Seori Returns with Second EP Fake Happy
Four months after joining new company LABEL SAYU, soloist Seori has released her second EP Fake Happy. Though she has released many digital singles and collaborations in the last few years, Fake Happy is the second EP since her debut EP in 2020. Fake Happy includes “Kill the day,” “Fake Happy,” “Broken,” with “and Me” as the final track.
“Broken”
Barring an OST song from last November, “Broken” was Seori’s first addition to her discography since 2022. On January 31, “Broken” came out with an official visualizer video. It served as a pre-release and a sign that something was coming. The video shows Seori surrounded by frost, which is what her name means.
Seori worked on the song with Nancy boy, who helped with composition and arrangement. Seori wrote the lyrics, which address the “broken” feeling of lingering attachments to a past love. Seori sings these lyrics of dreadful solitude as the gentle instrumental intensifies in emotion.
“Fake Happy”
On March 21, Seori released “Fake Happy.” It was composed by Michael Van Wagoner, Jessica Baio, and Kella Armitage. The lyrics, written by Seori, talk about the fear that chasing dreams will only lead to pessimism. It describes a front put on in the midst of everyone else on social media seemingly living wonderful lives, while Seori wonders if an innocence from her past has been lost. Acoustic guitar backs the reflective nature of the lyrics, which creates a nostalgic yet sorrowful combination.
The music video draws on a lot of memories, notably of the character Seori portrays. Viewers see her life through the lens of pictures and videos she’s taken over the years, as if they are reflecting on her life in tandem with the speaker. The video is the diary discussed in the lyrics, and viewers are seeing her life pan out like a documentary.
“Kill the day” and “and Me”
Fake Happy opens with “Kill the day,” a resentful rock song. She composed and arranged the song with Woong Kim and Stereo14, while she penned the lyrics. “Can’t even find their bodies, everyday’s a crime scene / the dagger is laziness, I’m going crazy,” Seori sings. “Why am I like this? / Why am I still stuck in my bed?” The “kill the day” aspect comes from the days flying by as one gets older.
“and Me” closes Fake Happy with another gentle acoustic track. Written, composed, and arranged by Seori, “and Me” describes the suffocating environment of a club without someone to love. The lyrics go by fast, with a significant portion of the song’s 2:12 runtime being instrumental. The page turning noises in tandem with the guitar strumming feel as if it’s running through the end of the diary introduced in the title track.