Tag: Super Junior M

[Review] What’s Your Number? – Zhou Mi (Super Junior M)

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SM has been churning out comebacks after comebacks for their artists, with the majority of their artists only being able to promote for a span of two weeks. Yesung and Ryeowook both had solo debuts at the start of the year, but given the short promotions, their debuts have been easily forgotten. Heechul has also made his comeback as part of M&D, but I don’t think their promotional span even lasted a week. Zhou Mi is the latest member to join solo comebacks from the entertainment company. What’s Your Number was released in conjunction with Empty Room, which I will not be reviewing (for the time being) due to time constraints.

It is a solid song. At first, I avoided the song at all cost. I don’t know why, but maybe I was a little overwhelmed with the continuous comebacks from SM entertainment. However, as I started to listen to the song, I thought that it was a pretty good song. I won’t say it is amazing because it leaves me a little disappointed. It feels like a typical song and a song that has been rejected by other artists in SM before being passed to Zhou Mi. There really isn’t much flare to the song nor is there anything to hook me in and keep me listening to it. I do listen to it because it is upbeat and bright. His vocals are pretty well highlighted in this song. But I wanted him to make a more powerful and strong comeback, not some sort of love summer song. While I do say his vocal potential is delivered in this song, I do have to say the song overall is quite monotone. Especially that launch into the final chorus. It sounded deflated and a failure, to be honest. Overall, the song did deliver but failed to keep my attention on it.

The music video reminded me of Jonghyun’s She Is video. I think it was the shipping crates, the overall tightness of some of the sets and some of the scenes. The video is essentially just close up shots of Zhou Mi, some dancing scenes and attempts to get a girl’s number. And SM is back it again with those brand name shirts. (When I say brand name, I actually mean a brand logo smacked onto a shirt – in this case, Pizza Hut). It was pretty boring and I am a disappointed by it. However what we got is probably what we get. It kind of does feels that this would be the final result of the music video if another artist did it. The video concept and overall idea do feel like a dead end. I guess I am more disappointed by the fact every time I watch this video, I automatically think back to Jonghyun’s one.

Dance wise, it is pretty good. I am impressed by this choreography. I do see a little uncomfortableness (or is it nerves) when I watch a few of his performances. Some moves do seem a little stiff at the start, but as the stages go on, he ends up more comfortable. I liked the simplicity of the chorus parts. It isn’t loud but still on point and well polished.

Final Rating – 5.5/10

 

Catch Up Review #9 – AOA, Hello Venus, Zhou Mi (Super Junior M) – Celebrating 500 reviews…

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Finally getting to the end of these reviews.  Did you know that I am actually not writing them up and posting them straight away? I am currently on holidays…. But hey, at least I got these scheduled out over the time I am going. Just I expected these to be done by Wednesday night, and here I am on Thursday… But yeah, there are 11 of these catch up reviews, so two more to go. Let’s do this!!!

Like A Cat – AOA (THIS IS MY 500TH SONG REVIEW)

This is a recent song that came out last week. This song is a really catchy song and is basically a more fun version of their song that boosted them to popularity (Miniskirt). This is the song that I was waiting for. It is really upbeat and probably top all of their previous songs. I have one complaint, but Jimin’s introduction still sound whiny and her voices annoys me when I listen to the song. The music video is where the girls try to break into the vault to steal the diamonds. Firstly, the dude has too many tattoos. Secondly, some of the girl’s jobs are werid. Why is the girl in the air ducts playing phone games and manage to knock herself out with the gas? Why isn’t she crawling away? As for Jimin, she would have better off using a gun rather than the whip. The dance fitted the song title really well, and I actually like the dance. 8/10

Sticky Sticky – Hello Venus

This song was very boring. There is nothing appealing from the song. Well beside the cow bells. I don’t know why I am so drawn into the cow bells for? The bridge of the song, really did not fit in with the rest of the song. The music video was really boring. The dance was equally boring as well. I think Hello Venus needs to go back to their Venus or past concepts. They got popular using those concepts, so why change now? 0/10

Rewind – Zhou Mi (Super Junior M)

This probably has to be one of the catchiest songs of the 2014 year. “Stop, rewind, rewind” is the one line that is stuck in my head at this very moment. The chorus is pretty catchy. I prefer the Korean version over the Chinese version for this song. Mainly because Chanyeol’s rap suit the song more rather than Tao’s rap. There really is not much of a plot with the music video. Mainly of Zhou Mi remembering his lover. That or him being shirtless of the ending of the video. That probably got fan girls screaming or fainting. The dance was also pretty cool as well. The sharp movements and the “rewinding” motion fitted the song really well and made the dance pretty memorable in my head. 9/10

Next set of reviews are girls groups. Well, these were the girl groups that I promised that I would review such as Ladies Code, BESTie and Tiny G. See you next time!!! Let’s hope for another hundred review guys!!!!

