Debuts from Girls' Day and Teen Top and comebacks from ZE:A, Black Pearl and Son Dambi. AND D-NA!!! Hahah.
The consensus today (or last night) is that MBC must've fired the old sound engineer and gotten a new one, because everyone actually sounds decent today. Hurrah! Credit goes to CrazyCarrot250
Girls' Day - Tilt Your Head
Oh dear. Just thinking of this group and their lead single makes me head ache, and actually seeing them gives me a very very unpleasant feeling. What happened to this? Personally she wasn't the most brilliant, but she was good and she was trying - so where did that go? This lead single is annoying, it's far too autotuned and if I didn't see that video before they debuted, I would've thought none of them could sing, because clearly they can't sing this song. *sigh*
Teen Top - Clap
I know this has been said before by people other than me, but Teen Top really do remind me of 2PM. Well, 2PM with slightly better live vocals. I think one good thing about this batch of rookie bands is that they have pretty decent vocals. I'm not 100% sure if most of Teen Top can actually sing, but they sure give off the impression that they can. The performance was tight, very practiced, and the set really does remind me of something 2PM had used. Oh well. Just hearing the song didn't really convince me, but now they've made me curious - we'll see.
Miss A - Bad Girl
I like the idea, I like the vocals, I like the performance, but I don't like the song. The concept of Miss A is there - good vocals, strong performers - but they lack the songs to really make an impact. On the other hand, I suppose this is better than what Girls' Day got, so I'll shut up and be thankful.
Infinite - Come Back Again (review)
A lot of these groups are good dancers (in the eyes of someone who doesn't know how to dance), and a lot of them are synchronized and all, but what does that have to do with the music? They are girl groups and boy bands - because they can't play drums or the guitar or bass, their voices are their instruments. If they can't even use that, they have no right to be called, in this case, a boy band. The song's perfectly fine, it's got character, it's ever so slightly out of the ordinary, and it's a strong debut single, but Infinite falter in the execution.
Sistar - Push Push (review)
All SISTAR have at this point is some experience on stage, backing from Brave Sound, and a glorified novelty song. It will sell, yes, but how long can that one girl carry the entire band vocally and performance-wise? It's not really tradition for an idol group to have all the members be good singers, but at least half or 3/4 of them should have some semblance of a voice. But anyway. I'm now 100% sure that if Miss A and SISTAR were to face off with these singles and at this stage of their careers, Miss A would trample SISTAR.
ZE:A - Level Up
One good thing about ZE:A now is that they're slowly starting to look like one whole band - it doesn't seem like there are a gazillion guys on stage. But I do admit, I like All Day Long better than this. Level Up was really built around the gimmick - that's it. It sounds like a commercial, their talent company didn't bother building up a lot of buzz for it, and I'm starting to think that they're giving up on ZE:A. I mean, all they really need is good material - give me that and the world will be a better place.
D-NA - Stumble Stumble
I missed these guys, I really did! I've already established why they were given such a generic song, so no complaining, but I do really think they have good vocals. That and those vocals are actually shown live - I don't have to think really hard to say that they can sing live. Now that they're my second favorite boyband, they better prove to me that they're worthy - I cannot wait for a full-length album.
Orange Caramel - Magic Girl (review. kinda.)
I was already annoyed last week, right? K. Still annoyed. I have a very low tolerance period for these kinds of songs, but it just so happened that I was in awe with how they magically got live vocals, so I kinda stopped noticing the song. Now that I am, I'm annoyed.
4Minute - I My Me Mine
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm starting to like 4Minute. Still don't like most of their material, the two who are being pushed as the singers can actually sing live. That and they're making an effort to look a bit more clean/sophisticated now and are straying from the "new 2NE1" label. Which is good. Slowly but surely, 4Minute, slowly but surely.
Taeyang -I Need A Girl
To me, it's like once GD stops showing up, the performance just gets boring for me. He's performing it better, yes, and I actually kinda like the melodic part better now, but there's no GD, so Taeyang's improvement just fills the gap that GD left - the performance as a whole is still the same, it's just the individual elements that changed and shifted around.
Black Pearl - Gogossing
So, Black Pearl. Apparently, they first debuted in 2007 (along with SNSD and The Wonder Girls) under Mnet, if my memory serves me right, but obviously they were outshined by SNSD and WG. My research on them led to another group, but we'll save that for another time. I first heard this song last week, if I'm not mistaken, and the first thing I noticed was the vocals. I'm like, "finally a girl group with strong vocals!" My one complaint though is that I don't understand why all girl groups who can actually sing (SeeYa, Davichi) have to make songs like this. They're OK songs, but I'd like them to explore, because they actually have the vocals to do that. That aside, OMG I HEARD HARMONIES. I find the girl who sings the second part of the chorus a little too uncontrollable - her voice is to shrill. The best? The girl who takes the first part of the chorus and the middle 8. The other 2 are good too, but that girl's better. It looks so effortless.
Son Dambi - Can't U See + Queen
I know she was miming on Can't U See, but even so, I don't understand why someone would want to go from tasteful, (but a tad bit generic on the music side) with the pretty piano loop and the nice melody, to slightly cheap and far too gimmicky-y. My one comment on Queen? It's so Kylie. Seriously. Apart from the chanting/rapping/whatever on the verses, I wouldn't be surprised if Kylie suddenly burst out on stage singing this. I listened to Queen (the album) with the illusion that Can't U See was the lead single, and the most decent song (apart from Can't U See) for me was Queen. I think I liked the song for a few hours, tops. When I got home from school that Friday, I didn't like it, and when I saw the performance, I wasn't impressed. She's been gone for almost a year and she still can't sing more than 50% of her own song?
Super Junior - No Other
From what I can see, SuJu broke 2 rules of performance today, but at least their vocals were decent. First, Eunhyuk looks like someone died - did someone die? I mean I know the happy happy thing creeps me out, but the emo-sad thing does too! Did LSM beat him up or something? He didn't smile. And next, why does Heechul keep talking to whoever's beside him? I know it was his birthday and it's easy to hide in such a big group, but it's not easy to hide from the camera. That aside, the vocals were rather strong, if I may say so. So yay.
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