Brown Eyed Girls - Hotshot + Sixth Sense
Recognise them:
(In the Sixth Sense video) 0:21 - Miryo (rapper), 0:33 - Gain (maknae), 0:42 - Narsha (vocal), 0:49 - Jea (leader)
Review:
Holy crap does this comeback do inconvenient things to me. This is by far one of the fiercest comebacks I have ever had the good fortune to witness and ohgodwhyaretheysosexyinsuitswhatislifebutBEGinsuits. Brown Eyed Girls have always been one of the stronger groups in terms of vocals and damn it shows in both their official comeback song, Sixth Sense, and in Hotshot. But what makes the overall performance so breathtaking isn't purely vocal ability, but also their ability to spontaneously ignite fires through the camera. This is charisma people. Watch and learn. Their stage manner, their total confidence in being fierce HBIC makes this comeback the spectacular wonderful thing that it is. Firstly, Hotshot. I love this song, this concept, this everything. I can't see another group taking this same concept and pulling it off; and there is something extraordinarily sexy about hot ladies in suits and hats dancing with other hot ladies in dresses. And if the screams are anything to go by, I'm not the only fangirl who feels jealous of them lady backup dancers.
From what I can make of the lyrics, Sixth Sense is about a lady taking charge and ordering a man to do what she wants when she wants and not a moment before or Gain will kick your ass for not sitting down when she asked you to. The song by itself isn't my cup of tea, but add in the whole shebang and I am head over heels. Now a review about this comeback wouldn't be complete without addressing that famous three part high note sung in succession by Jea, Gain then Narsha. After all the gushing I've already done about their overall comeback, I feel like I can say that Jea gets shouty during her money notes without any guilt. Because she does. There's a thin line between legitimate belting and shouting, and Jea toes that line every performance. However I cannot get enough of her part from 0:48 to 0:51, what a sexy lower register she has mmmm. And those whistle notes Gain and Narsha do? So far they've been okay, not as perfect as in the CD but pretty damn good considering. Personally though I've always found whistle register to be overrated and I'd much rather Gain and Narsha don't do it then eventually damage their voices doing it.
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Super Junior - A-Cha
Recognise them:
0:12 - Eunhyuk (rapper), 0:20 - Sungmin (vocal), 0:23 - Donghae (vocal), 0:33 - Kyuhyun (maknae), 0:41 - Ryeowook (vocal), 0:53 - Yesung (vocal), 1:22 - Leeteuk (leader), 2:29 - Shindong (rapper)
Review:
Oh Super Junior. I should love this comeback, I really should. Yesung and Kyuhyun rock the hell out of this song, yet another two of my favourite voices currently promoting, and they sound amazing. Along with Ryeowook, they all deserve major props for singing loudly and well during the chorus. Not to mention Sungmin has more parts and he rocks it out. All of them look great, I love hot people in suits, the song is so much better than Mr Simple, and yet overall performance wise? Not all of them look like they're all there. Some of them look as if they're miles away. I don't know if it's the fatigue or if the loss of all those members are dragging them down, but it's showing. They no longer seem as invested in the performance as they used to be; some of the earlier performances were extremely disappointing to watch because of how little the guys seemed to care. I jumped on the Super Junior bandwagon later than most, only around their Bonamana promotion period, but even in that short time the difference in their enthusiasm on stage is obvious. I hope it's just fatigue that's getting them down and a good long rest is long overdue for these boys I think.
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Kim Kyujong - Yesterday
Review:
Kyujong, the last of the SS501 boys to make his solo debut and it's my second favourite after Jungmin's solo debut with Not Alone. Surprising, considering my bias in SS501 is Youngsaeng but there you go. I wasn't impressed by the song from the music video, they very subtly autotuned Kyujong's voice all the way through and that was very offputting for me. It made me doubt that Kyujong could sing, but my faith was restored after this first live. He's steady and sounds good, and the song does suit his voice despite my beef with it musically (the song goes nowhere for me, even the chorus has no definable hook). The choreography is sensual, it reminded me a lot of the choreography for U R Man which I loved. It's got a unique point with those suspenders and all of the pulling and stroking that Kyujong does hits all the right buttons for me. More groups should do dances with suspenders, the only other instance I can think of is when Secret made a comeback with Magic, and the other song they did alongside was a dance break which involved suspenders. Then and now the suspenders worked.
