Cho Shin Sung - 그리운 날에

So before I get to my actual review, there's something I wanna (kinda) announce. Pop Reviews Now is on this month's issue of Meg, a major teen fashion magazine in the Philippines. If you'd like to see a photo of the feature, it's here. Considering that I used to want to work for that magazine, it's a rather big thing. But anyway, on to business. ;D

Supernova debuted in Korea, along with a few other bands that have pretty much fizzled away. If you look at their Korean discography, you would've thought they did too (fizzle away, I mean), but the reason for their non-existence in Korea was because they were in Japan, signed to MCA Universal (Japan), trying to make it big there. A few members were involved in that TTL (Time To Love) project with girl group T-Ara, but that's basically all they did in Korea for a good 2 years. As far as I remember, they got to either a #3 or #2 position on the Oricon Charts, the Billboard of Japan, and that's a pretty big thing, considering it ranks the biggest singles of the second biggest industry in the world, and it took DBSK a good 3 albums before they hit number one.


Well they're back in Korea now, and to be honest with you, even if I thought it was stupid to try and make it in Japan without making it in Korea, I'm thankful they did the very thing I thought was stupid.

I decided that instead of writing my review the minute I hear the song, I'd let it sit a while. So I was listening to this new Supernova/Cho Shin Sung single all day in school, and I'm actually rather impressed.

그리운 날에 is a Brave Brothers creation, and to a certain extent it really sounds like one. On the surface it mirrors a U-Kiss song, or even something the duo produce for themselves, but underneath the stereotypical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-chorus structure with some rapping thrown in just because they can is a song with that much more class and sophistication than your run-of-the-mill Korean "R&B" number.

The hook sticks, but it's not the annoying kind that can get very unpleasant after a few listens and a week's worth of promotions - it's an actual melody with actual notes involved, people like you and me can actually hum along to it, but we also remember it.

Another thing I really like about this song is the percussion part. The structure is half-ordinary, half-not so ordinary, but the type of percussion - the sharp but full sound, similar to a snare drum with a lower pitch, if I'm correct, gives the song a sense of swing - it's got groove. It's not this robotic, obviously-computerized mess of a piece - this is what I mean when I say the percussion part of a song is one of the most important parts of a song, if not the most. It's also got a sense of dynamics because of it - there's a build-up, a break down, and the different instruments tone down and build up at certain points. There are so many things you can do with a percussion part, and yet it is the foundation of your song - what you do do to it will ultimately steer the entire song in either a good or bad direction.

I kinda attribute this creativity and little hint of sophistication to the fact that they were active in the Japanese industry for 2 years or so - they were exposed to musicians, and ultimately creativity. They also got a heck of a lot better live vocals, I saw a cut from one of their tour dates, and the guy who sings the most really sounds phenomenal, with respect to the recording. Japan gave them an edge, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had even just a little influence in deciding which song to promote, or even actually producing this.

4.7/5