It’s slim kpop pickings due to the Lunar New Year holiday, so I’m turning to a slightly odd source for this review. One Day, One Chance may be recorded by TVXQ’s Changmin, but it’s not a normal single release. The song is taken from SM’s first “hologram musical,” called School OZ. The musical featured many of their artists, mostly performing covers of popular SM songs.

One Day, One Chance opens the musical’s accompanying album, and feels very much like a mixture of Broadway theatrics and EDM production. In this way, it’s almost a continuation of Changmin’s single Rise As One from last summer. The track is a bit of a kitchen-sink affair, throwing so much into the mix that it’s overwhelming on first listen. Changmin has one of the most distinctive, powerful voices in all of kpop, and the song’s chorus allows him to belt it out in a series of extended notes. Unfortunately, as soon as the beat kicks in, the instrumental doesn’t support him as strongly as I wish it would.

The production could do with a strong injection of bass, or at least a beat that hits harder. Changmin has a naturally high register, and I feel like the shuffle of the electronic beat matches his vocals instead of anchoring them with a steady lower end. This is a problem I have with a lot of EDM in general, and it cheapens the track somewhat. If you listen to this right after a TVXQ song like Catch Me or Humanoids, I think the difference becomes apparent. Still, for a tie-in with some weird musical, it’s not bad. At the very least, it offers a different sound from most of SM’s more recent offerings.