Lyricist Team Reveal The Inspiration Behind Creating Taemin’s New Title Track “Criminal”

Taemin is the only artist that can pull this off.

Taemin recently dropped his new album Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 1 with the title track “Criminal.” Taemin revealed he spent a lot of time preparing for this album as he wanted to bring a different concept and style through his music.

| @SHINee/Twitter

Fans who heard the track and watched the music video were in for a surprise as they were first shocked by the visuals and then by the lyrics.

Lyricist team Danke were the masterminds behind the shocking lyrics for “Criminal.” The team posted a video on their YouTube channel revealing the process and experience working for this track.

| @SHINee/Twitter

First off, the team was so happy and honored to have worked with Taemin as he was one of the artists that they had always dreamed of working with.

They expressed that it was one of the hardest projects they had worked on, going through numerous revisions for the track. They also revealed that they didn’t know at the time that this was going to be the title track for his new album!

| dankesdanke/YouTube

When they first started working on the project, they were a bit shocked as they couldn’t believe that this was a concept that was going to be released in Korea. One of the members commented, “When I first saw the track, I couldn’t believe it was something that would be released in Korea. I honestly couldn’t think of anyone else besides Taemin that could have pulled this off.”

| dankesdanke/YouTube

Although all artists put in a lot of hard work into their albums, the lyricist team felt that it was the first time they worked with an artist where their opinions and ideas were portrayed well in the final product.

They revealed that the inspiration for “Criminal” actually came from Taemin’s “Door” performance at the 2017 MAMA. In that performance, he is blindfolded and tied up in strings and that is how the character for “Criminal” was born.

| 2017 MAMA/Mnet 

They couldn’t stop complimenting Taemin’s acting and performance for the track as they felt that he really took in the lyrics and made into a whole movie. “It was so amazing to see him take the imagination of the lyricist and go above and beyond that.”

| dankesdanke/YouTube

To see their lyrics come to life, watch Taemin’s “Criminal” music video below!