SISTAR - Push Push

I have a few days to spare before school starts, so that means I'll be writing regularly over the weekend! Yay. Please note that I wrote this review in a rather strange way, so I apologize if it sounds a bit choppy at parts. UGH.

Yet another Brave Brothers clone, this time under the talent company founded by the producers themselves, SISTAR are ready to infiltrate kpop. Or are they?

SISTAR is the first "major" girl group to debut in 2010, so there's a lot riding on this - it has the potential to define the trend for new girl groups this year. I'm not saying it will, I'm saying it's possible. Although with the way things are going right now, I doubt it.

I said on Twitter earlier that this single is probably one of the most unoriginal packages I've heard from a girl group this year, and believe me when I say I've heard a lot. There are quite a few comparisons spinning around in my head, but probably the band they're closest to is 4Minute, who were called a 2NE1 copy when they first debuted.

They sound like 4Minute vocally - the timbre of their voices, the treatment of the vocals and even the way the rapper raps (I don't know anything about rap so don't shoot me!) all remind me of a certain Cube entertainment girl group.

The main difference between the two is that 4Minute grew because they have Cube, who, surprisingly, know how to let their acts grow musically without losing a distinct sound. Brave Sound I'm not so sure yet - we'll have to see.

Brave Sound-made singles are notorious for their auto-tune and generic loops and even if it does have the auto-tuning, I'd have to say that it's got a more interesting loop than usual. It goes on and on for the most part, yes, but the running synths, the Samba/South American/trumpet thingies going on and a few dynamic changes here and there are a bit more interesting than usual Brave Sound sound (LOL).

The song's got one very well-done point though - I seriously cannot get the melody of the hook out of my head. That's one thing the Brave Brothers are good at - making songs that stick, and songs that stick are good pop songs. Most of the time.

As a whole song, Push Push sounds very cheap, to tell you the truth. The melody, the badly-executed trying-hard-but-epic-fail instrumental (I appreciate the effort though!) with those synths that don't exactly fit in nor stick out and the now cheap-sounding vocal treatment all thrown into one mess of a song by a bunch of rookies trained by

They have a lot to work on music-wise, especially since the Brave Brothers aren't exactly a new production team, but I hope they show me more than they already have over the next few months - vocally and musically. I really want to like a newer girl group to the point of worship, but none of them have made me faint yet - something always goes wrong.

Give me good vocals, a solid sound in a good song and something worth fainting over and I just might notice SISTAR in the future. For now, it's a fail.

2/5