Tag: Jiyeon (T-Ara)

Unfortunately, we have another group to add to the growing list of goodbyes. While their official disbandment won’t be until December, T-ARA has confirmed that the inevitable will be occurring. They last promoted with TIAMO at the end of last year with 6 members. Their contracts had expired last month and Soyeon and Boram chose not to renew it, hence ending their run with the group. The remaining four members (Qri, Eunjung, Hyomin and Jiyeon) chose to stay together until December this year. While it is not goodbye yet, this release will be the group’s 13th and final mini-album.

T-ARA is the one group who is saying goodbye without deviating from their usual upbeat releases. Don’t want to remind everyone about the ongoing disbandment news, but those groups have all chosen to return one last time with a ballad-like song. But it is still a normal day in the T-Ara camp with their upbeat sound. While I personally do like the song and think it is quite catchy, it does lack impact. There is definitely potential for the song to be dynamic and powerful. But it seems to hold back in that area, which does make it sound lacking in a way. The instrumental is probably the biggest example of that. It sounded cool and could have potentially become amazing. But instead, it didn’t seem to stand out. They could have done more to that funky xylophone sound, but instead, it seemed to just be there. The vocal work here is not groundbreaking, nor does it sound like their best. But it also not their worst. If there was one word to describe the song, the right one would probably “generic”.

Now, like every other fan of the group, I patiently waited last night for the music video. From what I understood, the video was meant to be up at 6 pm KST (7 pm where I live). But not a single message to communicate a delay or some sort of explanation for why it was uploaded late. I don’t want to sound like a fussy person, but it seems like their company has just given up on them. Okay, moving back to the video. It looked good, but I couldn’t stand how empty and lacking the video was. There were scenes of the girls looking back at their relationship with the dude and for a moment, some seriousness. And then at the end, they join hands together and smile. Given the circumstances regarding the comeback, I understand it. But I think it could have been explained or presented in a completely different way, which would make the video feel more engaging and interesting. To me, the video just confirms what I mentioned before regarding the company. Moving to a more brighter side of this review, I personally loved how they included references to Boram and Soyeon, through the six bottles, six pencils and six desks.

The performance was good but like the rest of the comeback, it didn’t feel like the right level of energy was channelling through it.

Song – 7/10
Music Video – 6/10
Performance – 6/10
Overall Rating – 6.5/10

T-Ara has returned after a year as a full group. They did make a comeback with Little Apple in December last year, but it was only with 4 members, which was disappointing. But now they are back as a six member group with a summer song that should be a total hit. No bias. T-Ara has literally had a massive rise of popularity in China and have focused most of their attention to the Chinese market, with this mini album containing both a Korean version of the song and also a Korean/Chinese version of the song. Only reason why I am not saying Chinese version directly, is that their Chinese version is basically Chinese for chorus and the rest is Korean. Not very “Chinese version” but it does the job.

Not going to lie, this is a pretty cool song. It is pretty catchy and addictive. The teaser did a very bad job at selling the song, but the song itself is pretty good. Though I am honest here, I am disappointed with the song. While I do dig the song and enjoy it, for T-Ara, it seems underwhelming. There really is not much of an impact that I expected from the band. Sugar Free and Number 9 were powerful, What Should I Do? was fun. But this, it just seemed far too mainstream for me. It was not what I had expected from T-Ara. I was disappointed that there was no rap section, but at the same time, the song would not suit a rap section. I really liked the chorus (it was quite cutesy sounding, but it worked) and the bit right after the chorus. Once again Qri and Boram got shoved to the side. Boram and Qri got a decent amount of time for Sugar Free, so I don’t know why they were shoved to the back once again. But the song was just right for my liking, just minus the complaints and the disappointment of style of song.

As for the music video, it was rather boring. But at the same time, I felt like the music video was talking about females in KPOP or actually about themselves. So my first theory, the girls represents all the girl groups in South Korea. Just normal looking and have “standard jobs” which I think would represent an alright song, popularity rank or fanbase. Now without improving on any of the three, the girls are no going to succeed. But once they change it up and go for the “sexy” concept, some many people go from the other popular groups and divert their attention to the “sexy” girls. And from there they enjoy their new popularity. OR T-Ara was reduced to a lower status after what happened a few years back. Then they change it up a bit and win their first award in a while. And then they bask in their new reclaimed popularity. That or I am looking far too much into it and should just enjoy what I see literally. But beside that, music video was rather boring. The sailor concept was rather weird, but yeah, the video was boring. And who buys bread only?

Dance fits in with the song pretty well. The chorus is just hella cute. And I liked it how they actually did take those cute dance moves and combined it with the sexy dance moves. Though I know people have done it before, it just feels like they blended it in very well for this comeback.

T-Ara did pretty well for this comeback. A few disappointing points here and there, but I think this comeback was decent enough. 7/10