I will admit it, due to personal time, this one is a cop-out. That's right. It's Super Junior's Mr.Simple, the 3D version made to advertise the 3D LG TV in South Korea. Being 3D, it's also terribly fuzzy.
I think that Mr. Simple 3D is a fun take on the music video, mostly because of the flying bicycle. ...And the magic yo-yo that reminds me of that cheese bomb movie Yo-Yo Girl Cop. ...And the paint burst, used to advertise F(x). ...And Shindong is shown off to great effect.
Really, even though it feels lazy, and seems weird because we're not seeing it in 3D, and there are two members of F(x) doing nothing of importance.... I think in reality, it is sub-par as a music video but kind of rocking as a commercial. Good thing it is a commercial, and not an actual music video. Props to LG for their commercial.
G-dragon's One of a Kind was a paralyzing experience. It was cute and harsh, ugly and attractive, and altogether catchy. G-dragon succeeded in being gangsta in a way that us North Americans can not make fun of. He even destroyed his old music video outfits. That definitely says, "I don't care. I'm on top of the world."
G-dragon's extensive use of a bandanna, coupled with the use of adorable children, tiger and bear cubs, him creeping on a giant Barbie and her slapping him, and dramatic scenes like the destruction of the batcave GDcave really make it an interesting, intriguing video that holds your attention. You just don't know what he'll do next. Plus the beat is funky and fun. I was pleasantly impressed...
Thanks to my deep lack of personal time lately, today's Music Video of the Day is the first half of a two part MVOTD. Yes, G-Dragon's One of a Kind is just that jam packed with stuff to talk about...and I have 14 minutes to type stuff out.
G-Dragon's One of a Kind, a song with the beat G-Dragon does so well, paralyzes you for the first half of it with its intriguing costumes, literally yellow hair, and... well, just look at the costumes.
That tiger outfit is terrible, but the actual backpack is super cute. G-dragon looks bad with his hair down, but when the corn rows go down to the base of his neck, they look good. There's just so much going on. He uses contrast to its greatest potential, and, succeeds in being the most gangsta gansta in Kpopdom. I'm impressed. Seriously. And I kind of appreciate just how gangsta he can be, yet so adorable on occassion. It's weird and intriguing and will get him a lot of attention.
If you have started to watch SM's new show To The Beautiful You, you will have seen that dramatic bathroom fight where Sulli plungers a guy in the face. She's not the first one, which is suspicious. Whether or not she will turn out like the other face plungerers remains to be seen. I just had this to say.
Picture Credits to thesnufkin.blogspot.com, dogfoodforchairs.blogspot.ca, and Youtube.com.
When 4Minute's song Hot Issue came out two years ago, it was really catchy. It was bright with lots of movement. Well, the video is the same now as then, but somehow it seems less catchy.
This picture reminds me of Chi Chi's Don't Play Around.
According to Youtube, the third highest group of viewers of 4Minute's Hot Issue were men 35-44. It isn't a mistake, but probably part of their target audience. 4Minute does succeed in doing that creepy thing where they are sexy and cute at the same time after all. Strangely enough, they also seem to show that mini skirts have gotten longer in South Korea since 2010. I didn't know that mini skirts fluctuated in length.
Well, whatever it is, 4Minute does a good job at what they were supposed to do.
Honestly, GP Basic's early stuff was pretty great, especially when compared to what they did this year (Grrr. Production). Since they're young they can't do anything too sexy, and, since they're young one of their singers has a really rough voice which differentiates them from other girl groups.
Also, they sing about things other than love on occasion. Here's Jelly Pop.
Note the extensive use of CG...for random stuff. I think it mostly compliments what is actually going on. Also, the costuming is pretty good and the gangsta attitude is fun. It reminds me of 2NE1. In general, I enjoy Jelly Pop. It's a fun, random gangsta song that is danceable. It also has some good dance moves in it.
Does this cross any fandom boundaries? I sure hope not, because I have great affection for both and therefore think this is a cool idea.
Picture credits to tiffanysinnerthoughts.wordpress.com, fanpop.com, geekmundo.net, k-addicters.blogspot.com, tumblr.com, sujufanclub.wordpress.com, allkpop.com, more fanpop.com, kojaproductions.wordpress.com, more allkpop.com, and more fanpop.com.
I originally wanted to beat Kpop Music Mondays to the punch to review the new U-KISS music video, but it turns out that I do not know which one is the new one.
For awhile, I thought it was Doradora, where my least favourite member all of a sudden became attractive when he got blonded. Turns out, Eat Your Kimchi has already reviewed it. That's probably a good thing, because I was going to complain about the guy "laying" on the bed for a ridiculous amount of time.
Yup. That guy on the bed.
