Before We Begin

Eric Nam’s career path is a unique one. Born and raised in Atlanta, the singer-songwriter and podcaster first became popular in the land of his parents—South Korea—as both a variety show host and, eventually, a K-pop idol. For his first proper album, the English-language Before We Begin, Nam’s intentions were twofold: expand his US audience and broaden his musical vocabulary. He mixes ballads (“Wonder”, “How’m I Doing”), cheeky love songs (“You’re Sexy I’m Sexy”) and flossy pop and R&B (“Come Through”, “Congratulations”). But it’s the English versions of two earlier Korean hits (“No Shame”, “Runaway”) that Nam hopes will help replicate his overseas success—a process the Boston College graduate likens to “reverse engineering”, he tells Apple Music as he walks through each of the album’s songs. Come Through “I got fixated on the idea of finding someone at that initial moment of ‘Are you the one?’ We were trying to conceptualise what that would sound like. I visualised myself at a bar, really lonely, and that moment where the bell on the door jingles. She walks in and you’re like, ‘Wow, are you the one?’ It’s about physically and metaphorically wanting somebody to come through that door. It’s an almost melodramatic soap opera moment, almost cheesy, but we made it lyrically and sonically sound cool.” Love Die Young “I had just done 12 shows across Europe in 18 days and I got on a flight to Nashville to start writing and I didn’t want to write anything. That exhaustion and burnout had me thinking a lot about if I just stopped working, if I retired, if I, god forbid, dropped dead. It got me to thinking: How do we write about exhaustion and burnout, but do it in a way where it’s a dramatic love song? I equate love to not just be romantic but also in life, when it comes to work and passion and dreams and ambitions. It’s all intertwined. I think as we were writing it, it was like, ‘Please don’t let this passion and love die young. I want to do much more, but I physically c