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The boys are back and they are making more noise than ever before! Actually, I don’t know anything because I haven’t watched any teasers and will soon watch the video. But I know they are making a lot of noise because in less than 12 hours, they are at 44 million views on YouTube. When I woke up this morning, 4 hours in, they were sitting at about 16 million views. There are fairly popular videos on YouTube that have been around for years and still haven’t received 16 million views. BTS truly paved the way. The song they came back with is called “Boy with Luv” a nice throwback to their 2013 song “Boy in Luv”. The nice thing about this song is that it features Halsey, one of the few American artists that I actually like. I’m excited to see what a blend of BTS’s edgy sound and Halsey’s crunch sounds like. As expected, the video was off the charts in the visual department. The blend of bright colors and pleasant visual effects gave it an enjoyable watchability. I was a bit lost on what the video was trying to say. I understand that it was about love and the importance of love, but the video didn’t really relay that information quite as well as the song. However, like I said, the visuals were top notch and of course, so well done because it’s BigHit and BTS.  The team up with Halsey was a bit disappointing. I was hoping to hear more Halsey intertwined with BTS than Halsey just singing the same thing as the boys, becoming drowned out by 7 men with their voices. I thought for sure they would give Halsey a verse during the bridge or create a call and response motif for the bridge between her and RM, but overall that part was disappointing.
However, even though the collaboration was sub par, the song was excellent. The funk style meshed well with BTS and the raps were hard hitting but playful at the same time. In fact, the whole song was extremely playful. It reminded me of the kind of music that Bruno Mars makes. Anyway, that’s my review of “Boy with Luv” by BTS. What did you think of it? Did this beat out any previous contenders such as “DNA”, “Idol” or “Fake Love”? Let me know in the comments below. Thank you for your support. I’ll see you in the next review. Blackpink is back and it’s been about a day since they’ve made their comeback and they already have over 64 million views on YouTube. I guarantee that breaks any record anywhere thus far. It’s ridiculous how fast they’ve grown. Their comeback title track for their 2nd mini album is called “Kill This Love” and they may not kill my love, but they’ve killed all the Blinks. I haven’t heard any teasers or anything anyone has said, but it must be good if it’s reached this level this quickly. I don’t know what to make of this video except that it’s a killer and so beautiful. The imagery in this video is exceptional and gives us the vibe that love, while beautiful, can be very toxic and dangerous. I think my favorite part of the video was wet Jisoo. However, every part of this video was eye-catching and colorful.  The song has a unique style to it. It’s very anthemic and in-your-face, but it’s still aligned with Trap style and that genre of music. As expected, Rosé had the change-up in the song, but the build she created was emotional and drastic, adding a huge shift from the militaristic march sound to a tragic swell. At the chorus, I was honestly expecting the drop, but it kept me waiting for it for what seemed like forever.
The change I wasn’t expecting or maybe was expecting was the drumline march at the end, but I was expecting more of a drastic change like many of the other Teddy songs of the past. He is usually pretty good at creating a huge change-up right near the end from the bridge, but this one wasn’t as massive as I was expecting. What did you think of “Kill This Love”? Is it better or worse than “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du”? Maybe it’s on the same level. Whatever it is, just be sure to let me know what you think. Thank you for the support and I’ll see you in my next review. I don’t have words to express how excited I am. I almost considered just listening to this song before I would have a chance to sit down and write out a review. The only problem with that is, when I listen to a song and then try to write a review, I tend to not write a review. I want desperately to write this review, so I waited. Kim Taeyeon is my Ultimate Bias and my all-time favorite K-artist. She’s most of the reason I still favor Girls’ Generation over other groups and a huge reason why I still am as big of a supporter as I am for SM Entertainment. So, King Taeyeon released a song today. I don’t know if it’s part of a mini album (Please, please, please be part of a mini album) or if it’s a single. Either way she’s come back. The song is not yet up on Spotify so I’ll just have to wait on that end. Her song is called “Four Seasons” and she released individual teasers that were supposed to be representative of each of the four seasons. However, I didn’t watch any of the teasers because I hate teasers. After reading comments on the video, I learned that this single album (unfortunately) comes out on the 24th. I’m posting this review on the 22nd, so I still have a couple of days. The video was extremely aesthetic and had warm imagery, even for being a kind of depressing song. There were plenty of images of plants and wildlife and weather. Some of the shots were of flowers dying or animals fleeing. The weather images showed trees without leaves and snow falling consistently. Taeyeon looked stunning as ever and pretty much owned the screen. Even for the shots she wasn’t included in, she was still in control of the video.  The song was unique and something we’ve never heard from Taeyeon. It was almost a Reggae style song; feeling very laid back and lazy almost. The chill tone along with her incredible voice were the perfect combination. It wasn’t my personal favorite Taeyeon song, but I could see this song getting stuck in my head soon. Taeyeon can do no wrong with music, so of course this was an incredible song and I hope it does well.