The next option is Believe, which comes complete with English speaking intro. The intro is pretty good, as English in Kpop goes and then the rest of the stuff happens. Too much chap stick, awkward touching of one's own chest, dancing in a really small area (which is impressive actually), the reappearance of the set from Infinite's Paradise, and guys creeping on each other in the bathroom.
But no, Kpop Music Monday has already done that one too.
Maybe the new music video is One of You, which is a Japanese music video with Avex. It is surprisingly energetic and campy, yet underwhelming.
The song does become quite fun in the middle though. Fun and happy.
The new music video is definitely not A Shared Dream, as that came out in February. A Shared Dream focuses on texture and light instead of action, and is actually more interesting than One of You because of it. The song is also more solemn, intense, and dramatic.
The worst part of it is the guy in the stripey housecoat.
Conclusion. One of You is probably the new music video. However, it is also kind of the most disapointing, especially when compared to the other three options. It doesn't bring anything fresh to what is happening in Kpop/Jpop or even really anything that one could pretend was fresh. The strongest part was the dubstepping at the end, but dubstep is so cool this year that everyone does it. However, U-KISS is obviously skilled enough that it isn't a fail on their end. It's a fail on production's end. Good try U-KISS.
Hangeng has come out with yet another music video. It includes lots of artistic shots of stuff and people doing things. However, you have to wait 45 seconds before it begins. It is called Betrayal of the Soul.
Betrayal of the Soul is a song I really like. It is slow and ballady. The music video is really just a catalyst to get more people to listen to the song. It shows Hangeng and associates walk through the airport, get picked up, go to the location, set up to film, and film. It also shows Hangeng washing his hair in a sink, which is awkward. All of this subject material is not actually all that interesting, but rather accompanies the music.
...Unless you are interested in the process of production that is. Therefore, Betrayal of the Soul gets a below average mark for music video and an above average mark for song.
The Wonder Girls made a wonderful comeback this summer when they returned from making bad North American music videos and made a really fun high energy Korean one.
They went from vinyl record themed outfits in The DJ is Mine (with badly placed targets and bad acting) where they should not have competed against native English speakers because it took away from their performance, to a music video were Sohee smiles.
That's right. They went from this, to this.
Everybody is having fun in the new Korean music video for Like This. The Wonder Girls, the people, the viewers. It's so full of joy and excitement that you kind of want to learn the dance and do it with the music video. The setting is cool because it is public and accessible, the filming is great, the costumes are mostly cute, and some of it seems genuinely spontaneous. Like This is a great summer song and music video.
F[x]'s Danger. Let's look at this picture to see what I think of it.
...So obviously F[x] passes the costume test. Spiky shoulders, dinosaur hats, feather crowns,...it's enough to make everything else passable and then some.
F[x] also passes the dance test and music test. Danger is a catchy tune and their dance is kind of cool with head dance moves. The sets were also interesting with lots of detail and inorganic shapes. The worst thing in the music video is the bad English and Amber's bad acting. That's saying alot, because neither of those are all that bad.
I've been posting a lot of Super Junior in the past two months, so now it is the 13th member of Super Junior's turn. That right, His Royal Hotness 2009, Hangeng. His single, Clown Mask, actually came out on the same day as Super Junior's Sexy, Free & Single. However, Hangeng is not ready to bingo. He's ready to act out serious issues that popstars deal with...or whatever the song is about.
Here's a picture of Hangeng that expresses how I feel about him in relation to Super Junior. Good job person who made the fan art.
Hangeng's Clown Mask mixes a techno beat with fast "singing". It's a mix that really works for Hangeng in his album Cursive Writing. (Sidenote: I have a giant Chinese dictionary in which I once checked his name, and the album title may directly relate to the meaning of his name. Cool, eh?) His dancing, although robotic, is really quite good, escpecially when human Hangeng faces off with robot Hangeng. It is then that you realize how good a job he does at being a robot.
As far as the rest of the music video, the costumes are fine and the pixelation is artistic, not annoying. The concept at the end is even intriguing. As a whole it is a very well put together music video. However, knowing that in the past his music and music videos were an expression of his real feelings, this music video makes me sad. Clown Mask may not be a reflection of his feelings, but if it is, I don't want him to feel like that.
C-Real is a rookie girl group with a charming newish song. For their song, Sorry But I, everything is soft. The voices are soft but strong, the walking is soft, the colours are soft. It is just a soft feeling music video. However, that works very well for them, because their song is about the "hesistant feelings of a girl who is new to love". What I got from it was that they wanted to break up with their boyfriends because they had no emotional attachement to them. ...Shows me. Apparently I need to watch the whole thing, because their feelings send them back to their boyfriends. Either way, the feeling emitted by the music video matches very well the feeling emitted by the song.
