I had two thoughts the first time I watched this: that I like it, and that I don't like it as much as I hoped I would.
        It's a solid release, but I'm not as in love with it as I am with some Beast songs. To me, Shadow looks too much like Soom but doesn't have the sharp-lined contrasts or the visual richness of the 2010 release. It also reminds me of Midnight, but I wasn't a huge fan of that release either. Shadow's set is much nicer than Soom's (or Midnight's for that matter), but there are definitely similarities, which makes me long for the spark that Soom has and Shadow does not. Especially in terms of choreography, where Soom's choreography was dramatic and eye-catching, instantly recognizable, Shadow's choreography is just kind of there. It's not the spectacle that it usually is in Beast releases and it definitely does have the attention grabbing impact it should, especially in a release without an active narrative. I mean really, Beast had epic choreography even in the Beautiful / I Like You Best promotions, and those MVs have a massively complicated, active plotline. Even Beautiful Night  had some slick moves. Now I haven't seen Shadow Live yet, but there's not much in the video to indicate that the live-choreography is going to be epic. There's a few snippets of interesting choreography, but nothing with the sort of show-stopping appeal or memorable pizzazz of most of Beast's past releases.
        Now, that's not to say Shadow isn't still cool. I love the tattoo/body-paint guy and the mirror-image split screens, particularly how they don't quite match up in certain places. Conceptually it's very cool and in a lot of ways, it pulls it off very well. There's drama in the set, the scale of things feels very grand and enveloping. The only visual aspect I have a problem with (aside from the choreography) is the lack of color. Shadow's desaturation is thematic, but it really drains away a lot of the visual interest when the desaturation is spread so evenly. I'd have liked it better it there was a balance, some scenes in the story being dark and drained of color, and some scenes being bright enough to give the darkened scenes some punch.
        Song-wise, Shadow is a very solid release. There's an impressive use of harmony, elegant counterpoint. The melody sits high in the listener's awareness but the smoothe synth and piano fill supports it well and the gritty beat keeps everything grounded. Rhythmically it slides along with a sort of smoothe regularity that's broken up by decorations that compound and lead the song to develop well. Over all, I really like the song, the MV too even.

        SS501 was one of my very first kpop loves, so Leader has a special place in my heart. And Jay, as an American, a nice guy, and an acquaintance of my ex-room-mate, also has a special spot. So clearly, I am biased when going at this one, but even so, I can review it objectively (after all, I'm a firm believer in the idea that liking something and thinking that it's genuinely good have absolutely nothing to do with one another). So with that said, this is a great release.
        The song is just more than mediocre, technically speaking. It's catchy as hell and I love it, great work out material and great to just listen to, it makes you feel strong and powerful and truly unbreakable. The beat is strong and fabulous, and the melody moves over it very well, giving a great illusion of space. Any song a SS501 member touches always has a great sense of scale and grandeur, so it's no surprise. But the song's construction is pretty simple, three sections that repeat, minimal growth and build, very little panning. It does play in thematically, being that the song's pretty much about being beat on over and over again and yet being entirely unbreakable. The melody moves along beautifully, but there's very little evolution. However there is tremendous harmonic interest and counterpoint contrast to make it swing out in grand sweeping gestures of sound. I enjoy it greatly.
        Jay's vocals play well with HyunJoong's and all is well with the world.
        The music video is fabulous. I LOVE the way in which tradition is shown right alongside the cutting edge. It's all the idea of the warrior and strength from past to present and on, how Awesome doesn't have a time frame or a life expectancy. Awesome just IS. The Arts are all integrated and wonderfully so, the painting, the drumming, the martial arts, the dancing, the singing, the rapping, it's all woven together in a beautiful stitch of EPIC. I'm not a fan of the almost military haircut on Leader, it looks really odd to me. The choreography works pretty well with the nature of the MV, there's nothing particularly special about it on it's own, but the fight-style of it makes it link up fantastically with the sword-play and whatnot. Besides, Leader looks awesome doing it. The sets are are really cool, and the props and stylings. The red-black-white color-scheme makes me happy because it's awesome on a lot of different levels, a trinity of colors that goes back centuries and has permeated through almost every culture on earth at least once in the course of history. Besides, it just looks cool. Like the red-light rain scene, that just looks awesome. It could also be an allusion to the red light district, being that there's a general assumption that a-rate unbreakable bad-asses hang out there. The use of time scales (the slow-mo and sped-up parts in contrast to the real-time portions) is fantastic, every transition is well timed and thematically linked to both the visual and the audio presented.
        I highly approve!

