EJAE is obsessed, and not in a good way. The singer-songwriter and one-quarter of the KPop Demon Hunters fictional band HUNT/X is breaking out on her own with the love hangover anthem “Time After Time,” which dropped with precision timing on Friday morning (Feb. 6), just a week ahead of Valentine’s Day.
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While many lovers are rushing around to make last-minute plans for the romantic holiday, EJAE (born Eun Jae Kim) has served up an effervescent, earworm anthem for those who just can’t quit the one that got away. The single, not to be confused with the 1983 Cyndi Lauper ballad of the same name, opens with EJAE lamenting an ex who keeps running through her mind.
“Only think of you twice/ That’s every day and night/ I been tryna forget/ But you pay rent in my head,” she sings forlornly over the song’s bouncy, skittery beat before soaring into the yearning chorus. “Every day and night, you’re running my mind/ All the tears I’ve criеd won’t ever be dry ‘causе/ My life without you feels like living a lie/ Every minute, every moment, every time after time, it’s you,” she sings.
In a press release announcing the track, EJAE said that the melody had been “stuck in my head for years, just like the person I wrote it about.”
Last week, the KPop Demon Hunters Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Golden” — performed in the film as girl group HUNTR/X, aka vocalists EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI — won best song written for visual media at the Grammy Awards, with EJAE among the group of songwriters accepting the win. The track spent a total of eight weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 last year and also won for best original song at this year’s Golden Globes.
Before blowing up as part of HUNTR/X, EJAE earned songwriting/producing credits on tracks by AESPA (“Drama,” “Armageddon”), Red Velvet (“Psycho”), Twice (“Pieces of Love”) and Le Sserfim (“So Cynical (Badum),” as well as tunes by Nmixx, Taeyon and others. Last year, she released the solo track “In Another World.”
Listen to “Time After Time” below.
