Upon the release of his first full album, fans are reeling at the revelation that Nam Woohyun was secretly battling a rare form of cancer earlier this year. Beyond the sheer ache we all feel for his struggle, I can’t help but admire his bravery in the face of a life-altering diagnosis. It’s impossible not to imbue this new music with an extra depth and catharsis — even a track as toe-tapping and upbeat as Baby Baby.
Thankfully, Woohyun is now in the recovery stage and has seemingly chosen music as his therapeutic output. Baby Baby‘s old-fashioned crooning is buoyed by an optimistic energy. Its musical roots are strongly tethered to the stately sound of 80’s city pop, but the execution feels even older than that. From vocal performance to music video, Baby Baby has the presence of an old-school movie musical, anchored by theatrical flourishes and a full-throated melody that soars in all the right places.
By his own admission, Woohyun’s voice is not yet where it used to be. This may explain the subdued nature of Infinite’s comeback earlier in the year. But if I hadn’t known the backstory, I’m not sure I’d be able to spot any limitations in Baby Baby. His tone remains velvety and confident and although their aren’t any aggressively huge power notes, he expertly navigates the climactic moments of the song. We’re so lucky to join this victory lap with him. Hopefully, it’ll be the first of many celebrations.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 10 |
| RATING | 8.75 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I don’t know the man, obviously, but “music as his therapeutic output” sounds about right. If it were anyone else I’d be wondering if there were shadowy forces behind the scenes pushing a faster comeback, and there might still well be, but it would be very much in public character for Woohyun to be pitching a fit in the hospital bed and saying, “BUT I NEED TO GET BACK TO MY FANS.”
I don’t remember any complaints about him not hitting high notes at the concerts, but maybe that was the magic of backing tracks at work?
The song itself is not my usual thing, it’s a bit too pleasant — I kind of wish he’d gotten Dongwoo to growl a bit for a feature — but it’s nicely executed and on brand. Hopefully I’ll be able to check out the whole album later this week.
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Re: concerts — I watched most of the stages across multiple days, and there was definitely loud backtrack on some songs (Tell Me’s was really bad), but for most of the stages it wasn’t loud enough to drown them out, and some didn’t have backtrack at all. Mistakes, flaws, and deviations from the studio tracks were mostly noticeable, Dongwoo messed up the lyrics for an entire line at one point. (This is in no way a dig! I think the little changes and flubs are part of the charm of live performance, and I much prefer those to the heavily backtracked ones). Ironically, I remember thinking Woohyun and Sungkyu really demonstrated that they were still Infinite’s best and most consistent vocalists in these concerts. The members said they rearranged the choreo to make continuous dancing easier and they also did several no-dance stages, including Bad, which has one of Woohyun’s most intense climaxes — that probably helped a lot. In fact, his long note in Bad (Day 1 Seoul?) was one of his best. He was very much up to par vocally.
(Their festival performances definitely have a heavy backtrack though. I distinctly remember at one point Woohyun finishes a note and resumes dancing, but the long note continues in the backtrack and there’s no audible difference)
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Hey, thanks for this! I’m living vicariously through the folks who got to see the concerts :).
That’s interesting about the occasional backing track use and that they cut the choreo for Bad. (Which, I’m no choreo expert, but I don’t think that choreo’s as demanding as BTD or even Paradise or The Chaser? But depending on the set order, it might make sense to put a break in Bad — as fond as some of us might be of the chorus hip thrusts, they’re not as memorable as BTD / Be Mine / Paradise / Chaser / Come Back Again.) It may be wishful thinking on my part but it does seem like the guys are able to bend things more to accommodate their own wants and needs than they were in the Woollim days.
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Quick clarification, I didn’t see the concerts live, I just watched people’s videos! I honestly didn’t mean to watch as many as I did, but they were so good I just kept going
So for the songs they did without dancing, most of them had rearranged instrumentals and special staging and were called the “rock” version. Off the top of my head, they did Last Romeo, Bad, and I Hate as “rock” songs, plus they did Nothing’s Over and Man in Love as goofy/audience songs with minimal dancing (those two definitely had no backtrack because they missed a bunch of lines/cues to laugh at each other and interact with the audience). I’m not sure how they picked what was what, but aside from your guess that it’s based on the fame of the choreo, I’d say Bad in particular has some tough vocal lines to execute for both Sungkyu and Woohyun, and Infinite has historically performed that with a stronger backtrack. From my memory, BTD toned down the long notes to emphasize the scorpion dance, and Comeback Again and The Chaser can both be sung pretty straight! (And The Chaser actually had some built-in downtime in the dance, you can see some of the members goof off then if you pay close attention).
I’m not super familiar with how much control they had during the Woollim days, but they do seem to be having fun with it now, and they seem to really enjoy cracking CEO jokes about Sungkyu.
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Finally had a chance to listen to Baby Baby myself. I . . . don’t think I’m feeling it. It’s too even and way too sweet for me. I much prefer Hold On Me.
I guess it fits his cheesy persona, but this feels more like b-side material or one-off holiday promotional song to me. The beginning reminded me of Never Gonna Give You Up, but it didn’t play with that in the right ways IMO
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