        Ailee is a spectacular singer, she really has some of the best pipes in the industry at the moment. And her vocals are strong and smoothe and sassy. In this MV she shows her stuff, the song suits her well. The brass section makes a great addition, brass does not work with everyone's voice but it works great with Ailee's. It's great song overall too, the beat moves it forward, the lyrics hold the melody up and the vocals wash over the listener with the sassy roll. Great use is made of harmonic spatialization, and the harmony's inclusion and placement (as in opposition to the sections that use reverb or delays)  well delineates the sections in an interesting way.
        The MV is pretty good. There's a lot of old-world Hollywood glamour and lounger-singer sass in it. I love the backdrops and stages, and the styling is great. I especially love this hair color on her for some reason (I also just really like this hair color, period, but I do think it works especially well for her). I'm not a huge fan of the choreography, most of the MV doesn't have any at all and the parts that do make me really want to see more. There is something to be said for saving the show for the Lives, but without a plotline to watch, the cuts of Ailee just standing about looking gorgeous don't feel entirely warranted. The choreo is worked into the plotline of the song, not overwhelmingly so but it definitely is, and that makes me feel that the choreo is the more interesting thing to watch.
        Finally, a lot of people have been comparing her to Beyonce, calling her Korea's version. I can see some of the reasoning behind it, she is definitely a Queen in her own right and she's done great covers of Beyonce's songs. At the same time, I see much more of Christina Aguilera in her. There's a certain bright and brassy tone in her voice that I feel matches Ailee's better than Beyonce's and Christina's predisposition to old-school Holly-Glam seems much more akin to Ailee than Beyonce's showstopping diva thing. Listening to this in close conjunction with the Moulin Rouge OST (particularly Lady Marmalade) might have something to do with my thoughts.
        Anywho, solid release, great vocals on a great track with a great MV. ^_^

        Jrock usually gets the short end of the creative stick when it comes to MVs and this is no real exception, but even so it's beautifully done. The effects were very genre-typical so I'm excusing them almost entirely. The setting plays thematically into the whole concept, especially the couch that's too big for one person but not quite large enough to fully fit two. Lily is quite the tragic song.
        The MVs silent opening bothered me, but it is the industry standard. The camera angle was lovely. And the first notes filter in fabulously. The synth and the warped guitar . . . *shivers* so great. The cuts as the song picks up are are well done. And the visual transitions are very elegant. The styling is all gorgeous, they ALL look fantastic. The looks are edgy and elegant and the distressed lighting keys up on it even more. The lighting also plays into the lyrics. (Also, in case you don't know, Lillies are the quintessential flower to represent Death. They're not fun-spring-day allusions. In at least a dozen cultures around the world, Lillies are foreboding and tragic, either giving solace in Death or forewarning of it . . .).
        Lyrically, it's gorgeous and truly tragic (I mean really: 'worse than the feeling lonely is the morning I'll forget you'). The vocals move well through the melody and the melodic structure evolves with the sort of elegance that can only be reasonably expected when Jrock is concerned. The panning of the different instruments give the song a great feeling of space-filled and the keening melodies each instrument independently follows create a beautiful sense of discordant longing and emptiness. Truly fantastic.
        DIAURA is still pretty new to the jrock scene, but they clearly deserve to be here.

I've been holding off reviewing this one for a little while, because I've been struggling to articulate my thoughts on it.

First off, the SONG! Aish, that truly lives up to the title. It's absolutely incredible. It moves, it builds, it plays with rhythm and counterpoint and harmonic relationships, it flows over a solid and complicated beat. The synths all interact beautifully and Quincy's feature fits in nicely. It's a beautiful song, fantastic to rock out to and it will always leave you breathless . . .

But the MV . . . I'm not a fan. The styling is weird in a way I'm not fond of. Xiah can pull off anything, he's really so gorgeous that it's unfair to try to judge how he looks because even dressed like some sort of soccer-player from an 80's cartoon he looks fabulous. But I'm not too keen on the others in the video, they just feel . . . off to me. And the choreography just feels so . . . American. That's the closest I can come to describing it. The moves play with the words, but aren't really connected, the lines are all sexy but not really intriguing or unique. Honestly I think it's most comparable to something like an old exercise video. The whole MV was too . . . flashy, I suppose you could call it. The over-abundance of cuts wasn't made thematically excusable, there was no real reason for most of them, and there was no real pattern to them. It was all just "look here, look there" with no spark to make us want to look where we were being told to . . .

The song itself rocks. I LOVE it. I'd give that a 9 easy, but since this is an MV review . . . the song only counts for a small portion of the results, and as it is . . . the MV just isn't doing it for me.

Straight up, this is not my favorite B.A.P release. I suppose expecting something as epically fantastic as One Shot would lead anyone to frown at what's been served up, but even so, this release is really sub-par for them. They were Rookies of the Year last year for a damn good reason and One Shot proved they deserved it. Coffee Shop was meh, but I've gotten used to their pattern of Epic->Okay->Epic, so I was expecting Epic. I did not receive Epic.

