With all the cleaning around the house I've been doing lately, I felt it was good to drop a brief housekeeping post for the blog as well. First off, I'm going to belatedly start / categorize the 8th season of writeups. It's not that my writing style has really changed all that much over the last year and beyond but the break that I took earlier this year helps make the split easier. Therefore, 8th season will start from mid-May of 2017 and continue on until whenever I feel the next shift is necessary. All posts since then will be updated to reflect this change, and I'll also spend time going through each of those posts for typos, errors, etc. etc. Obviously I can't do this for all the blog posts because that would (a) be ridiculous and (b) take forever so this split is a nice medium. I may also change the tags to [Season #] instead, but the jury's still out on that one.
I don't ever straight up delete old blog entries, but I will do a quick sweep of the 350+ posts for anything blatantly worth removing. I doubt I'll find anything but it'll keep my OCD satisfied for the time being. Nonetheless the priority will be cleaning up the Season 8 posts, and finishing up the 2018 Kpop Awards which will hopefully be released tomorrow night. Last but certainly not least... Thank you to all those who take a peek at my blog. Whoever you are, wherever you are, if I have even a few people that enjoy my writeups then that's damn good enough for me. Cheers to a brighter and better year of Kpop in 2018!
At last we have arrived. The finale of 2017. No more teasing, let's cut straight to my top 10 songs of the year.
#10. Akdong Musician - Dinosaur
Akdong Musician have been a sleeper pick all these years. They release solid music and I've casually glanced over them time and time again, but no more. "Dinosaur" was AKMU's first take on the EDM genre and it's a mighty successful one at that. I like how the song opens with guitar for ten seconds before sucker punching you into reality. In the last couple of years plagued by songs with disappointing climaxes, "Dinosaur" avoids this mistake with a brilliant break-chorus hybrid. The first time I heard this song was through speakers so I didn't even know that Suhyun was actually singing those notes (starting at 1:42). Her voice is incredible and she'll be a superstar vocalist for many years to come. Also helpful is that Chanhyuk's rapping is absent. Those were always my least favorite parts of AKMU songs. "Dinosaur" is brilliant and I hope they return to some of this stuff once Chanhyuk finishes military service.
#9. Sistar - Lonely
In a year where girl groups disbanded left and right, it felt good to see at least one end their group career peacefully. This is as beautiful and solemn a goodbye as you'll see in Kpop. Their voices are pristine, and while Soyu and Hyorin's abilities are of no surprise, Dasom turns in her strongest performance yet. Bora also shines with a powerful rap that helped erase her mediocrity of the previous few years. These solid factors make this breakup all the more painful. This was as well-rounded of an effort since "Alone," and off the heels of "I Like That" one thought Sistar would be returning to form. But alas. The fact they got to perform this song live makes their finale all the more bittersweet. God, I miss Sistar so much.
After the unofficial prologue of the previous post, it's time for some more teasing. I've picked five songs which barely missed out on being in the top 10. These will be unranked, and only have brief notes about each selection. There's absolutely zero reason why previous Best Of 20XX posts never included the music videos so I'll be remedying that starting this year. Here are the songs that almost made the cut.
Taeyeon - Fine
"My Voice" assembled many superstar tracks together, and leading the charge was this song. "Fine" is probably the strongest of her title tracks up until now. It's not a pure ballad / lullaby like "11:11," nor is it the dance number like "Why." Since she has many beautiful moments in this track across her vocal range, "Fine" was a lock for the top songs, and her appearance here as a solo act previews what is to come in tomorrow's reveals.
Rather than make another Best Of B-Sides installment and having to refer to the list of ineligible artists, I figured I could use this one to highlight some B-sides that were some of my favorites of the year. It'll keep things recent while still providing some quality tracks that will segue nicely into next week's post about the best overall songs of the year. Treat this almost like a prologue to the Best Of 2017, if you will.
Primary - Drama (feat. Sunggyu)
Primary always drops amazing music. Even though they always trigger me because the featured artist is the only singer, I can forgive them for the quality songs. What's up with releasing half of a music video though? They did it with Solji, too. Anyway Sunggyu rocks "Drama," his voice stretches all across his range in this song and works very well on either end. Sunggyu has historically been great at conveying emotion when he sings, and that's evident throughout Infinite's discography and any collaborations like this one. With a group comeback in the work (sans Hoya) it'll be good to hear his voice some more.
