YT credit goes to UnknownCarrot300. *bows down* Apart from the Gummy vids which are courtesy of the equally brilliant CodeMonMonMixes.
ZE:A - All Day Long
Someone has to go teach this engineer how to TURN THE BACKING TRACK VOLUMES DOWN. You know, SOFTER? The track on this performance was so loud, you'd think the boys were miming 70% of the song when they actually only usually mime around 30%. I heard traces of live singing on a few parts, but if you were casually listening to the song, the backing track is loud enough that it literally drowsn their vocals.
Secret - Magic
Just for this performance, someone PLEASE fire the cameraman along with the sound engineer. ALTHOUGH, Secret seem to be one of the two groups least-affected by the curse of the stupid sound engineer (we'll get to the other one later), maybe because a lot of the performance used pre-recorded lines, but maybe because they may actually have enough vocal ability to carry themselves. IF they can make those vocals into fantastic performing packages, they may possibly stick around for longer than I first thought they would. That and the rapper is quite a good singer, reminds me a bit of how CL 2NE1 can sing too, but she's not as good as CL yet. I'd give it some time.
B2ST - Special
Right now I'd very much like to fly to Korea, hunt down the SBS sound engineer, scream at him/her, cut off his/her fingers and ears, then watch him/her die a painfully slow death. Seriously, does the engineer even have ears? B2ST sounded crap today because of those stupid hands-free AND hand held mics - if it was just the hands-free ones I'd kinda forgive him since they're always a problem but even the hand held ones sounded crap! Although if you listen carefully their vocals weren't at their best, but that doesn't excuse the sound engineer from crimes of crap sound. AJ doesn't have a very nice voice to start with and the sound today made it worse, heck it even made Yoseob sound bad, and he's pretty good! BOO. (to the engineer, not B2ST - they were fine.)
f(x) - NU ABO
Let's put it this way - the only person who was affected by the crap sound today was Luna, because she had to actually sing without a lot of backing when she did the middle 8. It sounded held back, soft, and she didn't really hit some of the higher notes right. The rest of the performance was bleh. NEXT ACT.
U-Kiss - Mworago
Just when I thought ZE:A's vocals were drowned, looks like I hadn't heard U-Kiss yet. UGH. Heck, even that blonde dude (sorry, don't know his name) sounded like he was miming, and in the past performances he was supposed to be the one who could sing. I just hop for everyone's sanity that the engineer dies a very painful death one day.
After School - Bang!
The other group who sounded pretty good today were After School - does the engineer favor the two groups? Ugh, just like the MuCore engineer - playing favorites. Although After School sounding good today might be a blessing in disguise, their vocals are really getting better and better. The middle 8 was still a FAIL vocally and there were parts heavily backed-up by the recording, but most of the vocals were quite good if you compare it to their past performances.
2PM - Without U
OK so some of the comments for yesterday's MuCore recap said that Wooyoung has vocal chord nodules, which is why he's miming so OK, he's forgiven. But why's Junho (Junho? not sure about the names.) miming too? Please don't tell me there's a nodule outbreak within 2PM. (just joking, it's not contagious. At least the one I know of) Other than that and the fact that Junsu apparently hurt his knee, there really isn't anything else to talk about. Their vocals were consistent with yesterday's more comfortable ones, and the performance was OK.
Rain - Love Song
Compared to everyone else, Rain sounded pretty OK today. I mean, the Inkigayo sound engineer didn't let him off sounding bad just because he's Rain, but at leaast the mic wasn't shaky - because he brought his own. Lesson learned idols, if you wanna sound even the least bit better on Inki, bring your own microphones.
Gummy - There Is No Love + As a Man
Can I resurrect the engineer and kill him/her again just so he/she gets the right punishment? Seriously, who turns up the backing track to the same level of the vocals of someone who can actually sing? Stupidity. You can still hear traces of her live vocals when the backing track's on but because they're at the same level, the live and recorded vocals mix and you have to listen even more carefully to actually hear it. Her vocals were a bit lazy today at some parts, but she was consistent for most of the performance(s). I've noticed this even as early as yesterday but I didn't say it because I thought it was just a one-off mistake - Gummy's having some tempo problems during the first verse of There Is No Love. It's nothing serious, like she's missing the instrumental by one one-hundredth of a second, but to a trained ear and/or someone who's tempo-perfect (me) it's very obvious. She could be doing some of it on purpose though.
Hyori - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang(WINNER - TRIPLE CROWN)
Before I start the commentary, WHAT THE CRAP IS SHE WEARING?!?! OK on to busines. The engineer finally figured out how to turn down the backing tracks, just a teensy bit for Hyori, sice she's Hyori and all. Ugh. Today's Hyori performance was Hyori, that's all I have to say about it. And now that she's won her triple crown, I wonder who's gonna win next week. Hmm.
Well that wraps up this week's music show recaps - will be announcing via Twitter whether or not I'm doing a live Tweet for KBS Music Bank on Friday at 5:30 PM Philippine Time, so if you aren't already, follow me. Once again, live Tweets will span the entire show, but recaps will only feature idols. If you're watching too, don't hesitate to tweet me - I want multiple discussions running while it's on, OK? OK.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Want to share any of your thoughts on the above post? Drop a comment here! I read all comments and reply occasionally, especially if you have specific questions for me. :D
Note that comments are moderated. Spam, self-advertising (K-Pop-related and otherwise) and overly vulgar submissions will NOT be accepted. If you want me to promote/endorse/follow/link to your site, please e-mail me at popreviewsnow@gmail.com instead.