Credits to http://www.soompi.com/
With his wonderful gift of 하지하지마 (Stop, Stop It) to GOT7, our Man Crush Monday this week is the ever-talented producer, and artist himself, Park Jin Young! We thoroughly enjoy his humorous personality! Catch him on the currently airing, and much loved survival audition program, KPOP Star, Season 4!
I know it’s not Thursday, but my laptop went down yesterday, so I couldn’t post anything. I guess I could have used my phone, but then things get more difficult and frustrating with limitations.
Darice is quite busy working her multiple part-time jobs, and dealing with moving around as well, so I am once again in charge of Throwback Thursday. Our Throwback Thursday this time around is for one of the oldest, and most well known KPOP group of the early 2000s, g.o.d, or Groove Over Dose, and their song, To My Mother.
I’ll be honest in that I only knew g.o.d as a group, but never listened to a single one of their songs before. I mean, I may have, but they’re not a group whose song I could remember listening to because they’re a ballad group, and I don’t listen to ballads much. I definitely love Son Ho Young’s voice though, and loved his songs My Heart is in Heaven and I Know. Darice is a huge of Kim Tae Woo as well. I had noticed that a lot of the older KPOP groups were making a comeback though, and thought I’d give their latest single, Lone Duckling, a listen to. After listening to that song, I wondered as to why I hadn’t yet listened to a complete g.o.d song yet, so under Darice’s suggestion, we chose to do g.o.d for Throwback Thursday.
The title itself is enough to draw me in. Any song that has some sort of touching meaning behind it, or a motivational story always gets me. I think I may have listened to this song before because I do recognize the chorus, but then again, the yayiyayiya part was used quite a bit back in the days, so I may not have listened to it. Who knows? I love the smooth rap. It’s not fierce or anything, and doesn’t really sound like a rap, but they are using enough in it to make it sound like they’re telling a story and are giving thanks to their mother. Coming from JYP, of course they would have some of the greatest ballad vocals. And Kim Tae Woo is probably the best male vocalist out there. You can hear the control and passion in his voice. It amazes me at how clearly his vocals ring out, and how distinct it is. The beat is simple and definitely represents its time.
Overall score, 8. It’s a beautiful ballad, with a beautiful story behind it. Although I like it, it doesn’t make me feel the same as their newly released song, Lone Duckling. But I’m happy that they’re releasing a new album after nearly 8 years, and that I took the chance to listen to them. They didn’t follow the idol foot steps, yet they held one of the biggest records for the KPOP industry.
– Zoey
Since 2PM will be performing at the KBS Korean Festival in LA at the end of this week, it only seems fit to give this week’s Man Crush Monday to the handsome, beastly idol Taecyeon!
Back with another reaction/review! I actually have a lot of pending reviews I want to get to, but I ended up getting sick over the weekend, on top of going to work in the middle of the day, which doesn’t leave me enough time for, well, just some me time.
Anyway, Sunmi is back and I hear she’s already making her way to the top of music charts. Her last single was catchy, but it wasn’t a song I immediately wanted to put on my iPod. I’m not saying it was bad or anything; it was good, great actually. But I’m a college student, so that means not much money to go around. I consider music an investment because I’m spending money that could be buying me food instead. If it doesn’t get me on the first catch, or I’m not constantly humming or singing along to the tune, or thinking about the song, I’m not going to put it on my iPod. But enough of that.
Full Moon didn’t get my vote right away, but takes the latter of my opinion about putting songs on my iPod. I can definitely say that there’s a likely chance that if I give the song a few more listen-to’s, it’ll end up on my iPod. That “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh” part will definitely get to me. The lyrics were also very beautiful, in my opinion. That’s the plus of foreign language songs. If the song sounds nice, but the lyrics aren’t, then you can forget that you ever read the lyrics and just enjoy the song.
There was also the rapper, whom I read about, who is actually still a trainee under JYP and goes by Lena. Her rapping in the song didn’t really hit home with me either, but it did in a way too. Me and my mixed feelings about music. I think I say way too often that something doesn’t sit well with me, but I don’t exactly hate it either. But, back to Lena (if that’s what she’s going by). I’ll definitely be on the lookout for her debut. With a lot of the JYP releases lately, I think that by making the choice to collaborate with different producers was a very smart thing to do. JYP songs rarely did it for me, but a lot of the more recent JYP songs are now sitting in my iPod.
Now on to the music video. I was actually reading comments while the video started, and someone posted about how they jumped at 0:20. So, I was preparing myself to not jump, and failed when the 0:20 mark hit. I think the music video was very well done. The concept actually went with the song in that it followed the lyrics. Vampires can’t come out during the day, and here Sunmi is singing for her lover to come meet her during the full moon, before the sun rises. However, I’m a bit confused as to why there was a sick man she had to save by giving him immortality. Although there were a couple “sexy” dance moves I think the song could have done without, I’m not complaining at all because it was a refined sexy overall, and I was getting tired of all the over-the-top sexy comebacks. A few at the start were okay, and I was happy KPOP was taking something new on. But then it got repetitive, and well, annoying. The only sexy comeback that made it onto my iPod was Girl’s Day’s Something because I hadn’t yet gotten tired of sexy at that time.
Overall score; 7. I wasn’t overjoyed nor thinking, “Wow, this song is good!” But, like her labelmate GOT7, whose song made it onto my iPod after humming and thinking about the song for nearly a week, there’s a very high probability I’ll be studying to Full Moon some time this week.
Give the song a listen to at http://youtu.be/8BBF3vRY85M, with English subtitles readily available.
Got an Asian pop song you think is great? Share it with us! Email us at apop_reviews_94@yahoo.com, tweet us at @apopreviews94, or to our personal Twitters found in the About page.
– Zoey
zoda|좋다 reviews94 