Fantastical, & Bloody Wonderful.
I didn't really have high hopes for this one, honestly. Something about it being SHINee's fifth major MV of the year just didn't seem like something SM would be willing to put effort into. In many ways, that idea is painfully accurate with the resulting MV, more of the dancing-in-weird-rooms thing, with obvious visual ties to Dream Girl and a few vague connections to the other MVs of 2013 tucked in there. Everybody's doubly familiar to SHAWOLS on a certain level as it was directed by the same guy who gave us Lucifer, which possibly explains why I like it so much.
A lot of people have been reactin negatively to the dark-fantasy elements of the opening. I agree with a lot of the comments that it's unnecessary, that it's just SM trying once again to be 'artsy', and that it sets up the MV to be something much more epic than what it is. But at the same time, it sets an interesting tone for the MV that colors how the rest of it is viewed. I would have liked it better if they expanded the imagery, if they had really incorporated it into the body of the video, given the boys a bit of a storyline to work with, but still. I like it.
Otherwise, I really like the MV. The styling is FLAWLESS. I LOVE the faux-military looks, first of all because I'm a sucker for a man in uniform, and because the dystopian edginess of it all ties together fabulously. The sharp pseudo-uniforms and the vaguely military paraphernalia gives the whole MV a look of dark drama with oppressive overtones. An they just look awesome. I love Taemin's secondary look too, the big fuzzy coat over straight up skin; I was meh on it in the teasers, but damn he looks good. Onew's hat is a little odd, and the leopard print scarf, but hey, and I've thoroughly decided that I greatly enjoy him as a blonde. JongHyun's whole psychotic professor thing is fantastic. Minho& Key's secondary looks are both meh for me; Minho looks great in his leopard print suit jacket, but I don't really think it's because the jacket is very cool. On a related note, I would like to raise a toast to whoever decided on Key's hair this time around. Pretty much in every release since RingDingDong, his hairstyle has been the outlier, cool in it's way, but not quite in line with the other four's looks. This time it's perfectly in place.
The choreography is fantastic. They way they use each other as counterbalances and the lift for the slow-mo moon-walk-ish thing . . . fabulous. As a whole I like it almost as much as I like Lucifer's choreo, though even with the parts I can copy for fun as I walk to class, there's nothing in Everybody that's quite as iconic as the whole finger-pointing-Ls sort of thing. The Choreo in Everbody is much more integrated though, definitely better made; on a technical level, it's incredibly impressive as a part-for-whole thing, using the members not as individuals but as a part of a larger visual whole, which plays in well to the dystopian ideas of the MV (and even in the lyrics).
Song-wise, I think it's my favorite release of SHINee's 2013 spread. It's easily high on my list of favorite songs that they've ever released. I wasn't sold on it for a while. It didn't feel awkward at all to me, the slides between melodic line and dubstep were flawless, incredibly smoothe to the point that I seriously wanted to question what wicked magic managed it (and whose soul did SM sell for it). I described it to a friend as distinctly 'not awkward, but odd' . . . She agreed. F(x) had been SM's test run for serious dubstep inclined tracks and they'd done really well with it, but having it come from SHINee, especially when considering the sort of genre most of their other releases this year have stuck to . . . I wasn't sold on it right away. But when they started their lives for it? Questions answered, problems solved, all things go for falling in hopelessly love with it.
A lot of people have been reactin negatively to the dark-fantasy elements of the opening. I agree with a lot of the comments that it's unnecessary, that it's just SM trying once again to be 'artsy', and that it sets up the MV to be something much more epic than what it is. But at the same time, it sets an interesting tone for the MV that colors how the rest of it is viewed. I would have liked it better if they expanded the imagery, if they had really incorporated it into the body of the video, given the boys a bit of a storyline to work with, but still. I like it.
Otherwise, I really like the MV. The styling is FLAWLESS. I LOVE the faux-military looks, first of all because I'm a sucker for a man in uniform, and because the dystopian edginess of it all ties together fabulously. The sharp pseudo-uniforms and the vaguely military paraphernalia gives the whole MV a look of dark drama with oppressive overtones. An they just look awesome. I love Taemin's secondary look too, the big fuzzy coat over straight up skin; I was meh on it in the teasers, but damn he looks good. Onew's hat is a little odd, and the leopard print scarf, but hey, and I've thoroughly decided that I greatly enjoy him as a blonde. JongHyun's whole psychotic professor thing is fantastic. Minho& Key's secondary looks are both meh for me; Minho looks great in his leopard print suit jacket, but I don't really think it's because the jacket is very cool. On a related note, I would like to raise a toast to whoever decided on Key's hair this time around. Pretty much in every release since RingDingDong, his hairstyle has been the outlier, cool in it's way, but not quite in line with the other four's looks. This time it's perfectly in place.
The choreography is fantastic. They way they use each other as counterbalances and the lift for the slow-mo moon-walk-ish thing . . . fabulous. As a whole I like it almost as much as I like Lucifer's choreo, though even with the parts I can copy for fun as I walk to class, there's nothing in Everybody that's quite as iconic as the whole finger-pointing-Ls sort of thing. The Choreo in Everbody is much more integrated though, definitely better made; on a technical level, it's incredibly impressive as a part-for-whole thing, using the members not as individuals but as a part of a larger visual whole, which plays in well to the dystopian ideas of the MV (and even in the lyrics).
Song-wise, I think it's my favorite release of SHINee's 2013 spread. It's easily high on my list of favorite songs that they've ever released. I wasn't sold on it for a while. It didn't feel awkward at all to me, the slides between melodic line and dubstep were flawless, incredibly smoothe to the point that I seriously wanted to question what wicked magic managed it (and whose soul did SM sell for it). I described it to a friend as distinctly 'not awkward, but odd' . . . She agreed. F(x) had been SM's test run for serious dubstep inclined tracks and they'd done really well with it, but having it come from SHINee, especially when considering the sort of genre most of their other releases this year have stuck to . . . I wasn't sold on it right away. But when they started their lives for it? Questions answered, problems solved, all things go for falling in hopelessly love with it.
| I mean honestly, how could you not just melt into a puddle of radically impressed audiophile when you watch this? It's spectacular on so many levels, and Symphtoms is pretty epic too, and really the whole album, but that's another review altogether. | |
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