Month: November 2016

[Review] I’ll Be Your Man – BTOB

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BTOB has returned with their brand new 9th mini-album. They last returned with a ballad, Remember That, at the start of the year. This is also their first comeback in 2 years with a dance track. The group become popular for their romantic ballads which they have been releasing for the past two years.

The song is pretty good. You can really tell that they took what they became known for (their vocals) and did an amazing job with combining it with the dance track. That high note where all four of the vocalists join together sounds amazing. It also allowed their rapping to shine a bit more. Their rapping in the past in the ballad songs have been pretty good as well, but this song allows them to become a lot fiercer and more powerful. That part of the bridge where the vocalists are all belting out their high note and the rappers are rapping quite furiously sounded really amazing and probably gave the song that peak it needed. The actual song was a wonderful mashup between a ballad and a dance track. Gave the song a more grand and darker feel. I loved the classical mash-up with the electronic sounds in the song. The song just did not seem to be catchy enough. There wasn’t much of a hook to it, unfortunately. That being said I will (and have) continuously relayed the song because I want to listen to that fierceness and powerfulness that the song has since I missed it so much. I did think Peniel’s rapping after the first chorus was a little weird but listening to the song a few more times made that part fit in perfectly into the song.

The music video tells an interesting story. The video matches that grand feel and epicness that the song oozes with. It seems like the guys are trying to escape some sort of regime. Within the confines of a church, the group assumes they are safe, but become under attack. Also within the church, they meet a girl, who is played by Elkie from CLC. It seems like Minhyuk falls for her. You think everything is okay until the plot twist is revealed. The girl turns out to be part of the regime that the guys are running away from and in the end, Minhyuk is caught, stripped and hanged upside down in the snow. I assume they are all killed in the end. I actually like these types of plots. They should be made into movies. They sound pretty cool and perfect for the big screen sometimes. I really thought the way they shot the video was pretty cool. Some of the camera effects occurred at the right time with the beat of the song.

While I do rave on how powerful and grand the song was, the dance felt short of that. It was quite underwhelming and looked a little off. Sure, they were tried to show off their masculine charms, because this is a song about being a woman’s man, but it seemed quite weak. I am not actualy referring to the part of the choreogrpahy where they are praying, but rather the parts where they actually directly show that they can be a man, such as the chorus. It seemed like they were trying to hard.

Rating – 8/10

[Review] Décalcomanie – Mamamoo

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Mamamoo have finally returned to the stage with their brand new mini-album, Memory. Their latest title track is Décalcomanie, which refers to a decorating technique used by the French (for engraving or transferring designs from one material to another). Their last comeback was with You’re The Best (back in March) and the group has since released singles, which are included in the tracklist of this mini album.

I love the song. The song is amazing. If you want another Mamamoo song that showcases their vocals, this is the one for you. The only difference is that there are not many harmonising or backup vocals in this one as their previous songs. To me, it is like the upgraded version of Piano Man, which they released in 2014. Quite classy and more mature sounding. The song starts off somewhat slow. And honestly, if the song remained that way, I would have been disappointed. But this is Mamamoo we are talking about and they don’t mess around. As soon as the chorus drops, the beat drops and everything sounds amazing. I would describe the verses in the song quite bland and sounded “copied and pasted”. The song itself relies heavily on two things: there (expected) amazing vocals and the chorus (which if you have not gotten the message to yet, sounds amazing). Without those two, the song would have fallen short and have not attention paid to it. Moonbyul’s raps were pretty good, but if they had more of a punch or a little more fierceness, it would have made it even better. One more thing the song lacks. Some sort of high/long note to add to that final chorus. the song itself sounded perfect, but that would have taken the song to a whole new level. But overall, amazing song.

The music video was quite a disappointment. The video became a hot topic in South Korea due to a certain scene involving Solar and the male actor, who aggressively made move on the Mamamoo member. It was taken the wrong way in South Korea (and could have been taken the wrong way by anyone in the world), hence why the video was re-edited and re-released within a few hours of initial release. I did not understand the need for the scenes where the girls meet and end up sharing a kiss with the male lead. Yes, I may be jealous there (confession much?), but they ruined the mood of the video and the flow of the song. The song choruses were fast-paced and then the video cut to the slow piano pieces. I do understand that they did add meaning to the video, but putting them in like that just didn’t work out. What did I like? I enjoyed watching the choreography scenes. I thought they looked cool.

