The idea of moving pictures and a frozen real-life is a fabulous one and here it's been brilliantly pulled off. The MV is absolutely gorgeous and the track is as well. YeRi's voice is gorgeous and it sits neatly inside the song, which has been beautifully spatialized to envelope listeners. The track builds beautifully, drawing up the angst and tension as the story evolves. It draws to a gorgeous release and even gives listeners a few breaths to calm down with before coming to a sweet and smoothe cadence. Beautifully done.

        Though, I'm not exactly sure what I apparently was hoping for, because this is pretty dang flawless. Sweet shisus the styling is good, sexy and sensual and yet not just skin-showing (though there's definitely a lot of skin, it's all shown as a secondary sex-factor. Honestly, the hair-porn in this MV is the main feature of sexiness in my opinion.) As for the choreography, there were a few moves I could have done without: the slide on the floor was just a bit too, yeah, but even that was actually utilized quite tastefully. The rest of it is absolutely gorgeous: I love how well they made use of all four of them in most of the shot, showing off different angles and making use of their even number of members to create great mirror shots.
        I also love how all the visuals tie in together, the drip of Min's shower scene bleeds into Fei's flooded domestic setting, Fei on her chair as mimicking Suzy sitting on the train, and Suzy's flickering light and candy, linking to Jia's supermarket scene. We move from the intensely private sphere of the shower to the utterly public sector of the store as we follow the MV's progression and the micro/macro-scale comparison is beautiful. I also really like how it sticks to having each member sing inside her own set, the one she was first introduced in. And it's just gorgeous how these set-ups allude to various insecurities: Min as vulnerable, in a place where it's supposedly safe to bare her soul and yet not bare (honestly I think the fact that she's not naked, and therefore symbolically still has her secrets, makes a more powerful statement of insecurity than if she were actually naked; it's like saying that she can't bare everything out, even if she genuinely wanted to); Fei as drowning in domesticity, the pressures of simply being happy and normal as things that can feel utterly unbearable at certain moments; Suzy as the little girl lost and alone and feeling like she's only pretending to be a grown-up (I know a TON of people feeling this sort of angst at the moment, college is a crazy place to try to find yourself in); and Jia as the utterly objectified, the sex-symbol left forgotten in the store after all the goods have been ransacked (this could be a metaphor saying either that after sex {the store's ransacking} she's nothing but a decoration, or that in a disaster that would result in food being stolen, she doesn't count as something vital enough to be taken. Both are legitimate fears, similar and yet ever so slightly, and importantly, different).
        I think it's fantastically interesting that instead of using the video's plot to hold a straightforward "put insecurities on display and then dispel them" sort of storyline, the video goes into an idea of something almost entirely unrelated. The blatant sexual desires of the narrator sort of address the insecurity issues, being that she is a fully human creature, a grown woman with wants and needs and therefore also fears. These fears of being made into something less than a fully competent and independent entity are only addressed by means of a slant in world-view, as a mature and competent independent woman who knows her body and desires, it would suggest that she has nothing to fear in her insecurities. But interestingly, it also opens up the idea that both the confidence and the fears can exist at exactly the same moment as different layers, often overlapping layers as well, in the complex creature that is the human female. This idea is added to by the fact that the title font for Hush is a ripple on water that never fully levels out, it's a surface eternally worried and marked by some invisible past event that settled below the surface; she is both perfectly fine and also forever changed. It's a statement that's unfortunately rare in most spheres of pop-culture. I like it.
        And then there's the track itself. Sweet Shisus it's gorgeous! The build is incredible. The acoustic start, the tense, whispery beginning feeling deeply of secrets being told or kept and fears being tamped down or wants being confessed to . . . the clear vocals and the distorted rebound of the delay as it travels ear to ear with expert panning controlled to elicit anxiety . . . the sly addition of the sub-bass beat level making everything stretch just a little bit further, like it's someone pushing boundaries or reaching out for something vital and intangible . . . Aigoo, it makes an audiophile squirm with glee. I LOVE it.
        All in all, this is easily one of the sexiest releases of the year, particularly by a girl group. I love the unflinching honesty in it, the daring to go a little grunge without going gangster . . . It might even be my favorite female comeback of 2013; it's at least in the running for it!

