[#33] Jo Kwon (2AM) - "Awesome Girl"

From: "I'm Da One"
Format: Full-Length Album
Released: August
Territory: South Korea
Previous Best of Appearances: First Appearance

Despite being in 2AM, probably the ballad boy band of all ballad idol groups, Jo Kwon's image, or at least the image that made him popular, is nowhere near the standing on stage and singing ballads about broken hearts. And that honestly made me think, why did he get popular imitating girl group dances and doing all this cheap stuff?

It's because he's ridiculously good at it. I should know, I live in a country that eats stuff like that up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And what I learned from living with all this cheese is that contrary to popular belief, being cheap is an art too. If you don't know what you're doing, it won't be any good. If you're not confident, it'll show. There are enough people who are ashamed of you, you have no room in the industry if you yourself are ashamed of what you're doing. But at the same time, it has such a negative image with "civilized" people that the people who prance around on cheap TV shows are either desperate, or genuinely love what they're doing. But even then you can tell those two types apart.

Jo Kwon is the latter. He's the latter because you watch him and you know that at the very least, he enjoys what he's doing. Just listening to him, you know that he's confident about it, at the very least. And that's the reason why "Awesome Girl" is such a good song -- because not only does it match Jo Kwon, he delivers it with urgency, with brevity. There's a huge difference in delivery between him and the rapper -- the rapper sounds bored, and kind of ashamed, but then Jo Kwon comes in and turns the entire thing around.

It takes guts to be cheesy in an industry that looks down upon it (but keeps putting it out), and even I have my limits as far as cheap goes, but if it's done as well, and as confidently as "Awesome Girl", honestly I don't see why I should have a problem.

That's also why I chose "Awesome Girl" over his duet with Miso from GLAM. I mean that duet was gorgeous, it really did soar, but it wasn't Jo Kwon. Anyone else with good vocals could've pulled it off just as well, but very few in K-Pop can pull off "Awesome Girl" as well as Jo Kwon, and even less will even attempt.