GaIn is widely regarded as on of Kpop's high queens and she has every right to such a title. With Paradise Lost GaIn continues to show that she's a sex-goddess worthy of adoration. Personally, I'm a bit glad that she exchanged the overt, graphic sexiness of last year's Fxxk U, for a more metaphoric version. The depiction of the temptations of Eve is wonderful, and the producers have explained their reasoning for a lot of the wonderful imagery included in video. However, their explanations confuse me a bit because if what they were going for was the strong-willed, shaker-of-the-Heavens vibe... they could have used Lilith instead of Eve... (Lilith was Adam's 1st wife, the one that refused to lie beneath him). Admittedly, Milton's Eve from the epic poem, is spiteful and vindictive and actively attempting to undermine the Natural Order, which makes for a more dramatic story, but I think the Eve depicted in the MV is softer than than, more desperate than aggressive; a needy thirst for knowledge rather than an acute desire to destroy her own reality. Even Paradise can feel like a cage if it's painted in the right light...
             GaIn as Eve breaks free of her cage, and then tempts Adam to follow her. It's wonderfully depicted in how a snake appears above GaIn in the beginning and then in the black & white solo-scene she's in an outfit that is highly reminiscent of scale and her maneuvers are extraordinarily snake-like (and presented in direct correlation to a snake-shot), indicating that she she herself has become Adam's adder of temptation. The black and white inversion sequence is not only an awesome sequence, but is shows a stunningly demonstrative example of how heaven and hell and right and wrong can be jumbled up when portrayed at certain slants. The naked, groveling men are both reaching out with carnal desires and also bowing before the greatness of GaIn's diamond clothing, which is valuable and gorgeous in a way that people trapped in Paradise could never comprehend. It's a GOREGOUS mv.
               The song is incredibly powerful, to just top off the amazingness of this release. It's well balanced and beautifully spatialized and gorgeously aching. GaIn can pour emotions into her voice, too many to name all at once in a delicate balance that draws on a fantastic sense inner-power and absolute desperation in the same breath. It's an almost magical vocal quality and the constrained energy of it it caps off every track GaIn's ever been a part of. The evolution of the track is directly complimented by the evolving visuals, making the complete release far superior to either the track or the MV on it's own. It's a beautifully done release and I bow before the queen.

           My first thought? It's not nearly as good as "YOLO"... My second thought wasn't much more flattering: it was the thought that the vocals are being oddly buried in the mix and the annoying circus trill was obnoxiously brought up to drown everything else out. And the mix is weirder than just that, there's so much sub-bass that normal speakers aren't designed to handle, and it's louder than it should be too (almost blew out my speakers the first time  listened to it)... It's great for a club mix or something, but it's odd in a promotional track. This track is pretty good in headphones, nicely spatialized and layered with interest and with each aspect given sufficient room to breathe, but on regular mid-quality speakers it sounds like a mess...
           They managed to mostly correct some of what made me not love Yolo right off the bat by giving us music in the music video without making us wait too long (20 seconds as opposed to over a minute), but New World still didn't quite zing off the screen for me. The styling was cool, but very standard, the choreo was exactly the same, cool for what it was, but pretty much par for the course. The set aesthetics were pretty awesome, but that's not really enough to make the MV amazing. I liked the song's message, it's very nice to see the rap-style aggression focused on something other than controlling a lover. It's also just nice to see songs about clawing your way up in the world, because it's a cause very near and dear to my heart (especially at the moment, considering I've just graduated college and am facing brick-walls of opposition beyond which theoretically lies opportunity). 
          Anyway, I like the song and the MV is visually attractive. It's not revolutionary or anything, and I'm fairly certain that my enjoyment of YOLO is coloring my interpretation of New World, but New World is a fairly solid release all on it's own. It's just not the spectacular one I was hoping for.

          The track is a fun, a quirky upbeat melody with a funky undercurrent of energy. It's not my favorite song from this month, but it's definitely a well rounded track. I love the party-bus idea, and it ties in neatly to the concept of more going on in the mind than in reality (in a good way). I also like how the song renders the more-in-mind concept as a good thing, as compared to the many tracks that imagine relationships or disasters out of self-destructive over-thinking rather than playful imagination. I'm a little bit iffy on the poka-dots... the rest of the styling is lovely, but the poka-dots are just a little much... I don't know. 

           Right of the bat there's a lot of forbidden fruit imagery, and an underworld affectedness with the smoke, and a sense of taking a journey with the image of a trunk. It was more than enough to pique my interest, particularly when combined with how delightfully well-timed the imagery was in relation to the audio. My first thought was some cliche forbidden fruit and temptation thing, but the specific use of the pomegranate and the disparaging words of the song made me think of Hades and Persephone, particularly the part about how she gets tricked into staying in the Underworld by the bossy and controlling King of Hell (please note that there are a LOT of myths relating to this story and many of them have a genuine romance developing between Hades and his Bride, but some of them are less rosy depictions of the marriage-by-force). 
          Subsequent lack of follow up makes the think that connection is cursory, but it was still a delightful thing to note. The rest of the MV, while not tying itself to Greek Mythology, still has a beautiful string of visuals that correlate the relationship to self-destructive over-indulgence. It's a lovely little plot line that connects well to the lyrics. I LOVE the choreography (enjoy most choreo that involves chairs and props, but this is special). It ties well to the lyrics in that the guys are looking at the next girl over while one is paying them attention: when the guy was in a relationship with the female narrator, he was already looking ahead to the next girl he'd get which caused him to ignore the one he had (grass is always greener style). Additionally, the choreo uses levels well, having the girls at different heights, standing or sitting, on the chairs or off, in an asymmetric arrangement that played with every theory of visual interest in the books. And the whole leg-swish thing is just plain fun (as well as being hella hot).
           I also like how the lyrics acknowledge that the girl in the story is still heartbroken, but that she's not going to let her pitiful ex-temp her back into a relationship that she knows isn't good for her. It's a unique take on a post-break-up song an I highly approve. The lyrics are set nicely within the melody and the track, while being rather simple, is quite pleasant. It has enough harmonic complexity and enough decorative elements to keep it interesting. The vocal melody is catchy and it evolves well enough to more than cover for the backing track. I really like it.

