BEAST - "Beautiful Night"

When BEAST confirmed their comeback, I was both excited and scared -- excited because after "Fiction and Fact" they pretty much cemented themselves on my radar, and scared because Cube has screwed up pretty much all their comebacks this year (I'm looking at you all -- 4Minute, G.NA and A Pink) and I definitely didn't want the same thing to happen to BEAST.

However the minute I heard "Beautiful Night", I realized that I worried for nothing.

It's been a good three years since BEAST debuted, and I'm really, really pleased with their evolution both talent and material-wise, because really, they've gone nowhere but up -- where they're supposed to go. I can't really say I'm surprised because I saw it coming years ago, but for a K-Pop group of their standing to get to this point is really something else.

And that point is being able to move me with an uptempo. Being confident, technically proficient, and comfortable enough to make me call an uptempo beautiful -- because that takes a lot more than just a few members who can sing. There are two possible routes for a group who manages to do that -- the first is gaining my respect towards them as musicians and performers, like how Big Bang and 2NE1 did it, and the second is me legitimately stanning them, like how DBSK did it. Right now BEAST are leaning towards the respect side, but that can easily change.

This is probably the epitome of fearless pop as far as K-Pop is concerned -- the ever so slightly classier kind. Pop that isn't picky with it's brilliance -- that sounds good with or without the video, at low or high volumes, and I hope, recorded or live.

"Beautiful Night" is a song that needs little focus to fully appreciate, but higher levels of focus do result in higher appreciation, I think. The song moves at a fast enough pace to both keep your attention and familiarize you with each element, so you're neither bored nor completely baffled as to how something happened. It holds back where it should, but when it's time to explode it really brings everything.

And the song itself really fits BEAST. I was talking to Ree just a while ago and we were saying how it sounds to Euro and it's like S Club's "Alive" if it was done in 2012, but then I realized that we've seen this from BEAST before -- from "Bad Girl". It's like a classier, more mature and better-executed "Bad Girl", which, in my opinion, is one of the best indicators of growth. You look at the way they executed songs before, and you look at them now, and the improvement is striking.

"Beautiful Night" doesn't rely on just the song, or just the vocals -- it something that can stand on it's own, but it sounds so much better when a confident and practiced group like BEAST pulls it off.

From the very beginning, "Beautiful Night" attacks you with this strong, confident chorus/hook, but at the same time it's subdued enough to help you brace yourself for what's to come. We get to hear some really smooth but gutsy beats under it, but really, the focus of this part is on the chorus -- that stunning melody delivered with rich, but at the same time it just glides through. The build-up explodes before leading to this gorgeous synth loop by the second chorus, and continues for the entirety of the song.

The transitions are my favorite parts of the song, actually, because aside from the fact that they're so well-done to the point of them being extremely natural, they're one of the main reasons why the song is so confident. It's like biting into those tiny red chilis when you eat curry -- it doesn't always happen, but when it does it gives you a hard kick and your senses go into overdrive. In the best possible way.

Come to think of it, if "Beautiful Night" was food, it would be curry. The instrumentation is extremely rich, with all these rounded synths and the very smooth melody, but it also has kick, courtesy of the vocals and the transitions.

Up until this morning I was actually worried, because I looked through my "best of" list for this year, and none of the songs were worthy of being in the top ten. Looks like that's going to change now.

5/5

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Single of the Week: GLAM - "Party (XXO)"

To say I had high expectations for GLAM would be an understatement -- my expectations for them went through the roof ever since I watched their MTV reality show. (Which, may I say, was very well-done -- but that's for another post ;D) You have an idol group five girls who all have voices, two of them outstanding and the others with their own individual merits aside from voices, under an agency with considerable stature in the industry (2AM, etc.) -- does that not sound familiar?

Yes, my friends, GLAM is probably the closest we will ever get to a female DBSK.

"Party (XXO)" isn't ground-breaking, it isn't making me worship the songwriter or anything, but if you will recall, neither was "Hug". What those two songs have in common though, is that they are the formula, the quintessential idol group song -- done right, and with just that much more musicality. Of course debut singles have to be good, but over and above that, they have to show off the group as well as possible, and open as many doors for the future.

From the very beginning, the harmonies are there to go and say "hey, listen to us, we actually have voices" -- they're pretty generic and cheap around the edges, but the thing to pay attention to is that they don't sound like computer-generated harmonies, nor do they sound like one girl singing all parts just thrown together during post-prod. The harmonies have body, body only a group dynamic can give.

