It takes three different people to help perfect the translation, but Taeyang is eventually satisfied with the explanation of his Down to Earth album title. Almost two decades after his music-industry debut, a time that’s included historic accolades such as being the first K-pop soloist to send a Korean-language album to the Billboard charts, the singer-songwriter-dancer emphasizes the details because now, more than ever, it’s personal.
Until last year, Taeyang and his generation-defining group BIGBANG (which BTS’ Suga recently cited as having “practically made” his chart-topping band) hadn’t released new music since 2018. TY’s last solo album, White Night from 2017, spent two weeks atop the World Albums chart and after the single “Louder” was released in conjunction with the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, the star began his mandatory military service for the country.
In what should have been a routine enlistment required for all able-bodied men, unforeseen events such as the departure of original bandmate Seungri and the COVID-19 pandemic canceling BIGBANG’s comeback performance for Coachella 2020 complicated a simple musical return. Frustrated with an inability to address the situations or express himself musically during enlistment, it nearly turned the star off from music entirely.
“It was a pretty devastating time for me,” Taeyang tells Billboard during a morning call from Seoul the weekend before Earth‘s release. “Five years ago, I couldn’t make music in the military. But it wasn’t just the outside limitations like the army or COVID. It was also internal and things going on in my personal life that were out of my control that made me even more anxious and that much harder to deal with the situation. At one point, I even thought, ‘Maybe this is the end of my career as an artist.’”
Not confident he’d find his voice as a more mature, now-married K-pop star with a boy band shaken up while serving his country, Taeyang struggled to find a viewpoint.
“I was unsure about what messages to put in the music,” he says, not naming any specific instance that affected him, but an overall unease during the period. “I couldn’t create a song with a ‘We are the best’ kind of message, and I also couldn’t make heartbreaking music. It was really awkward and weird. I had a lot of thoughts and was having quite a difficult time getting started. I contemplated a lot on the direction and story of the music, so I was stuck for a period of time where I could barely do anything.”
An unconventional approach was able to pull him out of his hole thanks to producers and other creatives at THEBLACKLABEL (the subsidiary agency under mega-label YG Entertainment, whose roster includes a range of Korean talents such as Zion.T, Jeon Somi, LØREN and, now, Taeyang), the star began to find his groove again.
“THEBLACKLABEL producers started making some music for me, really fun songs where we were just messing around with the music almost in a joking type of way,” the singer explains. “That’s how the process started, very organically. I was going through so much and I was being so serious about music, but the producer would throw out these funny melodies and lyrics. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s really fun.’ I’d respond to them like, ‘Oh, what about this? Like that?!?’ and we’d just be playing. I found the true joy of making music then. I was like, ‘This is really fun — let’s just start this way.’”
His super catchy, trap-heavy new single “Shoong!” with Lisa of BLACKPINK, Back to Earth‘s international focus track following Taeyang’s signing with Interscope Records, was created in this style and set the path for the project. “The song that played the most important role in making the album was ‘Shoong!’” he says. “That’s how the album process started.”
It all speaks to his all-important album title, Down to Earth, which Taeyang (whose real name is Dong Young Bae) landed upon for his most personal yet.
“Whenever I started the ideation for an album, I really did think it was important to use the sun as a main starting point,” he says, referencing his stage name (Taeyang means “sun” in Korean, and he performs in Japan as SOL, or sun in Spanish) as well as past solo records (Hot, Solar, Rise, White Night).
“But for this album, instead of it starting for ideation and choosing a concept necessary for the album, it really stemmed out of my life experiences,” he shares.
“There are a lot of limitations as to what you can do in the army. One of the things I found was to go for a run around the time the sun was setting. It wasn’t like I always loved running, but that was all I could do; I wasn’t really in control. One day, I saw a beautiful sunset I had never seen before in Korea, and a lot of thoughts crossed my mind. The sunset meets the darkness, right? It meets the night and I saw myself as the sunset because that was how my life was at that time. The setting sun can’t complain; it has no say in where it’s going. I found solace in that and realized that I could also meet my darkness in a similar way, and I decided to be more peaceful throughout these stressful experiences. I wanted to create a new morning, which meant resetting my approach and mindset.”
