From: "OST - "To The Beautiful You"" Format: Original Soundtrack Released: August Territory: South Korea Previous Best of Appearances: First Appearance
J-Min's debut single which doubled as part of the OST for "To The Beautiful You", follows in the footsteps of the likes of Younha (who we'll be getting to -- eventually!), something I'm extremely excited about. First because SM finally let her out of their dungeon after giving her a track on last year's Winter album and moving her from Avex to Nayutawave, and second because they gave her a damn good song!
The melody matters in this, yes, and when it gets gorgeous it's really something, but what matters more on this track is the instrumental. You listen to the melody, and even if it's a nice melody, that alone is not enough to carry an entire song. Plus the fact that J-Min doesn't have a spectacular timbre or heart-wrenching technique -- she sings well, yes, but to carry an entire song on her own isn't exactly a walk in the park. Which is why even if they get progressively heavier, the arrangement and the instruments, like the guitar line and the cymbals, take the spotlight from the very beginning. Even the song's loop isn't sung -- it's that loop at the beginning before the first verse.
"Stand Up" was arranged in such a way that the singing parts J-Min got were carried by the instrumental. The main element in the first verse are the drum and guitar lines, the main element at the chorus is that explosion, that transition from bare to epic. The second verses let the melody step up a little, but you'll notice that it's a very simple melody, and short since it's the second verse, so that by the time the song explodes again for the second chorus, that becomes the focal point. The middle 8/breakdown is gorgeous and really the height of the epic, with all the pop/rock band conventions you can possibly have all crammed into several measures.
What I like most about "Stand Up" is that it's confident -- it knows exactly what it is, what it should be, and it delivers, J-Min delivers. But unlike some of the previous tracks on the list, this is the type of song that carries the act, and not the other way around. J-Min isn't the most charismatic performer out there, she's actually kind of flat when you watch her, and SM knows that, which is why they gave her a song that could hide her flaws while bringing out her strong points.
Just a quick explanation of how I'm doing this year's Christmas posts. So, obviously this SM TOWN Christmas album is part 1, and for part 2 I'll be reviewing some of my favorite K-Pop Christmas offerings, both old and new. Rules and stuff will be discussed in part 2. But now, on to more important business.
It's been a good three years since any sort of SM Town release, the last being the half-SM Town Summer 2009 EP with Super Junior, SHINee and DBSK. If you remember correctly, we were told that the other half of SM Town, namely the girls, would be featured on the Christmas album. Well, clearly that didn't happen. But FINALLY, SM has decided to put something out in time for Christmas. Is it any good? Well, that's a pretty long story. When news of this album first broke, I was ecstatic. Of course, SM Town isn't SM Town without a fail Yoochun English rap, a Jaejoong/Lina or Jaejoong/BoA duet, or some goofing around courtesy of Shindong and Eunhyuk's rap part, but I could do without that if it meant getting one song with everyone thrown in, acting happy in a fake-snow wonderland. Right? That was until I found out that not only was there no group song this year (WHAT KIND OF BLASPHEMY IS THIS?!), but the album would be 100% English. Let's just say that if Yoochun, who actually spent more than a few days in the US, manages to epicly screw up all his English parts, what more the others. And let's face it, there are only a handful of SM Town artists who can actually speak good English. I'm still thinking of whether or not BoA is in that handful.
And once again, my psychic powers did not fail. The English is horrible. I'm an English major(well, comparative literature, but I'm still under the English department), I know. But the bad English isn't really the big problem, it's the fact that it's in English.
Let me put it simply, the album is too Americanized. It's hardly K-Pop anymore. Say all you want to say about how K-Pop is just a rip-off of Western music, but you know, even if majority of the songs probably are, you can tell the difference between K-Pop and American pop. You know why I'm into K-Pop? It's because I'm so sick of US Pop, and here we are, back to the very sound I want to avoid.
The problem with it sounding too American is that one, obviously they're not American, but two, really now, what good, distinctively Christmassy POP songs have the Americans contributed to the standard Christmas repertoire? "All I Want For Christmas Is You"? Seriously now. "Last Christmas"? You have got to be kidding me. They're merely pop songs with Christmas lyrics about gifts and snow. There’s so much more to a Christmas song than that. This SM Town album sounds like a confused Rat Pack-turned-makeshift Christmas album, to be completely honest.
This album is massively confused. Massively. So either the song itself isn't K-Pop enough, or when they finally get the song choice right, they screw up the execution. My prime example? Jang Ri In's version of "Oh Holy Night", which is actually one of my favorite Christmas songs. The girl has a gorgeous voice, she really does, and what does she do? She murders the song. All those runs and those strange sounds she makes with her voice. No, just no. There's a reason why the Christina Aguilera Christmas album was a complete failure.