Those soft, but confident harmonies are immediately contrasted with a short rap part, before going straight into Gahee's solo. I didn't like her voice the first time I heard it (when they were auditioning for the Jokwon duet), but as a whole, the verses match all the girls sing it, and they're delivered with both grace and conviction. The verses also add that (bearable) "cute" dimension, without losing the technical proficiency we're going for on this song.

The chorus is gorgeous, and again, it sounds very simple and cutesy, but listen to it closer, those "dips"/"scoops" require trained, talented voices to pull off, and control. Give that to another useless idol group member and those dips won't even exist. The hook is melodic but catchy in it's own way, and again, those harmonies make it so, so much better.

And while all of that is happening, you have one of the most epicly Swedish instrumentals going on -- with bass you can actually feel, and gorgeous yet subtle synths. And really, as a whole the instrumental is extremely subtle, stepping in only when needed, and just sitting back and letting the girls do their thing, and do it well.

Add everything together and listening to it is such a pleasure because from the song alone you know these girls know exactly what to do, and you know they love it. There is nothing more effortless than talent laced with conviction.

I wouldn't call "Party (XXO)" the greatest thing since anything, but I give it high marks because it's extremely effective in showcasing everything that matters with GLAM. Vocal proficiency, femininity, conviction and sheer talent.

This, I believe, is a slap in the face to every female idol group who ever tried to do soft and feminine but confident, and failed. GLAM could very well be my new favorite girl group, if they manage to keep this up.

4.7/5

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Wonder Girls and Akon - "Like Money"

Yes, my friends -- "Like Money" has finally arrived. And surprisingly, there's so much to talk about!

As you may have seen on Twitter a few days ago, I had extremely high hopes for this song, because I knew it would be something good when I heard it in the Wonder Girls' ill-fated movie, and once the teasers came out the bar was raised even higher. Now that the song's out, was I satisfied? Well, that's a pretty long story, and provides enough material for a full-length review.

To be completely honest, I first heard "Like Money" in full when I saw the video. It was in 1080p, but after that first time I was ready to completely dismiss the song -- I even thought of a food analogy for my disappointment. However, if there's something that this song has reminded me, it's that I should never, ever, judge a song solely on the video, no matter how HD it is.

That is also my first argument -- "Like Money" shows that the Wonder Girls are a group who need the support of their repertoire to make a good performance. I had to go listen to the single proper to appreciate it, because the track on the video was a let-down. While they carry their songs well and there is no contesting Ye Eun and Sun Ye's vocal abilities, that is only half of the equation -- the other half is the song itself. So when you listen to a Wonder Girls track, you should be focusing on the song, and its elements, more than the performance proper. Which, in my opinion, is both good and bad. On one hand, a focus on music is something very few bands have, but on the other hand, it also means that they haven't properly learned to match their strong material with a performance of equal proficiency.

As far as I've read, there have been mixed thoughts on Akon's appearance, and even I'm a bit confused over whether or not I like his part of the song. JYP is most probably using Akon more for promotion than actual musical contribution, and I understand that aspect -- this is possibly the Wonder Girls' last shot at successfully breaking the US. If they don't do it now, they may never be able to, so they have to pull all the stops for this.

However for similar reasons, Akon getting an entire verse+chorus cycle is a little too much for me (which is also why this review is titled Wonder Girls and Akon, not Wonder Girls featuring Akon). "Like Money" is not a single to launch both the Wonder Girls and Akon -- it's a song to propel the Wonder Girls, and the Wonder Girls alone, because Akon is already a big name. They still get majority of the song compared to Akon, but if you think about it, when people hear a song in a public place, on TV or on the radio, they usually only catch on to it at the tail end of the first chorus or the beginning of the second verse. If the first thing these listeners hear is Akon, and if they hear that for an entire cycle, they will tend to think this is a song Akon did with a random girl group, and not the other way around. They'll only discover that this is a predominantly Wonder Girls song once they look for it on iTunes or Google. Getting just one verse, or one chorus, for me, is enough for a featuring credit.

I may not be able to call myself an expert on American and British pop/dance like I could, and would have, three years ago, but the one thing I've noticed from the little I've heard recently is that (as expected from dance/pop) the bass line has become one of the most important parts of a song, if not the most, both to my disdain and delight. Extremely loud bass lines have never really been in my good books, because it's so easy to just turn up the volume and overpower the entire song with a boring bass line, defeating the purpose, but at the same time, so many songs have beautifully subtle but confident bass lines that are underneath all the other elements and yet in their subtlety manage to let their presence be felt, and felt well. Those are the ones I absolutely adore.

