Oppa Knows Best #2

I am here to introduce to you another wonderful post by the resident oppa here at Nunas Know Best. Rather embarrassingly it seems oppa has already caught up with our current slacking bi-monthly blog posting and is putting us to shame with his in depth articles and dedication to the K-pop cause.  Rest assured, Jessica & I will be back with a vengence but first we both just have the small matter of relocating to Tokyo next month to deal with... anyway enough about us,  more about oppa! 

This time he is casting his discerning senses over some more girl group releases from the past few months, he even sneaks in some J-pop at the very end, but as it is some J-pop I most wholeheartedly endorse, I'm letting it slide. 

Also i'd like to point out that Nunas Know Best do not necessarily agree with the views and opinions of Oppa Knows Best, more specifically - I personally cannot abide by having T-ara lumped in the "not so good" category and being surpassed by lesser mortals such as Chi-Chi, KARA and Girls Day ... but maybe that's just me. 

In true k-pop entertainment style, I ask you to please give him a moment of your time... 

- BUNNY

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Oppa Knows Best #2

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and listen to some KPOP due to work and life getting in the way. However, I recently managed to find the time to ignore real life for a while and assess quite a few new tracks that have been released in the last couple of months. As with most non-mainstream genres of music, it takes a keen ear to discern between the subtleties of good songs and bad songs, and while I am not claiming to be an expert on KPOP, I know what I like and what I don’t, and enjoy writing about them both.

So lets start by getting the not-so-great songs out of the way.

Davichi – Don’t Say Goodbye

 

This song sounds like every melody has been taken from a different 80’s pop ballad, stitched together to resemble some kind of non-ironic motivational ballad aimed at the overly sentimental. However rubbish I may find the song, they do seem like lovely girls. I found this fan blog http://sinyanmei92.blogspot.com who has screen grabbed every different facial expression that they make during one of their performances. Here are my favourites:

 

She looks like she is going to cry!!! 

One of the girls, Kang Min Kyung (aka Minkie) has her own blog, and it looks like she came to the UK recently. Here is a picture of her feeding some geese in York:

Jaurim – IDOL

WATCH HERE

I really, really, really hate this type of cheesy poppy-rock song, but it’s not often you see KPOP guitarists rocking out with a flying-V guitar.

Brave Girls - Why so often?

This song has numerous problems. First off, starting the song with a random rapper non-ironically trying to gangster it up and introducing the band is a very bad idea. The song itself is a weird calypso-summer-beach-pop song that has way too much saxophone. There are also too many stupid calypso drum fills all the way through, which are just awful and really shouldn’t be used in any music made after 1982. They should have stuck with doing stuff like this song, I much prefer them when they’re strutting about in clubs and partying. Get off the beach and into the club!!!

Sistar – So Cool

WATCH HERE

I liked this song when I first heard it, but listening back to it again I find it a bit too boring to really enjoy. The beat just pumps all the way through the song, dragging everything along in a quite predictable way. There aren’t enough breaks or fills or crazy vocal breakdowns, it doesn’t really have enough that jumps out at me.

T-ara - Roly Poly

I just read somewhere that this is the highest grossing KPOP song of 2011 so far, which is worrying as I really don’t think it is that great. It starts off ok with an intro and verse that is quite interesting, setting it apart from other songs which just sound like generic R+B or dance songs. Stealing the “ha-ha-ha-ha” part from the Beegee’s is pretty cool, but I always found that song annoying as well. The main thing I don’t like about this song is the chorus, which is in quite a different style to the verse, which makes the transition feel a bit out of place. Plus, there is a “rap” part near the end which is just completely pointless. So, basically I think this song has too many different musical styles battling each other, and the result is that the song isn’t very cohesive. What do you think? I am wrong to be hating the most popular song of the year?

Now that we have the slightly rubbish songs out of the way, lets get onto the good stuff! 

Dana and Sunday – One More Chance  

WATCH HERE

So apparently these two girls are a sub-unit from a band called The Grace, who released a few rubbish ballads back in 05/06. Not sure what the rest of the band are up to, nor if The Grace are planning a comeback, but if this song is any indication, they have the potential to be awesome. The song starts off slowly with some catchy riffs which complement the vocal melodies really well. It builds up really well with them showing off their vocals gradually throughout the song, and it doesn’t have any annoying interludes which take you out of the rhythm of the song. This might be a future favourite of mine, keep up the good work!!!

