One of my favorite uses of the celebrity-status-commentary in Kpop. Usually, most of what you hear is about how awful it is to be a celeb, especially an Idol. There's no privacy, you're away from friends and family, you're always being judged and 2-steps away from career-ruining scandal... But you also have an entire team of people devoted to making sure that you're absolutely gorgeous, which is a pretty big plus side. This video takes a cute, bright-side approach while the song's lyrics take the more angsty, dramatic approach, which gives the release an even more realized demonstration of how celebrities need to have a stage-persona that's not necessarily in sync with their BTS personalities. There's a story here, it's not hugely detailed and it doesn't resolve, but it's here.
           The styling and the set-aesthetics are all gorgeous. I love how the line between cast and crew is blurred a bit particularly at the end, because the makings of a star is never just the star. The choreography is fabulous, perfectly suited to the track and fantastically fun to perform. It's just simple enough to be playful and just complicated enough to look carefully designed. The video editing does wonders by playing off the choreo, creating beautifully dynamic transitions that give the over all video a smooth and flawless finish. The song is catchy and energized with a fantastic zing. Over all, I love it!

          I've always said that Hotshot was a group to watch out for and now they're saying it themselves. With their fantastic pre-release single, Midnight Sun, being such a departure from the style of their debut (and a delightful show of impressive stylistic flexibility), I wasn't sure what sort of song we were going to be graced with for their comeback. Watch Out is a throw back into the rap ring, but it's a style that sits neatly between the folds of their other promotional tracks. It has more smooth vocals than Take a Shot and more nitty-gritty rap segments than Midnight Sun, blending together into a fluid, dynamic track that moves well and evolves over the course of the song. With a minimalist instrumental, thoroughly imbued with energy, the vocals have the attention they deserve and the smooth vocal swoops mesh neatly with the raps and the track flips flawlessly between sections.
           The MV is slick, utilizing clever camera tricks and intriguing editing techniques to make the relatively inexpensive shoot feel anything but cheap. The styling is gorgeous, though fairly standard for the genre. The choreography, or at least what's shown of it in the MV, is also fairly mainstream, but it's intense and interesting and it suits the song perfectly. The set aesthetics are gorgeous and suit the song just as brilliantly as the choreo does. 
           I'm fabulously impressed with this release.

