After teasing his much-anticipated debut album with pre-release singles such as ‘Last Breath’, ‘My Life’ and ‘Save Me’ over the past year, Mark Tuan finally released his debut album, The Other Side, on August 26.
The Other Side is a 20-track full-length album showing Mark’s process of naming, facing and processing emotions and life experiences such as love, heartbreak, loss, friendship and fame. The Other Side includes pre-released singles ‘Last Breath’, ‘My Life’, ‘Lonely’, ‘Save Me’ and ‘imysm’. The album is led by the title track ‘Far Away’.
Across the 20 songs, it feels like Mark is finally ready to face and deal with his emotions but still has a lot of work to do before coming out to the other side. Not only emotionally but also musically. As much as The Other Side is a study on emotions, it is also a study on sounds and what direction(s) Mark’s sound could be.
Read more about Mark Tuan’s pre-released singles ‘Last Breath’, ‘My Life’, ‘Lonely’, ‘Save Me’ and ‘imysm’.
The track closing the album is the title track ‘Far Away’ – the last statement in the heart-shattering relationship Mark has laid out on The Other Side. In the reflective, emo-indie pop-rock song, Mark is conscious that distancing himself from a person and a relationship that keeps letting him down is the only solution.
Meanwhile, the other side of this relationship is the opening track ‘Running Away’ in which Mark explores loneliness but still does not regret any decisions.
Across the 20-track, The Other Side sounds homogeneous in its melodies – a considerable risk for this conceptual album – but it has some standouts such as ‘Change Up’, ‘Exhausted’ – for the lyrics – ‘Let U Go’ and ‘More’.
The Other Side confirmed Mark’s global appeal and popularity as the album reached No.1 on the iTunes Top Albums chart in 53 countries and the single ‘Far Away‘ topped the iTunes Top Songs chart in 28 countries. The album also landed at No.6 on the Worldwide iTunes Album Chart and with ‘Far Away‘ Mark scored his third Billboard’s Hot Trending Songs with the song charting at No.16.
With The Other Side, Mark Tuan undoubtedly worked hard to unravel his own emotions and give sense to his personal experiences while releasing what could have been a concept album with massive potential if released in two parts, giving Mark more time to refine the musicality of the tracks and highlight Mark’s artistry as singer, rapper and lyricist.
The Other Side is available to stream on all music platforms.
