Month: August 2017

[Review] Love City – Nine Muses

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Just after a few weeks of finishing promotions for Remember, Nine Muses is officially back with Love City. Their previous mini-album, Muses Diary Part 2: Identity (released in June) has been re-released to become Muses Diary Part 3: Love City. Nine Muses also recently had their first concert since debut.

With just one listen, Nine Muses has managed to grab my attention with one damn good track. Though that is a relatively easy thing to do, the girls managed to also blow me away within the first few seconds of the track. Love City opens up with Sojin’s raps sequence that is covered by auto-tune (but it is still bearable). It did spark a memory in my mind, but I don’t know where I have heard the similar tune before. But Sojin’s raps paves the way for the rest of the song. Sure, the verses of the song were not that memorable. But once the beat drops and you get the intensity of the chorus, everything falls into place quite nicely. The chorus was catchy, the vocals were amazing. It is a song that hypes you up from the start and it keeps that momentum going, which left such a deep impression in my mind. The “L.O.V.E‘ repetition stuck in my mind, even after I started listening to other songs recently released. But what I love the most is the “Chu Chu Chu, Bwa Bwa Bwa, La La La, Stop It Boy” (2:05 mark, for example), which was a more cutesy contrast that went well with the more feminine and intense beat the rest of the song had going for.

The music video was fairly captivating. For the most part, I stayed around for the song. Sadly, I can’t find any English translations for the song yet, so forgive me if my interpretation is way off. From what I see, the girls have finally had enough and are escaping “Love City”. The guys they dated treated them badly and they have decided to not pick that lifestyle anymore. This is clear from the way they seem to have their anger pent up inside of them and how they treat the Ken doll and the poor teddy bear. Moving away from the plot, there were parts in the video that I thought the lighting was off-putting. It might be me being picky, but I thought the lighting in both the day scenes and the dark scenes were pretty bad. The transitions through the screens looked cool. But apart from that, the video was your standard KPOP video (using standard KPOP backdrops).

The choreography shows off their confidence quite well. But there should have been more to it. As mentioned before, the song does get you quite hyped up. And the choreography seems to fall short of that. At least for me. Though the part at the bridge (i.e. when Sojin starts rapping) was pretty badass!

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 7/10
Overall Rating – 8.5/10

[Review] Sixteen – Samuel Kim

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One of the most popular trainees from the recent season of Produce 101 has made his solo debut, with Sixteen. Samuel Kim was undeniably one of the favourites to make it in the top 11. For unknown reasons, he only made the top 18. For those who don’t know him, Samuel Kim was previously a trainee under Pledis (before moving to his current company, Brave Entertainment) and was part of the now-disbanded duo, 1PUNCH.

The first thing I noticed when I listened to the song was the autotune. While I have expressed my dislike of autotune in the past, I am not too troubled by its usage in this song. It wasn’t as heavy or over-the-top like other songs. But using auto-tune throughout the entire song did make it more noticeable than it should have been. The song is quite good but I don’t think it was strong enough for a debut. There were parts of it which I did like but the rest of the track seemed quite neutral and standard. The chorus was quite catchy and it felt like it was the most dynamic part of the song. The way he opened the chorus and the rhythm that I got out it made it quite enjoyable. The rest of the track did fall short though, feeling quite bland and boring. Changmo’s rap was pretty good, but it did feel somewhat disjointed from the rest of the song.

The music video had some good scenes in there. But what I noticed that some details were cropped out of view because of the borders. The borders made it feel quite constricting and fast editing made everything breeze past. Overall, everything felt nice. The night scenes looked cool and the choreography scenes were awesome. The party and supermarket scenes though seemed very dry and unconvincing. I feel odd writing this (since this is his video), but I felt like the focus was a touch too much on Samuel, when it should have been with the interactions between him with the surroundings and the others in the background. For example, at the party, he threw the confetti up as the camera zoomed onto him. But the others were busy interacting with everyone else but him. So it looked a little awkward.

The choreography looks amazing. It’s not groundbreaking but it pretty good. I could only dream to be half good as he was. The first time I watched the choreography, I didn’t notice the sixteen symbol he made with his hands. But now, I notice it every single time the chorus kicks in! That, to me, was impressive.

Song – 6.5/10
Music Video – 7/10
Performance – 9/10
Overall Rating – 7/10

 

5 Favourite Non-Title Tracks (Part 2)

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Welcome back to this week’s ‘Favourites’ post. We are back to non-title tracks because my list of non-title track songs are overflowing and need to be reduced. I am officially keeping the Favourites post as a list of five because it is more manageable to write in a short amount of time.