That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed my review. I’m sorry I’ve been absent from reviews. I get so backtracked and then end up just binge watching a bunch of videos rather than reviewing. I’ll try to do better to post at least once a week. Thank you for your continued support. I’ll see you in the next review. LOOΠΔ, the 12 member girl group from BlockBerry Creative, has officially made their comeback with their track “Butterfly” which is part of their repackaged album X_X. BBC has been teasing us with photos, videos, and concept trailers for the past couple of months and anyone who is an Orbit was going crazy with all the teasers but no date until just recently. I personally have followed LOOΠΔ since around the time that Yeo Jin debuted which was around this time last year. My bias is Jin Soul and my favorite sub unit is Odd Eye Circle. I currently have all the solo albums (just the regular non-colored versions), all of the sub unit albums (again, just the regular for most, except I do have one limited version, I believe), and LOOΠΔ’s debut album ++ which I believe is just the regular version. I plan on buying the repackaged album once I get paid. Sorry for talking about my purchases, I just get excited when I talk about LOOΠΔ. The music video wasn’t what I was expecting, but it exceeded my expectations by so much. The video had a message about becoming your own person; spreading your wings like a butterfly. It showcased the girls’ dance moves while at the same time, including people from all over the world in the video, breaking out and becoming their own butterfly. What a beautiful music video! As expected too, the video quality was top notch. The cinematography that BBC has is nearly unmatched because of how deep or how cinematic or noir or whatever else they make their videos. Not every video is the same either. Just look at “Rain 51db” or “ViVid” in comparison to “Egoist” or “Singing in the Rain”. Each video has its own unique style and quality level, but all are so beautiful and well shot.  I don’t know if Dreampop is the right term for this track. It definitely has the Dreampop vibe to it, but it feels like so much more. Between the filtered piano sounds to the off toned snare hits in the verse, it creates something totally different and new from anything I’ve ever heard, not just in Kpop but in music altogether.
When the chorus comes in, you expect a drop, which it delivers, but I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for this level of a drop. It navigates through the pulsating throbs of EDM and the high-pitched vocal screeches of Dreampop while almost having a Dubstep edge to it as well, all while remaining calm, but at the same time very energetic. It truly is a unique chorus and drop and only LOOΠΔ could do it. Well, Orbits, and fans alike, here it is! LOOΠΔ has officially come back and with a song that is uniquely LOOΠΔ. I personally loved the song and can’t wait to go listen to the rest of the album, which I’m also excited for because the retelling of ++ in a different order. What were your thoughts on LOOΠΔ’s new song “Butterfly”? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. Thank you for all your support. I truly appreciate it. I’ll see you in the next review. Dreamcatcher is ending an era, or so they say with the release of their latest mini album. The 7 member Rock-influenced girl group makes their comeback with “Piri” which, according to the internet, is a flute-like instrument made of bamboo, often used in Classical music. With that introduction, I’m hoping this song has some Classical elements and maybe is a bit like Symphonic Metal because the only thing that would make Dreamcatcher any cooler would be a symphony backing their already Metal sound. I’m unsure of what is happening in the video and when this video takes place in the timeline of the Dreamcatcher Universe. There’s a ton of symbolism happening throughout the video such as the white room, the ladder, clocks, dolls, phones, and much more. Like I said, I don’t actually know what’s happening, but I believe this takes place before everything else. I could be wrong, but in the “Chase Me” music video, there is a doll that takes a huge role in the story and this might be where the doll and I believe it’s Dami trade places, maybe exchanging souls. I don’t know this story super well, so don’t attack me for not knowing. There’s a lot that could be examined here, but I’m not the person that should be doing that examining because, first of all, I don’t know all of their names and I don’t know the story and am terrible and finding hidden clues and reading into subtle cues. I hope someone will take this video and the entire Nightmare era and dissect it.  The song had the “piri” or flute sound throughout as a driving force for the song. It was incredibly creepy and haunting but did the song good. There was a moment in the chorus, I believe, where there was a call and response that was happening between the flute and the girls chanting which gave me goosebumps. The crunch of the guitar was very nice too. It was in your face, but not too overpowering as to wash out the rest of the track. I also enjoyed the fact that the chorus was a little more complex than other Dreamcatcher choruses. Not a whole lot, but just a bit more complexity in the chorus.
