Watch Key’s Intergalactic Video for ‘Hate That…’

Pop icon SHINee’s Key has released a dramatic music video for his dreamy new single “Hate That…” which also features veteran group Girls Generation’s leader, Taeyeon. 

Composed by Stephen Puth and Lauren Mandel, “Hate That…” nurtures its emotional quotient with poignant, haunting guitar notes, heightening the track’s overarching theme of a broken relationship. With Key and Taeyeon’s vocals blended into the swirl of R&B and synth, “Hate That…” is a soft, dreamy track that lingers on the mind long after it has stopped playing.

Penned by SM Entertainment songwriter Hwang Yubin, the song opens with Key acknowledging the place he now holds in the life of his past lover: “I’m already nobody to you/ Just a stranger worse than a bad memory/ I’ll be wiped off after being thrown away.” As the song proceeds, the mood slips from regret to bitterness and finally acceptance as the vocalists come to terms with the reality of the situation. “And I hate that I hate that you’re happy without me/ And I pray and I pray I want you to come back baby/ I can feel the breakup going towards the end.”

The music video weaves a cinematic storyline with Key orbiting the Earth in a space shuttle. The camera then zooms onto Earth focusing on Taeyeon who slowly looks up into the sky while being stranded alone on an island. In a dramatic turn of events, Key launches himself towards Earth in efforts to save Taeyeon–possibly taking her place. The visuals then shift to a more realistic scene where Key and Taeyeon are separated by the glass windows of a cafe rather than the vacuum of space, but still remain just as distant and finally choose to part ways.

Following the 2019 repackaged album I Wanna Be and a comeback in 2021 with his group SHINee, Key is all set to release a solo album later this year with “Hate That…” serving as the pre-release single.