Dal Shabat - Bling Bling

I didn’t like the last song of theirs that I heard, it just sounded really childish and annoying. I quite like this song even though parts of it remind me of Repulica’s “Ready To Go”, which is normally the sort of poppy-rock stuff that I really, really hate. Another bit reminds me of the intro theme tune to a Ghost In The Shell series as well. Apparently stealing melodies from other songs and mashing them together works, because this song is awesome. Does anyone else want to go to a Bling Bling Disco?

Chi-Chi – Longer

WATCH HERE

I don’t have much to say apart from that this is an absolute banger! If I was drunk and they played this song I would be ruling the dance floor.

KARA – Step

WATCH HERE

I only heard this song recently, but I think it’s pretty good. It’s pretty pumping and the chorus is really catchy, although it does teeter on the edge of sounding something like Shakira or someone like that. It also has a weird breakdown where it sounds like its going to break down into some kind of ballad, but it seems like they did it to trick you before going back into a chorus. Overall, good song, but lacking some dynamics between verse chorus which would have made it slightly better.

WINNER! 

Girls Day – Don’t Let You’re Eyes Wander

Yes it’s true, the amazing girls of Girls Day have once again made one of the best (in my opinion) songs of the moment. This isn’t a cheesy ballad, neither is it cobbled together from lots of disparate types of genres, this is what Girls Day do best, making awesome, positive attitude dance classics. The best this about them is that they sound like they are having so much fun singing it (although they probably had to train for 12 hours a day prior to the songs release, but they still emerge smiling). I don’ t want to analyse the song too much as it would take the fun out of listening to it, so just sit back and bask in its awesomeness.

P.S. 

Is it wrong of me to really like this JPOP singer? I came across きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ(or Kyary Pamyu Pamyu) a while ago, and I am slightly addicted to her songs. She has a really great vibe going on; her songs aren’t massive club anthems, nor are they unbearably cheesy pop songs, they just have loads of great melodies and really catchy vocals. The video for this song is also one of the trippiest things I have seen in a while.

This song is also pretty awesome. 

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy my commentary on various songs. If you disagree with me in anyway please let me know, and feel free to recommend any songs that I may have missed! 

If you want to you can find me on twitter. 

I will follow back! 

http://twitter.com/#!/corporal_doom

xxx 

- OPPA KNOWS BEST

A few more words on K-pop World Cup football mania...

Everythings going to be OK, Super Junior are wearing shorts and looking cute.

My comment on Jess's previous post spiraled out of control so I thought it best to take a moment to voice my thoughts, out here in the open.

I shall firstly state that I do not like sports. Except for pro wrestling. Pro Wrestling is my favourite sport, seriously that should tell you all you need to know, but I shall continue slightly and say that the only other sports I enjoy watching, occasionally, are: gymnastics, figure skating and I am always fascinated by the pole vault. That's about it. I'm going to open up here and tell you that there was a brief period in my youth when I followed football (I am from a family of football fans who all avidly support Aston Villa), I chose to support Leeds United, and spent moments of the first years of my teens, wearing a Leeds United scarf, crushing on footballers, and even having a fantasy football team. So I think the 1998 world cup was probably the only world cup I would have ever shown interest in (and had knowledge about). By 2002 I would have been long gone into my "alternative lifestyle" to even notice the world cup was happening ...

I'm sure at times I have felt enraged by boisterous sports fans and their seemingly pointless pastimes, at other times I felt indifference, these days it just makes me feel a lot better about my dedication to my own pastimes... each to their own....

Back in my youth I sort of understood why countries had a world cup song, just one each, to represent the country (kind of like eurovision... ha!) so people could get into it, and sing it instead of lame national anthems or whatever, but then I never understood why there would be more than one song in the same country,,, like a comedy one, a super patriotic one, a "cool" one, I couldnt make sense of it. Well I couldn't make sense of the charts or marketing or anything, it was just confusing, like there'd be an "official" Fifa one and this was usually way less popular than the cool / comedy one, the kids in school only sang that one.

