[kpop] best rookie groups 2012

This very biased selection is based on quality of members–mostly dance and singing, but looks are considered as well, debut track(s), and live performances.

EXO was easily the most anticipated group to debut this year. Though not of epic proportions, their tracks are slickly produced and the groups are well-balanced with many talented individuals in each. At any rate, their debut was more solid than f(x), Super Junior, and even, SNSD. If SM plays their cards right, 2013 could be a very large year for EXO.

NU-EST played their cards extremely well, despite holding a few weak cards. A well-written debut song, one of the first to capitalize on the ‘new’ europop invasion, and including one very intriguing member, Ren. Dancing and lives are unspectacular though, and the shock of a pretty face will not last forever.

Regarding true singing talent, Lunafly and Busker Busker, in this respect, are both promising.

I hesitate to include BAP, but I see way too many BAP fans around me to think of them as a minor rookie group. They did have a nice, unified concept in debut; but alas, their track to me was stuck in the 2005, way too brassy and heavy, trying out a 2PM concept that barely fit.

A.cian‘s whole debut album is a beautifully crafted imitation of europop. That’s about it. Due to the constantly changing nature of kpop, I doubt they will release a europop album like this next time– if there is a next time.

Like A.cian, Cross Gene delivered an amazingly crafted imitation of europop for their debut. The facts that they have Japanese, Chinese, and Korean members and released simultaneously in Japanese and Korean are very nice bonuses. Another great bonus? Their live singing is A-OK (but please hire another choreographer).

Rounding out the last of the europop imitators, we have A-JAX. Someone fetch them a new stylist.

[lifestyle] music I’ve been listening to nowadays. refresh #1.

I’m still quite dead. But still listening to quite a bit of kpop.

 

[kpop] BIGBANG’s “Blue”: a spur-of-the-moment, this-is-just-too-good review

I don’t have much to say, because I am absolutely blown away.

BIGBANG is not a strong vocal group and will never be, if we hold TVXQ as our vocal standard for male groups. But I find I don’t care. Particularly, G-Dragon’s singing starting at 0.44s is just so heartbreakingly perfect and well-paced with the midtempo bass. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from melting.

The song itself– it builds on Korean ballad idioms, but it moves away from it, a bit like SM The Ballad did with “Hot Times“, as it is less concerned with sounding so sad and emotive, having excessive held high notes. What we get is a song that is melancholy, but at the same time, uplifting. “Blue” is something to curl up to on a rainy day with a cup of hot tea and a biscotti or two.

I lied slightly, I am a bit bothered by the voice qualities, for example, sandwiching TOP between the smooth chorus and BIGBANG’s token smooth singer, Taeyang. However, I’ve always had a problem with the cohesiveness of BIGBANG’s sound, so this is nothing new. I am also bothered by the token white girl, which they also had in the MV for “Tonight.” I know they are trying for an international flavor, but the video could have been handled just fine without a token white girl, who is just like a thin layer of frosting on top of an already very substantial cake of interesting sets, and an interesting song. Heck, if you have an interesting song, all you need is a video of yourself singing it, and that is about all the music video you need. If YG insists on putting a token international girl in the videos, then I better stop seeing these waif couture models, and maybe, I don’t know, a really sexy italiana? An African-American? Pouty dark-haired French?

Despite those small bothers, I can say for certain this song can be certified as one of the best things that has happened to kpop in the last two years, probably even better than SHINee’s Korean “Lucifer“. Listening to BIGBANG, I am immediately reminded of EXO, the new group of SM that is in the stage of pre-debut with its never-ending teasers, who also pre-released a midtempo ballad, “What is Love?” Everyone kept commenting how similar it sounds to TVXQ’s “Before U Go“, which actually were both produced and written by Yoo Young-jin, one of the perennial favorites in SM’s arsenal of songwriters. But listening to BIGBANG’s “Blue”, which G-Dragon wrote and produced, I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like this before from G-Dragon. Of course, their previous comeback hints at the electro thump, but this sound, it’s completely fresh.

It is fresh– something that is rarely said in kpop nowadays. As we clear away the conventional EXOs and BAPs and missAs, I’m glad that we still have BIGBANG to look forward to.

