Top Media has been having a few good years in a row here with Teen Top launching into high-style success, 100% debuting in a grand fashion and managing to keep their popularity up, and now with UP10TION's smashing arrival on the scene. Despite their rather interesting name, UP10TION's debut is so strikingly precise and on point and fantastic that the only comparison that comes to mind is Infinite's debut back in 2010. Sure other rookies have come out with perfect choreo since Infinite, but this is the first debut since Infinite that has really made me stop and go wow. And for good reason.
           In addition to the epic and on point choreo, the band's debut track is hella kickin'. It's beautifully spatialized and the audio elements compliment the visuals perfectly. There's a vibrant pulse of energy in the beat and the synths, which makes the vocals feel solid and smooth even in the verses where it's clear that some of the voices have room to develop as their careers progress. The vocals in the chorus are delightfully strong with a slide of smooth intensity that adds drama and releases the tension from the vamped-up verses perfectly. And it is just so impossibly catchy!
           Beyond that, all the shimmer effects and the scene switches and the camera work and editing in general are absolutely flawless. It adds a unique visual component and it takes just enough away from the choreo shots to leave a viewer aching for more, but not so much that that a viewer feels like they've been gypped on the treat that is watching these rookies dance. I'm still holing out for a real choreo vid, but I've been watching the Lives and the 1theK special feature, so the veiled look at the choreo is definitely doing it's job. This particular choreo is fantastic using established elements (like the ab-dance where members grab each other's shirts instead of their own) and is using them in a refreshingly new way. It involves all the members, utilizing varying levels of action, and effectively having the members flip between being high and being low without leaving any holes in the formations' overall picture, save for when important new music elements are being introduced. It's very well done.
            The release would probably get a 10 from me maybe a 9.5, but there is no internal story in the visuals, and there's really not much of a story in the lyrics either, so as much as I'd like to give it the highest score possible I am going to have to dock a few points. Also, I think it could have done better with introducing the members, especially since they have the little Tension Up! piece in the beginning. 10 people is a lot to keep track of, especially when we really only see a few of them at once for such brief instances that it's hard to learn how to differentiate between the members. Still, this is a fantastic debut and it deserves a ton of praise!

           At first listen this song is actually really creepy... It's a very hush hush sort of romance, the sort of hush hush that boarders on unhealthy (a thought that resonated with me seeing as this MV was released within a few weeks of History's Might Just Die...). Seriously, the lyrics involve a secret trip to a guy's house, a guy the girl has only just met... There's a lot of assumption on the male narrator's part, and a lot of demands... Particularly the "I'll meet you around the corner and far away from witnesses in ten minutes" thing caught in my mind as creepy... Like serial killer levels of creepy... But honestly a closer look at the lyrics, and an understanding of the fairy tale roots of the story, make things a lot better. It IS kind of creepy, but he's a magical creature trying to lure away his prey, so it's SUPPOSED to be creepy.
              The set  aesthetics are gorgeous, very elegant and fantastical. All the delightful throws to fairy tale lore fit neatly in place within the gorgeous setting, and the camera's movements are all fabulously engaging. I particularly adore the slide of Junsu's entrance at :53. I think some of the styling is a little wonky, but these guys manage to pull it off for the most part (Nichkhun's flesh-colored shirt is pretty iffy). I'm not a huge fan of the choreography over all, but it's big and expressive and quite engaging. The track on it's own it fantastic, absolutely delightful. The beat is relaxed and overtly casual, but there's a powerful zing of energy to it, like a fantastic beast biding its time before a sudden pounce. The intro is a slow vamp of energy, the repetitions serving to ramp up the intensity of the rhythmic elements, in a slow, methodical crank of energy, especially considering that the second go of each grouping has more syllables that the last ( 그래 becomes 안그래 and such). The chorus swings into place with a smoothe slide of panache. Over all it's well spatialized, delightfully mixed, all the voices and instrumental bits ring though in perfectly timed moments of cool intensity tinged with the heat of seduction and the chill of resistance and artfulness.

