On July 4th, 2018 Golden Child released their first single album entitled Goldenness. This follows the footsteps of Infinite's and Lovelyz' first single albums being titled after the fandom name. The concept of this album is a graduation vacation, and completes the youthful trilogy after baseball team and high school. There is a red version and a black version of this album. I pre-ordered 4 copies from YesAsia and I ordered 4 more copies from Amazon.com, which I blogged about here.
The packaging of the album is designed with the graduation vacation theme, with the exterior looking like a hardside luggage. The ridges and corner accents on the front and back covers are even embossed, giving the texture of a luggage.
The backside has a similar design. The exterior is quite glossy. The album has dimensions 6.125" by 8.875" by 0.875".
The spines have the album title printed. The red version has silver print while the black version has red print.
The other side has the tracklist and album credits printed.
You open the album from the top flap. I had made this mistake 4 times by just using one finger and putting pressure in the center to lift up the flap, but that forms a crease. Now I know to use both hands and apply a finger at each end to alleviate the pressure and have a much lower chance of forming a crease on the flap.
Here are how the contents are placed inside the box. From bottom to top are the photobook, sticker set, and CD case. There is also a foam sheet so that the CD case doesn't slide around.
Here are the front covers of the translucent jewel case.
Inside the jewel case is a cute sticker along with the CD on the right.
The CD design also fits the travel theme well, looking like a compass. Each member's name is printed along the outer ring with their associated number in the inner ring. On the very outside contains the tracklist and album credits.
Each album also comes with the same set of stickers.
There are 5 sheets of stickers. There's a sticker for each member's face, name, and prop, along with variance Golden Child stickers and album title stickers, and random emojis.
These stickers are meant to decorate the exterior album box, like you're decorating a luggage. Out of all the random items Kpop goods have come with (stickers, diaries, etc.) I have always preserved these items. But with so many copies, maybe I can have a little fun and decorate one album!
I wanted to use all the Bomin and Jibeom themed stickers, and also as many of the Golden Child and travel themed stickers as I could. I ended up really cluttering the album, but I still love it. I covered the front and added 2 stickers to the spine, partly to reinforce a sticker that wrapped around the edge.
Honestly I had some difficulty with the fifth sticker sheet. When I peeled the stickers off, the backing came off with it so basically there was a layer of paper underneath the sticker. I had to really use my nails and crinkle the edges until I could properly peel the sticker free. On another note, I'd suggest peeling the stickers slowly, because they can rip at the crooks of the stickers with jagged outlines.
Here are all the stickers I have left from this set. Even though I used so many stickers to cover the front, there is still at least half remaining.
Each album comes with 1 photocard and 1 ticket, both tucked together within the photobook. There are a total of 20 photocards, 2 per member. One set is the red version while the other is the black version, however in every album (it doesn't matter if you bought the red version or the black version) there is a chance you'll just get one of the 20 photocards. The top row is the black version, the bottom row is the red version. Here is my incomplete collection; while I'd love to complete it, it seems too difficult this time around especially with 20 random cards where each album only contains one.
Here are the backsides of the photocards. The design is really cute, with the corners matching the exterior album box like a luggage. The cards are glossy and almost the same dimensions as Golden Child's previous album photocards, though these are less than 1mm taller and wider. Both Jangjun's and Seungmin's messages say "Goldenness Forever"!
There are a total of 10 tickets, one per member. The hyung line tickets are accented in red while the maknae line in black. These are made of paper just a little thicker than printer paper and have a matte finish. There are 2 perforated lines at the edges of the group photo, so you can rip the sides like a boarding pass.
Here are the backsides of the tickets. The ticket is 6.6875" by 2.75".
The backside is really detailed and tailored to each member. The destination is to whichever location the member had chosen in a previous Q&A earlier this year, the date and time are July 4, 2018 at 6:00PM (comeback date and time), the seat is the member's first initial and squad number, and the flight number is G - S01 (Goldenness - 1st Single). And I just realized, the bottom of the ticket has a nice message which is unique for each ticket.
The photobook is designed like a school composition book, colored either red or black to match its version.
The backside is simple, with just the album credits at the bottom.
There are 95 pages in each version, and both versions have the same layout. I'll compare both versions together to show the similarities and differences. For the pictures with both photobooks, note that the page numbers are the same for each version. There are 3 photoshoots. The first is nautical themed, the second is with recreational objects, and the third is the natural photoshoot in Japan.
The first 4 pages are the same, including this 2-page spread for the album credits. This is one of the two group photos included in the photobook.
The first 15 pages are from the nautical photoshoot. Other than the first group photo, all other photos from this photoshoot are individual shots. The lyrics and credits for each song are also spread among the photobook.
Pages 16 to 27 are all individual shots from the recreational photoshoot.
Pages 28 to 67 are from the photoshoot the members had on the streets of Japan during their fan meeting tour. There is one group photo.
As a single release, this album contains 3 tracks. The title track "Let Me" was created by some of the same people as "Damdadi" and "All Day." The song is very upbeat, fitting Golden Child's image well. The b-side track that Golden Child also promoted is "If," composed by some members of the same team who worked on "What Happened" and Lovelyz' "Twinkle" and "SHINING★STAR." This song and its matching choreography are really cute; I'm always especially drawn to Joochan whenever I see this performance! The third and final track is "Thank You," composed by the same team who worked on Infinite's emotional ballad "Why Me." This ballad rounds out the album well and I absolutely love Jibeom and Jaehyun's lines to begin the song. The only downfall is that Jangjun and Tag don't have individual lines in this song, but at least this isn't a promoted song (unlike "Lady" which I'm still quite bitter about for Jaehyun and Bomin).
Overall, I love this entire era of Golden Child. I'm sad that there was no "branding" of their outfits this time, but this graduation vacation concept fits so well with their high school trilogy. While all of Golden Child's title tracks have been legit bops, "Let Me" is definitely my favorite. Honestly it might just be because of how fun the fan chant for this song is, where we shout the members names and have lines that aren't just repeating the song (my 2 criteria). Now that promotions for "Let Me" and "If" are over, I miss Golden Child but am nervous what concept they'll go for next!
No comments:
Post a Comment