Please note that I am open to suggestions of what else I can do with this segment. So far, I have decided on non-title tracks, choreography and K-drama OSTs. But I know there are many other topics that I can write about. I have a few in mind but am happy to see what you all suggest! Also open to any positive or constructive feedback! But let’s get the show on the road!

Airplane – F(x)
Pink Tape (2nd Studio Album)

Airplane is one of the few songs that I did put a review out for, despite it not being a fully dedicated promotional track. That shows you that one mention of this song on this site isn’t enough. Airplane will need a lot more than two mentions and it might just get another in the near future. I love all the elements from the vocal work to the undeniably ear-catching instrumental.

Time’s Up – Miss A
Independent Women Part III (2nd Mini-Album) / Hush (2nd Studio Album)

If you want your electro music fix, you have come to the right place. Following Airplane, this hidden gem was featured on both Miss A’s  Hush album and Independent Women Part III mini album. It required many mentions because of its addictive nature. Once the beat dropped, the song was sold instantly to me. The instrumental, too, caught my ears back when it was released and has been on my playlist since then!

 

Secret – IU
Last Fantasy (2nd Studio Album)

If you have been reading these posts and my reviews for a very long time, you will know that I love anything with orchestral vibes. And that favouritism was probably awakened by this one song. I thought it was one amazing song that displayed IU’s vocals wonderfully with the orchestral background. And once you think the song had finished, she comes back with one extra line to finish you off once and for all.

Beautiful – Pentagon
Ceremony (3rd Mini Album)

Beautiful was the pre-release single to Pentagon’s latest comeback. And it is one ‘beautiful’ song to listen to. What drew my attention to this song was the amazing melody that the song’s instrumental and the members brought together. Each member, regardless if they were part of the vocal line or the rap line of the group, shined brightly in the song. The harmonies were definitely a highlight of the track and the rap segments fitted snugly into the track without being awkward or foreign.

For You – Sistar

If I got my way, this would have been the track that I would vote to be their farewell track. Lonely was already amazing, but I feel like For You meaning suited the girl’s departure and was more directed towards the fans. Even Bora, who is usually limited to the raps, was given an opportunity to sing alongside the others. I think the song overall was very touching and it was definitely a pity to hear that they would not perform this song as part of their farewell stages.

 

[Review] Love Whisper – GFriend

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GFriend is back with a brand new Summer time song. It has been three years since their debut and each of those three years, there has been Summer comebacks from these girls, Me Gusta Tu and Navillera. Is it me, or are they slowly becoming the Princesses of Summer with their comeback? Joining the GFriend Summer lineup is Love Whisper, the title track off their 5th mini-album, Parallel.

The girls with a sweeter sound with this comeback. While the group have had successful singles in the Summer, this one sounds less dynamic and intense as their previous tracks. While there is a GFriend sound to this song, it seemed a lot weak and I can’t help but be disappointed with that (for now). There didn’t seem to be much of a hook to the chorus, which did leave the song hanging. The verses didn’t seem memorable, as well. They, instead, bring out the guns towards the end of the song, when it came to the bridge and final chorus. But then, it was too late to have an impact on the rest of the track. Let’s move onto the better parts of the song. Per usual, the short instrumental break for the infamous dance breaks was included and I thought that alone brought more impact to the song than the other parts. Their vocals seemed really consistent throughout the song, which was something I liked. There is a fresh and vibrant sound that suits the Summer season very nicely, which I liked as well.

The music video seemed a little interesting. The girls find an old radio under the bed and go on an adventure to figure out the source of some sound. Why? That makes it interesting. I guess they heard some sound (i.e. the love whisper) and wanted to know where it came from. In the end, it was a butterfly, which told them there was a tape in the radio. Now, that was pretty disappointing. But it gave a nice touch to the story. What drew my attention of the video though was how it reminded me of the music video for Me Gusta Tu. The scenery and the countryside really do take you back to memories from two years ago.  What I thought was even better was their choreography scene, where they danced in water. It seemed unnecessary in this video, but I can’t help but think how empty the video would have been without it. They are known for their complicated dance moves and if they can pull off this choreography well in the water, I think that gives more than enough reasons to include that in the video.

Just the small snippets alone shows the complexity of the dance. The heel dance move seems hard to pull off in the midst of everything else (Refer to the 1:36 part of the dance and focus on their feet for a few seconds). And when it comes to GFriend, you can’t miss out on the dance break. It looks impressive and 10 times better with water spraying about in the music video.

Song – 6/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 9/10
Overall Rating – 7/10