holds the lyrical, reminiscent mood that Kim Tae-won would delve into more deeply on the second.

• A slow tempo that echoes the loneliness of a rainy day rests on a gentle guitar accompaniment. Kim Tae-won’s distinctive, delicate guitar grain comes through clearly.
• A song in the first person, as if someone were turning past memories over alone. Rather than bursting out, the vocal builds its feeling calmly.
• A recording from the days of listening on LPs and cassette tapes. The warm sound, its high end not polished too bright, belongs to that era.

The posthumous song of Kim Jae-ki, who died while the third album was being recorded. In 1994, sung on stage by younger brother Kim Jae-hee in Kim Jae-ki’s place, it took first place on music chart programs seven times.

• The voice heard here belongs to Kim Jae-ki, who died after the recording. A tone at once clear and deep envelops the entire song.
• A rock-ballad structure that begins quietly, then fills with band sound at the chorus (the part of a song repeated most forcefully). It became the model for Boohwal ballads in the 1990s.
• A song that calmly confides the pain that grows as love deepens. Because of the story behind it, listeners also took it as a song of remembrance.
• In an era when CDs and cassettes sold side by side, much of the credit for the third album selling more than 1 million copies goes to this song.

Title track of the fifth album, which Kim Tae-won said was written at the fishing spots visited with Park Wan-kyu. After the fourth album faltered, it was the song that brought Boohwal back before the public.

• A guitar riff (a short, repeated guitar phrase) that lands with weight from the very first note sets the song’s character. The rock force is far stronger than in the third album’s ballads.
• Park Wan-kyu’s high, piercing voice is the core. The singer’s vocal power is said to have shaped the song. The high notes of the chorus bear that out.
• A delivery that cries out the feelings of a lonely night rather than holding them back. Though it too is a song of parting, its grain is the very opposite of the quiet composure of “The More I Love.”

Title track of the eighth album, made with Lee Seung-chul in a reunion after 15 years. Said to have been written by Kim Tae-won out of longing for family, it gave Lee Seung-chul a first music-show number one in 13 years.

• It opens with a calm introduction led by piano and strings, and the band sound gradually builds in. This is the arrangement style of the big ballads of the early 2000s.
• In place of the clear high notes of the singer’s twenties, you hear the deepened voice of Lee Seung-chul. It is a way of singing that husbands the breath and carries the emotion through to the very end.
• The sound piles up and swells toward the final chorus, so in concert it became the passage the audience sings along to.
• A song that renders longing for someone far away through the image of a story that never ends. It went on to win the lyrics·composition award at that year’s KBS Music Awards.

A track from Part 1 of the 12th album, released for the band's 25th anniversary. Jung Dong-ha sang it, and the song won the rock music award at that year's Mnet Asian Music Awards.

• Jung Dong-ha's smooth yet sturdy, clear tenor stands in front, with the band's playing holding it up from behind. It captures the sound of Boohwal in the Jung Dong-ha era.
• It follows the rock-ballad form Boohwal had long refined, climbing from a quiet verse (the section that unfolds the story) to a powerful chorus.
• It speaks in the voice of recollection, of a past love suddenly called to mind. It sounds as though the feeling Kim Tae-won first set down in "Recollection" on the 2nd album still carries on some 20 years later.

The title track of Part 1 of the 14th studio album, released 14 years after the 13th. It opens with the voice of the returning Park Wan-kyu.

• The song begins with Park Wan-kyu's voice. Heard alongside the young voice of 1997's "Lonely Night," it carries a depth that only the years could leave.
• Kim Tae-won said he had poured into the album the emotion he felt from the childlike innocence of the animated film The Snowman. It is striking that a band marking its 40th anniversary chose innocence as its theme.
• The music video was directed by Lee Jae-han. Though the song arrived in the age of streaming and YouTube, it was conceived as one chapter of a studio album.