Kara is finally back after a round a year absence from the Korean stage. This time, they made their comeback with only 4 members with a drastic line-up change. Former members Nicole and Jiyoung both decided to move on and after their respective contacts ended, the two parted ways with Kara. Nicole is said to be gearing up for her own solo debut, after flying back to the States to enhance her skills at being a performer. Jiyoung went back to studying for the time being. After both members left the group, the company, DSP decided to add a new member to the band. In the end it turned out to be Youngji, chosen by the public from 7 trainees altogether, to be a part of the new line-up for Kara, joining Gyuri, Hara and Seungyeon. As you can also see, this review has been put down as KPOP and JPOP. Their title track Mamma Mia, was released in both Japan and Korea and hence both shall be reviewed today.

I find this song to be more of a JPOP song rather than a KPOP song firstly. It just has the JPOP feeling that JPOP fans are more used to. The lyrics seem to flow better in the Japanese version as well. The start of the song has a fresh summer feel to it, which is explainable due to the Summer season in the Northern Hemisphere (sorry, brb after freezing myself in Winter down here). But the start also has a vogue type of feel to it. There is that Madonna influence that you can hear at the start. I like the part where the singers are singing at that really fast paced, that seems like rapping. Pretty cool. As for the rest of the song, I have to say that I was very disappointed. The chorus is okay to listen to overall, however it really is not that great. It sounds really pop-ish and as I said before, really does not sound like a KPOP song. Also, the line distribution is really weird. Sorry, is Kara a 4 member group? Oh, I nearly mistaken the group to be a 3 member vocal group with one back up dancer. Like seriously, the company is not keen on showing Youngji off to the public, what was the big deal of the group needing a fourth member? Not fair for Kara and not fair for Youngji as well. So overall, Kara could have done loads better with this song.

The music video looks tens time better for the Japanese one rather than the Korean one. I feel that this music video lives on the colour theme changes throughout the whole video, because beside that, there really is nothing to talk about. It seems so artificial that it looks really boring to watch. Oh green theme and then a white theme, and scenes in between abut them lounging around. Great. That or they changed the lighting to make it seem more different. Wow. It seems like the company has little idea what direction the band is going now. They were once one of the biggest group in Korea, but now they have reached a slump. The colour contrast with the blue background and the red and block clothing, like the picture above, was pretty cool. That was the Japanese version of the music video. On the other hand, black and green really do not go hand in hand that well, in my point of view. And beside that, there really isn’t anything else to continue reviewing.

As for the dance, it was quite average. Not exactly the best but not that bad either. But this group really needs another eye catching dance to somehow get pushed back into the limelight.

5/10. An average comeback, that would have been better overall. Where as for the Japanese one, I give it a 5.5/10. Honestly, their company really needs to step up their game and give Kara a really good song or help them promote. It is already hard to recover from a slump, so it is just going to get harder everytime you put it off. I also apologise, I was meant to post this on Monday, but that failed. So here we are, Wednesday review up!!!