           There's a ton of 'Bad Boy' type media flooding the forum, as has been the trend for the past few years, but we rarely get a mention of the more mainstream consequences and circumstances of actually being a bad boy, and not only do we get that comment, it's delivered with a two-fold double-meaning: not only are the boys of Bastarz getting a Zero for Conduct in terms of a typical school or work setting, they're declaring that they're so expert at being bad that THEY have become the ones giving out marks for conduct. Additionally, the comment of Zero for Conduct takes the idea of being bad and spins it to being the colloquial bad, as in awesome on stage, a thing which is easy for observers to admit is something that this trio is particularly awesome at. So you've got being Bad as 3 separate ideas in this: there's the general bad an aesthetic in the real world, being bad as a colloquial slang term for bad-ass and awesome as referenced in the Lyrics, and being bad as in a literal criminal as depicted by the visuals in the MV. And even the unit's name, Bastarz, portmanteau blend of 'bastards' and 'stars'... absolutely perfect.
           The three chosen for the group are perfect, B-Bombs smooth vocals sit beautifully in a rough and rowdy instrumental backdrop particularly when paired up with PO's gravelly raps. U-Kwon's voices sits perfectly in between the two and the uniquely bright and slim quality makes it perfect for the vamps. I was surprised / briefly confused / delighted to hear Zico's voice, but with his role taking point on production, and the energetic warmth curled up under his voice blends so well with the official trio's vocals that I can't say I'm really surprised after thinking about it. Hearing him was starling at first, but it does make a lot of sense for his vocals to be there. The stage version sounds awesome without him, but on the recording, having Zico's rougher high-line sit in the recording's sweet spot where they blend into the instrumental is too good to pass up for how it throws PO's vocals into sharp relief. Zico's production job is spot on, fully displaying the epic talents he has to call on (which is why I was so disappointed in most of the solo-work he's released this year, it just was NOT up to par). The track is fantastically well spatialized, leading to an energetic bounce of elements rather more like the crowd in a club than the over-crowding of a busy subway station; each element has it's own space to breath, both in terms of the frequency isolation in the mix and in terms of where the elements sit in the 3-dimensional space of the headphones. All the transitions are smooth and slick which gives the rough overtones that much more drama.
            Visually, the MV is a treat. The styling is gorgeous and the set aesthetics are fantastic, blending a dark, dank underworld with the neon bright intrigue of the club scene. Each member is given a unique character to play in a beautifully stylized depiction of a drug running ring, with lots of visual throws to the Chinese Triads / Yakuza (or at least the iconic tropes of their pop cultural portrayals). B-Bomb is the Client, the bad-boy rockstar that puts the sexy and druggy bits into the classic trope of sex, drugs, rock & roll. PO is the Distributor, the one of the gang's throne calling all the shots with a hand in both the marketplace and the manufacturing process, while staying distanced from and neatly between both parties. He has the most variety in costume because as the ganglord, he has a lot of hats to wear, being able to blend in with normal society, the druggies, and the drug-makers, and such. And then U-Kwon is the Manufacturer. Overtly, he runs an industrial meat-packing plant, the kind with massive freezers that lead to an abundance of antifreeze and the sort of chemical-waste oversight that excuses massive amounts of toxic waste that no one looks too carefully at... both things necessary for the production of crystal meth. The girls in his employ work the meat-packing factory as a front, keeping things above board in one business while they systematically produce drugs and launder drug-money under the ruse of pricey, artisanal-butcher-cut, slabs of meat. The 'snow' scenes could be depictions of cocaine (and the attire of the employees suits the stylized pop-cultural depiction of a meth-lab fairly well), but the main reason to base a drug lab in a freezer-heavy industry is access to anti-freeze, which is not necessary to cocaine production so my money's on meth (the shot of burning crystalline bits around :53, could be crack cocaine, but it still seems more like meth to me). Over all the MV provides as beautifully stylized and sterilized depiction of the drug-world, glamorized just enough to make it alluring without making the illegality of it too obvious or too easy/appealing-to-imitate. It strikes just the right balance, with a flair of obvious fictionalization, to be awesome.

          Whitewashing is a chronic problem in Korea and it's very apparent here that over exposure and diluted levels of contrast are being put in play. There's so much opportunity for a release like this to be bright and colorful, and unfortunately it's been over exposed until the brightness overwhelms all other aspects. The first time I watched I I couldn't even pay attention to the track because the visuals were dull and lifeless, even though the girls were super cute. The dull visuals and the slow start to the music tricked my mind into thinking that the song itself was dull. Low saturation levels is one effect that I've always found tiresome and it's unfortunate that it's so popular.
          That aside, this is a fairly solid release. The song is slow but solid, it's well rounded and nice on the ears. It doesn't evolve very far, but it moves well enough. It's a nice jazzy tune that's got enough energy to be interesting but not so much that it demands attention; refreshing in some ways, certainly. The styling, other than the whitewashing is okay. They look very cute indeed, though I'm a bit put off by the fairly voyeuristic slides of sexiness that border on inappropriate observation... like staring at a sleeping girl's ass, or watching the stretch of impressive flexibility at 2:00 from quite that close up... it's jarring and certainly off-putting for me. I'm not against female sexuality, or of women being sexualized by observers, I'd just like it to be represented as something they're aware of... And the direct comment of how they know they get called out on over sexualization was interesting, and it made the rest of the sexiness make sense. And I love how it's literally the 200lbs Gorilla in the room, very clever. Still, it's just not my favorite. I do enjoy the choreography at the end and I love the projector of trying on clothes idea, that one's always fun. Overall, it's fairly good, but there is a lot I would change and I just don't like it terribly much.

        Zico is an epic rapper, a fantastic musician, a great leader, and a brilliant musical mind... this release might stand as the exception that proves the rule though. I mean the song's okay, it's a bit jarring in the transitions, but it's a well put together peace, over all. At least it is if you're not looking at the video while you listen. Unless Zico was going for a jarring discord where all the timings are almost a full second late or early (which throws off the brain's expectations for sound) this video isn't right for the song. Honestly... even if he WAS going for an artsy, out-of-sync style of hipster drag, this video is just... not good (ironic, considering the title, & the humor is not lost on me).
        It's just concert footage (recordings of songs with much higher bpm ratings than Well Done because they are way outta sync) and an overabundance of a layering of film-effects and irrelevant analog-film images. I could make that kind of a video on my home computer in a few hours, and at the very least, I'd be able to make the timings sync up. If I had half the awesome equipment available to these guys, hell, even if I just had half the source footage... I could do so much better. Admittedly, I want to become an MV professional, so I'm not just an average joe at making MVs or anything, but still, professionals should do better. This is disappointing and it's really just not up to par.
       The song, without the video is still pretty good, and I love Zico, so I'm still giving it more credit than I really feel like it deserves, but I can't in good conscious say much  that's positive about this video.