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Kara - Step
Recognise them:
0:17 - Jiyoung (maknae), 0:22 - Gyuri (leader), 0:25 - Nicole (rapper), 0:29 - Seungyeon (vocal), 0:34 - Hara (vocal)
Review:
I really should like Kara more than I do. Their songs are catchy (not just Mister either, Wanna and Lupin were stuck in my head for weeks), they're all gorgeous and they seem to have great personalities. This comeback works for me because Step doesn't require any of them to do anything particularly vocally challenging. I couldn't handle Lupin, despite the fierceness of the concept, because of the awful live adlibs by both Gyuri and Nicole. In Lupin and in the song Kara performed alongside Step, Date (My Boy), Gyuri had a long sustained note which was hard to listen to because she held it clean. When the note is held clean instead of with vibrato, it can cause the singer to go either sharp or flat and that's exactly what happens with Gyuri. Nicole on the other hand, in Lupin, had a Mariah Carey-esque adlib at the end of the song and she sounded unbearably nasal every single time she performed it. Even in Step, during the higher parts of the song you can hear Nicole over the top of the music with her distinctive nasal tone. Jiyoung and Seungyeon are decent enough singers, but they don't get the same kind of vocal exposure that Gyuri and Nicole do, which means I end up listening to the two singers whose voices I can't take instead of the two singers whose voices I could like. I'm not going to judge Hara by her singing ability, because she doesn't sing all that much in their songs and that's how it should be until she gets a good vocal trainer who can get her to sing out.
However technically speaking, Kara are golden. As far as I can tell they sing live every single time, and they sound the same every time they perform. If only I liked their overall sound more.
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Infinite - Paradise
Recognise them:
0:27 - L (vocal), 0:37 - Sunggyu (leader), 0:48 - Sungjong (maknae), 0:53 - Woohyun (vocal), 1:43 - Hoya (vocal/rapper), 1:54 - Sungyeol (vocal), 2:48 - Dongwoo (rapper)
Review:
I might as well just admit it right off the bat - I have a gigantic, mushy soft spot for Infinite. I've been following them since their debut and I love them all. They have yet to put out music that has bored me, and they have yet to perform in clothing so questionable my eyes bleed (I'm looking at you B1A4). Not to mention they have shown tremendous improvement vocally, as well as equally distributing parts with every subsequent release (I'm looking at you Teen Top). With their debut, Come Back Again, the song was carried entirely by Sunggyu, with very little vocal support from the members - Sungjong's part was less than a second long. Then with She's Back, Woohyun's wonderful voice came to the fore and since then L and now Sungjong and Hoya have been showcasing their voices as well. L's vocal progress is obvious in Paradise at 0:33, the power and confidence of that note is so different from when his voice would crack during Nothing's Over. And I have noticed that starting with BTD, Sunggyu and Woohyun have been singing the chorus of the song, something most groups do not do. In certain performances of Be Mine when the backing track had been lower than usual, it was very obvious that Woohyun and Sunggyu were not only singing during the chorus, but singing well. This is an amazing improvement considering that during the chorus for Come Back Again, Sunggyu would regularly run out of breath and pant into the mic.
What I love the most about this group is the different vocal tones each member has: Sungjong and L with their higher pitched voices, Sunggyu lounging in the high to middle range, Woohyun smack in the centre of a man's average pitch with Sungyeol then Hoya and Dongwoo off to the lower end of the scale. Sunggyu's voice can tend to the nasally side, but not to the point of annoyance and it's forgiven because quite frankly, his upper register (which you can hear very distinctly at 1:24 and 1:38) is gloriously well rounded. Woohyun has a voice which is different in the fact that, because it is so smooth and comfortable to listen to, it easily blends in and enhances the overall tone of the group. Woohyun has a voice ideal for harmonising with others, something you don't typically find in KPop idols. When the parts are distributed properly (such as in Can U Smile and with Be Mine) the vocal colours of this group can really stand out and make a song. The only other group that comes to mind with each member having this distinct vocal tone is Beast.
I don't find the choreography of this song as interesting as with their other releases, but it still makes for the solid, impressive performance which I've come to expect from Infinite.
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