Posted by Jacques Peterson on 11/21/2012 at 5:47 PM News

The Popdust Files: boy bands, INFINITE, K-pop, music videos, Sunggyu

When it comes to the next generation of superstar Korean boy bands, INFINITE is one of the biggest. Very few can match their high-octane performances (or the beauty of member L’s perfect face), and their last single, May’s mega-hit “The Chaser,” is still one of the best songs released this year, period. Their career couldn’t get any hotter right now, but instead of returning together to annihilate the charts like they so easily could, the group’s leader and main vocalist, Sungyu, has decided to go solo.

The talented 23-year-old released his first solo EP, Another Me, this week, and the lead single, “60 sec,” sounds like it could be just as huge as any one of INFINITE’s hits. The melodic rock ballad is a huge change of pace from the group’s usual music, which is almost all exclusively eighties synth-pop. In fact, it’s much closer to J-rock than K-pop, but like any good K-pop song, it’s tighter and glossier than your average tune, with a hook that can cross language barriers and lodge itself in your brain after just one listen.

The accompanying video clip is basically one big tearjerker rom-com stuffed into four minutes and set to music. INFINITE’s L plays the leading man, which is funny considering that this is supposed to be Sunggyu’s video. We get that L is the ‘face’ of INFINITE and has a mug that looks like it was delicately sculpted by harp-playing angels, but a little more Sunggyu would’ve been nice. For his sake, we mean. We’re definitely not going to complain about an abundance of L.