First of all, I like how this genre uses his voice; it makes good use of the sweet-sounding airiness, supports him beautifully on the high notes, and adds a mellow undertone to his lows. Our strong baby has certainly grown up with this one. The whole of the track is much more sophisticated than any of his previous solo work, though it does trend toward a more simple structure than BigBang puts out as a unit. The MV is far artsier than any of SeungRi's other solo as well. Personally, I like VVIP better, but hey I also like the SyFy show it was more or less plagiarizing as well.
This one has some really nice camera effects and use of lighting and reflection and shadow to very effectively generate a cool & distant mood amid the warm sounds of the acoustic guitar. At length I do think that the artsiness of the reflections does get to be more of a distraction than the effective tool they start out as, but it's an interesting stab  at a unique cinematic device.

Also, SeungRi looks good in this video; suave and classy, smoothe and sexy, and everything he's been trying to be forever, he's finally captured the idea he's been grasping at for years and he did it very well. None of it feels over the top or ridiculous, and the same smoldering looks he's been utilizing for years have finally clicked perfectly into place here, he's finally learned to use them in just the right way. I'm not a huge fan of the choreography, it's pretty straight forward and rather more "pretty-boy popstar" than "Kpop all-kill" but SeungRi can make it work well enough. Downsides, there is no detailed cinematic story-line, the artsy imagery covers the choreo, and the dance isn't even all that spectacular to begin with . . . so it really can't score very high, regardless of the fact that I like it.

Trackwise, it's very well balanced and spatialized, his voice is utilized well and mixed perfectly into the melodic structure, gaining support where he needs it and rising above where he can shine. The vamps are spectacular, there's an ever so slight BPM boost as we swing into the chorus and it's just lovely to listen to. Lyrically it's okay, I'm not a huge fan of the chorus, but I like the melodic-rhythmic-interplay elements it makes use of as it drops down well over an octave and the verses pack in what meaning is lacking in the chorus. And then the way the bridge lets the pounding bass fall away, but pushes up the tension by having the piano playing double-time and letting it all echo away into the lower frequencies . . . *shivers* THAT is how a bridge is supposed to feel, not like it hits you, but like suddenly you've run out of sidewalk and are hanging in the air about to fall. I do wish the return was a bit more dramatic, so that you do feel a fall before you slide back into the verse, but the way it's done here an admirable sliding of support back under your feet in almost an apologetic manner (like "we're sorry we didn't have a sign about the road coming to an end, here have some more and we'll pretend this never happened"...). The song does have build and evolution, but it doesn't feel like you really get anywhere with it. Perhaps if the chorus had more to it, if that part could evolve along with the rest of the track . . . because as it is, the movement isn't really felt, even though it is there . . . at least not until the 'end' when the dubstep thing ramps up. I honestly LOVED that part, but I did wish that some of the artsiness would have cleared away, that the vamp wasn't quite as strung out as it is, and that it didn't just slide back into the feel of the chorus . . . even so, great track.

The clock element is great, the sound plays into the lower harmonics of the song fantastically and the visceral response that most people have to the sound sound of a ticking clock generates instant tension. It makes for a great intro and a dramatic start to the song and the story, especially with the wind-up.

The choreography is absolutely gorgeous, very sexy, very allusive to bedroom pursuits, and yet it manages to avoid the cliche crassness that a lot of sexy-concept dances fall into. The movements show off SunMi's fabulous flexibility in addition to her fabulous figure. And I LOVE how the guys also have the intricate hand-motions in their choreography. A lot of people think it looks girly, but I think that's a stupid stereotype because these guys look awesome and I'd love to see more guys take one the delicate, gymnastic, air of movement in their dances. Also, Ballet and Tango and all sorts of other 'feminine' dances are seriously under-utilized, they look awesome when used well and Kpop choreographers have the skill to use them well..

The styling is great. The stripped leo is first of all just gorgeous, and it also shows off her body and her exceptional legs perfectly without making it feel too over the top, particularly as a lot of the choreography's movement have links to gymnastics. The men's dress shirt segments are also gorgeous. First of all, I like the look of a girl wearing an oversized men's dress shirt, I think it just looks cool, but beyond that it also ties closely into the song's meaning. I was concerned by the teasers in regards to the washed-out hair-color, but honestly it works here. First of all SunMi is gorgeous and can pull off just about anything, but really, the washed-out hair-color just works here, thematically speaking. The song is about there not being enough hours in the day when the lovers are together, and the hair color's lack of up-keep shows an acute side effect of not having enough hours to do everything that ought to get done.

