Why I Like Yoon Jong-shin

How He Lives in a New Era

The reason I like Yoon Jong-shin is simple: his music is good. For a developer, that is like saying the product is good. He has a lot of songs worth listening to. For a planner, that is like having a lot of services worth using. No matter how many other reasons there are, if the songs are weak as a singer-songwriter, nothing else really matters.

I first came across Yoon Jong-shin through the song "Budi" from his fourth album in 1995, which I heard on OCPlay through IMS. I was 14 at the time and in the thick of middle-school syndrome. I loved his particular brand of awkwardness, and from then on I became a fan.

From the mid-to-late 2000s, Yoon Jong-shin started appearing on variety shows, and now there are even students who see him more as an entertainer than a singer. But he never neglected music. By early this year, he had released 14 studio albums and written great songs for artists like Park Jung-hyun, Sung Si-kyung, IU, and Kim Yeon-woo.

What shocked me most was learning about a project he had been running since 2010 called "Monthly Yoon Jong-shin." In this project, he releases one single every month, and he never does the work alone. He creates new songs and sings them with other artists, or reworks older songs and gives them new life. He keeps changing producers too, working with Jeong Ji-chan, Jo Jung-chi, Harim, and others, and he never stops experimenting. He also actively collaborates with the younger artists he discovered through audition programs.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Monthly Yoon Jong-shin albums. You can see the many musicians he has worked with.

If most singers used the old model of locking themselves away for a year, making an album, and then earning money through broadcasts afterward, Yoon Jong-shin moves in the opposite direction. He works mainly in singles instead of albums, and he changes musical partners every month so they can inspire each other. The musicians who have worked with him so far range from longtime Yoon Jong-shin allies like Yoo Hee-yeol, Harim, and Jo Jung-chi, to legends like Yoon Sang, Kim Hyun-chul, and Jang Pil-soon, to younger artists like Jang Jane, Kim Grimme, and Kyuhyun, to distinctive voices like Jo Won-sun, Park Jung-hyun, Jung In, and Horan. The range is enormous.

Watching him, I felt he understands the flow of the times better than anyone. He has the skill to make products, and he seeks collaboration and synergy with many musicians. Those are things you cannot do without an open heart and a flexible personality. He also markets himself well through variety shows and has firmly established two brands under the name Yoon Jong-shin: entertainer and musician.

Developers these days are changing how they work through startups and open-source projects, and I think there is a lot we can learn from Yoon Jong-shin.

1. Locking yourself away at home or in the office and trying to do something huge on your own no longer works. The world changes too quickly, so spending a year preparing an album or service is like buying a lottery ticket.
2. You need to stay close to talented friends who share your mindset. Around Yoon Jong-shin are friends like Jo Jung-chi on guitar, Harim on vocals, and the magnetic Yoo Hee-yeol, all of whom can make music with him anytime. They are not just friendly people; they are genuine, capable friends who lounge around in their underwear, drink, get wasted, wake up the next day, and still reach for the guitar first. Talking about melodies, making songs, and releasing them with such people is like having a team that can discuss product ideas, turn them into products, and ship them to users whenever necessary. Turning melodies into songs and ideas into products is what skill is.
3. You should not keep digging in only one hole. It is not enough for a singer to only sing, or for a developer to only develop. Yoon Jong-shin did not start with variety shows. He began as a guest vocalist for 015B, released his own albums, then moved into drama and film OSTs, then experimental songs like "Patbingsu" and "Annyeong Hot Bar," then talk-show appearances, then acting in sitcoms, and now he hosts major shows like Radio Star. It is hard to say this path was planned from the beginning, but I think it was built by taking on work that was different from what he was doing at the time, even when it felt unfamiliar, without hesitation.
   If developers only grind away at coding, they easily become people who merely implement ideas that other people came up with. We need to keep finding ideas that can actually work in the world, building them, testing them, failing, succeeding, and continuing to take on challenges. That is how more skill, more opportunity, and more luck come.
4. You must always interact, collaborate, and create synergy with diverse musicians, or developers. Many developers talk about ideas, products, services, and business only with coworkers or people around them. But we also need to open up, prototype good ideas quickly with good developers, and work more directly together. Hackathons and open-source projects shine in this respect. We should not stay trapped inside the boundaries of our companies or our own habits; we should actively take part. Yoon Jong-shin enjoys making music with audition contestants and variety-show guests. You do not get tired if you keep giving and receiving something new.

The biggest reason Yoon Jong-shin has been able to work so openly is that he is a musician who writes and sings compelling songs. So if developers want to take this approach, they first need the skill to make products. On that point there is no room for argument.

But this is also a chicken-and-egg problem. If you have the skill, a sense for the market, and recognition from others, you get far more opportunities to work with other outstanding people. Even if you are still lacking, collaborating with different people and with better people always shows you what you lack and gives you the motivation to move forward. Just as you only know how hard a wall is when you actually hit it, you have to bump into things first.

My dream is to build together with the people I want to work with, and to make the things we need together. From that perspective, Yoon Jong-shin's way of working shows me a lot. Growing with good people, creating results, and having the public love those results. The biggest reason I respect him is that he is someone who is actually putting my dream into practice and showing it to the world.

Musicians under Mystic89

Finally, when his former agency refused to pay his appearance fees, Yoon Jong-shin terminated the contract and founded his one-man agency, Mystic89, at the end of 2010. Artists such as Shin Chi-rim, Kim Ye-rim, and Park Ji-yoon are signed there. He is a musician, entertainer, marketer, planner, and founder. He never defines his own limits ahead of time.