SS501 - Love Ya

If you were with me last year, you'll remember that I gave a rather negative review to Rebirth and got an army of fangirls run after me. I stand by my review and don't regret writing it - I had every right to say what I did, and I still have every right to say what I'm about to.

I've tried very hard to like an SS501 song apart from 4 Chance and maybe a spattering of Deja Vu, I really have, but so far it's been unsuccessful - there's always something about their new material that turns me off.

When I saw the teaser to this single the first thing that popped into my mind was DBSK - the set, the strings, the sound. Then I heard the entire song and that thought was just reinforced.

Love Ya sounds like a DBSK song circa Tri-Angle, which was 6 years ago, and they don't necessarily have better vocals than DBSK. I don't mind them sounding so six years ago if they did it deliberately and took the sound of that year as a whole 'coz the whole 'vintage' thing is in now but to take something your rival boyband did a gazillion years ago and pretty much turned into their signature sound and do it now that they've pretty much fallen apart is rather stupid. The song fits their vocals, yeah, but it's unoriginal - strike 3958937552 for SS501 in my books.

As a song alone and without comparison it's OK. I mean it's nothing new or ground-breaking and they didn't exactly take the old and radicalize it into the new nor did they make it better, but it sounds very SS501, if that means sounding like DBSK years ago - it's not so much the song though, it's their vocals. Whether or not I like them, DSP has gotten very distinct singers and they've got their own signature sound.

That said, their vocals sound bear-able now, but I guess I'll have to see them do this live before I reinforce that.

The string section throughout kinda pulls me in for a while, and as a string section alone I like it - it's pretty but it's not that obvious until the tail end, which is a little upsetting or whatever. It is a nice touch though, as well as the piano loop.

Everything else about the song goes through me - I find myself listening to it while I surf the web or read or something and a little later I look and I'm like "I already played this 5 times and I didn't notice?" - oh well.

2/5

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