"Love Yourself Never Resonated With Me"... Kwon Jin-Ah Gets Candid on "SAVE ME"

Ready to showcase how far her musical spectrum has expanded, singer-songwriter Kwon Jin-ah held a media showcase at NOL Theater in Hapjeong, Seoul, on July 15 to commemorate the release of her third EP, "SAVE ME."

Since making her official debut in 2016, Kwon has become widely recognized for her ballads and slower, emotionally driven songs. For her third EP, however, she places rock sounds at the forefront, using the genre to explore a different side of herself not only as a songwriter but as an artist and performer.

"Until now, whenever I wanted to tell a very deep, personal story, I would use rock sounds in one or two tracks on an album," she explained. "This time, I wanted to bring those sounds fully to the forefront and fill the entire album with band-based tracks while telling deeper stories from within myself."

The atmosphere of live performances also influenced Kwon's decision to embrace a broader rock sound, as she shared that few other genres could bring performers and audiences together in quite the same way.

Her third EP, "SAVE ME," consists of five tracks: "WHO CAN CHANGE," title track "MONSTER," pre-release track "Rain on Me," "87days" and "Don’t Save Me."

The album begins from the perspective of an 'outsider' unable to adapt to the world before moving toward the realization that even the moments in which one cannot love oneself can become part of salvation. In its latter half, the story arrives at what the album describes as the 'salvation of love,' with two people refusing to let go of one another even at the moment of destruction.

"I am simply an ordinary 28-year-old woman living through this era. I have the same concerns as everyone else, and I am also trying to continue living and surviving each day," Kwon said when asked what she hoped to convey through the album. "I hope listeners can receive some comfort from realizing that another person just like them exists here."

The title track, "MONSTER," is a rock-forward song that confronts anxiety, self-hatred and emotional wounds through a more destructive and energetic sound. Its deeply confessional lyrics encourage listeners not necessarily to defeat the 'monster' within themselves, but to continue living alongside it. Speaking about her approach to the track, Kwon said that phrases such as "love yourself" or "you only live once" had never fully resonated with her because they often felt easier said than done.

"I wanted to offer encouragement by saying, 'Even when it is difficult to love yourself, or even when you cannot love yourself, let us still move toward tomorrow,'" she said. "That message felt more meaningful to me."

The music video for "MONSTER" similarly addresses many of the pressures faced by women today, including anxiety, self-hatred and distorted perceptions of their own bodies. When asked about the video, Kwon explained that she could not exclude her relationship with food and her body from a story so closely connected to her own experiences with self-hatred.

"I disliked my face, my body and even my voice," she recalled. "The quickest method I found for escaping those feelings was dieting. As a result, I suffered from an intense obsession with my weight for a very long time. I experienced both binge eating and restrictive eating disorders."

Throughout the EP, Kwon Jin-Ah continues exploring new sides of her artistry. "87days," the album's only track written entirely in English, follows the journey of an escaped prisoner and was inspired by the real-life story of a woman whose actions were recognized as self-defense more than 50 years later.

Explaining the process behind the track, Kwon said she initially recorded its guide using meaningless English phrases. When Korean lyrics repeatedly failed to fit the song, she decided to challenge herself by completing it in English. "The writing process was also completely different from how I usually work," she said.

"I created a new character, almost as though I were writing a novel, and developed a narrative about an escaped prisoner," she concluded before sharing that a separate music video for the track is also expected to be released.

Storytelling remains central through the album's final track, "Don't Save Me," which Kwon named as her personal favorite. Set within a dystopian world, the song follows two people who remain together as the Earth reaches its end. For Kwon, placing the track at the end allowed the album to close not through obedience or compromise, but through love, rebellion and the decision to confront a collapsing world together.

That increasingly bold approach will soon move beyond the album itself, with Kwon set to bring "SAVE ME" to the Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival. Although she has incorporated rock into her music before, she described the festival as the moment this new side of herself will fully step onto the stage.

"I consider Pentaport almost like my proper debut stage as a rock star," she said. "So I am very excited."

Kwon Jin-Ah will release her third EP "SAVE ME" on July 15at 6 p.m. KST across major streaming platforms.

Kwon Jin-Ah Third EP 'SAVE ME' Title Track MONSTER MV / ANOTHER