#30: BoA - Ordinary Day

One of my biggest disappointments this year was Hurricane Venus - I was expecting amazing and I got a "big lead single" that was all style and no substance. Majority of the album was the same, to be honest, except for the odd song or two.


I'm not the biggest fan of BoA's vocals because they can get annoying sometimes, but with the right material she can sound good. This is not an example of a song that fits her glove, but it's fine, because there's something else I like about the song.

There are times when I rattle on and on about simplicity, and there are also times when I rattle about beauty. It's time to rattle about beauty because there really is no other way to describe Ordinary Day except to melt over how gorgeous it is.

If there's one thing SME has learned this year, it's how to make beautiful midtempo album tracks. f(x), Super Junior and even SHINee got the same treatment in the forms of Surprise Party, My All Is In You and the brilliant A-Yo, probably to practice for what would become Ordinary Day.

The arrangement is a cross between simple and elaborate - on one side you have a simple looped beat that drones throughout the song, but then you have synths, a pretty piano line, subtle but audible background vocals and all these other instruments running around on top of that simple loop. Add a pretty melody, a gorgeous middle 8 and BoA's decently strong vocals and you have yourself a nikkistartssmilinglikeamadwomanonelineintothesong song. Any song that makes me smile like a madwoman deserves to spot on this year's list, for reasons I will later reveal.