I'm glad that "Like Money" is not the former -- that the song isn't like a dumpling drenched in way too much salty soy sauce (-slash-bass line) -- but I'm also disappointed because the bass line isn't the latter either. I get the impression that they were really going for the latter, that subtle but confident (main) bass line, but whoever produced this didn't know how to do it. I mean it's an okay bass line, and it pretty much does its job, but it could've been so much better, so much richer. The difference between "Like Money"'s bass line and the one in something like Tohoshinki's "Android", or even Jessie J's "Domino" is like the difference between whole and skim milk. They're both still milk, they both do their jobs and have pretty much the same calcium and lactose content, but the big difference is that whole milk is much creamier and tastier because of the fat, while skim milk is more watered down and less tasty.

While the bass line is thinner than I would've liked it to be, hearing the better-quality audio track made the realize that the focus of the song isn't the bass line. It's still a very important part of the song, and like I said, that's the fad now, but I cannot call this a disappointment simply because of the bass line, because the song has merits that equal, maybe even outweigh, the sub-par bass line.

The first is the melody. The gorgeous, confident melody, that I'm pleasantly surprised to say, fits all of their vocals very well. Yes, even Lim, whose whiny vocals usually annoy me beyond belief. The auto tune is blatant but tasteful, and used in contrast to the chorus. There is no blatant processing on the chorus, which is the part that has the most belting, and needs the most power and spunk. Ye Eun and Sun Ye do the strength and confidence justice, giving the melody kick. As a whole, the melody is both versatile and cohesive, all while being extremely catchy. It serves its purpose well.

But what really made me shift focus away from the bass line is all the little bits and pieces going on underneath it, and this song's attention to detail, something we usually see in Japan, but which I also really adore. The synth loop during the intro is gorgeous, and that electronic percussion during the chorus gives the song the extra oomph with a dash of epic. The oomph and epic in the percussion was the same kind I was looking for in the bass line actually. Had it been like that, mixing the two together would've been sheer brilliance.

The build-up of the entire song, everything from the instruments to the dynamics, was done extremely well, not letting go even once it reaches the chorus -- even building up more halfway through. It's a very fluid song, and while the transitions are very pronounced and the dynamics playful, everything just makes sense together. Effortless and fearless -- I can't complain if I get those, can't I?

And a last note, something that I've also realized as a wrap up this review -- "Like Money" is the type of the song grows on you. At first it will probably be a complete let down, more so for the people who waited months for this (me included), but the thing is, this song has dimension. It's not just a melody slapped on top of a bass line with a few synth lines running around -- it's an actual song, with elements that both firmly stand apart and blend together effortlessly, with so many little details running around -- that every time you hear it, you hear something new.

This will be on my playlist for a pretty long time, that's for sure.

4.8/5

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Single of the Week: Tohoshinki - "Android"

So, as many of you know, I started my sophomore year of university last month (time flies!), and while things were already hectic to start with, they're about to get even more stressful in the coming weeks. Aside from my 8AM-5:30PM schedule four days a week (T_T), I'm busy with all the work those subjects have, and a host of other extracurricular things. Which means that I won't be able to churn out full-length reviews on a regular basis anymore, unless I really have a lot to say.

But I don't want to disappear off the face of the earth either, because before the school year started I promised myself that I'd blog on a regular basis for the rest of the year, even with school. So, over the next few weeks I'm going to be trying a host of different ideas, and hopefully by the end of July or something, we (yes, we) settle on something regular, but not as time-consuming as those novels I usually write.

Starting with a single of the week. Basically this post will be half the length, and content, of a proper single review, but it'll still be a thorough enough walk-through and review of the song. Just less of my ranting and less context, which most of you can do without seeing as you're probably more updated than I am right now.

Shall we?

So "Android". Yunho and Changmin are back after wrapping up their (as always) record-breaking, historic "TONE" tour, and they're armed with a brand-new-single. While we all brace ourselves for their Korean comeback (which SM has absolutely no right to screw up, thank you very much), "Android" will have to suffice. And it does a pretty good job in doing that.

