[Review] U-Kiss - Standing Still

Vocals: 10 / 10

While U-Kiss does not have crazy standout singers that you could group with the likes of Junsu, Jonghyun, or Changmin, what they do have is such a synchronized lineup with so much synergy it’s ridiculous. You could probably have everyone lipsync someone else’s lines and any newbies would probably get their heads so confused they’d spin out in misery. Seriously though, you could easily rotate Kiseop, Dongho, Kevin to the main verses and Hoon and Soohyun to the transitions and it’d still sound just as good as this current one. Awesome work by everyone.

Appearance: 8 / 10

Looking slick, U-Kiss. Hoon and Soohyun look the best probably. The “dirty” style for Hoon looks good and Soohyun strikes a resemblance to some other idol whose name escapes me at this moment. Kiseop’s the ulzzang, right? Sometimes I think Soohyun could rob him of the title. AJ always looks angry for some reason, poor guy. Not to mention his hair is not doing him any favors. And Dongho has some serious Heechul syndrome with those hairstyles. Please stay away from that as much as possible.

Dance: 8 / 10

For a music video that was so boring (more on that later) the dance wasn’t too too memorable. It’s flashy and all but also relatively hard to follow (though in part due to the seizure MV). What could have been a dance break at the heavy electronic intro or soft bridge but those were replaced with…U-Kiss walking together and a burning flower. Artistic flavour? Sure. Choreography potential? Not so much. Even then, the only interesting parts are the chorus since the verses are pretty tame. It’s a solid dance but isn’t gonna be one of the more memorable U-Kiss dances.

Rap: 7 / 10

I didn’t really like AJ’s part, with the awkward autotune harmony for half of it. The latter half was pretty nice I guess. Eli’s English is perfect (as expected), so it just leaves me wondering if whether or not using Dongho in place of AJ would have been better, but given it was AJ’s return it wouldn’t have been fair to neglect him so much. All in all a short but decent rap sequence for Eli and AJ.

Music Video: 5 / 10

Think “Dream Girl” by SHINee except more empty rooms, less vibrant colours, lack of funny camera effects, seizure inducing transitions and a girl with creepy contacts. Was there even any fire? Goodness the music video was so dull I can’t even bring myself to remember (or watch it again for that matter). I don’t even want to write anymore.

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Overall: 76 / 100

Similarily to Girl’s Day and “Expectation”, “Standing Still” impresses with quality vocals but leave everything else with a lot to be desired. The dance is pretty soft and nothing really jumps out at you, and while the music video might do that to your eyes painfully, everything else is boring, boring, boring. More or less a solid single all around but I hope one day we can see impressive and attention grabbing music videos as a norm instead of this stuff.