Overall C-Real's Sorry But I is a well put together music video.
Super Junior's music video for their song Spy came out yesterday. Spy is a suprisingly upbeat cutesy song. I was expecting something more serious and solemn song based on the costumes and concept in the teaser. However, it's okay. I am allowed to be surprised.
For Spy, the costumes, sets, and dance were good but not amazing. Some things were cool, like Kyuhyun becoming Ryeowook, but other than that it didn't blow my mind. Surprisingly, some members of Super Junior looked almost normal. This new situation inspired this, all picture credits to SM of course.
Someone commented that Spy was an excellent opportunity to do a storyline music video. I agree. Since the song was super upbeat, a cute spy story would have been really nice, but clearly the director wasn't thinking that way.
As I stated earlier, the costumes, sets, and dance were good. The scenes of various Super Junior members carting around guns were kind of cool (except Kyuhyun's), and the floors were all very shiny. There were some...other things though. On the positive side, Sungmin carting a gun looked like a teddy bear carting a gun and was thus cute. On the not positive side, Eunhyuk's Michael Jackson spy dancing was weird and seemed out of place, the sexy woman silhouette meant to make the music video more sexy just made the guys seem more like players, and Kangin shot her shoe.
On the whole, it an average quality Super Junior music video.
The Andrews Sisters. Classics. While I can't call them the original girl group, I can say that they do everything girl groups do now. They sing. They harmonize. They dance. They wear stylin' clothes. Here's their equivalent of a music video for Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, performed in the 1941 movie Buck Privates.
Since the emphasis of the song of the song was indeed the song, the dancing was just fine. The shorty george's were particularly impressive. Also impressive was that the video was mostly one long shot. However, the best part for me was that Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy was an entirely swing danceable song. That makes it interactive and therefore a win.
DA PUMP. Apparently they are a real boyband which just happen to be written into the manga B.B.Explosion. Based on their music video Rapsody in Blue, they are quite likeable.
Their song, Rapsody in Blue, sounds familiar and fun. Their dance, the set, and their appearance remind me of both early Super Junior and David Tenant/Doctor Who at the same time. Check it out.
Therefore, this music video is happy happy happy and warm heart feelings. A veritable win for DA PUMP.
Today's music video is chosen in honour of excessive bare chest. As in, someone decided that pants were a good enough costume and that very fact is funny.
In South Korea, groups have many ways of attracting fans. They act cute or silly or serious or sexy, and they dance and sing. Sexiness is often determined by how much shoulder or back or cleavage/chest is showing, the dance, the rubbing of the lips, and other techniques that don't really work on North Americans. Dalmation, or their producers, decided that they were going to take the exposed skin form of sexiness and take it to the next level. Apparently the next level is naked chests.
I hope this picture reminds you of Twilight. Jacob and the werewolves anyone?
The concept of the music video has potential. The members of Dalmation were all victims of an automobile accident and were sent to the morgue. One in the morgue...it's just so bad. The attending surgeon proceeds to cut their shirts open and "check their pulse", yet she makes no incisions. It's such an obvious ploy to get their shirts off, and that's boring. Now let's say, if they were in an accident and the attending surgeon actually did an autopsy, that would have been an interesting concept. Or if they were rushed to the hospital for emergency surgeories, and there were people agonizing in the hall outside of the operating room. That would have also been interesting. Just don't patronize me with characters that don't make sense.
The costuming, what costuming there was, was solid. The suits were good. The tattoos were well done and complimented the members physic. Even the punk outfits were okay. This hair style was even entertaining.
It's a hair shelf!
The amount of bare chest became awkward when they did a straight cut of dancing with no shirts on. Maybe it was the touching each other or maybe it was that groups don't dance sycnronized with no shirts on. It was just excessive. I also kept on mentally comparing them to MBLAQ, thinking, "Are they trying to be MBLAQ without the sexy dancing?", since MBLAQ keeps their clothes on but do lots of sexy dancing (shirts for dance equal trade?).
There was really too much going on in the music video to pay much attention to the dance or the song, but both were okay. Dalmation's ERgets an above average grade because it added a ridiculous concept and awkwardness to its solid basics of a good music video.
Asian pop groups have been trying to make inroads into the North American market for years. Wonder Girls, one of the first girl groups of the current Kpop movement, released their second American hit single this year. It is called, Like Money and features Akon.
The first comment about Like Money is that if it played on the radio here, I wouldn't notice. It is just so English. It doesn't quite match what is happening musically right now, but it is so close that I doubt anyone would really notice.