           Sorry I've been MIA for a while this summer! A LOT of things have been happening and I hope to be able to tell you what they are soon! For now, all I can say is that some very exciting things are in store for me and for the music world this fall! Anyway, I hope to be back to regular updates for a while. There's a ton of releases I'd like to catch up on, but for now I think I'll start with a recent release before I go backwards:
           Ben is more of a ballad singer than an upbeat pop princess and I hadn't seen any of the teasers, so I wasn't expecting this to nearly as cheerful as it has turned out to be. Better yet, the song is actually quite lovely. This release has been getting a lot of flack and I don't think any of it is deserved. She has a beautiful voice as a ballad singer, but I hate the idea that she's being wasted on brighter pop tracks. There's a clean-ness to the notes she sings and a powerful fluidity that presents in how she flits though the melody and in the elegant arches of the overdubs... it might not be groundbreaking or heart-wrenching or emotionally overwhelming, but it's still good. Pop music has a bad rap for absolutely no reason. The melody moves, it's hella catchy, and the vertical structures of the harmonies give depth and breath and help the track evolve as it progresses.
            The Choreography is engaging without being overly complicated, meaning that she'll have more than enough air in her lungs to make this sound wonderful live. The moves are adorable and perfectly suited to the song and the set and styling aesthetics, both of which are gorgeous. There's a beautiful throw to playfulness and the charm of childhood that could be considered a bit overly immature. However, since there's no element of creepy sexualized infantilization to it, I think it's wonderful. Just because you go up doesn't mean you can't still play around. Adult and adorable are not mutually exclusive terms and just because this is appropriate for children doesn't mean it's not allowed to be enjoyable for adults.
             Even the lyrics are lovely. It's a song about moving on and being happy after a breakup. The words literally discuss congratulations on breaking up, and why moving on is not only healthy and wonderful, but can genuinely be fun. She's like the post-break-up-life-revitalization fairy and I think it's absolutely fantastic.

           Not only is the MV awesome enough to have made me let it jump the queue of other MVs I should be reviewing, it's made itself so important that I can't even keep it in this section. I've bumped it over to the Editorial section because it's too perfect to restrict to a short review. Kpop has done things were 'cute' and 'gangsta' overlap, there's been other examples of aegyo mixing with straight-up awesome, but nothing else I've ever seen does it quite like this; nor nearly this well. Most other versions of an attitude that resemble this one use aegyo to straightforwardly mix in a dose of adorable, but this release takes that a leap forward by avoiding straight-aegyo, for the most part, and using a more sophisticated weave of more traditional imagery to convey the idea that the object of the narrator's affection is a singular point of exception in his world. Every single detail in the visuals plays off the notions in the lyrics, leading to an achingly cute final product that takes its message more seriously than I would have ever guessed just by glancing at the colorful screencaps.
           It also has something very important in common with Beyonce (but we'll get to that later).

          The only complaints I have at all are the fact that the whiny sound at the beginning goes on just a bit too long and the video has no specifically active story. It's basically a pastoral, no forward motion, but a beautiful depiction of a static piece of scenery. I LOVE it, but sadly, it can't get a perfect score.

          EXO has only ever once really impressed me with a release, but I definitely enjoy how they routinely make catchy tracks in Chinese, it's easily the best thing about them. This MV's been getting a lot of flack from the international community for the mismatched sporting gear, the artsy-weird aesthetics gone wild, and the fact that nothing at all in the MV feels even remotely relevant... At least when SM's box comes into play there's no expectation for anything to happen outside of that box. This seemed like it was trying for symbolism or a story and just never quite got there... It's visually appealing, but it's definitely not very good in the wider scheme of things.
         The track itself is lovely, nothing ground breaking, but it's catchy and genuinely great to listen to. The Chinese version is my favorite and it's generally just a good song that's not great, but was never expected to be. I like the follow-up less than I like Call Me Baby because even with the main promo's weird choreo, the track was just a bit more interesting and at least I could tell what was supposed to be happening in the video. There's not actually a single moment in watching this video that I have any ability to confidently explain what's going on or even to guess how the image matters in relation to any other image. And considering the fact that I have a COLLEGE DEGREE in Media Analysis... that's unsettling... and kind of annoying, to be honest.