What do you think of Dreamcatcher’s final Nightmare comeback? What genre do you think they will dive into next? Do you think they’ll stick to the Metal sound within another realm of dream catching? Let me know in the comments what you think. Thank you for your support and I’ll see you in the next review. Itzy is a new girl group under JYP Entertainment that I know very little about. In fact, that’s probably all I actually know about this group. I know there was quite a bit of hype surrounding their debut but the process that revealed them and their official debut seemed rather quick. Maybe I’m just out of it and am losing my touch. Either way, they debuted with their song “Dalla Dalla” which I’m unsure what it means. To me, it sounds like “dollar dollar” but I could be wrong. What a trip! Literally, that video took me on a trip because the concept seemed to be traveling. The beginning of the video followed five girls as they entered an elevator with some luggage. Once the girls exited the elevator, there were various sequences of airport security and escalators and such. The type of things you’d see at an airport. On top of that, it was a very colorful video in the strangest way. I think the person editing this video wanted a challenge so most of the visual effects in the video seemed to be in post production. It was just the epilepsy-inducing type of visual effects. A lot of flashing colors and bright lights.  The song was interesting because I thought it would be similar to Twice in style but it was complete opposite of what Twice would be. This style is hard hitting and almost Blackpink-ish, but Blackpink-ish in a different way. It’s hard to explain. Maybe the catchiness of Cherry Bullet with the breakdowns of Momoland, but the edge of Blackpink. I’m not sure.
What are your thoughts on Itzy, the new girl group from JYP? Do you think they’ll be as successful as Twice? What do you think differentiates them from other JYP groups? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for your support. My website shut down for a couple of days a little bit ago, but it gives me hope that my numbers are still up. I appreciate that! Thank you so much! I’ll see you in the next review. Stephanie Young Hwang who is also known as Tiffany, Tiffany Young, or to her fans, she goes by Fany. She is one of the original 9 members of Girls’ Generation. She has since her time in the group, pursued her own career as a solo artist in the United States. Songs like “Under My Skin”, “Teach You”, and “Peppermint” easily get stuck in the heads of those listening. Her addictive voice is like honey. Tiffany released her new song “Born Again” along with an accompanying video. She knows how to get “under my skin” with her addictive like a “peppermint” songs. She can “teach [me]” any day what music is and what success really is. Tiffany, I’m ready for your seductive voice again. The video starts up with ocean waves crashing gently on the beach. Then we see Tiffany with her blonde hair, running across the beach and splashing in the water from a large rock, all in a wedding dress. The sun shines through the filter of the lens, creating flares and an ever-dramatic scene throughout the video. Have I ever talked about how beautiful Tiffany is? Because she is gorgeous. She is the epitome of an international star. Born in California, raised in a Korean home and spent most of her life as a Popstar in South Korea, only now to come back to America to dominate. I can feel her power become overwhelming. People will have to notice her.  The song has so much beauty but so much grit to it as well. I read some of the YouTube comments and part of my reaction has to do with the compression rate of the audio for the YouTube video. Many commenters mentioned a much clearer sound for the Spotify release. I did feel like the bass was too overpowering and sort of drowned out Tiffany’s voice.
