[Bonus] Best Of Collabs

I’m a huge fan of collaboration work. Whether it’s within the company, between companies, or even two members of the same group, collabs help bring out sides of singers you may not get to see as often (or at all) when they are part of the group. I tried to have most of these selections have considerate portions, as opposed to short clips by one person and then 80% by the other. So without further ado let’s talk about some of my favourites.

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Super Junior & Girls’ Generation - Seoul Song

If there was a better song to be used to advertise Seoul, I have yet to find it. Take some higher tier vocalists from SNSD and some higher tier vocalists from Super Junior and you have a delightful melody. The spotlight was surprisingly for Sunny and Donghae for each group, both of which sounded incredible with Sunny’s high notes and Donghae’s verses. This is the type of range I’d love to see more of Sunny, but I digress. The music video was artful and is of course, a necessity given this is to attract tourists, and the cute coupling of various members and additional touches (like Leeteuk helping Taeyeon, etc.) made the MV even more enjoyable.

GD&TOP & Park Bom - Oh Yeah

You can’t go talking about collaborations without this glorious party piece. The chorus by Bom is kinda repetitive, but bright and rich thanks to her vocals. Backed by G-Dragon and T.O.P rapping the verses, it’s just the perfect song to emphasize the rapping highlights with Bom’s vocals. The English scattered throughout the song like some kind of condiment for a recipe is also pronounced accurately, given YG has some of the best English speakers / pronounciation in the industry. The ending where GD&TOP took the chorus for a final spin was also pretty nice.

Zhang Liyin & Junsu - Timeless

One of my favourite and earlier ballads during my initial wave of exposure to Kpop, “Timeless” brings two distinct voices together with some more than impressive results. Junsu is incredibly talented but Zhang Liyin more than pulls her weight here, with some lovely high notes, belts, and harmonizations. The music video was also a masterpiece, utilizing the acting skills of buddies Han Geng and Siwon of Super Junior along with Lee Yeonhee. Truly a tearjerker, and the emotional vocals did well to support it (or vice versa).

Jongkook, HaHa & Gary - What I Want To Say To You

I have to rep my Running Man buddies here, this song from Jongkook’s 7th album is a happy mix of ballad, reggae, and hip hop and the three pull it off smoothly. I actually thought the order of transition from Jongkook to HaHa to Gary was really good. You can’t undersell any of their talents, whether it’s Jongkook’s high voice, HaHa’s antics, and Gary’s light paced rapping. If Gary had more similar presence to HaHa I think this would have been even more enjoyable, or maybe utilize his voice, which I consider pretty decent.