           This video and the track that goes with it are both charmingly straightforward and delightfully sincere. Chicks and power tools are always a fabulous combination, especially when they're put in a real world context and given to a girl in work clothes whose actually doing work. And watching art-installations being built are always epic backdrops for tracks. Especially, a track like this one. Rhythmically, it's light, energetic, and almost buzzingly busy, but the relaxed and focused vibe in the lyrics keeps things calm and centered. It's like having few cups of coffee and then getting down to work. All of which melds well with the video and with the lyrical story off insisting that you be nice to yourself and stop holding yourself back. If you wanna get, go get. It's the chorus and it's a great life lesson.
            There's nothing spectacular or ground breaking, but it's the perfect summer-casual BGM.

           At first I wrote this off because the MV was... well kinda gross, quite frankly. I'm still not the biggest fan of the ridiculous objectification, gawking, desire to be possessive of the female body, thing, but there's other elements that I decidedly enjoy, and the fact that the track is just unbelievably kickin' means I've watched this MV like a thousand times at this point and it's therefore more or less criminal for me to avoid reviewing it. I don't have too much to say on the matter, just that it's a shame the MV's so... over the top. In some ways that's what makes it almost excusable, there's an element of parody here. There's also the advocating for safe-sex aspect, and the fact that it represents women of multiple skin-types as all equally sexy. All in all the MV is not my favorite but the track is incredible. Honestly, the feature rap section is just a bit too long for my tastes, but still it gives the rest balance and an enjoyably dynamic contrast. The undertow of epic synth energy pulls the whole track forward and the light bounce of the lyrics moves over it with a sassy slide of confidence that steps well into arrogance but somehow stays appealing. It's spatialized perfectly and the bounce of beats between the ears makes the whole thing even more ecstatically energized. The transitions are smooth and the timings flawlessly poignant. It's pretty dang epic.

           Stalkery, obsessive behavior is no better when it's framed with Aegyo than it is when framed by dark broodiness. It's still creepy as hell, and the fact that they not only stalk him, and invade his home, but also rifle through is underwear drawer is just plain stalker-creep of them. It's not cute, no matter how many plastic toys or foam-plushie kitty noses go into it... That said, I do still like this MV, though not entirely for it's own merit. It reminds me strongly of Kara's Wanna MV, which has a very similar concept, though I like the track for Wanna much better. Kara's MV is one I found perfectly acceptable when I watched it, but that's because in 2009 I was 16, and stalking the person I had a crush on seemed perfectly reasonable to my hormone-addled brain. Which it isn't. At all. And as a significantly more sane 22yr old, I'm appalled that I ever empathized with the idea... So I'm kinda ewwed out by this, worrying over how many teenagers are going to see it as an acceptable response to attraction...
           Aside from that I do love the styling in this, the whole comic-book pizzazz with sequins vibe is absolutely fabulous and I deeply enjoy all the street fashion that was worked in as well. In terms of the track, I actually find it annoyingly cutesy, considering how wonderfully they managed to avoid falling into that trap with their debut. This track does have it's appeal, it is well made and well balanced and it moves over a delightfully energetic beat with a strength that normally evades straight-up aegyo tracks. For an aegyo-focused song, there's no skimping or shirking, so it's actually a really good track. I just don't like it (There's absolutely no relation between how good a song is and how much I like it, they often correlate, but there's no legit connection). It's a solid comeback and it does good things for the Aegyo genre as a whole, so I'm quite pleased by the release and CLC is a band to watch!

