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

Oppa Knows Best #1: Top 5 Favourite Summer Songs

Annyeong to all our dedicated readers (and to those who accidentally found themselves here down a rabbit hole and forgot/cannot work out how to escape is strange yet massively addictive world),

I would like to introduce you to a good friend of mine. He is an oppa, as well as a hyung, to most on the k-pop scene, and his usual blogging primarily concerns cinematic investigations, however, as is the magical prowess of Kpop, he has now become a film-turned-Kpop blogger and will be joining us at Nunas Know Best from time to time. As he is likely to be the only oppa writing on here for the foreseeable future he will have his very own tag, 'Oppa Knows Best'. Bunny and I are very well aware that the often fantastic girl bands don't really get much of a look in here, and we apologise for that. But really, it's so hard to focus on one when you have so many boys to keep watch over, and they end up being the more urgent case for us all too often. However, I think you can rest assured now that we have now begun making amends to this, and I too have a girl group blog post or two in the works. So, without further ado, please welcome our guest oppa, and as they so often say in the wonderful world of Kpop, please give him a lot of love.


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Oppa Knows Best #1: Top 5 Favourite Summer Songs

I got exposed to KPOP a few months ago through Jessica Jane and Bunny who run this blog, and from then on I spent most Saturday’s watching video's on youtube and ignoring customers in the bookshop I was working in. About 6 weeks ago I went cycling around the UK for just over a month, so I was unfortunately deprived of KPOP updates, but since I’ve been at home I have got back into it and have started catching up. So what I have decided to do is write about my pre-travelling top five favourite KPOP songs!

So here we go…

5 – Rania – Dr. Feelgood

This song is a bit weird as it basically has the same beat and synth part played all the way through the verses and choruses. I think the reason I like it is because they have to use their vocals to differentiate between each part of the song, and even then the verses and chorus melodies are pretty similar. I’m a bit of a sucker for a catchy synth riff so I think this is why I like it so much. (Also, I just discovered that there were two different versions, with one basically being a speeded up version of the other. Since the quicker version is the one I heard first, the slower one is really bizarre, like a weird chopped and screwed edit or something. Plus it isn’t as catchy)

Slow Version

Fast Version

4 – 4minute – Mirror Mirror

In comparison to a song like Dr Feel Good, which basically does the same thing all the way through, this is a song that seems to take a different beat, rhythm and melody the verses, pre-choruses, choruses and breakdowns. Most of the time I think it works; the verses have two parts which keeps the song interesting, then the pre-chorus kind of breaks it down with some slightly over the top vocals and some gang-chant “heys!!!”. But the one thing that kind of annoys me is the difference in tone between that part and the chorus; the first is really energetic and happy, and the chorus is back to a massive dark synthy riff, which I feel is kind of jarring to the flow of the song.

3 – f(x) – Pinnochio (Danger)

The very first 10 seconds of this song are a bit weird (“Hey girl…remem…BER!!! meeeee….”) but it quickly goes into a verse, which is pretty solid and catchy. They then start singing “DANGER!!!” over the top, which kind of adds intrigue and an element of….something…to the song. But then it breaks into one of the best choruses ever; (dada dada da…etc. sorry I don’t understand Korean :s) unbelievably catchy and it comes with an awesome dance routine as well! Highlights from the rest of the song include some good vocal breaks and some “rapping” which isn’t really embarrassingly rubbish (for once). The song as a whole just raises too many questions for me…who is in danger? Me? Them? What is the danger? Cancer? Global warming? Am I a danger to myself?!!?

2 – Girls Day – Nothing lasts Forever

The song starts off with everyone sounding pretty bad-ass; the vocals sound really confident and they have a “don’t give a f##k” attitude, and the video has them all striding around in black leather and stuff. The verses have a really awesome beat and a kind of…not necessarily dark, but a slightly minor key melody in the vocals, which works really well when it is contrasted with the MOST AMAZINGLY CATCHY CHORUS EVER! Seriously, how catchy is this chorus? This is almost as banging as some happy hardcore tracks that my old housemate used to listen to, but with infinitely better vocals. But then (!!!) the song twists around again for the breakdown with some really mellow, sweet vocals, before building up and smashing back into the chorus…but then they go mental and the vocals make it even more catchy!!! Amazing. (I’m not sure whether to give them a minus point for the bit in the video where they try to play instruments like they’re in a band but end up in a horrible miming fail.)

1 – Girls Day – Twinkle Twinkle

I can only describe this song as f—king brilliant. The verses are fast and banging, with the pre-chorus breakdown sliding into the amazingly catchy chorus. The third and fourth lines of the chorus compliment the first two really well, sliding into each other when the repeat the chorus later on in the song. There is also a really good break down with a rising beat that drops straight back into the chorus. Basically, there is nothing that isn’t great about this song. It has awesome synth parts pretty much all the way through, and mixes up the tempo frequently to keep it interesting but still keeping the song cohesive throughout!!! Favouritest song ever!!!

So yeah, its pretty obvious I just like girl bands...and basically Girls Day are my favouritest at the moment. I even made a gif!!!

- OPPA KNOWS BEST