[#8] DBSK - "I Know"

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From: "Time"
Released: March
Territory: Japan
Previous Best of Entries: 2009: "Mirotic" / 2010: [#6] "BREAK OUT!" / 2011: [#3] "Before U Go" and [#1] "Back To Tomorrow" / 2012: [#28] "ANDROID" and [#9] "Catch Me"
Other notable song(s) from 2013: "逢いたくて逢いたくてたまらない", "OCEAN", "Wedding Dress"

If there's something DBSK has always known how to do well, it's heart-wrenching ballads. They prove their worth as idols and performers through their lead singles, but ballads are as much as strong point of theirs as up tempos are -- a quality they posses precisely because of their talent. And "I Know" is one of those ballads that shows off all that talent from start to finish.

As a song, "I Know" is beautifully heart-wrenching. It opens up with a haunting, single piano line, which quickly builds up to the song's first explosion when the vocals enter. It's the kind of beautiful that really grips you because of the contrast in the way the verses and choruses are handled. The melody at the verses is almost nonchalant, and compared to the chorus the instrumentation is pretty bare -- the bass line and strings are less prominent. The chorus is an explosion all the way through, with the layering of the vocals and a much heavier arrangement. The piano line remains consistent throughout the song, and becomes more prominent in certain places, like the build-ups and transitions between, and the sharp grace to it makes the song even more gripping.

Like a lot of other DBSK ballads, what steers the song really is the melody. And it's able to do so because Yunho and Changmin are more than capable of steering it. The big moments during the verses are mostly because of the sweeping melody, with gorgeous sustained notes and just the right amount of build up to the chorus. And of course, the instrumentation only aids the explosion of the vocals -- there's double-tracking but with a prominent lead vocal, a harmonic line throughout, ad-libs, and the melody itself really is one that's meant to be sung.

"I Know" isn't a "new" song, it's not something no one has heard before. But, just like what makes DBSK such a prolific group, it's a song that takes the norm, takes conventions, and does it with such mastery.