The main beat rides well, it feels like it could easily measure up, but the track never really takes off. The MVs cuts follow the intro well, increasing the hopeful anticipation, but it also reveals all the styling for this round of promotions . . . styling that I am none too fond of. The Gold Outfits are cool, and the Suits are fabulous, but sweaters . . . yeah, not a fan. Once the verse kicks in (and the suits are shown in full glory), it really feels like Hurricane could be fantastic: the Verse is really quite fabulous, there's great meter-play, interesting melodic movement, fantastic harmonic stretch, and vocal transitions timed perfectly to generate interest. And then the chorus comes up . . . and it's boring. The little break down has zero vocal interest, and the melodic flutter that follows is really just there without demanding attention or releasing tension or anything at all . . . and then the "the roof is on fire bit" ... not a fan. First of all, it's terribly over used. And secondly, I thought they were saying the 'Louvre' (they're in Vegas after all, there's a mock up there). I actually preferred 'the Louvre', because it was funny. As an over used idiom . . . it's pretty blah. The dance break was entirely unnecessary. It breaks the flow of the song and disrupts it for no good reason, the whole MV has been showing off that they can dance, we get the idea. I will say that the "turn it up" accellerando bit was pretty cool, but it's not enough to warrant the dance break.

As a whole, the MV is meh. It's just flash and some dance moves, no real elegance in its design. Some of the cuts are skillfully done, but the flashing between day and night was just tragic. It could have been used thematically, to induce a greater sense of time-gap and drama. The MV that first comes to my mind that utilizes that same concept is Hyuna's BubblePop. I think Infinite's done it once or twice as well. But really, it could have been awesome. And instead it's just . . . blah.

In short, I'm not a fan of this release, not at all.

        The traditional idea of "Cute" is typically the exact opposite of strong. I've never understood that rendering. And that is why I like BESTie's debut. It's a very cutesy concept, the flutter of a heart in the midst of a crush and the MV is very bright and their looks are clean and simple. And yet, the song is not weak or soft, it doesn't give an inch. It's got a powerful melodic current and a kicking beat undertow. Strong vocals that have huge potential (despite the bits of heavy auto tune) and are beautifully polished for rookies. The song moves fabulously, it's catchy as hell, and makes good use the different vocals. The lyrics are simple and cutesy enough for a cute concept, but are forceful and demanding enough to show that these girls will take action to get their crush into their arms.
        The MV is fabulous. It plays off the cute image to generate a sexy sporty yet still adorable thing, an idea of cute that is not so innocent. The choreography reinforces that and works beautifully with the song. So smoothe and so sexy, and yet perfectly suitable to show a little sister.
        In short, I LOVE this.
        This is the sort of innovation I like to see, taking two concepts (cutesy clean and sassy strong) and slamming them together into something that's brand new and really works. Hello Venus was another group that managed this for a debut, but they've disappointed me since. I'm very hopeful that BESTie will be able to pull off what Hello Venus didn't manage. They certainly have the potential to do it!

The styling is fabulous. First thing I noticed was that dang they look good. It's quirky and interesting but not so outrageous that it wouldn't fly in the real world and I love it! I'm not a huge fan of blonde-Dara, and especially not of blonde-pigtail-Dara, but she still looks good.

The second thing I noticed was the interesting mix of reggae and hiphop. I wish they'd pushed it more towards the reggae side, the hiphop is cool and all, but they've done it before and it feels more like they've just mashed the genres together rather than giving one an interesting twist. Bom and Minzy's voices are fantastically well suited to reggae, & I would LOVE to see a duet track from them in the genre! CL's rap is definitely linking back to the Baddest Female, which I can understand, but still, it's unnecessary. She hasn't been gone long enough to warrant such a strong link to an 'old' promotion and it almost felt like Falling in Love was just a continuation of her solo promo and the other girls just happened to be there. What prevented that is her complete lack of singing lines. The throw to Fire was good, that is an old promotion that really is fun to pull back up, the Baddest Female doesn't have that nostalgia yet. The song itself is pretty good, the verses are actually pretty fabulous, but the rap breaks are a bit too much. Dara's raps are actually better than CL's because they suit the atmosphere of the song whereas CL are definite breaks. Also, the bass is WAY too heavy, it muddles the higher lines because of harmonic interference. It suits CL's raps, but that's it and those should be tossed or changed anyway.

My one other problem with it is that the choreography feels completely unrelated to the the track. I like the touch me sections, those make sense, and Minzy's second verse (around 1:50-ish) almost does too (and CL's 2nd separate rap), but for the most part it felt like I was watching an MV on mute with itunes running a different song. It just doesn't mesh well at all.

I still like the song and the concept and we've been promised more 2NE1 tracks in the near future, so I'm hopeful.