Man, I’m so over the Kpop music scene. Everyone tries so hard to out-do each other, but everyone for some reason, ends up looking like the everyone else anyway. How about we just concentrate on making good music, good videos, and good dances and call it a day? Instead of forcing these ridiculous concepts and images and blah blah blah and then getting accused of plagiarism left and right?

SHINee is not usually a group I pick on for this sort of stuff because I really enjoy their music and their efforts as artists, but SM is slowly turning them into gimmicky little marketing ploys and it drives me up the wall.

…Enjoy these?

Miss A’s debut

I am LOVING this debut. When I first heard the song, it was alright but I didn’t really dig it, but now I find myself humming to it and I think it’s actually a good song to show off the girls’ vocals. I’m impressed that everyone’s fairly well-rounded, and I love Jia and Fei’s voices. Suzy’s singing and dancing is a little weak — it’s easier to notice that her pops aren’t as strong or that she gets out of breath a lot easier when she’s in a sea of good apples. And Min…well, Min’s debut is long overdue.

Super Junior’s “No Other”

God, what is this embarrassing crap. SuJu’s 4th album in general is lackluster and can’t really compare to their third. “No Other” isn’t bad — I actually quite like the happy pop sound going on — but I refuse to watch anymore live performances of this song. The upside of the slower tempo is that everyone sings their lines perfectly, but the downside is that everything else about this song is crap. I hate cutesy dancing and I pretty much hate cutesy SuJu. They do not tickle my fancy at all. Oh, and massive fail as a repackage album song because this is NOT the “Norago” caliber I was hoping for.

Ah well, you win some, you lose some. Here’s to hoping there will even be a fifth album and that it’ll happen soon before the group disbands / more members sue / everyone goes to the army.

This music video is easily the best looking Kpop video to come out this year. The cinematography is gorgeous and the visuals are sharp and sleek, the styling is fun and well put together.

Unfortunately, this song just isn’t very unique and the actual content of the video is unremarkable. I’m reminded of Jinusean’s earlier stuff, stuff that was the typical hip hop bling, hoes, and cars — except in TOP’s case, it’s Goyard bags and luggage. I’m also irritated by the brand-name dropping because TOP is more than capable of telling folks he’s badass without having to talk about McQueen or Galliano. Yeah you can argue that “that’s just what hip hop artists do,” but honestly, name dropping is is so outdated and the second half of the video looks like one long product placement video.

I generally really like TOP but I’m experiencing TOP fatigue from the oversaturation of TOP lately in the media. From what I’ve gathered, he’s not so remarkable an actor that it garners this much press, but that’s what happens when idols are in movies and dramas. That aside, I’m kind of tired of TOP the rapper too. Back when he still used to rap performed while Big Bang was still promoting, he started doing this thing that my friend likes to call the “DMX effect.” The DMX effect is basically when you shout words and get gruff and just come off as unnecessarily angry and for some inexplicable reason drop your voice several octaves lower than how you usually sound. That’s just how TOP sounded whenever he was covering songs live and it just really drove me bonkers because I’d never had an issue with how he rapped and I’d always preferred his rapping to GD’s.

However, even though I think “Turn it Up” is kind of one-note, it’s an excellent song to exercise to :D Nothing better for a gym playlist than one that talks about how much you rock and how awesome you are.

Someone on formspring asked me:

what are a few of your most fav songs?

This list got a little longer than I thought it’d be…

★ Imogen Heap – Just for Now (acapella version)
I love this song so much that when I went to watch Imogen perform a couple of weeks ago, when she started singing this song, I teared. Oh, and, Imogen is AMAZING live.

★ The Postal Service – Such Great Heights

★ Kyuhyun – Smile

★ SHINee – 누난 너무 예뻐 (Replay)
Easily the best Kpop debut song ever. Don’t hate. I know all the lyrics to this one -_- No, but seriously, “Hug”? Terrible. “Twins”? Ear bleed. “Oh Yeah”? Oh no. I’ll be honest, I find SHINee still kind of lifeless and boring outside of performing, but you know what, they are easily the best group live out of all their peers and that’s what they debuted to do anyway.

★ Khalil Fong – Love Song

★ Cinderella’s Sister OST – Minor Waltz

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★ Ibadi – 오후가 흐르는 숲

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