In the process of coming down to Earth, and returning to music, Taeyang notes how “going back to basics and going back to my core” during his time in the military comes through in new songs like the moving piano ballad “Seed,” a throwback to ’80s and ’90s South Korean music to let TY’s vocals shine unaccompanied, and the surging feel-good anthem “Inspiration” with clever references to his biggest artistic influences. Undoubtedly one of Taeyang’s tightest collections to date, Down to Earth not only sounds like an artist refreshed and reminded of his superstar abilities but also one who’s back to expressing himself in the only way he knows how.
Read on for more from Taeyang’s journey, including his favorite new song, reaction to hitting the Hot 100 and comforting news on what’s next.
First, congratulations on entering the Hot 100 with “Vibe” earlier this year. It was both your and Jimin‘s first entry. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?
Taeyang: I was at home eating lunch with my family when I first heard the news. I was pretty startled at first and didn’t quite understand what that meant because, well, I had been away for so long. It didn’t hit me that hard — not that I wasn’t thankful, but I wasn’t sure about the degree of successfulness. I had to call my producers and ask what it meant. They said, “Oh, this is such an amazing result,” and that’s when I really realized.
It’s been a long time since my last comeback and, thankfully, K-pop and the industry have grown a lot, so I was unsure to what the new standard of how a track does well. But I put all my best in it and to be able to get such a nice result with Billboard, it’s quite a miracle. And it was possible through the people that I works with; I was really glad to have gotten such good feedback for “Vibe,” but I did not expect that.
Do you have any new reflections on “Vibe” now that it’s been out for a few months?
After “Vibe” was completed, the specific plans for the album and the timing of the release were all set. The fact that I collaborated with Jimin is very, very special and, on top of that, “Vibe” played a huge role in completing my album. It’s a meaningful song to me and I am very grateful.
It’s pretty impressive to have a BTS member featured on your album and a BLACKPINK member with Lisa on “Shoong!” It feels like only Taeyang could pull this off.
Actually, it’s not that I planned to get features from BLACKPINK and BTS in one album. It was a very natural process. And I’m really, really thankful for that.
Tell me about the Korean focus track “Seed.” It has that classic Taeyang ballad vibe.
Although K-pop has a certain image now, like what the current generation now knows as K-pop with boy groups and girl groups, what I believe is true to K-pop is the golden era of the ’80s and ’90s [music in South Korea] because music from that era was entirely in Korean and the lyrics are really beautiful. I thought it’d be good to express in that modern way.
That’s how [BIGBANG’s 2022 comeback single] “Still Life” was created. After that song was released, I read a lot of comments from fans and thought about how I could express my thoughts honestly in my new solo music [too]. That’s how “Seed” was created too. If you listen, you can tell that I had a lot of thoughts and feelings put into the song. I’m expressing the feelings of what I went through in the past, but there’s also what I see and think about the future.
“Inspiration” feels very special for shoutouts to artists we know you love, like Michael Jackson. What went into this song?
“Inspiration” is the song I created with Beenzino, a friend I met during the military. He’s a really great rapper, and we share many similarities, so I wanted to collaborate with him. I’ve always wanted to create a song with the color and mood of Michael Jackson and Prince for a song about what I am most inspired by in my own life. I wanted to connect the dots and all the sources of my inspiration, I mentioned the artists’ names from all different genres, but I tried to combine them into one story and in the lyrics.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?
Wow, that’s really hard to say because every song is my own, but if I have to pick one, it would be the last track, “Nightfall” featuring Bryan Cha$e, because it describes my thoughts very well on my album. Many fans like the intros of my albums, but in this EP, I do not have an intro. When I first started to work on “Nightfall,” I thought of putting it as the intro to my album, but when I was finishing creating the song, I thought it should be an outro as the mood of the song really fits as the outro — it explains about the album and my thoughts.
Earlier this year, you and Suga of BTS bonded over how you write out what’s on your mind, which shaped your lyrics on Down to Earth. What are you writing about lately?
I am really, really busy these days due to promotional activities, so I don’t have much to write. [Laughs] But I can say, thankfully, after finishing this album, I already have a vision for the upcoming albums and about the theme, concept and mood. I’m already gathering the thoughts to motivate myself for the next album.
