[Review] Secret - I'm In Love

Secret is back, and after Hyosung’s decent “Goodnight Kiss” we are graced with “I’m In Love”, complete with English intro by Hyosung. Secret continues to bounce back and forth between aegyo and mature, and “I’m In Love” was poised to deliver the latter.

~

Vocals: 9 / 10

Secret (read: Jieun) is just divine. Alright to be fair Hyosung is a really good compliment voice to Jieun, and Hana has shown she can pull her weight since the days of “Poison” and “Talk That”. Poor Sunhwa though, poor girl is more Dasom than Dasom was in “Touch My Body”. If anything, Secret’s vocal composition has never really been kind to her, oh well. Back to Jieun though, this girl is pretty much perfect. She has a very clean voice but can always reach for those high notes to make you shiver. I’d love to give this song a perfect score for vocals but the bridge just doesn’t work for me. The tempo change is too sudden and doesn’t blend with the rest of the song. Coincidentally, I think the bridge in Hyosung’s “Goodnight Kiss” meshes better with this song.

Dance: 7 / 10

Meh. Some parts of the dance were better than others. The more graceful lying down on the ground and some of the shifting around positions was pretty good but most of the other movements seemed erratic and not well focused. Maybe I’m just lying to myself but I have yet to watch the dance practice video so I may be completely wrong.

Rap: 8 / 10

Hana is a staple in the top 10 of girl group rappers, so I was quite disappointed in the rap for a few main reasons. The first is that, like the bridge, the tempo was slower than the more frantic pace of the rest of the song. Second, it was way shorter than anything could do her justice. Last, the rap seemed pretty tame and Hana is capable of fantastic ferocity in her raps. Not so much a swing and a miss as it was an awkward hit to the side.

Music Video: 6 / 10

I have committed to giving a score of 6 for any stereotypical video (which includes boxes, solo shots, fanservice, etc.) and adding or subtracting from there based on stuff like outfits, appearance, etc. Speaking of, the girls look great. Not a fan of Hyosung’s bangs (didn’t really work in “Love Is Move” either), but everything else is genuine eye candy. Hana is probably my favourite visual out of the group, and has been since “Poison”. Anyway there isn’t much to be said about the video besides Secret being smirky and emotional. How lame.

~

Overall: 76 / 100

Secret comes back with vengeance, striking hard with a mature and sexy sound in “I’m In Love”. While not the superstar that “Love Is Move” was, it can remind us of how a consistent sound and Jieun’s incredible vocals really really help Secret when they’re being serious. …please no more aegyo stuff. Secret syndrome has existed for too long.

[Review] Hyuna - Red

Continuing with the “red” releases, we have Korea’s #1 sex kitten in Hyuna, with “Red”. Playing off a children’s rhyme, Hyuna is looking for a chance to redeem herself, since I consider her career on a downward trend with both 4minute and solo releases since “Change”.

~

Vocals: 9 / 10

To clarify, I’m only considering the prechorus as the vocals. Everything else is either rapping or chanting, which is obviously not singing. Anyway, this prechorus is glorious. It’s probably the best of any song released thus far this year, and still contests for one of the best all time in any Korean music. It’s just that good. The crescendo / buildup is pristine and right before the active chorus, there’s that shouting / howling going on which wasn’t as terrible as I thought it’d be. Probably makes more sense given all the monkey references.

Dance: 8 / 10

This dance was just casual twerking to me. At the very least, this choreography was a lot more tame than I had expected, coming off the heels of “Bubble Pop” and “Ice Cream”, both of which are releases I don’t want to watch more than once so I’m not going to backtrack and check. There was that one move where she does a split or something? Seems random and out of the blue. Still, the fact that I went in expecting some Stellar or 4Ladies’ choreography and was surprised is a good turn of events.

Rap: 8 / 10

Despite Hyuna’s nasally voice, the rapping was pretty good here. The flow is good and Hyuna shows that she’s still the lead rapper in 4minute, since I don’t think Jiyoon could do as well as she did. The chanting of the chorus is energetic and all, but severely weakens in the 2nd half. As for the chorus itself, I know it’s referencing a children’s rhyme, interchanging her own name within the lyrics, so talk about serious product placement. The amount of times you’ll hear “Hyuna” in this song is way more than the amount of times you saw “body” text in Sistar’s “Touch My Body”. As amazing as the prechorus was in “Red”, the rapping more than holds its own.

