After last year's "Supersonic", which was a brilliant album inside out (and my favorite album of 2012!), honestly I was curious to see what Younha would put out next. It wasn't fear like the kind I have for idol groups who do well, but curiosity -- Younha is capable of brilliance and because last year she showed it with such mastery and effortlessness, the question this time around wasn't what she would do, but how she would do it.
Whenever pop acts challenge so-called “different” sounds and styles, that foray is usually made under the guise of “pushing the limits” or “thinking outside of the box”. Those concepts have also been used time and time again in debates and arguments on the nature of pop, sometimes incorrectly. Pushing limits does not exempt the work from making sense.
I've made it no secret that the mere idea of a Jaejoong solo album/release other than drama OSTs is enough to bring out the (not-so-hidden) fangirl within me, and so when it was finally announced, officially, that Jaejoong's solo album was one, going to be released, and two, a rock-influenced release, as you may have guessed and seen, I flipped. Tears of joy included.
"Harvest Moon" was the kind of album I first listened to from start to finish, knowing when the songs transitioned from one another, but afterwards I remembered the flow of the entire album just as much as I did the individual tracks. If this is Cube's one good album quota for the year, I'm perfectly okay with that.
When I heard that the production team behind "I Got A Boy" was the same one behind "Genie", which is easily my favorite Korean release from SNSD, of course I was excited. I was excited despite the fact that "Dancing Queen" was a disappointment, because "Genie" was both a song, and a sound that I loved for SNSD.
.JPG)