The settings are all fabulous, the curtains are fantastic and make for a subtle contrast to the striped leo (the outfit being horizontal stripes and the curtains forming pseudo-vertical ones, and the rain scene plays into the over all color scheme beautifully. The camera tricks are all very well done, particularly the playing with time in the slo-mos and reversals, and the speedy-shot segments (though frankly if they hadn't played with time in this MV it would have been a massive error). My favorite camera-trick is the scene at about 1:42, where the "horizontal on the bed" position is compared to the "vertical in choreography" position and the image flicks back and forth between the two. It's disorienting in all the right ways.

Tack-wise, the song is nicely intense. The Bridge feels a bit jarring, and rather extraneous, but the visual during that part is really quite awesome, so I wouldn't recommend a removal, at least from the video version. The song really doesn't evolve much, it never takes the listener anywhere, but in some ways that does work with the lyrics. I think it could have been made to move better, but it's a fairly well balanced track with a good, if simple, structure: over all it's a great dance track with a lovely sound for the genre.

Well, I love the little intro piece. It's a very personable way to put the members personalities into the MV without having them break character. I think it's a great way to delineate between the MV available for purchase and the one up for YouTube promotion (being that the one you pay for skips the intro & comes with it and some other BTS footage as a separate file). I also like the silent singing at :15, that was cute.

The styling for this one is interesting, but low key enough to be passable on the street. The sets are all pretty cool, albeit a bit distracting, but they're active enough to keep everything interesting. The choreography has a few funny moments, and some cool moves, but for the most part it's nothing terribly special.

Musically, it's really nice. It's well spatialized and beautifully harmonized. The little dub-step dance break was entirely unnecessary and it didn't mesh well with the rest of the track. Same goes for the first rap, it just doesn't sit right in the song. The second rap sits very well, exposing very plainly how out of place the first rap and the dance break really is. The one thing I do like about it is that it's mixed up the standard song structure, putting the dance break before the first chorus is unique and rather refreshing.

This is a great summer time release. Both singers have light vocals that rest easily over the acoustic guitar sounds of the fill, and each melodic element compliments the others. Lyrically, it's a very sweet sentiment and that makes it into the video very well, being that the lovers behave like romantic partners, siblings, and best friends to varying degrees at every turn. I'm not terribly fond of the way that the son ends, seeing as it sort of just stops, but the rest of it moves beautifully and is well balanced.

The MV is adorable, very nicely done with a cute summery story that perfect for a last hurrah to the summer season. The styling is clean and simple and all of the events in the story are suitably sweet; adorable to watch and cute to contemplate. And it's just plain fun, the whole cast looks like they're having a blast and a viewer can't help but to smile at it, joining vicariously.

Melodically, this track is a lovely low-key swirl of smoothe vocals, strong under melodies in the instrumental, and great harmonic swings. It moves inside the instrumental, keeping the energy up without making tension pile up.

The styling is great, classy and not over the top. The choreography is pretty basic, but it's worked into the track and the video very well, subtly influencing the impactfulness of certain slides in the melody and visuals flashing across the screen. The split-screens are very nicely done, showing both distance and nearness in the same shot, and calling on the notion of 'feeling alone in crowded room', as well as impotence, jealously, and mutual circumstance. There's also the idea that this keeps happening to him and that it's unendingly frustrating, as displayed in about 5 seconds in single scene of split screens instead of in 20 seconds over multiple repetitions. Very well done.

In all I like the song and the MV's really sweet, in addition to being well-made.

Phantom's latest track is absolutely beautiful. The vocals are flawless, the mix balances everything perfectly. The harmonic lines fill out the whole thing in a building sense of space, & it curls sweetly around the listener with warm undertones and crisp high notes. The sections are well timed, the perfect Goldilocks middle ground of not too long but long enough to feel solid, sure, and steady. The bridge sweeps out from under you, but gently enough so it doesn't feel like your falling. Rather, when the beat kicks back in, it feels like a conspiratorial smile and then being pulled off by the hand.

And then there's the lyrics. The sweetness in them is something that can't possibly be overlooked by any sane person. It's entirely pan-cultural, too. In the West the notion of 'I Know' is usually thought of as a reference to StarWars, but that's not it. There a reason that line is so sexy, so viscerally appealing. It goes deeper into the human consciousness, the human condition. Being understood on that kind of a level just feels good. And Phantom brings that idea to the table beautifully here. First of all there's the notion of just understanding another person without needing words to make the connection possible. And secondly, there's the promise that the boys of Phantom know and return the feelings of their fans. More than that even, they take the voiceless understanding even further, by saying that not only to they understand their fans' feelings (and the metaphorical girl's) they know that she/we already know; that it goes without saying that we all understand each other on such a deep level that words are entirely unnecessary.

