Powerful Sexy Dance: Boa Releases Her Fourth Album

Don’t judge it just by the image on the cover.

The cover of singer Boa’s fourth album, “My Name” (slated for release on June 11), emphasizes a dreamy and fantastical image instead of the lively and youthful look with which she has so far been identified. Reaction to the image has been varied, from “sexy” to “mysterious.” Her management company, SM Entertainment, explains that “the basic concept is an ambiguity that is neither girl nor woman.”

Boa is 18 years old this year, and has yet to step into “hot and sexy” territory. The key issue for the new album’s success is to make a break from the cute image she promoted for her third album, “Atlantis Princess” (May, 2003). After painstaking consideration, Boa came out with an ambiguous look that stands halfway between girl and woman. “I’m changing, but the transformation is incomplete,” she said.

Making a departure from this cover image, Boa will showcase a powerful and sexy dance number in the first live performance for her new album on MBC’s “Music Camp” airing June 12.

Energetic dance music and funk-infused ballads fill out the track list of Boa’s new offering. The title single, “My Name,” is a sophisticated, urban dance number with a fast, acoustic guitar-based beat, and is much more dynamic than her previous dance songs. Two other dance numbers, “Spark” and “Don’t Give a Damn,” also boast strong beats.

“Throb” (“Dugeun Dugeun” in Korean) and “Etude” are bright, sprightly dance songs, while “My Prayer” and “Greeting” (or “Insa”) are sweet R&B ballads. “We,” the ending theme for the Japanese release version of the Korean film “Taegukgi,” is included as a bonus track.

The album as a whole is more sensual than her previous releases, which tended to rhapsodize the love and dreams of a teenager. Lines like “A new whisper overflows my body in the dim light / If this moment is when everything starts, please call out my name” (“My Name”), or “I want to seduce you, until the day when I finally have you” (Spark), seem to say that Boa will no longer linger in the sweet realm of adolescent love.

Boa unveiled tracks from her fourth album in advance on June 7 through the internet music site “I Like Pop” (www.ilikepop.com). The site is reported to have suffered service interruptions due to swarming fans.

Sun-Woo Kim sublime@donga.com