Fantastic – Henry Lau (Super Junior M)

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Last year Henry promoted Trap and 1,4,3 as his songs on stage. On top of that, Super Junior M recently made their comeback at the start of the year with Swing where all the songs reached moderate success. Now that it has been around a year, SM Entertainment had announced a comeback for the male soloist. After reading the news, it seems that SM Entertainment is trying to rush a lot of things and have comebacks and debut lay over each other recently. For example, while Henry is promoting, F(x) and J.Min were also promoting. Now that SM Entertainment has announced that their next rookie girl group will be debuting on Friday, it seems like a very big mess. Have they not learnt anything since EXO and F(x) had their comebacks at the same time last year? But this review is about Henry and I shall keep it that way.

This song is pretty good. But it really is not a song that I would go back to listen to. That being said, I don’t think it is a song that I find memorable. The instrumental with the violins is pretty good and finally they actually incorporated a violin into the performance and song, something that Henry is quite well known for. But beside that, I think the vocals did not do a good job of promoting Henry’s ability and I don’t remember much from the song after listening to it a number of times. I think this song was written to be more of a MPOP song rather than be a KPOP song, especially when you listen to the chorus. The “It’s Gonna be Fantastic” feels very monotone and awkward. It disrupts the feel of the song I find it really awkward. Honestly, I would have expected this song to be much better and the chorus made it sound really good, but this is a letdown for me. The bridge also did not fit the feel of the song at all as well. Disappointed.

The music video seemed like a normal SM video, with the infamous box sets. Guess this time, it makes for the last year’s “out of the box” sets. I see no apparent reason why the “maze scene” which I am sure was taken from the EXO music video and slammed right into here. I just see that there is hardly any connection between the rest of the video and the introduction, beside that fact the girl disappears and turns into a violin which I used in the rest of the video. It just seems like SM Entertainment videos are getting far too repetitive. Those wirings that connects the violin with Henry make him look like a Doctor Oct kind of prop which is pretty cool, just I really don’t see the whole point why it had to be connected to him. I think holding the violin with the violin stuck to the wires is sufficient enough, it just gives that extra sci fi look to the video that really is not needed. The flashing lights did a good job of accompanying the song in the video. Just there were a lot of things that I thought were not needed weighing the video down for me this time around.

The dancing here was pretty cool and I really like how the violin was incorporated into the dance as well. It looked pretty fancy and really professional.

3.5/10. It is such a pity because I was looking forward to the comeback and was quite disappointed when I got to hear and see it.

Swing – Super Junior M

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Super Junior M has recently made their comeback with a brand new song. It has been a long time since we heard a Super Junior song to be honest, and I would really love to see what would happen if they were to come back, but I assume they are currently awaiting Leeteuk’s return from the army. Anyway, back to M. After promotions last year for Break Down, the group has had a successful return, winning two awards on weekly shows in China. Congrats. And while we are on the topic of winning awards, I recently got 100 followers on this website. THANK YOU GUYS. LOVE YOU ALL!!! Hahahaha… But, yes. This song has been proven to be really successful in China winning these two awards. And I know, this song came out like a month ago, and I am that delayed. At first I was like “I am not going to review this song’. Slowly I dropped off the “not” and it became “I am going to review this song”.

The song is pretty good. I really love the everything in this song, minus the dubstep dance break. Was it necessary? I really don’t think so. Great the group can dance, but honestly, this song is quite lacking. The vocals are not there. The rapping is so so. The instrumental is amazing. But how the song just takes 15 different genres and smash them into each other to make the “perfect” song really is not my piece of cake. I really enjoyed the song, everything, up until the dubstep break and that really “Shall We Dance” in slow motion vocals. The chorus at the end made up for that little disappointment, as it allowed the song to return to its original state. And for a Chinese song, I would have expected SM entertainment to focus on using the Chinese members of the band, but instead they look like they are in the bands just for SM Entertainment to debut off some of their trainees. That are my thoughts. I am literally sacred every time I write a review for a popular group. Fans get crazy.