The song is sweet and smoothe, an energetic coffeshop track that casual enough to fit just about every situation. The scenario is one that is extraordinarily easy to relate to and the MV presents it in a cute and clean visual. The styling is visually pleasing, clean cut and bright and just plain lovely in general. There's nothing earth-shattering about it, but it's also not trying to be anything more than attractive and pleasant, which it easily achieves. The song is the same, nothing ground breaking, but smoothe and easy to listen to. It's asking for a moment of your time and reflection, rather than demanding your full attention and the manner in which it does so is sweetly refreshing.

(This is one of the last late reviews still in my queue, so more relevant and timely reviews are on the menu for the upcoming week!)

I've been undecided on this one since it came out. There's a point at which absurdism moves a concept too far out of touch with reality for my tastes. This is toeing that line. Block B is regaled for their crazy antics, and certainly I'd never want them to rein it in for the sake of social acceptability, but this feels more like they're purposefully pushing their own limits to excite a shock factor, and that's just not my style. Still, the MV is well pulled off, all the colors and shifting visuals are well coordinated and easily excusable due to the circus setting. The tie back to the clowns of the bank robbery in Very Good which lends the release a fantastic sense of continuity to the series of releases.

The song is okay. It matches the visual very well, pairing up thematically with the creepy circus image. It's an impressive show of their abilities, it evolves and is structurally balanced, but I can't quite accept the extent to which the sections feel dichotic... they're just so unrelated that they don't slide smoothely enough for me to enjoy listening to it casually. Unless I'm really listening to the transitions, they sound messy and too-abrupt. When I do sit down with it, the transitions are pulled off quite cleverly, but it's just not quite smoothe enough for it to tall into easy-listening. Having it on in the background is too distracting, but it's not quite enjoyable enough to make me want to set aside time to give it a solid listen. It's a delightful treat that comes up in my playlist when I'm going somewhere, walking down campus or around town or something else rather inane, because it makes the action less boring without distracting me form real work, but it's not really one I think of when looking for a fun song to play. It has pizzazz and a spark of uniqueness, but it's not my flavor.

        I don't know, T-ara's managed to pull through some ridiculous scrapes over the past two years; all the bullying scandals and member shifts and public relations nightmares... Not to mention the fact that their main promotional strategy seems to be "release fifty-billion different versions" of the same song . . . Unfortunately, Number 9 seems to be following the same business plan. Admittedly, as much as it peeves me to have 15 versions of something, the marketing has apparently been successful, allowing T-ara to weather their recent storms of Netizen disapproval.
        Anyway, the song they've chosen to promote this time is more of their ultra-catchy techno-pop, in the same vein of "disappointing coulda-been-great" as LoveyDovey, RolyPoly, and Sexy Love, with rather nonsensical lyrics and a seeming deeper meaning to be teased out with lots of patience. They've given it their typical first-release video as well, a video with a generally uninteresting execution of a spectacular premise. The video's production quality is very high and all the girls are GORGEOUS as always. The sets and styling and glam and glorious and I love so many aspects of it that it's tragic to not adore the whole thing.
        Song-wise, it's been getting tons of praise and I'm just not seeing where that praise is coming from. Yes, it's catchy. Yes, from a technical standpoint, T-ara has managed to merge the emotional swoop of a ballad's tune into a catchy dance track and that's cool. Yes, the transitions between sections are fluid and beautifully produced. None of that makes it a really good song, though. None of that means that the track has the emotional power of a good ballad, it just has the melodic swoop of one. Really, I love the song, hot dang is it catchy and well produced, but it's just not very powerful. The harmonies are flat, more like a support track than a fill, and the lack of independence from the main melody of any melodic line leads it to feel like a group of girls singing along to a pop song rather than an original song itself. The only points at which a solo voice is raised above the hum of the chorus are the beginning with the guitar and humming and the "I'm addict" lines. The opening is lovely, but the addict bit break the flow of the song, sound jarringly out of place, and do nothing for the song but lead into the raps. The whole song has bits that could have been great and then were just dropped into a safe zone. Altogether, it's really just meh.
        The video is absolutely gorgeous. The production, the styling, the sets and scenery, the choreography . . . all of it's beautiful. However, it's being praised as an almost minimalist creation, people are saying the "simple set highlights how good T-ara is at performing" and that it "gets rid of the crazy flash and bang" of some other concepts. I'm all for giving praise where praise is due, T-ara is fantastic at performing, but there is nothing simple about their sets, nor is there any lack of flash and bang. In fact, one of my biggest criticisms is that it's literally so flashy the choreography is hard to see at times.
        Not to offend any QUEENs out there, but I really just don't get why T-ara's so popular. They have potential to be incredible, so maybe that's it, but there's only been glimpses of that potential released for public consumption so it can't be the real driving force behind their success. This album has a few great songs on it, but their promotional track is just blah. Still, it's a beautiful MV to watch.