Taeyeon - Fire
This is the best song with the title of "Fire." Get at me 2NE1 and BTS. Anyway "My Voice" is one of the best albums of the year (surprise) so it's not surprising to find the tracklist extraordinary. Much like Sunggyu in "Drama," Taeyeon runs her voice everywhere and sounds wonderful doing so. What's special about "Fire" is that the chorus comes in super fast: 35 seconds in but the song as a whole never feels rushed. That bridge is therapeutic, too. I'd love to hear like a heavy rock variation on this piece, or even with just a heavier drums influence.
How do I even write this? Thinking about what to say and how to say it leaves me silent. SHINee was one of the earliest groups I discovered in Kpop, and Jonghyun's powerful voice easily made him my favorite member. Though they (and other boy groups) faded into the backlight as I got deeper into Kpop, I still enjoyed their comebacks time and time again. Jonghyun was a special singer, a special talent, and him being gone simply didn't process in my mind at first. The whole situation being tied with depression and suicide only makes things more painful. His final letter, the general surrounding circumstances...there were so many posts and tweets I saw that hurt to read. Some of it reverberated within me because of my own battles, and loss of a family member last year. All the same, the Kpop world lost someone special, but he will not be forgotten. I'll keep things short here. You were respected, admired, and loved for all that you did. Thank you. Rest in peace, Jonghyun.
As 2017 comes to a close it's time for the final Recap of the year. What a year it was for Kpop. Groups debuted and disbanded, controversies continued to ravage the industry, and more fantastic music was released. It's been a bit over half a year since I returned from blog hiatus and my productivity has been pretty good. I've got plans to do more in 2018 but I'll save that for a miscellaneous post in the near future. To the scoreboard!
Woah, another female soloist? Get outta here! There's a emotion I felt when writing this up and tagging this post with "Hyuna" but not "4minute." Perhaps a mixture of nostalgic and sad. Hyuna's life post-group has been enjoyable, as to be expected. She literally went from the face of 4minute to the face of Cube Entertainment. Since the disbandment, she's onto her third solo release after "Babe" earlier this year. If the teasers were anything to go by, this would a Hyuna release through and through. Her songs have yet to be my cup of tea, and I haven't been attached to anything since the prechorus of "Red" so let's see if that has changed.
Credit is needed where credit is due, "Lip & Hip" is catchy and in a good way. Past Hyuna releases were not this fortunate. Overall the song is loud enough and embodies the typical Hyuna track yet is contained with moments of vulnerability, much like "Red" was. Also like "Red," the prechorus is the high point of the song and takes a sharp but successful transition into the sassy chorus. Perhaps the reason why I've loved these prechorus sections so much is that it shows Hyuna is capable of more than rapping (indeed, some of her B-sides showcase this as well). These singing moments are great and if the verses didn't exist you'd think she was a pretty competent vocalist. That quick drop right before the chorus at 1:06 is awesome and throws you right into the fray. In the past I've lamented songs that built up only to fall apart in disappointment so it's nice to see a song taking the shorter route yet have it work.
This Blitz review is brought to you by random.org, which choose one of Pentagon's two recent comeback songs. All I know about Pentagon is that Jino, previously of S.M. The Ballad fame, is in the group. Oh and they released a song about Harambe and are managed by Cube (which curses their futures, rest in pizza). Moving on: Pentagon shows their soft side with this release, and "Violet" is styled after those dance and ballad fusions. The verses are extremely delicate but then shifts into a harder chorus - one that is easy to dance to thanks to that nice instrumental. Over the years there have been many a Kpop song with a similar concept. I don't believe there's a universal term for this mixed genre but someone needs to create one. Anyways, this song style and musicality reminds me of Block B's softer stuff. More specifically "Toy" and the sentimental aura surrounding it. Accompanying "Violet" is an equally soothing music video that will let you feel the feels. Side note: what's up with the varying resolutions of Kpop MVs these days? All in all, "Violet" is a good, relaxing track but if I'm going to delve further into Pentagon's discography, it's not going to be because of the ballads. But if this dual title track comeback is any indication, then some of their dance material is bound to be a stronger sell.
Apology for poor English. Where were you when Black Pink was kill? Seriously, the new Twice teaser images got me thinking. In the NFL subreddit, team flairs get faded when a team no longer qualifies for the playoffs. If there was a Black Pink / Blink flair (and Kpop playoffs) it'd be hella faded right now. They haven't been around for two years yet and their inactivity is already that of a veteran group. YG is really doing something impressive here. Maybe modeling this group after 2NE1 was a little too close to home... They're a powerful group with loaded potential but they lack the action to show for it.