          History holds a special place in my heart for having seen them in person last year when I got to watch them warm up to perform Psycho on Music Bank. That release was one I wasn't initially thrilled about, but eventually came around to adoring. This one is similar for a lot of reasons. There's the black & white start-off for one thing, and the tracks' common theme of being obsessed with a particular girl who seems to be spurning the narrator's affections. There's one really important difference however, and that difference makes me squint uncomfortably at this release: Psycho admits that this obsessive characteristic in the narrators displayed desire is really frickin creepy, it acknowledges that this sort of thing can be expected to make people uncomfortable and that it's NOT A GOOD OR HEALTHY RESPONSE TO 'ROMANTIC' FEELINGS. Also, the narrator in Psycho has been locked up in a psych ward where he's forced to project his feelings onto his fellow inmates, meaning that no real portrayals of viable relationships with obsessive abuse are depicted... Might Just Die doesn't acknowledge that the obsession is bad, or wrong, or even very creepy. And worst of all, it uses emotional BLACKMAIL to attempt to bully the girl into staying in the abusive relationship, which basically is the lowest of the low in terms of responses. It's far too common in the real world for me to accept it in the fantasy of music, so unfortunately this release has been taken off the table for any score higher than a 4 at best. ABUSE IS NOT SEXY. ABUSE IS NOT OKAY. THE ABUSER IS NOT SAD OR UNFORTUNATE OR WORTHY OF PITY OR EMPATHY. NOT EVER. And I simply cannot support something that depicts an abuser as the wronged party in an abuse scenario. The way the History members hold the girl against her will, despite obvious attempts to fight them off, is rape or at the very least assault; the way the lyrics discuss 'if you leave me like this I might just die', is not sweet, it's sick, and it's blackmail / extortion; and the way she leaves them is not something SAD to cry over, it's something STRONG to celebrate. JiYeong might have been aiming for sadness and regret and whatnot when he wrote it, but he missed the mark by FAR.

          There are a few other things I have to quibble over. While the track is undeniably catchy, it doesn't really go anywhere over the course of the piece, and there really isn't all that much in it to begin with: 2-3 lines per member, and then 15 repetitions of the main line in the chorus... not much depth there. It does effectively represent the mind-set of a man in the throws of obsession, I'll give it that much, but it doesn't elaborate on anything, which makes the blackmail bit stand front and center... Also the saw-tooth synth-waves add a lot of complexity and interesting aural value in some ways, but the over use of them leads to a roughening of the vocal lines that does History's incredible vocalists very little credit. All in all, while I find myself enjoying the drama and getting the earworm of a track caught in my head... this release is really quite disastrous. And with how much I adore History, I find that fact really rather tragic.

          For the most part, I found the mask thing to be pretty cool, how each member left their mask on until they had a line to sing. Unfortunately that did highlight the imbalance of roles and it forced some members to get dramatically less screen time than others in a way that wasn't really amenable to creating a sense of a successful debut. Also, the lack of names at the unmasking feels like a very tragically missed opportunity to me. Still, I do enjoy the aesthetic and the idea behind it.
           The voices are strong enough to be worth watching carefully in the future, and the track is catchy enough to make their debut rewarding to come across. The MV is very simple, but it doesn't feel cheap or cliche. The camera work, editing, and choreography all suit the track perfectly and feel like they've had an expert's touch involved. The puppetry concept is fantastic and it suits the energetic slide of the song very well. The dubstep break felt a bit unnecessary to me, but I've seen worse versions of something similar, so even though it may impact what playlists I put the track in, it's not a deal breaker for ruining a debut. Overall, it's a solid debut for a group that's worth watching. It's not my favorite, but it's really still filled with an impressive use of limited resources and great potential.

          UNIQ has been having a great year so far and their follow-up to EOEO is just another thing to love! Following the patter of EOEO, it's another dramatic departure from their previous release, swinging their image back towards the suave and sweet idea from their debut. It stands apart from anything else they've done because of it's relax, coffee-shop casual atmosphere and sweetly smooth acoustic elements. What I like most about it is the fact that the track manages to capture the relax coffee-shop acoustic vibe without losing the delightful melodic energy that is quickly becoming UNIQ's trademark sound. The setting and styling is all gorgeous and the video has a great mix of real-time cuteness and slo-mo glamour-shots. Over all, it's an adorable addition to UNIQ's MV list and I love it.