              Chief among them being about what on earth actually happened between JaeJoong and this girl. According to the Lyrics, she's playing with him, and he hates her for it, but it doesn't seem like there's any particular reason for his hatred other than a very vague reference to her lies . . . I mean we don't see/hear about her as cheating on him or anything. Really it seems like rather than a fight & break up this is really just a falling out of love . . . The lyrics support that idea as well, being that she hasn't yet said goodbye or anything, he just wants her too. In some ways, I think it could be a pretty powerful statement (assuming the 'everything is my fault' idea isn't a sarcastic rehashing of an argument): being that he's fallen out of love because he hates himself and it's uncomfortable being happy, so he his mind just clicks into overdrive and makes him assume she's lying and doing terrible things and he manages to convince himself that he's really not happy with her, despite all evidence to the contrary. I really hope that it's a case of self-loathing, and not just a regular plain-old falling out of love, because if it is as simple as the latter implies, then this is a massively out of proportion reaction (like not just over the top, but actively unhealthy). In terms of video support for this theory, really all there is can be summed up as he's happy and then he's not. All his angsty alone scenes feel very internal and because of that I'd believe that all of it is inside his head.
              Other than the fact that I have no idea what's going on, I LOVE this MV. Kim JaeJoong is easily one of the most gorgeous people in all of Entertainment and he knows how to make himself appear to his utmost advantage. He's a very dramatically visual being and he ties in a uniquely vivid body language to everything he does. There's a very clear transition between the scenes when he's happy and then faking it and then down-right depressed, and it's absolutely gorgeous to watch. My main complaint is just that I have no idea what's really going on, there's not enough concrete evidence to really hold any given theory afloat, the MV fixates on the mental / emotional reaction rather than plot (which is fine and dandy in some situations, but I really would like to know why he's so upset). The MV's use of color is very interesting, the cooler tones reflecting a cold heart and all, with some scenes being devoid of color and therefore symbolically without feeling or emotion. The brightest color in the whole video comes from the flare at the end, bright red and burning hot, more like anger than passion which is perfectly fitting for the MV's idea of devolved and disfigured love.
              Song-wise, I absolutely adore this track. It's gorgeous. Without a doubt, it's one of JaeJoong's best. It has a very J-rock feel (like a lot of the other tracks on this album), and yet it works with JaeJoong's voice, complimenting it as it is. By that, I mean it doesn't fall into the trap that Mine did; where the feel of the song and that of the voice don't mesh together nicely. JaeJoong tried to change his voice to match the music and it just felt strained in the choruses. For Just Another Girl, JaeJoong worked with his vocal timbre in its natural state, letting it sit back in his throat and come out strong and smoothe. The track is incredibly well-composed. It's balanced beautifully; it moves over the beat and builds to a delicious climax before sighing away. The use of echo and delay, of what some might call excessive reverb, and of double-tracking and a redoubled choral effect in making the song's ideas of being trapped in an endless cycle of broken hearts compound for the listener is absolutely wonderful! As a whole, it's stunning and I love it!

        U-Kiss is known for their continually flip-flopping musical styles. They're certainly one of Kpop's most flexible groups, but a lot of non-KissMe's criticize them for inducing musical whiplash. I personally love their ever-evolving style, even as I like some releases more than others. She's Mine is a great track and has a fabulous MV.
        I'll admit that it does get dangerously close to the unfortunate girls-as-props trope, but the use isn't so excessive that it's unbearable (though it isn't the most comfortable depiction, either, despite the fact that the girls are never depicted in color, as the other objects in the video are {ie the gold statues, the Rolls, & the shoes}, save for their make-up, which is depicted as an affectation of glamour more than fem-objectivity, and besides that, they're gorgeous and hella hot as they move). The styling is fabulous, Kiseop's whole existence in this video is just straight up unfair (I'm a bit biased, but I'm not the only one who found Kiseop to have been styled in a particularly attractive manner, tumblr was all up in arms about it). The choreography is fantastic, hilariously 'hip-hop' and yet totally legit at the same time. I love the black and white, it adds beautifully to the idea of possession and objectification present in the lyrics, though I don't understand the shoe thing: I get why the motorcycle is in color, and the Rolls Royce, and all the gold statuary, but the shoes? I mean I guess they could be considered an affection of expense and luxury, but I think Kevin's bright yellow things are really pushing it . . . *shrugs* It still works.
        The track itself it great fun. It successfully slides through hiphop and rap and easily into perfectly traditional Kpop pre-chrouses, mixing the two styles in the actual choruses, and then hoping back to the hiphop without a breath. Melodically speaking, it doesn't actually move very much at all, but rhythmically speaking it's fabulously dynamic. The spatialization is subtle, almost too subtle for my tastes, but well pulled-off to create an active atmosphere for the song to inhabit. I quite like it.