Yes, I'm very picky with Christmas songs, but that's only because my childhood was filled with some of the most gorgeous Christmas songs anyone will ever hear. I grew up not only listening to them, but singing them as well. I know my Christmas repertoire - everything from the classic Handel's "Messiah" to Filipino novelty Christmas songs where you make sounds out of combs and pieces of wax paper, to the most tear-jerking, yet most distinctly Filipino Christmas song you will ever hear, I've sung them all. So imagine going from all those, to a bunch of pop songs that don't even sound like Christmas. They are inferior not because they are pop songs, there are some gorgeous pop Christmas songs (DBSK's "Winter Rose" for heaven's sake!), they are inferior because they don't sound like Christmas, they don't serve their purpose.
You want me to tell you what Christmas sounds like? Christmas sounds like a cup of hot chocolate, rich and creamy and sweet, it sounds like a thick blanket wrapped around you, keeping you warm. It sounds like bells ringing in the distance and lights all over, it sounds like you're being surrounded with your family and friends and you're all happy. Christmas songs literally wrap you around in a nice, warm, hug, and refuse to let go. Christmas is such a simple feeling, but it overpowers everything else. Now regardless of how that gets translated into music, that's the standard framework of a Christmas song, and the minute you deviate from that even a bit, you lose the Christmas. All of it.
I don't care if you want to add electric guitars (like Aly&AJ's "Greatest Time of the Year"), go all-out with synths and loops and the works (surprisingly, JYP Nation's "This Christmas"), make everything epic and waltz-y (a-la DBSK's "Winter Rose"), keep it to a bare minimum (Josh Groban's "Thankful), or even make it kinda reggae-ish (like the brilliant Nota a cappella version of "The Little Drummer Boy", complete with a RAP PART), bottom line is that it has to leave people warm and fuzzy.
With the SM Town album, I felt nothing. Nada. Zilch. The entire album sounded like a pop album released any time BUT the holidays, it sounds so clean, too clean almost, and Christmas is not a cleaning contest on who can use the most sanitized production, it’s a contest of who can make the most emotional, goosebump-inducing song. No feeling whatsoever, they all sound like robots. Don't get me wrong, there are gorgeous songs on this album, namely BoA's "Distance", that song is stunning, but they're just not Christmas. Let me put this nicely, even T-Ara's "O My God", which I'm not even sure if it's a Christmas song, sounds more like Christmas than this entire album put together.
Unlike your usual pop song which lasts for a few months before becoming completely irrelevant, when you release a Christmas song, the standard shelf life is forever. Yes, forever. For the good ones, at least. My Christmas playlist this year includes pop Christmas songs that were released as early as 1998. 98 Degrees, BSB, that staple *NSYNC "O Holy Night" 5-part a cappella arrangement, Blue's "Gift", Aly&AJ, and even the DBSK Christmas EP - they're all still relevant. That's because Christmas never grows old, and people will always have a need for a Christmas repertoire. Which is why no one should be surprised that the most familiar "classical" pieces are in fact the Christmas offerings.
In simpler terms, "2011 SMTOWN Winter: The Warmest Gift" is more novel than it is lasting. The arrangements are faddish, the over-all sound very current, but under those you have nothing that can transcend time and cement these songs as Christmas staples. In colloquial Filipino/Taglish, this album is a "one time big time", and does not have the lasting qualities of other, better, Christmas releases. And actually, some of the songs on this package sound more like they belong on the acts' respective albums, and not a CHRISTMAS-themed compilation.
Super Junior's "Santa U Are The One", excusing the horrid English on the chorus (Ear after ear? Seriously?), sounds like a pop song they just slapped some bells on, and some lyrics about happiness and Santa. That's it. It's SO Big Time Rush (but even BTR made a better Christmas song than SuJu)/One Direction ala-"What Makes You Beautiful". I mean it's an okay song, nice and happy and upbeat, and I'd probebly listen to it a lot if it were not for the "ear after ear", but that's all it will ever be, and that's not it's purpose. When I first heard this, I thought it sounded nothing like Christmas, as in nothing at all, but actually, after listening to the rest of the album, this is probably the song that's closest to getting what Christmas songs should be. But still not enough.
I hate the covers on this thing. I hate them. DBSK's "Sleigh Ride" is the biggest disappointment. Because seriously, we went from "Winter Rose" to this monstrosity. This is one of the rare instances that I will consent to a version in another language, because seriously, DBSK should've just done an English version of "Winter Rose". Now THAT is a song that can be milked for all it's worth, because it’s shelf life is literally forever. But no, they had to give DBSK a cheesy cover of "Sleigh Ride", that actually makes them sound sleazy, to be honest.
And really now, SHINee's "Last Christmas" has got to be one of the worst covers of one of the most cheesy, cheap Christmas songs ever released.