[kpop] I like two-member TVXQ better than five-member TVXQ (oh no, Cassies are going to kill me!)

two-member TVXQ; Homin

It has been almost three months since I listened to TVXQ’s Japanese album, TONE. What is shocking is that I still regularly listen to it– unlike SHINee’s Japanese album, which I discarded after two weeks (this coming from a hardcore SHINee fangirl).

The thing I like best about current TVXQ is an obvious reason: we get to hear and see Yunho and Changmin a lot more. All original members of TVXQ are extremely talented, so to me it felt rather crowded sometimes with five of them on one track– the super-talentedness is burning my eyes! Too much to handle! Who is singing this? Who is dancing that? With just Homin, I feel like I can stay on top of their super-talentedness and appreciate Changmin and Yunho much more fully. When there was five-member TVXQ, even as a fan of Changmin, you would have to keep tabs on all the other members, but with only Yunho, it is somewhat liberating only to focus on one other person instead of the collective actions of four others.

That and TVXQ’s current electro-R&B-pop genre really suits me. JYJ has gravitated towards R&B-pop with not much electronic, sadly. Homin also work well as a duo, musically. They both have similar sounding voices– slighty gritty, nasal, and low, though Changmin sings in a slightly higher register; they complement each other well. That, and Japanese sound engineers are amazing.

Perhaps I am getting tired of the traditional 4+ member groups of kpop nowadays. It’s just becoming so tried and true and tiring– most notably in EXO’s debut promotions, which seem like they have no end. It seems like all of kpop is debuting groups that collectively have great talents but as individual talents, they are usually worthless. Sometimes it is nice to be able to focus on one or two genuinely talented individuals– people that would probably have been solo artists if not for the kpop industry’s predilection towards groups.

Would I bother with Minho and Taemin if they weren’t in SHINee? Probably not.

best kpop debuts, 2011 edition

I really have not paid much attention to any other groups except SHINee this year (add a dash of Big Bang and Tohoshinki). However, I think it is nigh-time to catch up on 2011′s debuts and cull which ones seem the most promising.

(1) Rania, Dr. Feel Good: really sex-driven, and also a bit of Sweet Dreams Are Made of This plagiarism. This all adds up to sort of catchy. Teddy Riley, the composer behind SNSD’s The Boys, also wrote this debut track– it shows because of the heavy sex beat (!). I think Rania is interesting because they are probably the most trashy/sexy kpop group right now, and I wonder if they will continue with that. Plus, there have been rumors of an American debut as well, which I do not think is actually too far-fetched because they would just be familiarly analogous to Asian Pussycat Dolls. They can definitely get by on the kpop scene without being too talented and working the sex image, it just depends on their company being able to get them good tracks to record.

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(2) Block B, Freeze: I hesitate putting them on here, but I can totally see them filling the space that U-Kiss fills right now. Block B will develop their own niche; they are not exactly the best kpop out there but people like them anyway because they are cute-looking and barely-legal. The music itself really has nothing to do with it, rather the total conglomeration of their package that secures them the niche. I look forward to seeing them on the fringes of popularity like U-Kiss is, but that is about it.

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(3) B1A4, OK: They are really fresh-faced, something that is missing in boy groups nowadays (time for another SHINee-esque debut?). Even Block B is a little mature despite all that jailbait. The chorus is not half-bad, though when they all pretend to play their instruments and rock out, it is a little sad because it is so obvious none of them know how to play them. They probably can capitalize on their fresh image for about two years; they remind me a bit of SHINee’s debut days.

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(4) Kim Hyun Joong, Break Down: Got some Rain vibes. I am also hesitant about putting him here, because if 2011 is any indicator, 2012 will be the year of the groups, and solo artists like Hyun Joong will have it tough. Even Rain’s 2010 comeback was heavily lackluster (the easiest way to tell is to see if there is a Wikipedia article on that mini-album. There isn’t). The best solo comeback was probably BoA with Hurricane Venus, and even then, it was still small compared to the days where Rain, Se7en, Lee Hyori and BoA were all duking it on the dance floor for myriad holiday specials. So while Hyun Joong has talent, he just might be outgunned because he is simply a solo artist.

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That was terrible. I cannot believe I sat through the whole thing thinking that I would discover some hidden gem like DNT’s debut, Crazily Pretty. Even though I listed four performers to watch out for, I have not downloaded any of their tracks to my music library.  They have potential, but they did not really break it into the mainstream with their debuts.

S.M.’s EXO, hurry up and debut already. My socks are still waiting to be rocked off.

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