Since the split, Yunho and Changmin have gone for an edgier, more rock-inspired sound in Japan, mainly because Changmin sounds particularly good with it, and the melodies are less technically challenging than the likes of "Love In The Ice", but still highly melodic.

"Android" is just that. It's reminiscent of last year's "I Don't Know", with less spunk and more grace. The synths at the beginning and the percussion throughout give the song kick, but the melody, half of which delivered by Changmin's crisp vocals, and the production as a whole, sort of wrap the song in smoothness. It's like wrapping dragon fruit in cling wrap -- you can still see all the spikes and the fruit itself, but it's smooth to the touch.

Each element of the song is strong enough to stand alone -- the instruments give the song both character and finesse, the melody carries the instruments even further, all while being powerfully stunning, and the arrangement brings them all together neatly but naturally. Everything is so effortless -- effortless but fearless.

And really, the bottom line is, this is a gorgeous song. Need I say more?

4.5/5

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Thoughts on the new "column"? Suggestions? :D

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Super Junior - "Sexy, Free & Single"

Time really flies, doesn't it? It seems like just yesterday when I was flailing over the brilliance that is "Sorry Sorry", kicking and screaming over the disaster that was "Bonamana", and not talking about "Mr. Simple" until I had to. Here we are again, with another Super Junior album. Their sixth! Now they're just making me feel old.

Like a lot of albums this year, so I've noticed, I had zero expectations for this. I mean at the back of my mind I was expecting the usual SM formula of lead single, token uptempo, and ballads for everything else, but another part of me wanted this album to be good, for reasons even I'm not so sure. Maybe, just maybe, SM would bring out something brilliant, because they are perfectly capable of it. The teaser didn't do anything to those expectations, but I'm afraid this album is a whole different story.

Or rather, a non-existent story. Brace yourselves for another snooze-fest, my friends. Although, in defense, this isn't a snooze-fest because all the songs are lost causes. There are some songs in here that actually have a lot of potential if done right. But ultimately, that's also where the problem is. Super Junior have been around for seven years now -- this is their sixth album, and it's still mediocre. Potential, and "it would be better if..."'s are for groups in their first two or three years, not for senior groups who have almost immeasurable stature in K-Pop.

The execution is another major problem, and it's the part of the album I'm most disappointed in. I expected much, much, better. Their half-baked, bored execution is yet another indication that they most probably know that this album isn't any good. But that's not the way to do it, because a lot of these songs could've been decent with a bit of conviction and fearless execution.

Just last week I was talking about fearless pop, courtesy of Jokwon's brilliant album, and how apt that was, because Super Junior have showed us the exact opposite, in the form of the album's lead single. "Sexy, Free and Single" is an over-all good idea for a song, executed in a scared and confused way. The verses are strong, both vocally and arrangement-wise, with SM's always-strong production sweeping in and tying everything together. It has the right combination of groove and stiff synths, and the melody is gorgeous. The bridges get even better on all levels, leading to what I think is a chorus, still well-executed and with very apt vocal treatment, and then BAM, the build up abruptly disappears into a generic, overused and annoying Super Junior chanting session. It doesn't even dissolve or fizzle -- it just stops in mid-air and goes straight to the disaster. The middle 8 that follows another repetition of that cycle is beautiful, but the hook comes in again and ruins everything. Everything.

What happened, SM? I was this close to calling "Sexy, Free and Single" a good song!

Lack of cohesion aside, the biggest problem is that the part of the song that messes everything up is, in K-Pop, the single most important part. Of anything. K-Pop songs depend of their hooks to get people listening -- the hook is the part that's played on variety shows or when members dance. This is the part that will get the most airtime outside of the song, and it's crap, because they can't see through what they started. Because they're afraid.

Pop should be fearless. End of story.

Actually, I wasn't that let down with the album just yet, because while the lead single was a let-down, it wasn't exactly as big as a disaster as some of Super Junior's other mistakes. That and "From U" is actually a pretty song. At this point I was actually going "now that's how you do it, SuJu" -- because this had the conviction I was looking for, laced with a pretty melody and a quaint instrumental. It's a song that isn't hard to listen to, but then I realized that that's pretty much all it will amount to. Countless listens will wear it out, somewhat like a pair of your most comfortable shoes. They're still comfortable compared to other shoes, but time creates a big gap between how they are now, and how they were when they were new. What you hear outright is what you get with "From U", and for now that will do, but this lacks the dimension needed to sustain this for the long-run.