As for the music video, I actually liked the set. The box set, not so much, but the yellow and white and black colour is amazing. It fitted the overall feel of the song and kept the whole music video quite simple. We have an office setting, which actually looks quite modern, which I actually like. In this certain officer there are 8 workers: the “I-can-not-use-the-photocopier” , the “sleepy-head”, the “Eat-all-the-lunch”, the “I-can-help-and-do-everything-for-you”, “”I-will-forever-be-romantic”, the “normal” person, the :keep-everyone-on-track” and the “I-get-distracted-easily” person. Your mission is to link a face to the personality that they play. Hahahaha!!! The video was shot in a way to make it feel like a one shot video, but it really did not have a desirable effect. But lighting was pretty cool. Especially during the dubstep dance break. And the use of the tables was really creative. I have to be honest there. How they set it up, so it can easily be dragged into the next scene was really cool. Also want to know who the boss was in that video. Lee Soo Man or some other dude? Hahaha…

The dance was also quite awesome. Super Junior M always have a pretty good dance to have alongside their dance. The towels at the end was a really cool addition to the dance, I have to say.

9/10. A song that sound pretty good from SM Entertainment. We need more songs like this for their artists.  

1.4.3 – Henry (Super Junior M) ft. Amber (F(x))

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Source: http://www.soompi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/henry143_teaser-540×304.jpg

Henry, the latest solo act from SM Entertainment, recently made his comeback with his re-released 1-4-3. He previously released this song on his mini album, with only himself in the song, but as his repackaged and follow up song, he (or the company) had added Amber to the song, to give it a much cool feel to it. A lively summer song, 1-4-3 basically means “I Love You” (yes I do) and symbolises the amount of letters there are in each word. Pretty smart as well. The song also mentions 4-8-6, which basically means the same thing, but in Korean and it symbolises the amount of strokes it takes to write each letter or syllable. The rap of the two songs are completely different and made the song completely different, Understand or not?

The song was released twice, once with Henry’s rap and the other with Amber’s rap. Both raps make the song mildly different. To me, Henry’s version sounded great, but the rap kind of sounded out of place with the rest of the song. In Amber’s version, the song sounded lie it flowed much better and sounded great as well. It can be agreed, in my head, that this is a really good summer song that sounds amazing. The only thing I am going to pick on even further is that the song sounded like it went forever. Maybe a great thing, but the song seemed to be dragged out quite a bit and really did not have the same level of impact to me at the end, as it did at the start. It was a great song. but I really lost my mojo after the first chorus. Maybe the instrumental was the problem, but I loved the pop beat to it. The chorus is also quite catchy and honestly, the song is title is quite smart. BLOW YOUR MIND!

Despite being a music video outside of the box, I thought it was quite boring. I seriously did not like the music video as much as I thought I did. It really did not live up to the exact standard as the song created, which was quite disappointing. The music video basically tells the story of how a girl got confused, but soon realized about what the number 1,3,4 basically mean. (To be honest, I didn’t realize as well). Honestly, I thought Amber looked much better in this video than what henry looked like and that blonde hair does not suit him. I think I have to settle with this decision, but for really dry plot music videos, please put them in a box. Seriously, I don’t get all the different scenes and that it seemed quite choppy.

I cannot resist myself, but there were quite a lot of crotch grabbing in this dance. Essentially, this dance is much more jumpy and lively and better, compared to Trap. The dance at at the chorus was pretty cool and I think this actually helps Henry live up the standard of being a dancer.

7.5/10. I liked it and all, but had to deduct marks off for the music video. Sorry. My question to you is: which Henry Lau song did you enjoy? Trap? 1-4-3? Or maybe another song off his mini albums?Put your say in the poll below! ^^ Also, both 2NE1 songs were liked equally. Both getting 2 votes each. Let’s see which song will win for Henry, shall we???

Trap – Henry (Super Junior M) ft. Kyuhyun (Super Junior) & Taemin (SHINee)

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Source: http://smindotown.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/henrylau2.jpg

Henry was recently unveiled as the newest solo artist of SM Entertainment, releasing his first mini album on June the 7th of 2013. SM Entertainment released some “teaser” images that seem quite abnormal. A body full of tattoos, to me, turns me away from people. Literally, if I were to see someone on the streets, I would literally turn away and walk. But I hardly doubt anyone would walk around shirtless with colourful tattoos on the streets, not my neighbourhood though. The whole idea of Henry having a solo debut is being solo. However SM Entertainment brings in Taemin and Kyuhyun and then dominates the second half of the song. Disappointment.