I like the dance. It isn’t the best dance out there but what they gave us really fit the song. I really enjoyed watching the chorus. Their live performances are something on another level as well. Not once did I hear their vocals falter at the microphone whilst performing the dance at the same time.

Rating – 8/10

[Weekly Chart] 2nd Week of November 2016

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Welcome to the charts for the second week of November 2016. How you all doing? Finally, I am free for the year. No more exams. Hahaha… I have no idea what to say in this part of the post now. Let’s just move along.

As I predicted last week, Mamamoo came out on top, with VIXX following behind. EXO-CBX kept steady for this week. Lots of new artists made their comebacks this week, as you can see by the (new) signs in the chart table below. I did not include Astro or Kyuhyun in this week charts because their songs were released late in the week and I didn’t get to listening to them until Friday night.

So expect Astro and Kyuhyun next week. IMFACT, MOMOLAND and SHINee will be dropping their releases next week, so do expect them.

A lovely reminder of the what the colours in the status column mean.
Green (↑)  – Song has gone up in ranking
Red (↓) – Song has gone down in ranking
Blue (=) – Song has remained in the same position as the previous week
Orange  (new) – Song debuts on the chart
Grey (Final Week) – Song appears on the chart for its final week.

6th Nov – 12th Nov 2016
Title Artist Status
1 Decalcomanie Mamamoo (new)
2 The Closer VIXX (↑ 2)
3 Hey Mama EXO-CBX (=)
4 TT Twice (↓ 2)
5 Very Very Very I.O.I (↓ 4)
6 Playing With Fire BLACKPINK (↑ 2)
7 Gorilla Pentagon (↑ 7)
8 I’ll Be Your Man BTOB (new)
9 Ti Amo T-Ara (new)
10 Hard Carry GOT7 (↓ 3)
11 Skydive B.A.P (new)
12 Blood, Sweat & Tears BTS (↓ 6)
13 Paradise Hyorin (Sistar) (new)
14 Stay BLACKPINK (↑ 19)
15 The Rain Ladies Code (↓ 6)
16 Don’t Believe Berry Good (↑ 1)
17 Better Day 100% (↑ 3)
18 Make It Rain Bastarz (Block B) (↑ 3)
19 Beautiful Kei (Lovelyz) & The Solutions (↑ 7)
20 Fighter Monsta X (↓ 15)
21 Fri. Sat. Sun Dal Shabet (↓ 5)
22 Fanfare SF9 (↑ 1)
23 Beside Me Davichi (↓ 13)
24 11:11 Taeyeon (SNSD) (↑ 8)
25 The Eye Infinite (↓ 10)
26 Next Station N.CA (↓ 8)
27 Home Ailee (↓ 5)
28 Give It To Me Seven (↓ 9)
29 New York Mamamoo (↑ 9)
30 Rainy Day Topp Dogg (new)

Some songs have been on the chart system for 9 weeks now, and starting next week will not be appearing on the charts anymore (and the Top 30). They include:

  • Body – Mino (Winner) (Peak: 6 – appeared on Top 30 for 2 weeks)
  • Carnival – Gain (BEG) (Peak: 1 – appeared on Top 30 for 7 weeks)
  • Hit Me – MOBB ft. Kush (Peak: 10  appeared on Top 30 for 1 week)
  • Promise (I’ll Be) – 2PM (Peak: 2 – appeared on Top 30 for 7 weeks)
  • Mr. Potter – DIA (Peak: 10 – appeared on Top 30 for 5 weeks)

Wish you all an amazing week and check back next week for next week’s charts.

[Review] Don’t Believe – Berry Good

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Berry Good has returned to the stage with a new mini album, Glory, and a new member! Johyun was added to the lineup of Berry Good just prior to the comeback. They previously released Angel earlier this year, which I thought was an amazing song.

