Celebration for various reasons - personal and music-related. My exams are done - all the hard work kinda paid off. SO, I don't have homework, no projects to catch up on and nothing to study this week. Thus, I WILL BLOG A HELL OF A LOT. Yay for everyone!
I've been MIA here pretty much the whole week - Twitter and Tumblr (the sites with less critical thinking) have been my sanctuaries. There's been a ton of stuff out this week, K-pop and Western. And because it's been AGES since my last post - this one will be pretty lengthy.
The first order of business today - Send It On. It's pretty much the modern day version of the Disney Channel Circle of Friends (that were existent back when I was in elementary school more than 3 years ago..) with the 'singers' - Jo Bros, Miley, Demi and Selena and not some random bunch of actors made to sing. OK, maybe the girls started out as actresses but you get my point. Right? Right.
The best part of this song? The fact that Demi Lovato sounds the most decent out of the six. The worst? The fact that Miley's in it. I'm sorry but these songs just don't go with the girl - she has a voice, yes but they're giving her the wrong songs. She doesn't sound horrid or scary but when you hear Demi's solo it makes you wonder how you were able to survive Miley. Trust me, it would sound a lot better if it was just Demi and Selena with the Jonas Brothers (even if they suck).Selena isn't as bad as I thought she'd be either.
4/5
Time for some K-pop. I like the genre - deal with it. hahah.
The first time I heard Super Junior's contribution to SM Town I was neutral about it - not bad but not outstanding. The more I listened to it though, the more the melody stuck in my ears.
To those who don't know, SM Town is basically Sooman's way of earning a ton of money without that much effort - all his artists making one gimmick-y album with an accompanying concert. The music videos are usually low-budget like mirages of old performances (like this years') and the concert is padded with current/recent singles. Earns a ton of money, as always.So all throughout this morning I was listening to the song thinking it was absolute genius (and that it sounded a lot like one of my favorites on their third album) - and it actually is. It's very light and summer-y and the verses are gorgeous. Need I say more?
When I got the chance to log on and read up on K-pop (I still don't know a thing compared to other bloggers, thank you very much.), I found out that the song's a cover. Of a 2005 song from the Netherlands. Not that I find it bad or anything but I just noticed something with SM and their boybands.
The first Western SM cover I heard was SHINee's Juliette - a cover of Corbin Bleu's Deal With It. I brushed it off a bit, thinking it was just a random cover or something. The second cover I heard was DBSK/TVXQ/Tohoshinki's Mirotic - a cover or Sarah Connor's Under My Skin. She's German, btw. The THIRD cover was from SHINee again - there's a song on their first album that's a cover of Mario Vazquez's Everytime I.. - one of the most brilliant American R&B songs ever thought of in the first place.
And now this song. OK - a possible theory is that Sooman is too greedy to pay songwriters who write original songs so he just gets a random Western song that was never a hit and translates it to Korean. Good idea Sooman, good idea.
4.4/5 - the rap and strange sounds throughout did it.
Another boyband - this time from the other side of the world.
*faints*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
*faints*
Do you know how long I've waited for a new Westlife song? DO YOU? HUH? NO!
*faints*
*faints*
*faints*
*faints*
Whatever genre I may get addicted to, whatever boyband or girl group I may think has the most gorgeous songs, I am a Westlife fan and I forever will be. I live with hope that someday Simon Cowell will give the lads a chance to write their own songs or even just give them songs that aren't ballads or covers.
Even as a fan, I will be as subjective as I can be - no biases, no prejudice in this review of the new song. I've waited long and hard for this but I will treat it like every other song I review. I PROMISE. If I give it a perfect score, then it's because it deserves it - nothing else.At the beginning, As Love Is My Witness sounds like your standard Westlife song - ballad. I should've guessed that when they said no more covers they didn't say no more ballads. Mark's part is first - new, welcome change. My theory is correct that if you restrain him, he's a very good singer - he should honestly sing the first verse from now on (if you let him loose at the middle-8 live he might shatter your eardrums - fact). The chorus is sweet with Nicky and Kian backing. The second verse is drop-dead gorgeous - I wonder how I lived without Shane's absolutely brilliantly amazing voice. He's got one of the most refined and smoothest voices in all of pop - really. He got the middle 8, too!
Westlife taught me the importance of a good middle-8 and how much weight it has on a song. Thus, this song has a truly gorgeous middle 8. Honestly.
Over-all the melody is beautiful. It's not one of those ballads that are very resonant to my ears and even if I'm still dreaming of the day Simon comes to his senses and gives them an album full of up-tempos, they still do what they do extremely well.
One constructive comment though - change the hideous arrangement. It sounds cheap, too dated in the bad way and just plain sad - it weighs the whole song down. The melody's gorgeous and the arrangement is OK at the key change with the pretty string section but honestly, the percussion section throughout is HIDEOUS, a disgrace to put it simply. It would sound a lot nicer if they made the piano part a lot more flow-y and get rid of whatever's playing at the beginning - sounds too stereotypical and overused.
Oh, and please re-mix and re-master the vocals on this - they sound like the producers don't know what the heck they were doing with the mastering. Or maybe this hasn't been mastered yet. OOOHH - UNMASTERED! hahah.
4.2/5 - I know they can do better than this - they better.
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