This song is much better than Wolf. I am glad that this song came back, because I don’t think I have ever been pleased with an SM song (since the start of the year) but SM has had a long run of unlikeable songs. I love the piano feel of the song, which makes it unique and different to other songs with that electronic beat that I have been reviewing, like Want U Back (Review Here) by 100%. It gives off that dramatic feel to the song, which is really great. I never knew Henry can vocalise like that. His voice can actually hit pretty high notes and I love how he changes the tone of his voice, to give off that nice , polished feel of the song. Overall, I liked Kyuhyun’s addition to the song, which makes it more profession. I am not as impressed with Taemin’s part, but it still fits in with the song. However, the featuring artist does make the song feel a bit choppy and whatnot. But I am more impressed with this song than EXO’s Wolf (Review Here), so YAY!!!

The music video is quite confusing. However, aside from that this is the first time where the box set of the music video made sense with the title of the song. A guy, going insane, trapped in a room with no roof with only a piano. He was trapped by this evil girlfriend and towards the end after making friends with a bunch of dancers and two other singers, he managed to find his way out of the room. In style, the first thing he does after escaping, was drive a luxury car and buy a suit. Great, you’re halfway there to escaping, but at least you are getting as far away as possible. However, word of advice, use the door more next time or grab that hair or an object in the room and mash open the window. You did not have to stay in that room for that long. Unless, the girlfriend only trapped him for less than a day. In other words, drama queen.

The dance i pretty cool. I never thought stepping on a piano will be that good looking. Also, like the use of handkerchiefs in the dance. Adds more masculinity to the video, I think. Just don’t dance shirtless, with tattoos over your body. You don’t look cool or great.

7.5/10. Henry’s debut is daebak (Awesome in Korean). Woot!

Break Down – Super Junior M

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Super Junior M made their long awaited comeback since who knows with Break Down. Different from their previous songs, Break Down is a song that shows, to me, more of their dance skills rather than vocal skills.

This song is quite addictive to listen to. It is not a typical SM song. It has this really addictive techno beat and to me, there seem to be a lot of thought put into the song. I enjoy listening to this song, but I am disappointed, as it does not contain the vocal talent which Kyuhyun and Ryeowook I am used to listening to. I am used those high and long notes towards the end of the song, just this song is lacking it. But hey, I guess it would not fit the club feel of the song. The other members sound pretty good, however, I don’t know if the autotune or background vocals are overpowering, but I can only hear Henry, Kyuhyun, Ryeowook & Sungmin’s voice. I cannot here the other members at all or differentiate their voices. I absolutely love the bridge of the song, which is my highlight of the song.

Ah, the music video. Another set, however this one seemed like there is a lot of thought and money put into it. I am not sure about the camera work though. It seems like when the camera films the solo shots of the singers, they seem to be standing in front of a blue or green screen, and the editing there went really bad. However, that part where they had all the members dancing in that really dark room seems to be a cross-over from Beast’s Shock and EXO’s What is Love?. But beside that, I am usually impressed by Super Junior’s dance skill. However this song lacks it. I don’t know whether there were a lot of solo shots or something, but I am not impressed by this dance. Despite it being a really good upbeat song, the dance moves are quite slow. But hey, they made the dance extra slow when it came to the slow parts of the song.

8/10. Pretty good for a SM song this time around.

Perfection – Super Junior M (Korean/Chinese Ver)

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Song

Don’t you love it when there are two versions of the same song, just in two different languages and both are released around the same time. Life is like this. Its great that SM Ent. is expanding into overseas countries, but I think its time to go back  to Korea and restart some of your bands activities. Yeah, no offence but I think bands like Super Junior and SNSD are getting old and might soon need replacing. (I don’t want to die D: )

Anyway, I like both versions of the song. This may be alarming, but I am half Chinese and yet I don’t understand the Chinese Version of the song (I don’t know any Chinese). But, still they are good songs. They have this catchy beat to them that sounds really good. This song depicts how the perfect lady should be. Is it me or Kyuhyun gets the most lines in the song? He sings like what? 50 % of the song while the others have to split the other half evenly? I also like Zhou Mi’s part of the song. For me, it is the highlight of the song.

Music Video

Okay, another one of those music videos that have no plot what so ever but only cool dance moves and close ups so close, that we can see up their noses. Only Joking, they are not that close. Only two things to comment about, SM’s 360 degree camera and those fur hats. Lets just hope no animals were killed in the making of the video for the fur hats. That would be sad.

Live Performance

I’m not sure of the live performances. I mean they are just the dance. Only the dance.

Oh but also, I always find Super Junior full band or sub-units are good at singing live. Hey I’ve got to write something at least you know…

And The Rating?

I would give this song a 7.83/10.

Have Fun Watching. Troy 😀

Chinese Version of Perfection

Korean Version of Perfection