I only started listening to Berry Good this year and they wowed me with Angel. Now, they managed to ‘slay’ me with this song. Don’t Believe is not your typical KPOP or Berry Good songs. Berry Good played to their strengths with all their past releases. This time, an element of dance was more dominant than ever, with the song consisting of EDM and dance music incorporated. But that didn’t mean that the group had to forgo their amazing vocals.  The song starts off as if it was their previous songs, like a ballad. But the song progressed into EDM and dance within a few seconds, which caught me by surprise at first. The bridge of the song was spectacular to listen to. The really catchy “Mercy Mercy” really caught my attention when I heard the song (Though I thought they were saying thank you in French for a few days). I was already blown away with the change and just hearing them sing the bridge made everything sound so much better. Loved the instrumental for the dance breaks as well.

The music video was boring to watch. Once again, that bathtub really annoys me. Who thinks of these places to put bathtubs? This time, they just left a bed on the rooftop as well. Because apparently, why not? The video attempted to be anaesthetic but missed the point. Like previous reviews, the shots look random and unstructured. I assume they are trying to tell a story, but they just don’t relevant. My guess is the girls “don’t believe” their lovers anymore and it seems like they are devastated. Kind of what the lyrics are saying, but some of the shots don’t make much sense, particularly some of the scenes with a pair of girls, such as the bathtub scenes. The music video was quite the let down with the song being so good. I have no words to describe what they wore in their choreography scenes. It was like a football jersey, but the backs were cut out and the wore something underneath that I am not sure of.

The dance was okay. It was their first time actually having a routine such as this. Their previous dances have all been simple or been designed for more ballad/slower songs. It was quite weak but they made it appropriate for the EDM track (just barely). However, you can tell that they aren’t suited for this type of dancing.

Rating – 6.5/10

 

[Review] Playing With Fire – BLACKPINK

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BLACKPINK has finally returned with their very first comeback ever! They made their debut in September with Whistle and Boom Bah Yah, which per everyone’s expectations, did incredibly well for a newly debut girl group. And they are expected to continuation with their success through their double title track comeback: Playing With Fire and Stay. This review will only focus on Playing With Fire. I may review Stay at a later date (not too sure yet).

Playing With Fire is one hell of a track. It is a lot different to their debut songs. It focuses more on delivering the energy and vocals. I personally like this track more than their debut tracks. I love the EDM sounds that ran throughout the chorus and the later parts of the song. YG artists tend to be quite versatile with their song types and this just further proves it. I love the EDM, but also loved the slow hip-hop and RnB in the song. The untuned piano at the start made the introduction a whole heap interesting. I do agree with a lot of people when they say it sounds like a 2NE1 song. There are 2NE1 vibes throughout While I said the song focuses more on the vocal side for the group, I was not much of a big fan of their vocals. They should have just let loose but instead, they sounded like they held everything back. I do love the bass that the song had going. Another song of just a few with the bass up to the right level.

The music video was incredibly dull and boring. It just normally consisted of normal pace choreography scenes and slow motioned close up shots. Their facial expressions in the video looked too forced and whoever is getting them to lip sync to the music should get fired. For a song that is moderately paced, I don’t understand the need for the slow motion. It just dragged the video on for longer. To be honest, the video looks like it was slapped together within just minutes. I expected something more speedy after listening to the song. Not slow. The sets look empty and needed something to make it more eye-catching. And finally, the use of fire or “Playing With Fire” was quite limited. Okay, half of me expected something decent and the other half wanted the whole set to be on fire. Just what they released didn’t live up to those standards or expectations.

The performance was meh. The dance isn’t amazing and it didn’t impress me.

Rating – 6/10

[Review] The Closer – VIXX

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VIXX has made their return with the third part of their “Conception’ trilogy. Previously, the group released Dynamite, which was based on the Greek God of Zelos (God of Jealousy and Rivalry). Then they recently returned with Fantasy, based on the Greek God of Hades (God of the Underworld). Now, they are back with the final part, The Closer, based on the Greek God of Kratos (God of strength, might, sovereign rule, and authority in all its forms – Wikipedia, 2016).