        It's great fun, the girls all look absolutely glorious, the choreo's fun and flirty, all the sets are lovely and the scenes are all hilarious. The track if equally fun, it moves really well and is spatialized nicely. It doesn't really build though, or go anywhere in the end. And for some reason it's simply not very catching. There's no oomph to it, no real power, and none of the niggling stuck-in-your-head giddy gooiness that SNSD songs have proved over and over again to be able to have. There's a ton of interesting rhythmic and melodic elements, and they're all stitched together beautifully, I mean it doesn't really feel like a patchwork song . . . but it also doesn't feel like the powerhouse phenomenon of past releases. It's been growing on me, certainly. And I love having it in my playlist. It does just about everything right, I just don't really like it.
        The video gives me similarly mixed feelings. It's gorgeous. But it looks like a patchwork, like SM just took the coolest elements of every SNSD MV ever released (and some put out by other girl groups held in the hearts of the fans of Femme K-Pop). It's all fun and pretty, but none of it really seems to have a point, none of it moves the story forward in anything but the barest sense. And really, what actually happens in the story, they take this guy and torture him for a song and then zap him him and make him forget it all? Not much zing there, really. It's really quite lovely to look at, but that's about it; a nice background visual. The choreography is fabulous, though again it lacks any of the really powerfully memorable elements that SNSD should rightfully whip out effortlessly.

        Okay, so I'm clearly not a raging feminist, or rather an actively campaigning feminist (because feminazism is a not a real thing and frankly the idea is rather disgusting), but I do have standards. This doesn't quite violate any of them, but it gets really close to crossing lines by more or less reinforcing the stereotypes of rape-culture. I mean really, that girls don't understand their sexual urges, but all men do and coercively arrange things for their own sexual gratification? Really? "I don't know, I don't know, it's the first time for me, it's only natural for you, but I don't know..." and "meeting only at night, 'it's like that for adults', I don't know" . . . yeah, kinda creeper-y there. & the sweater thing . . .  sweet shisus that was creepy, like 'what the hell is this guy trying to do?' creepy. And yet, at the same time, it's playing with those stereotypes, the girl exploits the distraction she poses to win the video game, and she seems to just be acting oblivious to watch him squirm... but still, it's just not kosher in my book. The nursery rhyme elements and the creeper-deep voice that chimes in now and then just make it feel very uncomfortable; very childlike and like he's ruining her innocence (which is an entirely different level of creep-tastic . . . ).
        On the other hand, I LOVE everything else about this release. The track is flawless. It's catchy and quick-witted and it moves beautifully combining elements I would have have thought could work. It slides from the verses to the chorus with grace and then into the rap with an elegant flip of meter that's jaw-droppingly straightforward and then it magically cants right back into the chorus. It's spatialized beautifully, the parts are well-balanced and well-mixed so that the vocals sit neatly inside the track and nothing feels stretched. Seriously, the only complaint I have at all about the track (aside from the lyrics) is that it ends without a cadence. One more note, really bum bum BUM (I know you can hum what I want in your head, it's a cadence, it's a human need for that last note . . .).
        The choreography rocks, the styling is gorgeous, the sets are beautiful and have just that little touch of christmasiness to make it charmingly holiday... it's really a great release. Were it not for the humanist defender of all, including female-kind in me, I'd easily throw a 9 at this, without question. But being what it is . . .

        I loved seeing their more or less overlapping lives, their perfectly compatible mornings, their not-quite entirely opposite afternoons, they way them come back together at the end . . . Sad MVs with happy endings are some of my favorites. I enjoyed the styling, though not the fashion was my favorite, they looked good. I dunno, I'm just not a huge fan of the sweater over a button-up look, I get J.C. Crew flashbacks. Anywho, the story progresses cutely, making everything very easy to understand and connecting all the dots.
        Track-wise, I like it. K.Will's voice is flawless, it has such interesting harmonics; mainly low tones that have been smoothely pushed into a high register. The song evolves over the course of the track, but there's nothing very catching in it. The melody is nice to have running through your head, but it's not the sort of earworm that'll slide in and never leave. I definitely enjoy it and it's a lovely comeback.

        F.Cuz is one of the most under-rated, and under-represented, bands out there. They have so much potential and every single time . . . their company F's it up for them. All of the Japanese releases have been poorly redubbed versions of their Korean tracks with cheaply filmed PVs that look ridiculous. With Change, I was hopeful because it's not just a rehashed K-track, but alas.. I will say that it's better than their usual JPN stuff, much better, but still not quite up to the par I'd like to hold for them.
        The track is actually quite spectacular, with a great energy and a spatial balance of voices that very few Japanese releases ever get close to. It moves along delightfully, and it builds with a graceful intensity through to the bridge, where it all drops elegantly away and starts again from scratch. It's really well done. It's just not the catchiest thing ever, and I don't really know why. It does almost everything right, but it's not quite breath-taking and it doesn't quite grab hold of a listener and refuse to let them go. Still, I love it and it's very well made.
        The PV on the other hand . . . well, it was certainly different. All the CG effects were rather distracting in my opinion. Sure, CG is getting easier to come by, and good CG at that, but this still felt forced and rather awkward, mostly because of just how prevalent it was... If they'd cut down on it a little, added some choreography for a fleshed out story . . . it would have been an PV to make waves, but no. Their luck ran out with landing a great track. And honestly, I'd rather have a good track than a killer PV.

