August 4, 2023

Finally out. The album is finally out. My 5+ year-long hesitation has finally been released.

I recorded this thing between February and April 2018 while I was also in the midst of scoring a film and a TV pilot as well as doing a giant orchestral arrangement for a video game I worked on to perform at an enormous arena in Europe.

I’ve never been super proud of anything I’ve done, but this one is special to me. I’m proud of myself for finally being able to put it out into the world.

This album is a bunch of different genres, and I recorded most everything myself (with some help on the drums and cello!). I painstakingly and meticulously arranged and captured these instruments in order to create a theatrical yet diverse landscape. It’s dramatic, but it’s also subdued. Quiet, but loud. Pink Floyd, but also Aerosmith-y. Lots of influences from Queen, Muse, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, and the like. Acoustic guitars, world instruments, zithers, bass guitars, jazz-y sections, felt piano, classical bits, full orchestra, large strings, solo strings….

There is a lot of new music to come, but for now, a giant weight has been lifted off of me. Check it out everywhere you stream music.

-Norman Kim

July 1, 2023

It’s been over three years since my last release. I’m coming back.

Somewhere along the lines of attaining a bunch of social media clout from Aug-Dec 2019, I began to lose sight of what it was I was trying to do. Or rather, I began to see clearly for the first time in my life. I was releasing music that I wanted to make, and all of a sudden, it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do because I wanted to do it. It seemed that I was doing it to satisfy everyone besides me.

At the time, I had already begun inching away from the music industry I was in. I was saying no to jobs left and right, and I no longer wanted to write music for the screen. When I began to show my face to the world, the feeling of “I’m doing something right” never came to me. I was chasing after how to market the next release, which led to how to integrate my listeners into my story, which led to close people in my life somehow climbing onto my back. It was frustrating, and I wanted to stop being a people-pleaser.

In one sense, art is about accurately relaying life in some form or another. I decided I needed to change everything I was. One might call it a mental health break. I ruminated for two years and then picked up and left LA for Las Vegas—close enough to be around LA, but far enough where I’m not inundated by its siren song.

All I can say is, I’ve never felt more fulfilled. Life has somehow magically reopened for me. I’m no longer the center of my own universe, and the questions of “why” are being answered more and more every passing day.

I’ve been working on a ton of new material, but first I have to release the album I had never released. It’s coming August 4th—3 years and 2 months after its initial release date. It’s been a whirlwind listening back, and I’m excited to finally put it out into the world (and ultimately behind me) because I have so much more exciting music to share moving forward.

-Norman Kim

April 30, 2020:

COVID’s got me needing to record everything myself. Well, I guess I do the same thing even during normal times..

New video out of a very well-known tune.

-Norman Kim

April 14, 2020:

There is a lot of anti-Asian violent racism happening around the world right now. I am angry and frustrated because there is not a whole lot I can do to change how people perceive others.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, I filmed a music video for my song ‘Just Like You’ in hopes to create something that celebrates and embraces diversity while reminding people that we are more alike than we are different. The original plan was to release it alongside my full-length album on June 5th, but it seems that now is the best time to put it out in the world.

As a Korean-American born in New York with parents from South Korea, I had been self-loathing and hating my own ethnicity throughout my life. Why must I be so invisible? Why don’t I see myself in any of the role models I am led to model myself after?

As I got older, I came to understand the conditioning of media and what it does to a youthful mind. I now feel prouder than ever of my “minority” status, and I have built my entire identity around being who I am despite being externally different. The United States is a bit of an anomaly in the world, and to expect everyone to fully understand and accept minorities as they are is wishful thinking. However, we must first look inwards and accept ourselves in order to not look so outwardly for acceptance. I hope more young people love themselves as they are, and I hope people in the majority can understand that deep down, we’re all the same inside.

I’ve got a father. I’ve got a mother. I am just like you.
I’ve got a color like all the others. We are just like you.

-Norman Kim