Another amazing song from VIXX. Another fine year for the group. Dynamite was an explosion. Fantasy was unimaginable. And The Closer acts as a final chapter to VIXX’s 2016. The song infuses dance, pop and RnB. In the end, we get a very smooth song that sounds quite classy as well. Vocally, every member shined in this song. You can hear  improvements in Hyuk’s and Hongbin’s vocals. But none of the members shined throughout the song like Ken did. The focus was shifted to him in the song  (vocally) and his vocals fit the song perfectly. I also loved Ravi’s rap. It weren’t as fierce this time and had a more defined rhythm to it. That “Oh Whoa Whoa, That’s no no boy” captured my attention as soon as I heard it. I do love the individual sounds in the instrumental. The church bells, for example,  at the start gave a very eerie and mysterious feel, adding that VIXX flavour that we know quite well of. I don’t know why, but I am drawn to the sound of cymbals in the song. The lyrics are quite sensual as well, which does fit in with the overall sound of the song. The only thing that I don’t seem to like about the track is a lack of energy. Sure, it is pretty much passive but I guess I am more used to the stronger and masculine sound from VIXX.

The music video is amazing. Cinematography for this video is amazing. The effects are incredible. I saw the making of this music video and it surprised me with how they shot the video. You can simply google the making of the video, but let’s just say minimal computer effects were required from the looks of the making video. In the video every member (besides Ken) are frozen. N falling off a ledge, Hyuk’s car crashed into the wall. Everyone, regardless, is frozen. Just Ken isn’t and he moves about. I guess it ties with the lyrics of the song. Everyone is after this girl, but Ken is Kratos, so he stops everyone, just to get to the girl himself. Even lyrics in the song backs this up: “Pushing away everyone else and having you“. When no one is frozen (aka the chorus of the song) the video immediately snaps to the choreography scenes. It defines the intensity of the chorus pretty well. The editing and transitions in this video are amazing, not just the content of the video.

I thought the dance had a lot of class and matched the song quite well. At times, it looked like it was hastily put together and I think some fine tuning could have done to make it even more polished. But nonetheless, this performance is pretty grand already. Just look at N’s spin!

Rating – 9/10

 

[Review] Make It Rain – Bastarz (Block B)

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Block B launched their first subunit back in 2015 with Conduct Zero. U-Kwon, B-Bomb and P.O make up the subunit. Now, the subunit has returned with a brand new mini-album. While the subunit did release three music videos for Selfish & Beautiful Girl, Make It Rain and That’s Right, I will only be reviewing their main title track, Make It Rain due to time constraints.

Make It Rain serves as a great continuation from Conduct Zero. The songs seem to go well with each other and Make It Rain is like a nice sequel. I do find it a better than song than the predecessor. This song has a cleaner sound and quite tame compared to their previous song. I wasn’t much of a fan of their previous track, so this sounds a lot better. Like what other people are saying, the song focuses more on the vocal side. The song doesn’t pack a punch until you reach the chorus, thanks to a really nice buildup prior to the chorus. Never a big fan of rappers singing. Some of them have been great, others have been disappointing. P.O falls in between this time around. However, it was the only part which I liked about the whole song. The chorus overshadowed the verses and kind of shoved U-Kwon and B-Bomb away from the spotlight. They had good parts (i.e. their vocals were highlighted) but it failed to capture my attention. There was no hook in the song to me. The only hook in the entire song was the in the chorus and that hook was repeated over and over again. Overall, it was an alright song. Can’t really give them any more than an ‘alright’, to be honest.

I have little to no clue on what’s going on in the video. I have watched it a few times. Besides agreeing that the entire video carries elements that match the song, there really isn’t much else to the video. I have to say the way the video was shot looked really nice and amazing. It’s choppiness and roughness (can I describe it as that?) went really well with the choppy sound in the video. Gave a nice chaotic feel to it. The special effects also added to it as well. Don’t even ask me about the content of the video. I watch with wide eyes and then just go to another tab, leaving the song to play. To me, it seems like they are mobsters of some kind and enjoy gambling. I assume drugs are mixed up somewhere (I assume the stuff they see and their wobbly visions are like hallucinations). Minus the content, the outer layer of the video looked pretty good and (as I mention for the third time) matched the song a lot.