        That Block B has made a comeback at all is spectacular (as explained HERE), but what they've come back with isn't something that needs to be bolstered by any extenuating circumstances to be considered awesome. It's a radical sound for Kpop, certainly, and it's opened new doors for the industry.
        Very Good has been facing criticisms of not being 'Korean' enough due to this brand-new-sound idea, but honestly, there are some very Kpop roots to this sort of song. A lot of (SS501) Kim HyunJoong's solo work from 2011 has similar instrumentation elements, in particular Do You Like That and Lucky Guy. (TVXQ) Kim JaeJoong's also done a few rock-style releases; so the sound really isn't entirely new. Nor is Very Good the first of this sound to be to be successful. Rather than not sounding very Korean, mostly I think it doesn't sound like past Korean music. It still very distinctly Korean, with a very unique song structure that fits Korean construction patterns (mainly in how the rap lines and melodic lines are woven together). The structure here looks like a washboard zig-zag that's set up in something like an M with a little tail, there's two main drops (in the MV @ ~2:00, & after the bridge @ 3:20), and each verse (singing) & subverse (rap & melodic rap) sections have their own tension levels, and internal tension transition. All the rises and falls of tension add to the melodic fluidity and the balance of the parts, both between people and between elements, means that the listener's attention is continually engaged and the song feels much shorter than it is. One of the best compliments to a musical composition anyone can give is that it was too short, at least that the listener wanted more & therefore is forced to immediately hit repeat (there is a limit to this however, obviously, if the song isn't a complete work, if it's so short it feels unfinished, and someone calls that out, it's not really a compliment). I'm not a huge fan of Kyung's high note there, though, I'm really hoping that the waiver in it is just the filter they put on it rather than vocal strain, because that cannot be good for his voice. I'm all for hitting the impressive notes and all, but I'd rather not have him get hurt for it.
        The video part of this music video clearly has ties to the Dark Knight. I was glad to see that they didn't just follow that line however, there were some nice twists in it. And I love Zico in some of the scenes (the blue-hair ones in particular), he has managed to condense the entirety of Big Bang's Fantastic Baby into a single fantastically ridiculous outfit. Aside from that section, my next favorite part starts at 2:20; the mask of epicness, the dog and the running away, U-Kwon's face is just priceless and the whole thing is hilarious. Other than that, I wasn't too keen on the MV really. It's visually spectacular and certainly funny, but I just wasn't drawn into it as much as I've been for past Block B releases.

        FTI has always made a big point of thanking the fans, which is absolutely wonderful, and this is no exception. They've given us a beautiful song for their 6th anniversary. The melody moves over the beat in a smoothe arc that shows off Hongki's vocal skills and also imparts his truly heartfelt feelings. It's nice and straightforward to sing along to in a way that doesn't restrict the words' meaning too much. The video is a lovely treat, giving us a gorgeous look at how human the members are while still romanticizing the whole crazy roller-coaster that makes up their lives. It has no visual story outside of the members' lives, but sometimes BTS footage works for a release and this is one of the ones that I think benefits from it. All in all I think it's quite lovely.