        While YoungSaeng's away in the army, this is a great track to keep hearts warm for him. It has great energy and yet also has the long smoothe stretches that really let YoungSaeng's voice shine. And the romance is super cute as well, it definitely brought a smile to my face. Until of course it ended, that was tragic. From the lyrics, it was obviously a relationship that wasn't going to work out, but still, I had hope. In fact, I still do. I'm pretending that he didn't break it off for kicks, but because he's going into his mandatory military service and doesn't want to make her wait.
        The track is perfectly balanced between his vocals and the underplay of lighter rhythms, the panning isn't spectacular but it does swirl around the listener like a hug when it needs to, the song moves along and builds up to an end before coming to a nice cadence. I loved all the little visual tricks, her projection acting as it's own 'solid' character and how it worked as a flawless transition back to his memories of when she was a solid presence in his life has to be my personal favorite. All in all, very well done.

        FULL of fanservice, but that's only to be expected from Nine Muses; delightfully homoerotic undertones included. They always make sure to make the fans happy, and they pull off being perfectly sophisticated while doing it. The set-up for this one was a little ridiculous, but hey, it's cool I suppose. All of the styling is gorgeous and the unique camera angles keep things fabulously interesting throughout the MV. The choreography is fabulous, sweetly flirtatious and and downright sex-kitten-esque at the same time, and the different levels it works with are really cool to watch evolve.
        The track itself is energetic and well made, perfectly balanced and mixed and panned to keep things moving with an undertow of urgency. It doesn't really evolve much, but the stasis it keeps is perfectly appealing. It's nothing spectacular, but it sits nicely within Nine Muses' image without falling into a rut of feeling like too much more of the same. All in all, I quite like it.

        Genre-wise, I think that this was a pretty interesting expansion for MYNAME. It's not particularly my favorite release of theirs, but it's pretty well done. It's a balanced track that sits nicely on the ears. The use of autotune was rather confusing to me, since it's mostly been layered onto the rap sections, which really don't need autotune, but still the song is very nice to listen to as BGM while doing work.
        As for the video, it's really interesting, all the camera tricks and feats of editing . . . beautifully done, but at the same time it really feels excessive . . . more like someone's showing off new software than making a dramatic video. I liked the rapping-at-one's-self bit and some of the elegant transitions, but it really did get to be more distracting than anything else after a while. Still, it's quite a respectable release.

        I love the styling, and the interesting sets, and all the bright patterns. The choreography is ridiculously fun, I've caught myself doing it in the dining hall when I'm looking around for something good to eat and this track come up on my ipod. All in all it's very playful and light.
        It does get at some interesting issues, the whole perfect-body cult worship idea for one. The only thing I really took issue with was that, even though it's playing with the stereotype of women being demanding and needy and holding ridiculously high standards, it not playing with them to the point of overturning them. The cult-worhsip idea does get a little kicked off, but the rest of it is presented as much more acceptable. That bothered me a little bit, but not too much as there are far worse ways to represent a stereotype than as a quirky thing to poke fun at (and there are worse stereotypes frequently employed by Kpop production teams).
        The track itself is catchy and cute. It's straightforward and simple without being obnoxiously repetitive. There's no depth to the lyrics at all really and there's no evolution to them either, but the track is well balanced and the instrumental elements evolve over the course of the piece to keep things interesting. It's not one for the record books, but it's certainly fun to listen to; not at all a disappointing comeback.

        We've got the super-innocent angel-image and the super-sexy sleek image, bright red high heels, and hot damn that choreography. In all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of it I like it for this one release, it works really well here, but I'd hate for this to be a trend for them (on an artistic level at least, they are absolutely gorgeous and the eye-contact version is simply sinfully fantastic). For this track all of it works perfectly: it's sexy as hell, catchy and hell, smoothe and full an sweet as hell. The track is intricate and well balanced, but simple enough to learn after a single listen and fun to hum along to (I do not recommend dancing along though, and I'm very glad our radio booth is now almost entirely private. Out of all the weird choreo-motions one could copy while walking down the street I think the finger biting here might attract the most attention...). Anywho, this is easily one of my fave Femme-tracks of the recent batch (though this fall there have been some pretty fantastic female releases). The styling is gorgeous and it's fantastic to watch, though nothing at all really happens. Still it's some great eyecandy and that has to count for something, right?

        The vibe of this whole track is pretty epic, a nice dramatic grit. The tone of the chorus took me completely by surprise, but it works. The track decently balanced, the vocals sit a little low in the mix but it adds to the gritty feeling of the ever-evolving melody. It doesn't really build towards anything and the final release isn't striking enough to really echo, but it's still a pretty good track for a work-out playlist.
        The MV's confusing, and all the unrelated scenes do little more than convey a general theme, but the styling is great and the choreography is fantastic to watch. All in all I do like it, but it's not really one for the History books.