Like the music video, the performance was made to look a little chaotic. A lot of flailing arms and hands. I think the performance looks pretty good. They showed a performance with more precision and allowed the main dancer of the group U-Kwon to show more style and talent on the stage.

Rating – 6/10

[Weekly Chart] 1st Week of November 2016

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Welcome to this week’s chart. Not that late with the release of it. Only a day late. I just finished a 3 hour exam today and I am dead tired. But I am pushing through with my list of things to do and the charts for last week was probably the easiest thing to do on that list. I just like to say that I won’t be uploading any reviews until Thursday night, because of my exams. I’ll be putting up an announcement (either at the end of the week or start of next week) about the coming months. But we shall discuss that when we get there.

The 1st week of November was very intense. Either Twice or I.O.I could have won. They were the two songs that I constantly replayed and hence landed them on top. surprisingly, EXO-CBX came out third. Why is that surprising? Well, I didn’t listen to their song much. But when I reviewed their song, I listened to it so much that it bumped to third place.

Next week (the week I am currently writing this in) is going to be intense. With the continuation of I.O.I, Twice, EXO-CBX, VIXX, Bastarz etc already on the charts and the addition of Mamamoo (I literally smell a new winner), BTOB, B.A.P, Topp Dogg; it is going to be a really tiring week. Look forward to that.

Without further ado, I present to you, the charts for the 1st week of November, 2016.

A lovely reminder of the what the colours in the status column mean.
Green (↑)  – Song has gone up in ranking
Red (↓) – Song has gone down in ranking
Blue (=) – Song has remained in the same position as the previous week
Orange  (new) – Song debuts on the chart
Grey (Final Week) – Song appears on the chart for its final week.

30th Oct – 5th Nov 2016
Title Artist Status
1 Very Very Very I.O.I (↑ 1)
2 TT Twice (↑ 2)
3 Hey Mama EXO-CBX (new)
4 The Closer VIXX (new)
5 Fighter Monsta X (↑ 10)
6 Blood, Sweat & Tears BTS (=)
7 Hard Carry GOT7 (↓ 2)
8 Playing With Fire BLACKPINK (new)
9 The Rain Ladies Code (↓ 8)
10 Beside Me Davichi (↓ 7)
11 Russian Roulette Red Velvet (↑ 6) (Final Week)
12 1 of 1 SHINee (↑ 4)
13 Only One APINK (↑ 5)
14 Gorilla Pentagon (↓ 7)
15 The Eye Infinite (↓ 6)
16 Fri. Sat. Sun Dal Shabet (↓ 6)
17 Don’t Believe Berry Good (new)
18 Next Station N.CA (new)
19 Give It To Me Seven (↓ 11)
20 Better Day 100% (↓ 6)
21 Make It Rain Bastarz (Block B) (new)
22 Home Ailee (↓ 10)
23 Fanfare SF9 (↓ 1)
24 Bingo 24K (↓ 3)
25 Doo Doom Chit Crayon Pop (↓ 5)
26 Beautiful Kei (Lovelyz) & The Solutions (new)
27 Love Is Davichi (↓ 14)
28 Dancing King Yoo Jae Suk X EXO (↓ 4)
29 Stay As You Are Sanduel (B1A4) (↑ 1)
30 Love Like This Hyorin (Sistar) ft. DOK2 (new)

Some songs have been on the chart system for 9 weeks now, and starting next week will not be appearing on the charts anymore (and the Top 30). They include:

  • Mariya – Halo (Peak: 28 – appeared on Top 30 for 1 week)
  • Russian Roulette – Red Velvet (Peak: 2 – appeared on Top 30 for all 9 weeks)
  • Holup! – Bobby (iKON) (Peak: 9 – appeared on Top 30 for 3 weeks)

There are also another handful of songs that will not be included in the charts starting next week as they have failed to reach appear on the charts OR the possibility of them re-entering the Top 30 is unlikely:

  • Cosmic – Bada & Ryeowook (Super Junior) (Peak: 30)
  • Lonely – Kanto (Peak: 31)
  • Breathe – Park Hyo Shin (Peak: 31)
  • Runnin’ – Henry (Super Junior M) & Soyu (Sistar) (Peak: 29)

Return next Sunday for next’s week chart. Enjoy the rest of your week!

