It’s a day of solo releases from members of some of my favorite girl groups. Unfortunately, these songs usually pale in comparison to work from the members’ respective groups. In the case of Yuju, this is by design. Nothing she’s released on her own has tried to recapture GFriend’s appeal. That’s completely within her rights as an artist, but a sleepy track like First Love Is A Curse (첫사랑은 저주다) doesn’t do much for me.

We’ve veered dangerously close to coffeehouse fare here. The production is too robust for that, but the song’s lowkey vibe and softly swinging instrumental certainly threaten to fade into the background. Yuju has one of my favorite voices in K-pop, but much of that is dependent on the style of song she’s singing. The days of robust power notes have passed, replaced with this somewhat generic execution. The charm of her tone pokes through here and there on First Love Is A Curse, but the track is ultimately not interesting enough to take full advantage of it.

Grade: C-