David's Blog: False Hope

Monday, 30 December 2013

David's Top 5 Kpop Songs for 2013

2013 has seen a large shift in terms of my musical tastes. Besides BoA, Se7en, Rain/Bi and FTTS, I never really listened to Korean music. I was mostly Japanese, with the likes of BoA, Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, Moumoon (a big find in the latter parts of 2012), Yuna Ito, etc.

I was always for the solo singers, for I always felt that groups weren't as talented. Ever since playing Ahri on League of Legends and realizing that her dance was based on SNSD's Run Devil Run... I became hooked onto Kpop music.

Of course, I can go on and on, but I won't bored you with my foray into Korean music. Let's start get started with my top 5 Korean songs for 2013! Once again, this is my opinion. Yes, there are probably many other songs out there that are better than the songs I listed, but I didn't put them down on my list because

1) I never heard of them (I'm still a Kpop newbie)

2) I'm not interested in the group/artist (To this day, I still prefer a woman's voice to a man's in pop music)

3) Being biased to certain groups may have play a ~~significant~~ factor in my list. (=P)

Now I got that out of the way, let's really start now!

#5: SNSD/Girl's Generation - I Got a Boy

I admit... I'm a huge SNSD fan. I'm not quite a SONE (their fan group), but I really like Girl's Generation. I was immensely pleased when they won theVideo of the Year award at the YouTube awards (or whatever it's called). I can't say I heard a song as unique as this song. It has a variety of different tempos, and the music video was very colourful/eccentric. It took a while for me to get used to the song, and to this day I still don't have it on my iPhone, but I'm considering the possibility for it making a showing on my phone.

It's a good song, and despite SNSD being my favourite group, it's not my number one song for the year! As stated previously, it took a while for me to get used to the concept of the song.

#4: Sistar - Give it to Me

Personally, I always thought that Sistar should be renamed "Hyorin featuring Sistar" since the leader of the group just overpowers everyone with her vocals. However, with this song, I felt that each member had a bigger part to sing in the song. Sistar's Give it to Me starts off strong with a G minor chord to Soyu's interlude/beginning/whatever-its-called. The chorus is great and the choreography is even better. And Dasom even has a pretty decent part in the song!

And I can see why Bora is considered to be the visual of the group. I have to say that she looked stunning in the video.

To my ears, it's better than I Got a Boy. I was initially hooked to the song, but I have to admit that I don't listen to it as much as I used to.

#3: Ladies Code - Bad Girl

This group is a relatively new find for me. I only became aware of their awareness a week ago when I heard this song being played on my brother's computer. From what I know, Ladies Code debuted in March of this year. Ladies Code's Bad Girl is, I would classify, a upbeat Jazzy-like tune. A very catchy beat ensures after a strong piano open.

At first, it sounded like a good, but typical song. When the main vocalist, Sojung, started singing... she just blew my mind. Her voice is one of a kind! The rest of the members sounded strong themselves, but Sojung is one of a kind. You'll have to give this a song a try if you haven't done so already! Sojung is the one with the blonde hair by the way.

#2: Kara - Damaged Lady

I posted a detailed review of the song and MV on September 6th for those who are interested in reading something more in-depth! As of today, this still happens to be my favorite Kara song. True, it's a song about being bitter after a break up, but the melody and music video were simply amazing. The drastic difference between their Queen costumes and White-shirt-and-tie created a nice visual contrast.

Go girls go! It's going to be sad to see the group of 5 be reduced to potentially a group of 3 (I'm not sure what Jiyoung is planning to do since I'm not really up to date with the news). Best of luck to Nicole on whatever she's planning to do!

Link to my review on Kara's Damaged Lady

#1: Song Ji Eun - False Hope

Song Ji Eun, the main vocalist of Secret, has done an incredible job with her 3rd single: False Hope. (To be honest, I'm still not quite sure what it's called, so let's just keep it to False Hope). I also wrote a detailed review of the song and music video on September 30th.

The music and the video topped my list for best Kpop song for the year. It's really a shame that Song Ji Eun is underrated. Her voice is simply amazing. She may not be as powerful as Ailee or Hyorin, but her voice reminds me of crystal. I never heard such a clear tone before.

Besides her tone, the MV, I found, happened to be very symbolic and well made. One of the best pieces for sure in 2013. If you haven't had the chance to listen to it, you should really take some time to do so! I think this is the most played song on my Korean list in iTunes.

Link to my review on Song Ji Eun's False Hope

Honourable Mentions for 2013

IU - Red Shoes (Quite the change from her cutesy work!)

