Goodbyes are never easy, and grief is a cruel mistress. Loving something and losing it is something you never get over. Rather, you grow around it, keeping little bits of it in your heart to compel you forward. A goodbye forever stays with you in many ways: as growth, pain, a re-evaluation of who you are and who you will become, and the memory of something you’ll have with you forever even though you can no longer see it.
Not every goodbye is tragic, even if it destroys you. And some goodbyes can bring pain and peace simultaneously. When coming to terms with the loss of something deeply mourned, K-pop with all its theatrics may not feel like the go-to genre — too much flair, too exaggerated. However, a surprising number of nuanced K-pop titles and B-sides deal with saying goodbye and knowing it’s for the best while still crying your eyes out.
This mixtape is a collection of such tracks from Taeyeon, Gain, Hwasa, and more to remind you that being okay with a painful goodbye doesn’t mean it hurts any less; it means love (life) happened, and you are thankful.
