The Twenty-Five Twenty-One soundtrack begins with a borrowed title. Kim Yun-a, the singer of the rock band Jaurim, says she learned only later that a drama was being made with the title of her 2013 song. The production sent an apology email after its press conference, because nobody had asked her first. That is how a ballad about looking back at youth came to name a 2022 Korean drama.
The drama aired on tvN, written by Kwon Do-eun and directed by Jung Ji-hyun. It opens in the late 1990s, in the long shadow of the 1997 IMF financial crisis. Kim Tae-ri plays Na Hee-do, a young fencer, and Nam Joo-hyuk plays Baek Yi-jin, the young man she meets. Its music is the subject here: nine songs, one old song that gave the drama its name, and the way the music remembers the story from a distance.
How the Twenty-Five Twenty-One Soundtrack Is Built: Nine Songs and a Score
The OST album holds nine vocal songs and 32 score tracks, forty-five tracks in all. The vocal line-up is wide. It includes Taeil of NCT, DK of Seventeen, Jihyo of Twice, Bae Ki-sung, BIBI, Wonstein, Xydo and Seol Ho-seung of the band SURL. The five leads sing one song together. One music report praised the album for its range, “from rock to ballad”, and for its line-up.
A drama set in 1998 might be expected to lean on the hits of 1998. This one does not. The vocal songs are new, and the one older song supplies the title, which says something about what the music is for. The songs are not there to date the story. They are there to say how the young people feel, in a voice that belongs to the viewer’s present.
The score is the least documented part. One reference lists Lim Ha-young as the music credit, though only one place reports it, and the 32 score tracks are not described in detail anywhere I could rely on. What stands on firm ground are the songs, and the people who wrote and sang them.
What the physical album adds
The physical release carries small gifts for a fan. It includes two tracks of narration by Baek Yi-jin from the school broadcasting club, which appear only on the physical album. It also carries a piano version of “Starlight” and a guitar version of “Go-boja”, plus a photobook, stickers and signed polaroids from the five actors. The package also includes a photograph from the school trip to the sea.
The Song Behind the Twenty-Five Twenty-One Soundtrack: Jaurim’s Ballad
Listen: Twenty-five, twenty-one 25th (YouTube, Jaurim – Topic)
The first song to know is the one the title comes from. It was not written for the drama. It is the sixth track and lead single of Goodbye, Grief, an album by Jaurim released in October 2013. Kim Yun-a wrote and composed it, and Jaurim arranged it.
How it was written
Kim Yun-a described the song’s making at the album’s showcase. It was the last song written for the album. The chorus came to her suddenly, and she worked out words and melody together at home. A song that arrives all at once, late in a long project, often sounds that way. It sounds like something remembered rather than constructed.
What it sounds like and what it is about
This is a band ballad, and its subject is looking back at a young age from a distance. The best-sourced description of what the lyrics do comes from the singer Younha, who said the song makes the past, not the present, beautiful. That sentence explains why a drama about a fencer at eighteen and a young man at twenty-two could take the title without strain. The numbers 25 and 21 are not an age gap in the song. They are a way of pointing at youth as something already gone.
How it reached the drama
The route from the song to the drama was less tidy than the result suggests. In a 2024 interview on a YouTube channel, Kim Yun-a said she learned only later that a drama was being made with her song as its title. She said the production sent an apology email after the press conference, because nobody had asked her beforehand. She likes Kim Tae-ri very much, so she took it as “already spilled water”. She added that the fee was a little more than the usual rate. That is her own account, and it is warm in its way.
Elsewhere she said she had heard the drama’s writer was inspired by the song, and one account has it that the song was reportedly the drama’s motif. The song is featured in the drama itself and was praised for deepening the immersion. Beyond that, nothing in the sources ties it to particular scenes, and this article will not guess at them.
