2PM - Without U

To be completely honest, I'm not the biggest 2PM fan in the world. I acknowledge that they have their own niche in kpop and that Wild Bunny was so damn funny but apart from liking maybe 2 or 3 songs from 1:59PM, 2PM is just another Korean boyband for me - nothing special, nothing bad.

It took me time to write up my review for this, mainly because I'm honestly really uninterested in 2PM at the moment. Not because of all the Jaebeom drama or whatever but because I don't think they're giving us songs worth listening to.

From Again and Again to Heartbeat I praised 2PM for the growth in their music - I liked both singles, not with a passion, but enough to listen to them a fair amount of times. But with this new single it's like their growth reached a complete standstill.

2PM have never been the most vocally-able band, at least to me, and it's for that reason that I never really got into them. Yes, they had some good songs and yeah, they have their plus points but the very basis of a vocal group are the vocals - they don't play their own instruments for the very reason that their voices are supposed to be their instruments. I mean yeah sure there are maybe 1 or 2 good voices in the band but even they don't deliver at times. It's also for that reason that I scrapped the idea of writing a commentary on them!

Without U, I think, is trying to be epic with the 'haunting' piano loop and all these melodic parts left and right but you have to remember that 2PM aren't the most competent vocalists around, even in recording. You need processing, pitch-fixing, all these studio tricks, just to get this - it's not even that good. This is more my personal taste but I've never liked how JYP makes his boybands sing - he's trying to make them sing like him and how his voice 'hits' higher notes but they're not him.

The chorus explodes, a bit, but once again, they don't have the vocals to support an exploding, melodic chorus. 2PM just doesn't do solid melodies. And the explosion totally goes against this 'epic' vibe they're chasing.

I'm not even gonna try commenting on the rap 'coz I know nothing about it and you people might start attacking me if I say something. LOL.

JYP's overusing this piano loop thing, and he's overusing the 'epic' idea without even trying to give each release a little flare. I don't want a complete change, nor do I want them to stya the same - they have to grow. They were doing it pretty well until this though.

2/5