My second comment it that their music video looks like it was really expensive, yet it is not well done. The concept is bad science fiction movie material. The dance scenes were shot from too far away. The car scenes were blurry. The hair was too tight and bun-y. The outfits were... disappointing. And, if I didn't know better, I would say that they were trying to hide that they are Asian. Scratch that. They were trying to hide their Asianess. The rap solo was shot profile style, the car shots were blurry, there were very few close-ups, the hair cuts were bad immitations of Beyonce, and the eye shadow covered up their single eye-lids. They were most definitely trying to hide that they are Asian.
By spending so much time hiding that the Wonder Girls are in fact Asian, the producers of this music video ruined it. The dance could have been shot to look cool and difficult. It wasn't. The costumes could have been shot to make them more flattering. They weren't. The concept could have made more sense. They didn't need a plotline. There is the great big question of why they were in space in the first place. Also, Akon sang almost half the song. Why? The Wonder Girls can sing. That's why they are a group. They are also all pretty, so why no close ups? It's a pity that their North American music video was ruined in order to hide their beautiful Asianess. This music video is a failure on the producer's part.
Because the Wonder Girls are not the only ones to have a terrible English music video featuring a famous English rapper, here's JYJ's Ayy Girl which features Kayne West and Malik Yusef. JYJ was formed by former TVXQ members after their break up in 2009. The group name JYJ is based off of its member's names; Junsu, Yoochun, and Jaejoong.
While the Wonder Girls went with a space/sci-fi theme, JYJ went with the gods of Olympus complete with bad CG. I don't know who picks these themes, but they are pretty terrible. Just go with normal themes already.
The Wonder Girls' Like Money was bad because things weren't done as well as they could have been. It wasn't so bad that it was good. That is where JYJ defeats them. JYJ's Ayy Girl was so bad that it is good. Just take a gander at the costumes.
I think Junsu's bib shirt was probably the worst style choice and also one of the funniest. Since for Koreans the back is sexy, the bib shirt is meant to be sexy.... yet it obviously fails. Also funny were the various attempts at making Jaejoong sexy. Transluscent suit anyone? Ab flashing shirt anyone? Jaejoong is so pretty that making him sexy is just kind of awkward, but good try.
As for dancing, JYJ's dancing was fine. The rest of the scenes gave the music video comedic value. Scenes like all the members epically throwing lightning, slow motion dancing, random running at the camera, bad costuming, and bad English.
Atleast you can tell that the Wonder Girls are singing in English. JYJ leaves you trying to figure out what they are saying. However, JYJ succeeds where the Wonder Girls fail. Their terrible music video is actually kind of good. Good job JYJ.
Infinite came out with a new mini album in May. Their song, TheChaser, was the song made into a music video. Here is my stream of consciousness assessment of the dance version, because that is the way it worked out.
"What is this 90's sound? David Bisbal. Japanese looking guy. Why does he look Japanese? He's got long legs. That guy's suit has a lot of mesh on it. Why is he dressed up like Bi Rain? Transparent fringy Rain scarf skirt. Oh yeah, pay attention to the song. He's not the cute one. Where's the cute one? Their dancing is really in sync. They must have to practise their dancing a lot to get it like that. Japanese guy. The rapper's outfit is really not very good. Super Junior move! Synced dancing. Japanese guy looks like Rui off of Boys Over Flowers. That move looks like a bum grab. That's Daesung's move. There are no original moves anymore. Bum skirt! The fringe is moving. Etc. Etc."
Based on my deep lacking of paying attention to the song, I'm led to think either the washed out colour scheme washed out the song or Infinite was so charismatic that they stole all my attention away from their song.
Based on my stream of consciousness, my maturity is in question. However, despite this, I do know that the costumes were of okay quality. They weren't fantastic or very flattering but they were also not horrid. The dance was okay too, and very well synced.
In general the dance versionof The Chaser Dance Version was pretty good. Having also seen the other version, I would say it is better.
Go, watch the other version of The Chaser. It's better.
Today it is Chi Chi's turn. Yes, that girl group with an unfortunate name. As far as I can tell they have two music videos; Love is Energy, and Don't Play Around.
Love is Energy is a medium paced pleasing sounding song. It doesn't make much sense but, do we really look for that in music? ...Well okay, yes we do, but we listen to Shakira don't we? The best part of the dance was the super fast hand waving. The rest wasn't terribly impressive.
The costumes were okay. The best were these.
The wings and duo colouring made the outfits more interesting and flattering. The beige/white and black outfits with the 0's on them felt very computer themed and therefore cool. Aka. Who wouldn't appreciate binary code on clothes?
The music video was organized for optimum interestingness and was an altogether okay music video.
Don't Play Around is the reason that I appreciate Chi Chi as a group. The music video is fun, has a fun theme, interesting concept, and terrible outfits. The song is catchy too, so all together it is a rocking music video.
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