Secret - I do I do (Interesting one-shot music video. Definitely better than their Yoo Hoo single they released in the Spring)

Kara - Runaway (A balladish song with a nice flowing melody)

Monday, 30 September 2013

Song Ji Eun - 희망고문 (False Hope/Torturous Hope/Hope Torture) MV Review

Besides BoA, Song Ji Eun of the Korean group, Secret, helped immerse me into the world of Kpop. In May last year, I happened to stumble across "It's Cold", an OST track for the drama Take Care of Us, Captain. I was amazed by the clarity Song Ji Eun had in terms of her vocal abilities. Due to that clarity, I dubbed her as the Mozart of the Kpop scene. True, I don't have a vast knowledge of all the singers in the business, but I have to argue that her voice is one of the clearest ones that I ever heard in a long time.

I just found out literally last week that Song Ji Eun was to release her first mini album, featuring three songs in which one of the songs had parts of it composed and lyrics written by Ji Eun herself. For the purpose of this review, I will focus on just her title track, which I'm not quite sure of the exact title so I'll stick with the term I first heard: Torturous Hope.

Once again, this is not a professional review. This review reflects my opinions and you're free to disagree with it in anyways that suit your needs. This time however, I'll try to integrate the music and the video into one to save on time it takes to write this blog post.

WARNING: I forgot to mention it on my blogpost yesterday, but this Music Video (MV) is rated 19+ due to some disturbing scenes. Viewer discretion is advised. For my own screen caps, I will not include pictures of these scenes, but I may make reference to it during the discussion of the music video.

Review and Thoughts
First of all, I have to say that the style of the MV from the teaser I saw didn't coincide with my expectations of Song Ji Eun or Secret. From my experiences, their MVs tend to be cutesy or sexy, but never overly complex to understand. From the teaser, I knew that this MV would be different for it looked dark and had images of minor body mutilation on Ji Eun's hand. Also, this video is filled with imagery that I cannot begin to hope to be able to interpret the intention of each scenes.

The slow-mid tempo R&B piece complements well with the mostly dark themed music video. The massive use of scene changes, from scenes of Ji Eun by herself, to those with, what I assume is her ex-boyfriend, really keeps the song going. At times, it made it difficult for me to keep track of where I am in terms of the song because I become so fixated to the intense images.

In a recent interview, Song Ji Eun stated: "It is said that guys tend to give false hope to girls after a breakup. So the title became False Hope. There are many guys who give false hope to girls even if they don't really like her. The lyrics talk about that kind of story." Message received. Despite not understanding a word of Korean, I could get that message from the video.

The constant usage of monotone and cool blue tones helped, I believe, bring out attention to the sadness that comes from a breakup. It's furthered supported by having Song Ji Eun and her ex having a long nail pierced into their hand; perhaps to illustrate a love turned to becoming a burden, especially to the girl. It is like Ji Eun has this "false hope" of being able to rekindle a 5relationship that have became unrequited. On the other hand, there were warmer scenes. I want to say that this represented more about the anger that comes from a break up (for we see her tear a cake apart when they used this filter [if that's the right word to use]), but I cannot say for sure. Perhaps it could be her own personal anger, for not being able to let go? However, the contrast between the sad and "angry" scenes convey the multiple emotions of the theme well.

There were two scenes that really caught my eye. The first one includes the monotone scenes with the red pomegranate. As simple as it is, it's purely ingenious in my opinion. The imagery of blood plays figuratively, and literally to an extent, to help strengthen the theme. Second, the scene where Ji Eun sits within a thorn bush. Well done in terms of conveying the feeling of despair and hopelessness of being trapped in this relationship. I believe it makes reference to the rose tattoo on the ex's arms.

Looking at this as a whole, I find the music video for Torturous Hope to be a wonderful contrast between the clarity of Song Ji Eun's voice and the complexity of the video. I feel that it is consistent with the mixed emotions that comes from a breakup that has one party with lingering feelings. And thus, this is the torture. To be a prisoner of one's own feelings. In conclusion, it's an amazing piece of art, and something really unexpected from Secret's main vocalist.

Screen caps
In the same interview, Song Ji Eun stated that she had to wear 12 different outfits for the shoot! I went through the music video and took screen caps of the 12 different outfits, or what I thought were the 12 different outfits.

I took them in order of appearance, so they may not all be the most pleasing shots of Song Ji Eun. And since I'm not really in tune with fashion, I have came up with my own names for the outfits. =P (I feel like those Asian restaurants with funny English names for their dishes)