[Review] Girls' Generation - Lion Heart

Girls' Generation teased with 3 songs for their comeback, and we're now seeing the follow-up tracks to "Party." "Party" was predictably fun, but also predicted (by me) to be the weakest of their title tracks. I looked forward to seeing what "Lion Heart" and "You Think" had in store.

Apparently "Lion Heart" had in store terrible editing because in the opening 20 seconds we see a hilarious typo. It's Gilr's Generation everybody. We've been bamboozled this whole time. Anyway, the song opens with some smooth sounds out of Taeyeon and as a whole is very much driven by the vocal line of Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Seohyun. The adlibs are quite pleasant, and easily the highlight of the song (though the choruses are very strong in their own right). However, this isn't to say the rest are bad. On the contrary, SNSD has always had a rather impressive vocal lineup, and the weakest members (Hyoyeon and Yoona) have been on a slight improvement path since their debut days. Yuri and Sooyoung have certainly made the most out of training though, and they sound excellent in their support roles. Sunny is usually the wild card of the group in terms of how she sounds but no complaints here. Tiffany's pseudo-rapping is forgettable and everything following makes for a rather mediocre and unfortunate ending to an otherwise consistent song. Like, I understand Tiffany has a sexy-as-fuck voice and she's fluent in English but they really need to stop spamming her with random one-liners.

You know what I realized? Choreographies really don't impress me all that much (anymore?), and I realized why. Kpop is after all a product, and that primary product is the audio. Visuals, dancing, videos, are just accessories to accompany the audio. Having said that, "Lion Heart" is a good song with a misguided choreography. Some of the moves look rather awkward in general, and the spread at the 2nd chorus that is very reminiscent of Hyorin's "crab dance" in "One Way Love" doesn't fit either. The surprise upside is the segment starting at 2:48, where the girls pair up for some silly antics (especially Tiffany and Sunny). Of course this was clearly influenced by the similar antics in Super Junior's "Devil," nor would this have been possible with 9 members. Making the most I suppose. In a song that is very much pop and very much feminine, the choreography just fails to match up. Having the girls wear dresses also made for a weird combination. This provides a decent segue into the visuals. Yuri rebounds from her lackluster appearance in "Party" and takes the crown for best visual in this video. While Taeyeon and Tiffany provide fierce competition, Yuri's tanned complexion and styling cannot be matched. Seohyun still has the short end of the styling, and the only other thing I'll note is Sooyoung's goofy bright red pants which make her tower over the other girls.

The video starts with the girls lounging around eating pizza. Hmm, how suspect. I wonder if the pizza is even real, and if it is, are they sponsored by (or sponsoring) that pizza company. "Mr. Pizza" is obviously just a cover. The MV / plot seemed pretty innocent enough at first, with the only issues being how nobody found the man with a lion mask creepy at all and instead being swept off their feet by this mysterious stranger. Anyway the girls hopelessly fall in love with Mr. Lion until they realize he's actually a scumbag. There's some bonus footage at the end showing the girls getting revenge, with Sunny getting the best kind of revenge - getting a new man (albeit another animal mask-wearing man) and Hyoyeon...kills him...? Damn that's brutal. But then they realize it was just a dream...until they wake up around the lion. They scream and panic and don't actually do anything to get away or get rid of the douchebag. Some mediocre acting overall, at least a little bit improved from "Party." I guess the imagination aspect explains how in each member's solo scenes they're shown wearing different outfits. I'm guessing one for scenes with Mr. Lion and the other without but I'm far too lazy to check back at this point. It's a pretty decent video and isn't just gratuitous fanservice, so I can respect that.

In contrast to "Party," which was a decent song with a few errors, "Lion Heart" is more consistent but really takes a tumble at the end. The choreography is also out of place, but the video (typo and acting aside) is interesting enough and keeps with the theme to give enough bonus points. I have some high hopes for "You Think," which should be the strongest title track of the series.

[ Overall: 82 / 100 ]