Music Video: 7 / 10

Standard boxes, multiple camera angles, and extreme fanservice are the trifecta of Hyuna’s videos and there’s no changes here. Considering the excessive use of “Hyuna” and monkeys, there were quite a number of both in this video. Despite the monkeys and crazy partying in the video, it’s pretty bland. I won’t call it boring since the partying looked fun and saying that’s “boring” is just being rude. Nonetheless it’s a pretty mediocre MV but I will give bonus points for the monkeys.

~

Overall: 80 / 100

“Red” is certainly no “Change” (Hyuna’s best solo title), but it’s actually a solid song that while a little repetitive, has good rapping supported by a beautiful prechorus which holds onto the hype and high energy feel of the song. It’s not much of a change of pace as it is a different step forward for Hyuna, who has failed me the last couple of years.

[Review] f(x) - Red Light

With Sulli’s “recovery” (might write a blog about this, not convinced yet) and f(x) taking a hiatus, I figured let’s backtrack a little and talk about the recent release of “Red Light”. The girls have been on a confusing roller coaster, with a strong showing in “Electric Shock” followed by a weak rebound in “Rum Pum Pum Pum”. Hopefully “Red Light” will bring the cycle around.

~

Vocals: 5 / 10

This song has around four phases, all with different tempo, melodies, etc. and the transitions are mediocre at best. Some of the earlier transitions are good, but towards the end everything seems to fall apart and collapse on itself. I don’t know why but S.M. really struggles with effective transitions compared to YG (2NE1’s “I Love You”) and JYP (JJ Project’s “Bounce”). If this series of lines sounds familiar, that’s because I used the exact same lines from SNSD’s “I Got A Boy” review. This song in a nutshell is a version of “I Got A Boy” specifically tailored to f(x). So with all that being said, it’s not very good. Individual pieces could potentially work well if the whole song was in the same vein but that’s not the case. The bridge is beautiful, and much like EXO’s “Wolf”, is amazing and would’ve really complimented a good song. But unfortunately, this isn’t. And unlike “I Got A Boy”, none of these individual mini segments are as good. There’s some form of rapping but they’re minimal (also not that good either) and not worth talking about.

Dance: 7 / 10

Not sure how I feel about this dance. It’s not quite the usual “f(x)” choreography if I may coin that sort of term. Either way, the MV never gave too much vision of the dance but unusual dance is not the same as bad dance. For recent comparison, it’s not extremely awkward like Sistar and it’s not cute like Girl’s Day. It’s serious and kinda refreshing and there’s many changes of pace, but this works better with choreography than vocals. All in all an average showing here from f(x).

Music Video: 8 / 10

What the hell is happening in this MV? There’s dark colour schemes and burning books and everyone has an eye patch sometimes and their makeup is weird… This is all happening in some broken down warehouse, too. Kudos to the girls for not using a box set for the 30th time. And honestly I appreciate a video with so much stuff going on I can’t follow much more than the bland stereotypical video of close-ups and boxes. Victoria looks flawless per usual, but again, the weird makeup and eye patches were confusing. Oh well.

~

Overall: 67 / 100

S.M. is struggling this year. And that’s a phrase only speaking from a music frame of reference, not including all the political problems. Anyway, “Red Light” is a flawed variant of the already poor “I Got A Boy” of their labelmates from a year ago. A good quality video and excellent bridge is not able to rescue the jarring sound of the rest of the song. It’s honestly an improvement from “Rum Pum Pum Pum” but not by much. Here’s hoping this isn’t the end of f(x)’s light.

[Review] Girl's Day - Darling

Girl’s Day is certainly in the limelight. After landing on my radar just last year, they’ve catapaulted themselves forward with solid title track after title track. When news of this summer release being a return to their roots, that being aegyo, I worried I wouldn’t like the backtracking. Boy was I wrong.

Vocals: 9 / 10

When I first discovered the group in “Expectation”, I thought Minah wasn’t all she was hyped to be and that the other members were still good in comparison. “Something” pulled me away from this opinion and “Darling” rather cements it. Minah is really good. Sojin could pretty much only stand on the sidelines this time around, with the chorus’ range possibly being one of the highest ever. Minah continues to be the strongest with excellent delivery and beautiful high notes at the song’s conclusion. Line distribution, however, is still a weak point of Girl’s Day. Yura and Hyeri have shown us tme and time again that they have the capable support voices but just aren’t ever given enough time to prove so. This is made harder by the extremely high ranges of “Darling”, some of which even Minah is clearly reaching for. All in all though, a graceful synchronized sound carried by Minah.

