A light goes out: Shinee’s Jonghyun remembered




I had planned to return to blogging with an end-of-year “best of k-pop” and some tart lines about the joys of $2 rookies. Instead, it’s to share some bittersweet lines about the loss of my bias and one of the scene’s leading lights, Shinee’s Kim Jong-hyun, who sadly and suddenly took his own life after failing to overcome a deep depression on Monday.
The former host of SBS Pop Asia, Jamaica de la Cruz, who is a Shawol like myself, used to tease me by saying, “Who is your bias [favourite] in Shinee this week?” It was a running gag that the quintet was so full of talent, good looks and charisma that on any given day you could take your pick.
I always came back to Jonghyun.

I loved his beautiful singing voice - the range; the timbre; the clear falsetto. I loved that he could dance too. That he wanted to stretch himself by writing and producing, not just for Shinee, but for others, like the female singers Lim Kim and IU. I liked that those songs were good. I liked that he was playful and seemed down-to-earth - though I know we don’t really know the idols we love.

And of course I thought he was gorgeous: those cheekbones; those eyes and yes, the hips too.


Shinee was the first k-pop band I ever stanned. Dream Girl was the first k-pop song I played non-stop (it was not the last). I first saw the MV on Pop Asia: not even the floral pants put me off. I put it on my phone and played it over and over again. From then on I was a Shawol; a k-pop fan and Jonghyun was my bias. I became multi-fandom; but Shinee was always No. 1. They never let me down.

Jonghyun never let me down.





Shinee came to Australia before I knew they existed, but in 2014 I went to Tokyo and was lucky to get a ticket to see them at Chiba Town Hall , a venue of only 1500 seats. I was up the back but it didn’t matter. I was still there, with them. 

With Jonghyun.

After hooking me in with Dream Girl, Shinee made our relationship official with the Everybody EP. The title track didn’t do much for me at first but the choreography and performance won me over on the music shows, and the EP was packed with gems like the unconventional R&B track Symptoms, with its lovely layered vocals.



After his first, brilliant solo EP Base, Jonghyun compiled songs he had debuted on his radio show Blue Night on an EP called Story Op. 1. With input from WeFreaky, a group of musicians he had known since his school days, Jonghyun created an outstanding collection that was on a par, if not better than, his debut, on which he had collaborated with songwriters from hit factories around the world. With songs written for singers like Lim Kim and IU already behind him, I wrote that it was clear that he had an eye on a career as songwriter-producer.


As an idol, Jonghyun showed a real warmth and connection with the public. It’s horrifying to learn that he was being suffocated by feelings of worthlessness and despair. That he fled life because his own reality was so bleak he saw no other way out. That he did not know there was a way out. (There is a way out.) 

To think of a world without him is almost unbearable. 

But now is the time for us to think, not of what we have lost, or what might have been, but of what we were lucky enough to have had.

At the age of 27, it’s clear he was not even close to reaching his full potential as a writer, a producer, a singer and a performer.

But Jonghyun worked hard. There are the solo EPs and the album. He had a comeback planned for next month; that EP/album will be released soon (I hope). And there is Shinee’s work. And there are the comeback stages. Hundreds and hundreds of comeback stages.

I've already put his music on high rotation and started immersing myself in the treasure trove of his live performances, goofy variety performances and interviews on youtube. 


Rest in peace, King JH. 






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