I spoke too soon though, because the second I heard "Gulliver", I knew that was where this album was going to rapidly fall. Hard. This song was an absolute pain to listen to, partially because the chanting, and everything else, was too low, and as a whole, everyone was trying way too hard. Waaaaaay too hard. This is half the songwriter's fault, half SuJu's. I can't tell whether they're rapping okay or singing badly during the verses, the bridge is a mess with random belting from people like Ryeowook, and then when it gets to the point where the song is supposed to explode and blow everyone away with something like a more packed belting session (if it was like that it would've been okay), the song leads to "Gulliver" being chanted over and over and over again and I just wanted everything to stop. Just when I thought nothing could be worse, out of nowhere it's like someone fiddled with the tempo controls, slowed the chanting down, and just slapped a completely new part in the last thirty seconds, where the song ends. Just like that. And you're left scratching your head going "what the hell did I just hear?"

If you listen really, really, reeeeeeeally hard, "Someday" is actually a pretty song. But it's the kind of song that just sits there, waiting for you to notice it when it's not actually that pretty. It's a song that's neither exceptionally stunning nor pathetically bad, but it's those songs that need to work especially hard, because they're the closest to being amazing, and it's highly possible that they will be. With a little push, which this song doesn't have. Blame it on the fact that it's not just KRY, or on the boring arrangement (that even my beloved strings couldn't save), bottom line is, this song could've been so much more. Scrap that cheesy instrumental before the middle 8, make the vocals a little more interested, and make things explode -- that would've been pretty stunning, if you asked me.

"NOW" is clearly a filler track, there's no other plausible explanation of why this song is on this album when it's so out of place. It's also ridiculously confused. I get that they want to be all melodic, tongue-in-cheek, British pop-rock, and that's actually what the song is, but the problem is that it's so anticlimactic. They shouldn't have chorused the chorus (that makes sense, okay! it does!), because SuJu chorus vocals are thin to start with, and the production on this song was also very light and airy.

"Rockstar" begins what I call the boring electronica and ballad parade of "Sexy, Free and Single", which has replaced the lone sleep-inducing ballad parade, but it's still just as bad.

In fairness to them, "Rockstar" isn't as bad as it was when I first heard it, and I was actually this close to saying it was pretty okay (which has been happening with a lot of the songs on this album, if you've noticed), but then the "Oh. My. God. I'm. So. Hot." line came up and my perpetual face palm for this song returned. I don't really have an exceptionally big problem with songs like this if they're done right, but the Super Junior version sounds half-baked and scared, and that kind of delivery makes songs like this funny. If you're going to do fierce, you have to do it fearlessly.

We have a little break from all the up tempos courtesy of "Bittersweet", and when I say interlude, I actually mean filler track #2. (In comparison to the rest of the album, at least.) It's the type of song that just goes right through you because while it's right in between bad and good, there are no major parts that can be tweaked to make it ever so slightly better, or worse. This is the most this song will be, and it falls short. Everything from the boring melody to the directionless instrumental.

And the same goes for "Butterfly", actually. The instrumental is interesting at the beginning, and the melody is a noble idea, but it's just so boring it hurts. "Bittersweet" is actually slightly better than "Butterfly", because at least it doesn't have the overpowering synths and horrid chanting laced together.

"Daydream" is yet another diamond in the rough. And at this point I'm very frustrated because after seven years of work, I expected sparkly, edgy and stunning diamonds, and now that I'm at the tail end of the display, they're either still graphite, or really rough diamonds. I mean "Daydream" has a pretty melody, but right now I could name over a hundred other songs with pretty melodies. Like everything else on this album, it doesn't demand your attention -- it doesn't sparkle.

"A 'Good' Bye" has a bit more sparkle, thank goodness. What makes me like this song a little more is that it actually tries to be a little more interesting. All the little details here and there, like the guitar line and the string section, plus the gimmicks like the ticking clock -- they try to catch your attention. It's mostly in vain because the song still bores to death, but after everything else, seeing some kind of initiative is obviously better. An okay way to end the album, given the circumstances.

Super Junior are supposed to be one of the "forerunners" of K-Pop, of pop music in Asia. But tell me, how are they supposed to live up to that title if even they are afraid of pop? If even they, after seven years, countless awards and industry influence at their disposal, cannot, for the lives of them, deliver a fearless pop album?

The Best: “From U”
The Better: “Sexy, Free and Single”
The Worst: "Gulliver"
The Rating: 1.5/5

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