Dance: 8 / 10

Girl’s Day have discovered the jackpot blend of sexy and cute for choreography. No one with a right mind can argue that the 4 girls shaking their butts at the camera is overly sexual, and it’s just damn cute. Something new this time around was the use of male backup dancers, like the lucky men who got to carry Sojin! But besides that, standard choreography for Girl’s Day or any girl group, to be completely honest.

Music Video: 10 / 10

Girl’s Day. Summer fun. Music video. I could stop writing here. But write on I will. Much like the dance, Girl’s Day grabs the elusive sweet spot of blending cute and sexy together flawlessly. For starters, the outfits were perfect. At least, the white and red dresses were pristine. I was not convinced by the yellow and white tube dresses (I have no idea if that’s what they’re called but whatever) though. The rest of the video is pure fun. Enjoying the free time by baking cupakes, getting ready, throwing darts, etc. etc. Put simply, the BTS could be just a free party film of sorts.

~

Overall: 94 / 100

On paper, “Darling” isn’t something extraordinary. Routine carrying from Minah with loveable Sojin support. A dance that is both cute and sexy, and never weighs down too far on either spectrum, all wrapped together in a delightfully fun music video. Yet, this score speaks for itself, in that it’s outstanding. Girl’s Day show us that despite the sexy releases of 2013 on, they still have the cute and quirky qualities the aegyo songs of older years past.

[Review] Sistar - Touch My Body

I can’t believe this is only the 2nd Sistar song on my blog (discounting Sistar19). I didn’t review either “Alone” or “Loving U” but here we get the attempt “Touch My Body” at challenging the summer spectacular that was “Loving U”.

~

Vocals: 10 / 10

Hyorin and Soyu’s synergy has always been on spot but I think this song really brings this out to the extreme. They just really damn good together. Damn damn good good damn good damn. Good. Line distribution is always a problem for Sistar who never give Bora any love but my goodness is that Dasom hitting a power note? Really happy to see / hear this, considering Dasom is the poster girl for “bland” idols. This instrumental is delightfully sassy and fun and definitely adds to the vibe. The saxophone is just excellent and unlike the sax in Secret’s “Poison”, I wasn’t fearful of how overboard it could be. A qualm I have is the bridge, which could be excellent if not perfect in another song but just didn’t seem the mesh here.

Dance: 4 / 10

This was extremely weak choreography, and it’s been a while since a song’s dance was the worst part. The butt shaking not only looks uncomfortable but isn’t even attractive. The arm waving throughout the verses isnt much better. Of all the Sistar choreography thus far, this is the most disappointing and appears to be the most forced / least natural, which is a shame. What I did like about the choreography, however, were the multitude of solo shots of the members doing the dance inbetween shots of the full team choreography. That, combined with the various positioning changes with their backup dancers (V-shape, backup dancers behind, in a line, etc.) redeem this, but not by much.

Rap: 8 / 10

Bora at her finest? Debatable, but definitely in her comfort zone as far as pacing and delivery goes. Hyorin also joins (as usual) for a little intersection, but this time around her part is all singing and not rap singing. The rap was well setup though, and I think that the song could’ve benefited from having a longer rap. If anything, just extend both Bora and Hyorin’s parts for another measure or so and this would have the possibility of a perfect score.

Music Video: 10 / 10

Okay so the sets are still boxes, and merely give the illusion of being outside. This is certainly weaker than the video of “Loving U” which was actually filmed outside in Hawaii. But it’s still colourful and suited for the summer. “Fun” is the word I’m looking for and this video is exactly that. The party room during the end with cameos from Jun Hyunmoo, Kim Bosung, and Noh Hongchul were awesome, since the party theme is very real and this for sure was the most enjoyable. Kim Bosung does a good job with the saxophone and makes his moments on camera seem authentic, and even if that weren’t the case, just adds to the lively MV. If I were to complain, would be regarding the excessive “Touch my body” text essentially spammed throughout the video. The phrase is already repetitive in the song so I felt this wasn’t necessary.

~

Overall: 80 / 100

If “Loving U” was “perfect summer fun” then “Touch My Body” is “good summer fun”. Not quite as solid as their previous summer title track but a well done job nonetheless. The vocals from Hyorin and Soyu are as good as ever, while the rapping is also just as good if a little short. The MV is fun, flashy, and colourful wth guest appearances only adding to the party. Unfortunately, their pathetic choreography wrecks their potential and will probably prevent me from watching lives.