Immortal Songs: A Song Returned to Its Singer
A few months after the finale, the song came back to Kim Yun-a in a different form. On the KBS programme Immortal Songs, in a special for Jaurim’s music, the singer Younha chose “Twenty-Five, Twenty-One”. She said she had last appeared on the show a decade earlier, and that she had enjoyed the drama.
She sang it at the piano, with a chorus. Kim Yun-a’s eyes filled with tears. Younha said afterward that the song makes the past, not the present, beautiful. Kim Yun-a said it was an honour that her music could move another creator. Younha won the round.
There is a loop in this. A songwriter wrote a song about a distant youth. A drama borrowed it as a title. Then a singer sang it back to the woman who wrote it, as someone else’s memory. The song had travelled a long way and ended up where it began, in the feeling of being young from far away.
“With”: The Friends Sing Together
Listen: With (YouTube, Kim Taeri – Topic)
Part 7 of the OST is “With”, sung by the five leads: Kim Tae-ri, Nam Joo-hyuk, Bona, Choi Hyun-wook and Lee Ju-myung. Noh Kyung-bo of the indie band Oksusu Photo Studio wrote and composed it.
What the song is for
The production company described it as carrying the warm comfort and touching emotion of the five leads, and the comfort sent by the “Taeyang High School fam”. The company’s wording is promotional, but it points at something true about the song’s place on the album. A song sung by the friends themselves makes the group, not a couple, the subject of the album.
Ad-libs on set
The production team said the cast grew close enough over time to add ad-libs on set, and that this helped the chemistry of the five. At the press conference, asked to sum up their on-screen chemistry, Nam Joo-hyuk answered “Youth itself” and Kim Tae-ri answered “Naiveté”. Those two words are a fair guide to what the song sets out to do. It is not about plot. It is about the unguarded way young people lean on each other.
Songs at the Front Door: “Starlight,” “Very, Slowly,” “Go!”
Several songs on the album sit near the opening of the drama and set its tone. They do not tell the story. They stand in the doorway of it.
“Starlight” by Taeil
Listen: Starlight (YouTube, TAEIL – Topic)
Taeil of NCT sang “Starlight”, which was released early in the drama’s run. Oh Dong-jun wrote and composed it, and he also arranged for the Hospital Playlist OST. One source spells his name Oh Gong Jun, which is the same person written slightly differently. The song was reportedly nominated at both the APAN Star Awards and the Seoul Music Awards. Its piano version appears on the physical album.
“Very, Slowly” by BIBI
Listen: Very, Slowly (YouTube, BIBI – Topic)
BIBI sang “Very, Slowly”, and it was used as the opening-title music of the broadcast. It was reportedly composed by PATEKO and the rapper Jayci Yucca. A title song works differently from a love song. It is heard every week before the story starts, so it has to feel like a threshold more than a moment.
“Go!” by DK of Seventeen
Listen: [MV] 도겸 (DK)(SEVENTEEN) – Go! / Official Music Video (YouTube, SEOUL MUSIC / 서울뮤직)
DK’s “Go!” was reportedly used in the drama’s title video, and it was reportedly his first solo OST in about four years. The production company, Studio Maum C, said the song drew a strong response from viewers before release. The song was reportedly nominated for Best Original Soundtrack at the APAN Star Awards.
Songs About the People: “Go-boja,” “Stardust Love Song,” and Two More
Four more songs sit closer to individual characters. Each carries a mood rather than a plot point.
“Go-boja” by Xydo
The song “Go-boja” by Xydo is Part 8, and it was reportedly used in a pre-broadcast highlight video over a scene of Na Hee-do heading to a fencing match. The image fits what Kim Tae-ri did to prepare. She trained in fencing for six months before filming, and she and Bona studied the sport together to build comfort as on-screen rivals. When Na Hee-do walks toward a match, the actress walking there had put in the hours.
“Stardust Love Song” by Jihyo
Listen: Jihyo (TWICE) – Stardust love song (Twenty Five Twenty One OST 6)[sub español] (YouTube, jxon)
Jihyo of Twice sang “Stardust Love Song”, reportedly her first solo drama OST since her debut. Yoon Young-jun composed it. The song was reportedly nominated at the APAN Star Awards.