As for the video itself, as I've said, it's pretty standard fare for a BTS video. Phantom is cute and sweet and serious about their work, but the fact that this video is BTS, instead of a story, implies beyond any doubt that the meaning of the song's 'girl' is the fans. It's implicit, just like the song is talking about. We understand that the single lover than Phantom is singing about is actually the fans in general, and they know that we'll be able to figure that out. Honestly, the fact that this video is BTS and not a story, that it connects like it does to the song . . . it's beautifully done and sweeter than any story they could have put to this track.

I can't give it too many bonus points, because it really doesn't have a story, and without the track behind it, the MV is nothing special at all, but it definitely gets a few because the decision to make it a BTS vid was a very conscious one and one that turned out better than any story would have.

        In case anyone else is late to the party, I'm putting my review under the cut to hide any spoilers. The short of it is that this was a pretty good series. I DO recommend watching it. JunHyung is fabulous, Ha YeonSoo is freakin adorable, and Kang HaNeul is pretty smoothe himself. And the music . . . well, the music is pretty much perfect.

The cartoon flip-book is adorable and the acoustic guitar is lovely. This track and MV follows the lines of what I would have expected for his debut much more closely than Wild and Young. I think I would have liked this one better as his very first release because you can really feel the power he is able to put behind his vocals.

All of the settings in this are gorgeous, really wherever they filmed this is a fabulous place. My only complaint about them at all was that the flowers in gazebo scene block our view of his guitar playing (and of the guitar in general, which is a shame because it looks like a beautiful instrument). I really like the time progression idea of that setting though, and we do get a few good looks at the guitar as the MV rolls along.

Story-wise the MV is cute and heartbreakingly adorable in all the right ways. I love how they have her actually say the quotes in the song, that is a very cute technique and one surprisingly under utilized. All in all it's very cute. It's pretty uneventful, but it does well to expand upon the song's lyrics which are beautifully sweet and specific. Musically, it builds, it's got pretty good harmonies, the song's form is simple but the sections are well delineated; it's a very sweet song. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's still a well made track. There's no real oomph behind it, no spark or sweeping rush to really get your heart pounding like the lyrics say the narrator's is . . . Still, good track, good release over all.

First off, accordions are seriously underutilized these days. Accordions rock. And the accordion that starts this MV off gets the ball rolling with an echo of romanticism. We get a look at the sets and of the boys as the beat kicks in. I love the explosions being triggered over her bed, because it's hard to tell if they're meant to be a hint of destruction or of magic. ZE:A's one of those under-rated bands that I'm glad has managed to stick around. They had a good year last year, so hopefully this will ensure that 2013 is good to them too. The Day We Broke Up isn't bad, but it's not the strongest thing they've ever put out.

I love their styling, very real-world suave. My one issue with it is that even though they all look awesome, they also all look very similar so it's hard to drag new people into the fandom on a bias-basis, or to help new people figure out who's who. They're also not put individually on sets that stand out dramatically from each other, though to some degree, the continuity aspect of the MV is thematically fabulous. All of the ZE:A boys are the narrator, the every-man that she can't see in the lyrics. Also the choreography has them in a two-tiered line for a lot of it, so you can't even just say 'the one in front right now is Hyungshik'. Other than that the choreography is pretty cool, the MV doesn't capture all of it's awesomeness though. I suppose there's something to be said for saving the best moves for the Lives, but the MV doesn't feel nearly as grand as the Live performances look. Sure, there's a few good moves in the MV, but the Live choreo is phenomenal.

Song-wise, it's fabulous. The use of the accordion was unusual enough, but they decided to take it to an entirely different level with the throw at Gregorian Chant sounds. They really took me by surprise, and yet they work perfectly with the established sound (though honestly Gregorian Chants are epic enough to work with anything). Also, the long white costumes make a throw to the time period Gregorian Chants originate from, so bonus points for continuity. The string sounds littered throughout the piece give it a fabulous vibrancy, lifting the main line up to settle smoothely in the boys' upper ranges (which makes the deeper chant sections stand out all the more). Between the strings and vocal lines, the song is incredibly active. The bridge isn't spectacular, it seems to really just be stuck in there because songs need to have bridges; the chants should have been more a feature of focus, the beat should have dropped out, one high voice should have risen dramatically above it all . . . as it is, it's still nice, but not incredible. But it's catchy and I love it.