[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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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.

[Blog] New Muse

So towards the first months of 2014 we received news that 9MUSES would be losing Eunji and Sem through “graduation”. “Graduation” happens to be a substitute word for “getting the hell out” a neither would be renewing their contract. At that point in time, I’ll admit, I was saddened by the news but not entirely devastated. 9MUSES’ inability to keep a stable roster has been shown time and time again, year after year. Their management claiming this is a “graduation” system is complete bull because (a) this group was never marketed as such (think After School) and (b) Sem and Eunji clearly wanted to just GTFO of Star Empire. Sem was a support vocalist and Eunji is second to Erin in the rapping, so their contributions were solid but nothing extraordinary. The problem lies in that 9MUSES had a very successful 2013, stringing off releases from “Dolls”. Losing members after gaining such momentum was going to hurt them a fair amount.

Then came Sera. Now I’ll keep what I want to say simple. Sera may be better off as a soloist or without 9MUSES, but 9MUSES won’t be as better off without Sera, at least not immediately. Sera’s presence was so important as the de facto leader and the vocalist with the most strength. Hyuna, Hyemi, and Kyungri are all very capable singers but they are more of the airy sultry type vocalist (especially Kyungri mmf). Sera’s voice is very pretty and delicate, but able to stretch out for power if necessary. This void is likely to be felt for a while unless the new recruit is a vocal specialist.

Speaking of the new member. On the bright side, while 9MUSES has a horrific track record for maintaining members, they clearly are prepared with some quality trainees. Hyuna, Kyungri, and Sungah were all new members at some year or another and they’ve been key components of the 9MUSES machine ever since. I’m tempted to believe this new Muse is gonna blow the 3 outta the water. Let’s hope so.

The vocal lineup is still strong and consistent and almost no other girl can compare to Erin for rapping. What 9MUSES really comes down to is this: can this new 6MUSES bring quality tracks like “Gun” and “Wild” to the table? Nothing says otherwise, but we’ll have to see how the new Muse and new MUSES will develop.

[Blog] Youngji's Debut

(Okay so I thought this was going to be posted on the 5th because I set Tumblr to automatically publish this for me but I guess that isn’t working? Anyway here are some thoughts on KARA and the newest member Youngji.)

So Youngji was recently chosen to be the new KARA member. With the departure of Jiyoung and Nicole, KARA will now be a roster of Gyuri, Seungyeon, Hara, and Youngji. I’ll admit I didn’t catch much of the audition process (at all, actually) but the placement and timing is really what I wanted to talk about.

As someone who joined the Hallyu Wave in late 2009, this is the first experience of being introduced to a new member in a staple group. I was a little late to the TVXQ and Super Junior shenanigans, though I was still too uninformed to really make note of. I shared the mentality that when first introduced to the new trainees / prospects, why didn’t DSP just make the new group with these girls and keep KARA as 3. I mean honestly, aside from transition vocals and some subpar rapping, that’s all that Jiyoung and Nicole’s roles filled from a music standpoint. Youngji doesn’t need to be a killer vocalist with Seungyeon and Gyuri still around, and KARA’s music could do without rapping to begin with. Something also of note is that Youngji’s DOB is 1994, which means she’s the same age as Jiyoung. I think it may have been a little awkward if anyone younger than her was chosen (which essentially left her and Sojin only) with such the age gap, but other groups have done that before (2NE1).

Probably what bothers me the most is that this member addition is coming after such a long period of stasis. The last time new members were added was 6 years ago (Hara and Jiyoung) to replace Sunghee. Now again, this was all before my time, but having such a disruptive moment after the stability of the group (after they have established themselves as a top tier girl group) really fogs up the future. I know most netizens and K-netizens were torn but they’re all crazy anyway so I’m not going to bother comparing schools of thought. But overall it just seems like a questionable decision to (a) add a new member at this point, and (b) have that member be from a selected pool of trainees who could easily be their own group. I think 3 or more members used to be in some project group that was disbanded?

What about Nicole and Jiyoung? Nicole’s been showing off some practice videos of choreography and the like. If the girl is going down the path of a dancer, good for her. I still value vocals the most, so I’d be pretty excited if she worked on that a little. Less rapping, more singing, honestly. As for Jiyoung I’m pretty sure the girl has disappeared off to London to become a [s]wizard[/s] student I wish them nothing but the best, and will for sure keep up with Nicole and her exploits assuming they’re good.

KARA’s music as a whole has been a little inconsistent for me since I discovered the group with “Lupin”. “Damaged Lady” and “Pandora” were good, great even, but “Step” and “Jumping” weren’t as well received. If Youngji’s addition to the team means a shift in the right direction and more solid releases, then I’m all for it. But for now I will remain neutral until given evidence to believe otherwise.