 

 

[Review] Hey Mama – EXO-CBX

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EXO has made a comeback with the reduced form of 3 members. Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin had joined forces to form a new subunit and perform as a trio on stage.  It has been previously rumoured that EXO would launch a subunit.This is not their first release as a trio. The three has released an OST for the drama – Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo. As per any EXO release, the song and album have topped charts as soon as the release was dropped.

The song is freaking amazing. I liked everything about it. I had my doubts about some aspects, but those doubts were crushed as soon as I started listening to the song for the first time. The song has a very dominate retro vibe (very funky and reminds me a lot of the disco era), which I like a lot. I loved the very dominate guitar sounds in the instrumental. It made the instrumental interesting and added an extra layer of depth to the song. Even the vocals of the song were really good. Baekhyun and Chen are known to be the powerhouse vocals in EXO. This song does justice to that fact very nicely. Chen even got the spotlight on him for his amazing high note at the end of the song, which does show to the world the hidden gem in EXO. Xiumin sounds amazing here and it is a pity that the line distribution for EXO songs isn’t in his favour sometimes. Even his rapping caught me off guard (but for good reasons). Baekhyun rapping is something that I am on the fence with. Works in this song, but sounded weird. An excellent song, in my books. And extremely catchy. Definitely, a song that will be replayed constantly.

The video shows a more playful side of the trio. EXO music videos are quite dark or masculine. This video moves away from that and gives the members a more colourful side to them. Have little to no clue on what is going on in the video. It seems like Chen and Xiumin are hard at work, but with a little persuasion from Baekhyun, they join Baekhyun in some sort of rebellion against society. The red papers seem to be important, but the pages are ultimately trashed. Even the rest of society are too busy banging their drinks on the tables. But with the trio stepping up onto television, everyone breaks free from the really boring drinking-banging ritual and join on in with the fun. Because life is only great, when you have fun. They even threw in a side romance for Chen in there. There is also a nice refreshing feel from the video. I feel like this is a music video that is easily relatable to and it isn’t over the top or complex to read. It’s simple and straight to the point (provided my interpretation is right).

The choreography is pretty cool as well. It looks cool and fits nicely with the song as well. The love their hand movements during the “Ooh, Ooh” that appears at the end of each chorus.

Rating – 9.5/10

 

 

 

[Review] TT – Twice

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One of the trendiest girl groups of the year has finally returned. Twice is currently killing the charts as we speak with their latest song, TT. They previously came back with Cheer Up. Any records set by Cheer Up was broken with TT, proving the force and impact Twice has in the game.

Another song that was recently released that I just shoved into my playlist because it is so great. Cheer Up was a disappointment for me, but I recently started warming up to it. TT just reels me in straight away and hooks me with the really catchy rhythm. First of all, “ba-ba-baby” is really catchy. I don’t understand what was so good with the “shy shy shy” phenomenon, but “ba-ba-baby” is a very simple and addictive part of the song. Secondly, the house genre instrumental was quite nice. It added colour, cuteness (kind of) and a vibrant feel to the song. It backed the vocals quite nicely, giving support and structure to the song. The vocals were okay, not the best, but okay. The ending felt quite messy with the ad-libs.  Minus the underwhelming vocals, I do like this song a lot and have been listening to it non-stop. It’s so damn catchy.

The music video is perfect of the Halloween season. Following a similar style as Cheer Up, the girls dress up as different characters. The one that caught my attention and made me smile as soon as I saw it was the cute as Dahyun bunny. Highlight of the video was probably the shuffling bunny. Moving along, I didn’t like the massive Jack-O-Lantern,in which they were dancing in. It looked cringeworthy. Also didn’t like their dull clothing which they wore while doing all the choreography scenes together. They look boring and unfitting for video. But besides that, everything else looked amazing. The ending has a “Coming Soon” label on it. I honestly didn’t know that there was going to be a second part. I am intrigued to see what they have in store with the next part. I also wonder how they plan on continuing the Halloween theme, since Halloween is basically over until October next year.

I love how they included the TT emoji in the choreography. Also liked the “ba-ba-baby” part. But besides that, the rest of the dance was quite boring to watch.

Rating – 8/10