Cho Yong-pil “After the 90s press conference, the concert halls are getting emptier... I‘m disappointed in myself”

King of singers Cho Yong-pil looked back on the making of the title song ‘That’s Okay’.

At the press conference to commemorate the release of his 20th regular album ‘20’ held at the Blue Square Mastercard Hall in Yongsan-gu, Seoul on the 22nd, Cho Yong-pil said, “Earlier this year, I was watching TV when I saw the winner of a sports game doing a championship ceremony. But the camera didn‘t show the athlete he fought with at all as soon as the game ended. I thought about how the loser felt. He must have been upset and disappointed, but if it were me, I think I would have thought, ‘I’ll win next time. One more time’.”

He said, “I met with the lyricist and said, ‘I want to make a song like this.’. He explained, “I said that lyrics that directly say that anyone can have such a feeling are necessary, without beating around the bush.”

‘20’ is an album that will be an important milestone in Cho Yong-pil‘s music world, and is a work called ‘Cho Yong-pil ver. 2024’ that has left its strong musical stamp on a wide genre spectrum across rock, electronica, and ballads. It contains a total of seven tracks, including the title track ‘That’s Okay’, as well as ‘Moment’, ‘Timing’, ‘Like Serengeti’, ‘Why’, ‘Feeling Of You’, and ‘La’.

The title track ‘That‘s Okay’ is a touching song of encouragement for everyone in this era. It is an impressive song with lyrics that tell people to believe in themselves and that it’s okay even if it‘s a little late. The energetic electric guitar, refreshing singing, and high-resolution sound came together to complete Cho Yong-pil’s own modern rock.

When the host asked, “Is there a Cho Yong-pil from the past that you would like to hear ‘That’s Okay‘?” Cho Yong-pil recalled a press conference in the early 1990s where he declared that he would not do broadcasts and would only do concerts. He said, “I did too many broadcasts before the press conference. I thought that I would end up just being a broadcaster. I’m a singer, but if I went on a game show, I would wonder what kind of singer I was, so it was hard to refuse,” and confessed, “That‘s why I declared that I would only do concerts and not appear on TV.”

Cho Yong-pil said, “But the problem was what happened after that. For the first year or two, the concert halls were often filled, but after three years, I started to see empty seats. Then, in the late 1990s, there were no second-floor seats for local concerts. ”I thought, ’How many hit songs do I have?‘ and was disappointed in myself,“ he confessed honestly.

Meanwhile, Cho Yong-pil’s 20th regular album, ‘20,’ will be officially released on CD on November 1. Pre-orders will be available through online retailers such as Aladdin, Yes24, Hottracks, and Synnara starting at 6 p.m. on the 22nd.

Jeong Hee-yeon, Donga.com reporter shine2562@donga.com