Wonder Girls return with 'Why So Lonely' to celebrate their 10th anniversary
Wonder Girls
By Kim Jae-heun
K-pop girl band Wonder Girls of JYP Entertainment Tuesday released its the new digital single “Why So Lonely,” the first title song produced by the team members on their own this time, not by their chief producer Park Jin-young.
Park has been writing hit songs like “Tell Me,” “So Hot” and “Nobody” for the group since its debut in 2007. When Wonder Girls decided to challenge a new genre last August, Park also wrote the main song for the girl group.
However, the chief producer agreed the team is ready to come up with its own title track this time.
“When we were working on our last album, Park told us that he won’t have to write songs for us anymore,” said Yeeun during an interview at STUDIO J in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on June 23. “We all have different taste in music, so we worked as a group of two. Sunmi and Hyerim wrote the song and Yubin worked on rap.”
The main song adopts reggae-pop dance genre with addictive guitar riff and changes of various rhythms. Yeeun said the group referred to British singer Lily Allen, who has adorable voice but sings witty lyrics that have twist in it. The album includes two more feature songs produced by all four members.
“Usually songs with fast tempo or powerful tunes are popular in summer. But we thought a slow song will distinguish us from others. The song is best to listen to while driving on the coastal side of the sea during a vacation,” said Sunmi.
“Park likes it a lot. He likes reggae music already and told us he likes the melody and it can appeal to people. The original chorus was more like modern rock music, but he advised us to play it more like reggae like that of our verse part,” said Yeeun. “Park also told us it would be nice to dance freely with the song like Rihanna.”
It took a year for the girl group to return after its activity with previous album “REBOOT.” Wonder Girls planed to release its new album in early March, but postponed until they were fully satisfied.
As a result, the group had more time to play instruments for album recording, while they hired instrumentalists for the last album. The team said they can release dance songs in the future like in the past, but for now, they want to keep pursuing a new genre they have not tried before.
The album is more meaningful to the members as it marks 10th anniversary since their debut.
“We have learned a lot, experienced a lot and now we are writing for our own album whereas producers wrote songs for us before. This is really amazing,” said Sunmi.
Asked how they feel about recently disbanded girl band 4Minute, which included Wonder Girls’ former member HyunA, Yeeun said she cannot think of her team breaking up.
“I lived one third of my life as a member of Wonder Girls and I cannot think myself apart from the team. I spent my happiest moment, saddest moment and most beautiful moment as a Wonder Girl,” said Yeeun.