OVAN’s “Church OPPA” Drops Just After Military Enlistment
OVAN (오반) got married in December, enlisted in the army in February, and released his second studio album, Church OPPA, on March 13. The album is packed with exciting collaborations, including one of the two title tracks, also titled “Church OPPA,” featuring BOBBY (바비) from iKON (아이콘).
The album is a collection of ten songs spanning different genres, and it’s the result of the work of two years, during which OVAN (whose real name is Cho Kangseok, 조강석) collaborated with various producers and artists. And so, in the final tracklist we can enjoy collaborations also with VINXEN (빈첸), Im Soo (임수), LUNCH (런치), and Park Jae Jung (박재정).
We mentioned there are two title tracks in the record. The first one bears the same name as the album and features iKON’s BOBBY: the two artists first connected through BOBBY’s YouTube channel Enter-ro 2 and went on working together on this album. “Church OPPA” was completed in 2023, but its release was postponed due to OVAN’s various plans, ultimately becoming the title track of his second full-length album.
It’s a fun declaration of love, a tune infused with rock vibes and a catchy theme that gets stuck in your head after the first listen. It tells of this nice guy, the “church oppa” who doesn’t really go to church on Sundays, and wants to convince the girl that he is much better than those unreliable guys in Itaewon and Gangnam: he is respectful, he spends all the time working out in the gym, but he also knows how to be “bad”.
The vibrant music video features OVAN as the male lead and influencer Go Malsook (고말숙) as the female lead. However, BOBBY is nowhere to be seen—well, almost. His name briefly flashes on OVAN’s phone screen as the caller ID, right before his verse kicks in.
The other double title track, “Flower”, is a song OVAN wrote as a proposal to his non-celebrity wife. It gained significant attention last December when he performed it as a wedding serenade during the ceremony. Isn’t it sweet that he chose “Flower” as the opening song of his album?
The album also includes “how embarrace”, a duet with LUNCH that humorously portrays the awkward mistakes of a first date, and “billionaire”, a hip-hop track featuring VINXEN and Im Soo. In a post on his Instagram profile where he showed a white board with the tracklist of “Church OPPA” scribbled with a black marker, he guaranteed that his album is “a masterpiece”
On February 17, the singer enlisted in the military as an active-duty soldier at the Nonsan Army Training Center. Just a day before, he shared a photo of himself getting the traditional pre-enlistment haircut, adding in the caption: “I’m enlisting tomorrow! Thank you always for your love and support. I’ll stay healthy and return safely to bring you even better music. On March 13, my second studio album Church OPPA will be released. Please listen to it with lots of love and remember OVAN. I’ll be back safely!”.
So, are you up for listening?
Edited by Rae Lovette