I like SHINee, I like them a lot, and right now Lucifer is one of the few frontrunners for my favorite song of the year. Lucifer (the album) is outstanding, and even if SHINee have managed to deliver superior material compared to all the other boybands in their "league", they have set the standards so high for themselves that Hello just pales in comparison, in more ways than one.
The production is strong, the vocals fantastic and the melody pretty - that's about all the song can offer and for a band like SHINee, that's simply not enough.
I like the arrangement and I'll be honest with you - the melody made me smile - but we've heard this all before, it's nothing new, nothing ground-breaking, and it most definitely won't start a trend. They're now past the stage wherein they have to cement themselves as talented singers and/or a band with outstanding material, this is the time to possibly revolutionize k-pop - and they most definitely didn't do it.
One is absolutely no match for Life or Obsession - the chorus is a surprise given the verses, which I appreciate, and you know I'm a sucker for a good string section, but this didn't give me goosebumps. I don't know if it's because their vocals lack emotion, or because the song itself is a little on the boring side, but it's most definitely not up to par with the other ballads.
And finally, we have the disaster of all disasters. I just don't get Get It. (OK I didn't mean for that to sound like a pun.) It's... yeah. Even I'm confused. It's like Britney with a bit of BoA and where have I heard those specific synths before? UGH. It's too slow and there isn't enough kick to the song that it doesn't make an impact, and then they just had to go and autotune the vocals. The song has no melody, no clear structure, and it's a mess of random parts of different songs thrown together with no thought or effort put into it.
Now I'm seriously thinking if I should wait for this version to hit Philippine record stores, or just buy version A, that's already out here. If all I'm getting in addition to the 13 fantastic tracks are three sub-par ones, I just might not wait for this new one to come out here.
For the three tracks - 4.1/5. Better than others, but not up to their own standards.
completely agree with you. After lucifer, hello pales in comparison. Even though i like it, its just ...a little underwhelming.
ReplyDeletebtw, im just wondering are you gonna review BoA's Copy & Paste repackage? i really want to read what you think about it =). Personally, copy & paste is fantastic.
I was very excited too for the release of Shinee's repackaged album and I wish I could watch their perf in Music Bank tomorrow :D
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when I first heard 'Hello', I thought that it was too plain as a 'comeback' song as compared to 'Lucifer'. I was hoping that the beats would develop into a more complex sound but they didn't. (Now I'm really looking forward to the MV because Key is so cute in the teaser:P)
For 'Get it', the opening reminded me of one of Rain's songs. The song lacked, yeah some kind of kick, but after listening to it, I'm now kind of addicted to it. I like that it's not that explosive like Shout Out. I guess the "Aaahhh" parts caught me :D Definitely my favorite MinKey rap song.
'One' was simply beautiful. I really like it when Shinee sings ballads.
As for the repackaged album, if I had known that there would be such a thing (I just realized how I'm still a kpop newbie), I would have waited some time before I purchased Version B. Oh well, at least I got a big Shinee poster :D
I loved Lucifer (the album) - it was daring and bold in the variety of genres it carried, Lucifer as the title song was kick-ass, the ballads were gorgeous and the upbeat songs made me smile widely. I held The SHINee World (the album) in such high regard and thought the 2nd album would not be able to top it. I was proven wrong; Lucifer the album was well worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteI don't think SM was looking to revolutionize kpop with this repackaged album. They just wanted to make more money off SHINee and keep the better songs for the next album. The boys said they recorded 30 songs so it means they still have a lot of material right now.
True, it's not groundbreaking but I still love "Hello" and "One". Their vocals are lovely as usual: Onew and Jonghyun sounds beautiful while Taemin's growth is obvious in these songs. Like Suju's No Other, Hello is very fan-servicey and actually easy on Jonghyun's strained vocals. I can imagine them having fun performing this song.
I also don't get Get It. LOL I must admit that I could only listen to it once. For me, it's "Shout Out" > Get It & Get Down. I wish they would sing Shout Out at least once in a music program (hehe).
i don't think this review took the context into consideration. it wasn't supposed to be ground breaking, it was a repackaged album, like sm does for everyone one of its cash cows. that being said, loved "hello" - what a strong strong song. not ground breaking but so well executed definitely one for the collection cause at least is different from all the other shinee songs. in fact, i've never heard pop music merged with r&b like this, like this. anyway, but the most important is what promises. perhaps this is the bridge to a new style. "pop music with an r&b twist". plus, music with more of taemin. man that was amazing. totally adds to the shinee sounds - like a less abrasive jonghyun. it has more body now. I didn't really like "Get It". Sounds like they wrote it themselves. "One" is another great song from shinee, one for the collection. anyway, i was very satisfied considering my expectations
ReplyDeleteListen I love shinee too, but how can you listen to that Lucifer album? there had to be 3 max worth repeating.
ReplyDeletethe three tracks would have been great for any other band. just not one as superior as SHINee. not up to par with Lucifer.
ReplyDeletei like One. not nearly as much say, quasimodo or obsession. BUT KEY'S TIMBRE HAS RETURNED FROM THE DEAD. that alone makes me happy.
thank you for the review!
SHINee's Hello is actually a cover of Mohamed Ali's Holla!
ReplyDeleteJust pointing it out. :)
Well, I think Hello is a sweet change and reminds me of Replay days. Minho looks so adorable but all I want is Tae-Tae <3
ReplyDeleteSHINee really dumbs themselves down with a track like Hello. After hearing songs like RDD and Lucifer, something like this simply isn't enough. It's so obviously just a weak attempt by SM to make more money off them. Maybe instead of producing new songs every five minutes they could spend more time promoting the album they already had. They've done a total of 2 albums and 4 mini-albums in two years. That could last a normal group 3-4 years. At this rate they're going to burn out fast.
ReplyDeletePersonally i think the only part of Hello that's any good is Minho's rap but of course you can barely hear it the way they edit the song.