Anyway there are like 5+ GO KOREA type songs already (I say already and just looked it up and theres like 23 days to go, I guess this is normal...). Jess I'm with you, I don't want sports in my K-pop (unless the idols are playing them, a la "idol united" or "dream team"or something) but, its inevitable i'm afraid.

According to this slightly confusingly translated article, SuJu's EeeTuk, 4Minute Hyun Ah and JinSwoon are actually going to South Africa!? JinSwoon looks happy about it, so I guess we should be happy for him...

These are the facts:

Koreans are really really proud of their country / patriotic

Koreans are really really into football (like how the Japanese are crazy for Baseball..)

Koreans are really really really super proud and into their national football team

Koreans love k-pop idols, they are seemingly a huge majority of the entertainment world, they dominate the music scene and their faces are plastered everywhere.

Which all adds up to GO KOREA WORLD CUP K-POP MANIA 2010!

This current BOOM in idol popularity has been accelerating for the last few years and only really started getting so intense from about 2007 onwards so the 2006 World Cup didn't have quites so many potential "hitmakers" This time around, every K-popper in their right mind will try and cash in on this (or at least every evil mastermind behind all the big idol agencies will force their gals and boys to sing and dance about football whether they like it or not, and they will obediently oblige). I have a suspicion that even if an idol had zero interest in sports or football it highly unlikely they would ever say that out loud, I get the feeling it would be akin to hiding from your military service and you would basically shame the whole nation with your disinterest. So really our plight to ignore this is impossible, i'm not saying to embrace it, but y'know, we'll just have to ride it out, so we'd better start looking for the plus points of whats on offer.

After Jess noticing the underlying excitingly violent lyrics of the Shout of the Reds Big Bang X Kim Yuna X Transfiction monstrosity, it seems there is some joy to be found. The more I see it, the more I think i'm going to have to put up, shut up and learn this confounded dance already:

I say there must be joy to be found, and yet, everyway I turn is more pain. 2AM have the "official" song on the FIFA album and from watching this teaser I'm not sure I ever want to hear it, or see them like that, ever, ever again.

Kwonnie, you can't fool me, I don't think you're that into football, and why the heck are they wearing orange? are they supporting the Netherlands? I thought it was RED, killer REDS??!

Then theres the girls, T-ara's song is especially world cup feeling with lots of global unity, OLE OLE and "go Korea" styling, I applaud their effort, I really do, but pretty much never want to hear that song again, for fear it sticks in my head and creates its own nightmare master mix along with Fat Les - Vindaloo....

More girls who are slightly more unconvincing, Kara's "we're with you" in which they keep saying "bounce bounce" a lot ?! This one really misses the goal by a mile...

I thought I could take no more but now even my recent biases Super Junior are in on 'the game' or at least 5 of them, I'm guessing another SuJu sub group in creation. I'm going to probably regretted ever typing this, but I'm saying maybe its the best of the bunch, for the simple fact that it sounds like a Super Junior song (with just a little bit of extra chanting), although the MV teaser has that football soft drink / beer / feel good beverage sort of vibe :

Also, really what has Sungmin done to piss off the stylists recently, firstly it was the short straw of stage clothes for Bonamana (mesh shirt followed by a sleeveless cropped leg onesie tied at the waist..) and now this:

DON'T PART HIS HAIR LIKE ITS THE FLIPPING 1998 WORLD CUP

I'm getting flashbacks to school trips.

You know what?

I just want to end this post already, i'm depressing myself. I started off trying to turn it around and tell you not to fear, make the most of this sports infested time, it'll be fun! Look for the joy I said!! WHO AM I KIDDING?!

This is horrible. I hate the world cup already, I hate feel good global football unity bullshit, I hate what its doing to kpop, I hate that Big Bang are collaborating with an olympic figure skater, I hate Sungmin's hair in that video, I HATE IT ALL!!!! I think I might cry.

Heechul and Yesung are hating it too. Look at them.

All I can do is PRAY (when I say pray, I mean ask Taeyang to pray for me) that if 2PM get involved in anyway, its only to be featured in an advert where Taecyeon, Chansung and Junho, dressed ONLY in football shorts, shower themselves in ice cold bottles of Coca Cola...

We need a way to get through the next few months...

- BUNNY