[Review] KARA - Damaged Lady

As KARA will probably cease to exist as we know it in just under three months, I thought I’d take a look at their last title track as 5KARA. Also since I was inactive during September, I’m making up for it with extra pieces this month, naturally.

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Vocals: 8 / 10

Seungyeon continues to do a lot of work for KARA, but I’m not going to dismiss Gyuri either. The chorus was powerful and easily the highlight of the song. It did, however, get my hopes up for the rest of the song, which the rap (we’ll talk about that later) disappointed me in. The verses however meshed pleasantly with the chorus, especially given Jiyoung’s soft voice (the sound of innocence) and the other girls being capable of matching that sound. Overall the vocals in “Damaged Lady” are not far off from the standards of KARA.

Appearance: 9 / 10

Gyuri, please. That short cut just won’t do. I’m not talking about the short wigs (the ones that gave them the boyish look), I’m talking about the red bizarre cut that not only framed her face awkwardly but just made her look straight up creepy. And honestly, the colour isn’t the greatest on her to begin with. Other than that, KARA lives up to their standards. Seungyeon and Hara look amazing, and Nicole and Jiyoung, too. Everyone’s outfits while on the their thrones looked amazing (again minus Gyuri), and the white T-shirt and black tie look was oozing charisma. No comment on their boy looks.

Dance: 7 / 10

There’s a lot of hip movement, but outside of that it didn’t seem like the dance was particularly interesting. The girls mostly stood straight for a lot of the movements, which doesn’t necessarily make it a bad or lame dance, but definitely affects the visual appeal. That said, I didn’t find this dance on any extreme, which I leave to you on whether or not that’s a good or bad thing. It wasn’t too boring, but it wasn’t overly flashy.

Rap: 4 / 10

I thought the rapping throughout could’ve been omitted entirely. While previous rapping in “Lupin” and “Pandora” was appropriate, I felt this one in “Damaged Lady” wasn’t. The rest of the song is very high energy and or loud, emphasized by the vocals and chorus, but the rapping never really got anywhere besides sounding low and out of place. The one “saving grace” of the rap in “Damaged Lady” is that it was probably the best closing option available to them, since the chorus was so full of energy and the verses were fast.

Music Video: 8 / 10

KARA gets a lot of free points here for not having the standard boring MV. It’s cute to see them distressed at their pathetic excuse of a boyfriend(s) checking out other girls and not paying attention to them, and the eventual ditching and getting a bit of revenge. What did Jiyoung or whoever shoot at a guy anyway…? Questionable random water sprinkler scene though, fanservice aside. This was also the first MV for KARA where I felt their fancy closed boxes were maybe a little too small. For a group that has five members, you’d think it’d be hard for them to make a box set look crowded but I felt that way for a few of them.

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Overall: 72 / 100

Despite my comments about the excellent vocal showing in the chorus, I find “Damaged Lady” lacking in terms of getting your attention. Perhaps it was because of the subpar rapping, or maybe they lost a few points in the choreography, but I don’t forsee myself coming back to this song as often as I have others, but maybe I’m merely wallowing in the nostalgia of “Lupin” and crying that KARA will lose Nicole and possibly Jiyoung for next year.