However, I really enjoyed the song. The bass, which I just mentioned, was super aggressive, but I’m hoping the actual song keeps some of that dirtiness. I also love the dissonance that hangs throughout the song between her voice and the instrumental. It creates an ominous and atmospheric sound to the track, along with those gritty effects throughout. The filters on her voice don’t detract or enhance her voice, but give it a style. It’s just something that is there that makes the production level that much better. It creates distance between her voice and everything else. During the chorus, Tiffany sings in a lower register than she typically does, but then dubs in higher ad libs over the chorus which really adds to that atmospheric sound I mentioned. Finally, the subtle guitar strums in the bridge and creating a sort of pseudo-chorus right before the final chorus that really makes that last chorus stand out. She brings everything back again with a final outro piece. This song is absolutely phenomenal and honestly, I can’t find any nits to pick and except that bass which is supposedly better in the Spotify version. What did you think of Tiffany’s solo career? Is she the next crossover superstar? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I appreciate every one of you and I’ll see you in the next review. Since Gfriend, a six member girl group from Source Music, has debuted, they’ve spread their innocence and youthfulness internationally. Sowon, SinB, Yuju, Eunha, Umji, and Yerin have challenged what cutesy Girl Pop can be with their high intensity dances, power vocals, and ripping electric guitar solos intermixed in the songs. While maintaining all these attributes, they still manage to create a soft atmosphere within their niche of the genre. Their latest release came out a little bit ago and is called “Sunrise” which can be analyzed to mean many things such as a change of pace, a new time, the rising of a generation, and many other ideas. I’m not going to make any assumptions on my concept of what the title means, but I just thought I’d give a couple examples. It most likely has something to do with “making new”. The yellow-tinted sepia video seemed to be pulled straight from the past. I’m not entirely sure, but it appeared as if the video was supposed to take place in the 1980s because of the rotary phone, the phone booth, record players, and other trinkets from that era. If this still connects to some of their older videos, it means this is a jump backwards into a different era; somewhere between their innocent childhood and the elegant nature of this video. Maybe it is still connected to “Fingertip” and time jumping. I wasn’t able to really follow a solid story in this one except the completion of the puzzle, and celebrating what appeared to be a birthday, but there was also a solemn tone throughout and candles spread throughout the video to give me the vibe of a funeral or a death. Whatever it is, there was retrograding, celebrating of some sort, and putting together a puzzle; most likely literal and figurative.  Gfriend always is able to remain true to their sound without straying too far, but also without being repetitive. Their Symphonic, Pop driven, almost Rock style that gives them their uniqueness has always been their selling point, along with visuals and being some of the best dancers in Kpop. While this song lacked a guitar solo, as their more recent songs have been excluding, it still is a hard hitting song with much emotion and depth to it. The Pop beats intermixed with the Symphonic and Orchestral sound is always incredible to listen to.
