5 songs to listen to get to know Woodz

5 SONGS TO LISTEN TO GET TO KNOW WOODZ

Woodz, also known as Cho Seungyoun (조승연) is a South Korean soloist. Born on August 5th 1996, his dream wasn't always to be a singer. He once pursued his dream as a football player and studied in a Football School in Brazil when he was still a kid. Started his singing career as a member of a boy group called ‘UNIQ’ in 2014 with his four other members under YueHua entertainment. They promoted actively in China alongside with South Korea as well. Started his solo career in 2016 as rapper ‘Luizy’ with his single ‘Recipe’ before finally debuted again as a K-RnB singer with ‘Woodz’ as his stage name in 2018 with a song titled ‘POOL’.

Sadly, he didn’t get a very big recognition as a singer with the songs he released under the name Woodz and then decided to join a survival program ‘Produce X 101’ and ended up debuting with his new group ‘X1’ ranked 5th on the final episode. ‘Produce X 101’ was a big milestone for his career, he is known as the All-Rounder for rocking every evaluation stage with different positions such as main rapper, main vocalist, and also got compliments for his dance. His rank never dropped from the first episode until the final episode of the show. Again, he has to stop promoting as an X1 member because of the vote manipulation issue of the show that caused X1 to disband after almost 5 months debuting even though the promised contract for X1 was to promote as a group for 5 years.

After the disbandment of X1 he chose to start over again as Woodz and released his first mini album ‘EQUAL’ and started to climb the charts of korean music platforms slowly but surely. Now, even when he is still in the military to serve the country as the mandatory rule for South Korea citizens, his song is still doing fine charting in the platforms or even being covered by other artists. Here are 5 big hits of his that you should listen to know his dedication and versatility in music.

1. Drowning

‘Drowning’ is the third track of his mini album ‘OO-LI’, this song has the whole of South Korea in chokehold. With a touch of rock that are still incommon for a solo artist in K-Pop industry, Woodz has succeeded to bring the listener into a deeper layer of the feeling of broken heart  by upbringing heavy instrumental and vocal that delivers the pain to all of the listeners even to those that have never felt broken before. Drowning has a very high key that is usually hard for a man to hit, it also has a three octaves high note. One of the lyrics that catches the public's attention is the bridge of this song, the translation of the lyric says ‘I could fall deeper and die, Will you come back one more time’. The lyrics expressed the desperate tone of this song in a very beautiful way. ‘Drowning’ surpasses the achievement of the actual title track of the album and is being played and covered everywhere. Lately, a vocal based survival program even uses Drowning as an evaluation song for the contestants.

2. I Hate You

‘I Hate You’ is a mixture of RnB, Rock, Dance, and K-Pop. This song is the title track of his album ‘Colorful Trauma’, this song reminds a lot of the listener of Anime’s opening song or original soundtrack which results in a lot of Anime enjoyer to also enjoy this song. Again, this kind of song also can’t be found easily in K-Pop before, the fund and loud melody is not too noisy for someone to enjoy but also catchy enough to make the listener bang their heads while listening to it. The visual of the music video is also very fresh and unique, it has pop-up colors and bright tones. This song is also popular among Korean celebrities and also has a lot of people covering it.

3. Sun or Suck

'Sun or Suck' is different from the last two songs. This song does not belong to any Woodz album, it is a soundtrack for a Korean dating show 'EXchange' where the program gathers exes and tries to make them date again or for them to find another person. This song became popular in Korea and started to be used in a lot of other variety shows whether on national television or YouTube content. Despite being a popular song, a lot of people still don't know and were shocked when they found out Woodz is the singer of this song so in one of his appearances in an interview Woodz introduce himself as the Mr. Oh Yayaya because the song started with him singing 'Ooh Yeah Yeah'.

4. Different

Different is one of the early releases of Woodz. After joining the survival show a lot of people that picked him to be in the debut line-up are going through his old discography and found this song. Different is a K-RnB song suitable for a calm and quiet rainy day, listening to this song gives the listener a sense of calm but also sorrow at the same time. The aesthetically pleasing music video also make a big point for it to be one of the people's favorite Woodz's song.

5. Amnesia

'Amnesia' is one of the latest releases of Woodz before enlisting. He released this song as a 'goodbye' before going to the military that will make him not able to release more music in a certain period. 'Amnesia' talks about how he hopes that the moment of him being in the military would be a span of time that will be erased from his fans' memory to make it easier for them to wait for him without being lonely. This song has a similar vibe to drowning but with more of a sad and forced tone rather than desperate tone, it has heavy vocal and heavy instrumental as well but still enjoyable to listen to.

With those head-bangers above will you stand still and just stare? Run, don’t walk, and go check his spotify or youtube profile right now.