“Your Existence” by Wonstein
Listen: Your Existence (YouTube, Wonstein – Topic)
Wonstein sang “Your Existence” and is credited as lyricist alongside MaO, and he reportedly wrote his own rap. One report calls it the song of the ending scenes, one that voices the two leads’ feelings for each other even while they are apart. It describes the base as electronic, warmed by Wonstein’s voice. That is one report, so take it as one listener’s account of the song’s place.
“I’ll Shine on You to Dazzle” by Bae Ki-sung
Bae Ki-sung sang Part 2, “I’ll Shine on You to Dazzle”. It was composed by Black Frequency, made up of Lee Chi-woo and Choi Seong-gwon.
The Last Song: “Your World”
Listen: [MV] 설호승(Seol Hoseung) (SURL) – 너의 세상 (Your world) / Official Music Video (YouTube, SEOUL MUSIC / 서울뮤직)
The ninth and final OST piece is “Your World”, Part 9, sung by Seol Ho-seung of SURL. Kang Hyun-min composed it.
What the singer said about it
In an interview, Seol Ho-seung said he rarely watches television, and that he was surprised at how famous the drama was. On first hearing the song he felt as if he had already watched the drama. He sang it imagining that he had to leave someone he loves far behind, for reasons he cannot help. His advice to listeners is to attend to the words, and to listen once the story is nearly over. That is the singer’s own pointer, and it gives away no plot.
Placed last, the song works as the opposite of “With”. That song gathers five friends in one voice. This one watches a person step away, and it is sung by a single voice. That is a reading of the placement, not anything the makers said. The album ends by taking the group apart.
What the Twenty-Five Twenty-One Soundtrack Left Behind
One music report in April 2022 said the album was liked for its line-up and its range from rock to ballad, and that “With” raised immersion. Praise for the old song in the drama came on similar terms, the sense that it deepened the feeling of being inside the story. No chart positions are given here, deliberately, because the sources do not settle them.
On awards, Taeil’s “Starlight” was reportedly nominated twice, at the APAN Star Awards and at the Seoul Music Awards. DK’s “Go!” and Jihyo’s “Stardust Love Song” were reportedly nominated for Best Original Soundtrack at the APAN Star Awards. Kim Yun-a herself said her old song “has a long lifespan”, which may be the fairest summary of what happened. The makers’ own reasons for the music choices remain theirs to tell.
Closing: The Sea, and Where to Hear the Twenty-Five Twenty-One Soundtrack
Spoiler note: the next paragraph names a scene from the story. Nam Joo-hyuk named a scene of the five friends looking out at the sea as the one most memorable to him. He explained it this way: “The five youth resemble the ocean. Whether it be a calm sea or raging waves, the youth standing there seem to be like us.”
Set that beside the physical album, which carries its own photograph from the school trip to the sea. They are two separate things, and this article pairs them only as a way of hearing the music. The songs are not about the waves. They are about standing in front of them with friends, and remembering it later from a long way off.
To listen, look for the Twenty-Five Twenty-One OST album on the usual streaming services. Jaurim’s “Twenty-Five, Twenty-One” is on their 2013 album Goodbye, Grief. Put the old song on last, once the others have played, and it sounds like the thing they were all remembering.
Related Articles
- Twenty-Five Twenty-One: Love and Loss in a Country in Crisis – The drama itself: how the 1998 IMF crisis shaped the story of fencing and love.
- 90s Korean Movie Music: The Most Powerful Watch Guide – How music shaped the emotional core of 1990s Korean cinema and television.
- 10 K-Drama Locations: Discover the Stunning Magic of Korea – Where Twenty-Five Twenty-One and other K-dramas were filmed across Korea.
- Rare Secrets of the Amazing Classic Korean Movies for Beginners – Welcome to Dear, From K. If you are looking for the best Classic Korean.
Source: Images: tvN official program page.