Gfriend is one of those groups that I love and will continue to support them as long as they keep delivering new music. If you are a Buddy, please give this review a like or comment who your bias is. Let’s see if you can guess my bias in Gfriend. I’ll give you a hint, her name means “wish”. Anyway, thank you for the support. Keep on listening to Kpop. I appreciate the love and I’ll see you in the next review. Cosmic Girls, better known as WJSN just made their comeback. They are a girl group with 13 members similar in concept to Seventeen, having subunits which specialize in different areas of the fuller concept. Although we haven’t really seen much of that yet, I hope we do soon. WJSN typically features a Dance track intermixed with a variety of sounds and styles. Sometimes it’s Pop, sometimes it’s Trap or Hip Hop. It just depends with them. “La La Love” is the title track for their newest mini album WJ Stay. Everytime I hear the phrase “la la love” I automatically think of fromis_9, thanks to their most recent comeback song “Love Bomb”. It’s time to see if I can get that song out of my head and put a different one in. WJSN is one of those groups I’ve loved since day one, but I honestly don’t know any of the members’ names except Exy. As you can guess, Exy is my bias. Carnival is definitely the theme of this video, but I don’t think it’s the message of the song. But I’ll get into that in a minute. The very first scene is one of the members typing at a typewriter (for those of you who don’t know what a typewriter is, it’s basically an old computer, used strictly for typing documents.) A circus tent is revealed and a bunch of other things including an actual sign that reads “carnival”, a masquerade, and others things. The video was supposed to be more on the sexy side from some of their previous releases such as “Dreams Come True” and “Mo Mo Mo”.  As I was saying earlier, the video is sort of masquerading behind its true intentions. Not really, but I wanted to use that metaphor. The song is about asking someone to stay and not leave, I believe. The album is called WJ Stay. “WJ” meaning “would you”. They’ve been using the WJ in their music since their first comeback. So, “would you stay” being the message behind this song. The video may be some sort of performance to try to convince the person leaving to maybe not leave.
What did you think? What is your favorite WJSN comeback? Who is your bias and why? Thank you for your support. I appreciate it and I’ll see you in the next review. “Eung Eung” or as it is also written “%%” is a new song from the girl group Apink. Apink, over the years, has remained cutesy and innocent Girl Pop music. However, with their most last comeback, they made an attempt at being sexy and mature. In my personal opinion, “I’m So Sick”, the song that brought them from one realm into another, was one of their best songs (not discounting songs like “NoNoNo” or “LUV”). The six girls are back and from the looks of it, they aren’t straying too far from the style in “I’m So Sick”. I appreciate this type of crossover. It’s subtle enough to not shake the die-hard fans, but risky enough to bring in new listeners. I could, but won’t mention some of the too risky changes that took some recovery for listeners of other artists. Apink has class and style with their risks. I truly appreciate that. Are they sorceresses? I’m thinking yes because the music video took over my brain. But also because the crazy stuff that happened in the video. By crazy I mean the last 10 seconds. They brought a suit to life by putting a pinkified heart on said suit. It’s confusing if you haven’t seen the video. Actually it’s still pretty confusing if you’ve seen the video. Basically throughout the video, Apink is seen in a pink building with all sorts of pink things. They are dipping random items in a vat of pink liquid. I’m sure if I were to go back and watch it again, I’d know something more about the person they are trying to revive. At the end of the video, the six girls are gathered around a green suit lying on a table. One of the girls pulls a heart from the vat and places it on the suit, about where the heart of a person would be. The heart then vanishes and the suit comes to life. Weird huh? In the video, there were 3 girls who stuck out to me. Chorong was the first because she’s wrecking my list. She’s such a cute girl, no matter what she does. Eunji had her hair cut short, into a sort of Bob (I don’t know if that’s what you call that hairstyle) and it was black. Eunji is my actual bias. And lastly, Hayoung because, like Chorong, no matter what she does, she super cute and honestly (I know I’ve said this before) she looks like the hot mom of a friend. She’s youthful but mature and it drives me nuts.  The song felt a bit all over the place, but still grounded. Like a hint of organized chaos. It felt good and right. Especially for Apink, who have been taking risks and hinting at it with a song called “%%”. It’s probably not, but I think it’s talking about taking risks. Making something of what you have. Not sitting idly by and waiting for things to happen, but rather making things happen. Just my guess.
It wasn’t quite as catchy as “I’m So Sick” but it was still a bop. I still need to listen to it a few more times to get into the groove of it, but I loved it. Apink never fails. There’s a reason they are so popular. They know how to meet the audiences wants and needs and when to change it up. What are your thoughts on “Eung Eung” by Apink? Who was your favorite member in this video? Are you a Pink Panda (Apink’s fandom)? Thank you for your support. I appreciate it. I’ll see you in the next review. |
In this section of my website, I will review Kpop music videos, albums, songs, and various other things pertaining to Kpop. This will be the main stage of my website. It is where the majority of the action will take place.
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