Saturday, December 18, 2010

#19: Girls' Generation/SNSD - Run Devil Run

I have a very well-documented love-hate relationship with SNSD both on this blog and on Twitter - one day I hate them, one day I adore them, for a number of reasons. What I cannot deny though is the fact that they get top quality SME songs, and that fact is enough to put them on the list this year, and rather high up for that matter.


I kinda hate SNSD because there are vocally-useless members and a lot of them at that, and because I personally think that SME should've spent the money they did on SNSD on CSJH. If they had, the world would've been a much better place and I would've considered forgiving them for a few more things. Oh well.

On the other hand, like I said a while ago, these girls are getting top-quality SME songs - SM is known in my books for having outstanding production, and getting the best out of that is almost unimaginable. When SM gets it right with SNSD, aka when they're not acting cute-sy, they really get it right. And I'd like to say that they got it right with Run Devil Run.

It's definitely not as good as Genie for me, but it's pretty damn close. And considering what came before this (the mistake that was Oh!), it's also pretty damn good. I've complained enough about their lack of a solid identity, so I'll let it go for today and just focus on the song.

They most definitely can't perform this live without some of them screwing it up, but it is a good song - it's grown on me. Took a lot longer than Genie, but it has grown on me. The melody is pretty, but it has enough kick to do the "concept" justice - their recorded vocals are fine, and I'll end it at that. Production-wise this is epic in all ways possible, arrangement-wise it can get a little boring because the song's basically going nowhere, but that's the point of the song, I believe.

So why place it this high? Because this is, in my opinion, representative of k-pop girl groups this year. Lupin was a slightly better song, but the execution faltered - I can and will say that SNSD as a whole are much better singers than KARA, albeit still not good enough for my standards. Run Devil Run is the perfect balance of OK vocals, fantastic production, and that "dark concept" a lot of girl groups went for this year. In short, this is where kpop was this year, and it's not half-bad, actually.

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