          Right off the bat I have to say that the thing I find most interesting here is that law enforcement is involved, and legal penalties are as well. Neither of those things make it into most music videos, particularly those depicting the stereotypical gangsta bad boy crew. The other interesting point is that they actually have a 'real' weapon. In most MVs the idea of a gun is alluded to through miming motions rather than a prop, and I've seen dramas where even knives are blurred out by the Censors... Those details made this a very interesting release, aside from the fact that it was an anticipated debut.
          Over all it lived up to my expectations. It is my firm belief that ALL debuts should have names attached to the members in the MV, so that was a tick in the right column. The track is catchy and well-produced, with an aggressive slide of energy bridging between the backing track and both the melodic-vocal and rap-vocal sections. The MV mixes generalized adorable tom-foolery in the drama-scenes with aggressive bad-assery in the Choreo, giving the new group a perfectly balanced image right from the get-go. The parkour was pretty sweet, though it was very clearly just to be impressive rather than to actually facilitate an escape. Most of it would have actually slowed a would-be escapee down... it was still pretty cool to watch though. Most of the Styling is gorgeous, there's a few outfits the gave me pause, but they're only on-screen for a few seconds, so it's nothing to be concerned about. The only other thing I have worries about is the fact that their voices aren't terribly strong in this. It could just be how this track frames their voices, but it really feels like their vocals are rather weak over all. They have potential, certainly, and I'll be keeping an eye on them, but the fact stand that I was definitely rather less than impressed with their vocals. I haven't listened to the rest of their release, so I may rescind my statement, but for now...
           The 'Special Cut' version was not my favorite bonus feature. It was very simple and all it really showed off was the fact that none of their cover-alls actually FIT them... But it was a unique extra I suppose.

        With their fantastic So Too Very Much release in February, and their March activities in Japan, I wasn't expecting anything new from these guys for a while yet. I've been pleasantly surprised by their Korean return and the release in question is itself absolutely fantastic. In direct contract to So Too Very Much, the focus of Just Tell Me is one the smoothe melodic vocals rather than on the rap sections. It makes the two releases balance well together. Also practically polar opposite is the styling theme. From the industrial daydream bright of STVM, this release explores the dark and sultry underworld of the hiphop clubbing scene. It makes the two MVs balance out and excuses the fact that this particular style set is being wrung out to flood the market this summer... In the past two weeks alone I count at least 5 boy group releases with the same theme. Any yet, nothing about this release is even remotely ordinary. It's SO epic that I've put most of my review over on the Editorials page. It's a massive post, but I could have easily gone on for another 10 pages. Check out the analysis HERE.
         Seriously, this is one of the best tracks released this year and it's certainly the most impressive thing that MYNAME's ever produced. There are rhythmic elements in this that are analogous to what makes Uptown Funk zing, there are melodic elements that use the same tactics as NyanCat to generate an unbelievably energetic earworm, and it employs harmonic elements comparable to what makes WannaBe the 'catchiest song ever'. It even as RickRolling levels of hilariously and intentionally misleading surface elements. 
         Beyond that, the lyrical story, and the visual exploration of that story, goes above and beyond anything that I would have expected from this release. It's really quite the incredible feat and I'm THRILLED about it.

          BoA is one of the undisputed QUEENS of Kpop, and she's been leading the industry into brave new waters for fifteen years. Kiss My Lips is the title track on her 8th studio album and it is a visual extravaganza! Honestly, BoA has never been responsible for too many of my favorite musical releases, but I admire her as a person far beyond the ability of words to express. Kiss My Lips is not my favorite track of the season, nor is the MV made for it on I consider to be anything terribly spectacular. It is however, still pretty awesome.
         The massive feather fans make the perfect unusual accessory for a fanfare to the Queen. BoA looks absolutely gorgeous in every single shot, the hair and make-up styling is incredible and her outfits are all beautifully dramatic. I'm not a huge fan of the choreography, it just seems a bit choppy and honestly rather awkward.The track itself is pretty fabulous, catchy and smooth and arranged to show off BoA's strong vocals while sustaining a whispery seductive mystique. It's a lovely song and I'm sure that it'll make it into my personal playlist. The MV is an artsy sort of beautiful. It's not really my cup of tea but it's very well done and it plays off BoA's image very well.
          Over all I think it's quite fabulous. It's not my favorite, but I can acknowledge when something is done well even if I don't particularly like it. BoA is an undeniably fantastic artist and SM always does well with her.