IU's vocals have this lovely touch of maturity here that I haven't heard in her music before, not just in how her voice has matured, but in how she attacks the notes and carries her sound through the phrasing. It's a beautiful turn for her to take. Her past few releases have all been trying to prove that she's finally grown up, but this is the first one that's really sold it to me. More than drama, more than storytelling, more than power-vocals, her growth here is in the viable emotions her voice can carry inside of a clean performance: rather than her voice distorting to convey emotions, it simply wraps around them and carries them along through the piece, alluding to the state of grief rather than demonstrating it. All in all it's beautifully done and I'm delighted with it.

As for the video itself, it presents everything in suitable compliment to the track behind it. The desaturation meshes well with the sentiment and the progress of the plot reveal is well paced. It's rather slow for my liking, but that's a taste preference, not a real criticism. It's really well done and though there's nothing in it that's particularly catching, it's still a well-made and touching story to watch.

The post-apocalyptic style is fabulous (definitely bridging on the end of far too common, but still, it's not yet as overly common as the straight up fake gangster).  I was genuinely excited for this debut. And it started off so well! The teasers and the first 30 seconds of the MV have SO MUCH PROMISE in them, the potential here was absolutely amazing! The 1st teaser shows off some smokin' hot bodies and some fantastic skills. It also advertises a big budget for epic editing and hella hot CG that promised to carry over into the full track and the main MV. The 2nd teaser was also exciting, being that all of the epic promise of the first teaser was built upon and filled out with unique powers, distinct features and faces and some kick-ass choreography. It was a bit worrisome, showing the post-apocalyptic wasteland poorly constructed around them with a green screen, but I was certain that it wouldn't be a major feature in the full MV. The track still sounded pretty kickin' and I was pumped to hear the whole thing.

And then the release arrived and I was thrilled. The eerie intro, the fabulous CG of crows transforming into band members, the low-pass intro building up building up as the choreography flashed to shots from the teaser. And then the lyrics dropped in... they're not bad, though the vocals need a lot of work to really be impressive (at least two of the members weren't even singing in the key that their voice suits and it sounded strained), but they're not engaging in the way I hoped they would be. The vocals are flat and the smoothe slides just sound sloppy against the gritty backdrop. And the pre-chorus jumps jarringly into a new rhythm for a measure or two before falling back into the drone-like hum of the rest of it. It's not a bad song, but it's certainly not the epic earworm that I was hoping for. It's a good enough debut track, but it's nothing that's changed the game for rookies (while it easily could have been). That's the part that rubs me so wrong... this could have been so good, incredibly good, and it's just not. It's okay.

As for the MV, the choreography is pathetic. It's beyond lazily designed. Whoever they got to choreograph this should be fired, or at least reassigned. Seriously. I don't say that very often, because it's never wise to wish someone out of a job, but this is just awful. The choreographer simply failed to do their job. These guys are SO capable ... as dancers, as martial artists, as stunt men ... and this routine is so simple that even I can do most of the moves (especially those in the chorus). And beyond that, it doesn't even look cool. I'd understand if there was camera pandering and moves designed mainly to make them look good, but this routine doesn't even do that much! It's absolutely tragic and I weep for them for having to sit quietly while it was decided on for them. Not enough time was spent showing the members individually, there wasn't enough in their styling to delineate them in the group shots, the thin excuse for a story setting is confusing at best though it holds some intoxicating potential if (by some miracle) it gets flushed out in a follow-up, and the lyrics aren't connected concretely to anything and they really have nothing to do with the visuals (which are rather inconsistent and nonsensical anyway). I like these rookies, and I'll be keeping my eye on them, but this release could have been so much more than it turned out to be...

        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 . . .

        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.

        This whole release is very slick. The song is classy and smoothe, Kahi is styling and sexy and everything fabulous about everything. The suits and T-shirts thing is fantastic and she pulls it off in such a way that it looks classy and sassy in all the best ways; I'm digging the just-more-than-shoulder-length dirty blonde look, too.The Choreo makes her look even more fabulous than she usually does, strong and sexy and so perfectly Femme without giving an inch; especially with her heels on, she looks downright dangerous. I love it, and how it plays with the lyrics. The video's editing is cool too, especially her solo dances in direct comparison to her set-&-dancers cuts. The track is catchy as hell, it's well balanced and structured. On the technical side of things it's pretty plain, but it still rolls with this delightfully cool-toned smoothe vibe that lingers in your head well after the song finishes. The rap features in perfectly, pulling the register down and warming the whole song up, so that even with the synths' icy sine waves and Kahi's cool-tone vocals the track is warm and well rounded as a complete unit.