It was bad enough when Wham! did it, for heaven's sake. Then they SM-ify everything? Oh dear. The production is okay, and I kinda like the outer space-like synths, but you mix those with some of the most uninterested, boring and lazy vocals I've ever heard from SHINee and you have a disaster. I'm serious, they all sound bored out of their wits, which they probably were, and for once, I would've liked Jonghyun to go wild, because seriously, I fell asleep listening to this song, and not in the good way.
J-Min's cover of the John Lennon song "Happy X-Mas (War Is Over)" is okay, nothing special, and the girl has a nice voice, but once again, it sounds so uninspired. And boring.
As far as "The First Noel" covers go, DBSK win by light years. So I thought that since SM was behind their cover, the Jang Ri In verson would be really good too. Boy was I wrong. I like some parts of the arrangement, like the simple piano part, those gorgeous strings, and the drums, but you know what it sounds like as a whole, including that oriental-sounding instrument? It sounds like an American's attempt to make something "oriental", like "Ninja Assassin" or whatever. And that really disturbs me, because Jang Ri In is CHINESE, and SME is a KOREAN company. I don't get it, and don't think I ever will. To top it all off, like I said earlier, the vocals totally ruined the song. Totally. Why do you have to put all those unnecessary runs and strange vocal techniques into a song that's supposed to be nice, and quiet and simple then it's supposed to explode, but in the really big and tasteful way. Then Ri In just does a Christina/Mariah on it.
BoA's "Distance" is gorgeous, it really is. I love it and I'll probably be looping this for the next few days, but it's still not Christmas enough. "Distance" actually reminds me a lot of a Stacie Orrico/Young CCM-type song, in terms of treatment. The harmonies, and even the instrumentation, sound like something straight off Stacie Orrico’s self-titled album. Which is very, very, VERY far from Christmas. And that bugs me. There's a difference between "gorgeous pop song" goosebumps and "Christmas song" goosebumps, and the goosebumps I got this time were the "gorgeous pop song" ones. Basically, the only part of the song that made it remotely Christmas is the lyrics, and that's a foul. Which is such a shame because BoA has had some really amazing, really Christmassy, releases over the years, and even if "Distance" does match up in terms of gorgeousness, it fails at being Christmas. When you talk of BoA Christmas songs, "On December 27th" is still, hands-down, the best of them all, not even "Meri Kuri" comes close.
SNSD’s “Diamond”, and I'm not sure if I've ever used this analogy, but it kinda sounds like something that would fit right in to the Christmas talent show set list on "Mean Girls", you know, when the slutty, popular girls trying to sing and dance at the same time in skimpy Santa outfits and high heels? Maybe not that drastic, but the chorus is EXACTLY like that. However, the middle 8, and that small bit before it (which I presume is Sunny's part) is gorgeous. Stunning, almost. And actually, it's probably the most Christmas I've heard on the entire album, but then we go back to the uninspired chorus. It's not as boring as the SHINee track, but even for SNSD they can do better.
f(x)'s “1,2,3” also sounds nothing like a Christmas song, bar those strings which were probably just thrown in last-minute. It actually sounds more like the theme song for a FRIENDS rip-off, like, really. It sounds like it belongs on a Disney chick-flick soundtrack (Kinda like that song that's on the "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" soundtrack, which, conveniently, is also called "1,2,3"), not an SM Town Christmas album.
While we're on the topic of songs that sound like they belong elsewhere, CSJH (DANA&SUNDAY)'s "Amazing" sounds more like a charity single ala-Destiny Child's "Stand Up For Love". Pretty far from Christmas, if you ask me. Not that I oppose to Christmas ballads, but again, there's a way to do it without completely missing the point. And it's not that I don't like the song either, I do, it's gorgeous and Dana and Sunday's voices are stunning and the middle 8 kills me every single time, then by the time that stunning piano line comes in just before everything explodes with the chorus behind I die again, but yet again, THIS IS NOT CHRISTMAS. Same goes for Kangta's "For The First Time", Kangta's voice is stunning, but this sounds more like a Disney animated fairytale song that plays just when the prince is about to kiss the princess/girl. It actually sounds like something straight out of Aladdin. Again, pretty far from Christmas, if you ask me.
TRAX's "Like A Dream" sounds like what I kind of expected TRAX to do, but it's too clean, like they sucked all the emotion out of the song and left it to rot. In terms of "band"-ish K-Pop Christmas offerings, actually Infinite's "Lately" takes the prize. I'm sorry, TRAX, but this song sounds more like those tracks you put behind a montage of tour videos and screaming crowds and bands going wild on stage. All in back and white. And in reality, those tracks are usually the cheesiest, filler of filler tracks.
And, of course, a special Christmassy wrap-up: The most Christmassy song: Thankfully, "Santa U Are The One" The great, but not Christmassy songs: "Distance", "1,2,3", "Amazing" The worst song: "Last Christmas"
