Album Review: Park Soyu – Lonely Planet
Release: November 7, 2012
Distributor: CJ E&M
Genre: Pop, indie rock
Rating:
Rookie artists, and rookie singer-songwriters in particular, sometimes get a free pass on their debut efforts. Maybe their work is lacking thematic consistency. Maybe the arrangements aren’t up to par. Maybe the melodies just aren’t very engaging. You can chalk it all up to the rookie’s inexperience, and off they go to improve for their next release. Then again, sometimes you get a Park Soyu, who kicks all those concerns out the window in her debut album, Lonely Planet.
One common rookie mistake – and admittedly, one that’s more common at the big-agency level than in the indie scene – is over-extension. In today’s short-attention-span music markets, people feel the need to show off all the things they can do and impress listeners. More often than not, this only means that their debut releases feel like an unfocused mess that’s been slapped together without direction. What’s impressive about Lonely Planet is the way in which Ms. Park still does this, but makes it emerge as a natural display of her spectrum rather than a contrived attempt at versatility.
On the surface, Lonely Planet is a mellow pop album. It mostly uses lightweight instrumentation, ranging from acoustics to ambient electronics, to power its soft, amiable compositions. That’s embodied in acoustic opening track 널 불러보는 말 (Words That Call For You), which calmly recounts the regrets of two lovers in a back-and-forth dynamic between Park and Kim Jong-wan; similarly, bouncy synthrock piece (Danse) With Me has Park whispering a charming seduction to “stop the time and dance with me”.
There is, however, a layer underneath: a sense of unease and imperfection encroach upon the brightest songs of the album. 마음의 거리 (Street Of The Mind) features an airy, echoing vocal line that turns steely as the narrator distances herself away from the past, ultimately wishing “your two cruel faces to be shattered apart”. Rhythmic and string-based Stresssss (yes, five s’s – kind of like that W&Whale EP) also plays with the vocals, distorting and breaking the track as Park pours on poetic vitriol and refers again to the “two faces” theme.
The best (and most unlikely) example of this, though, is lead single Oheyo. It’s an uplifting modern-rock track that banks on careful instrumentation and rousing chorus, culminating in breathtaking repetitions of the titular call. Now, the song is about overcoming, but it seems to focus more on what is being overcome rather than the act itself. The verses sing:
We are all fading away
Perhaps we are all being forgotten
Like rocks of sand swept away by the sea
Like Mom’s wrinkles increasing one by oneWe are unable to own anything
Only what is to disappear in a moment(…)
What if this rain doesn’t let up today
Today’s the day that the world ends
Frankly, I want that day to come soon
One sad thing is, I won’t get to see you again
That’s a tough hole to dig yourself out of. Park addresses this in an interesting way: the chorus starts out with “But why is it so difficult // The only thing I can hold on to is my heart”. The odd word there is “but”. So apparently, we are fading away, unable to own anything, we are fleeting… and whereas one would think these are all bad, the song seems to say that these things actually mean our lives should be easier, not harder. Oheyo’s ideal, then, is not that we should be immortal and rich. It instead points us to imperfection, to finiteness and transience, and reminds us to never forget the really important stuff – “your warm hearts and the world you dreamt of”. This construction completes what is musically one of the year’s best pop singles, and becomes the glue that holds the rest of the album together. Lonely Planet’s overtly dark moments, like the heavy-handed despair of 유월 (June) and the pacifism-minded, apocalyptic vision of Destroy The World, can then be read as a natural extension of the imperfection theme as opposed to random angst.
So Park Soyu succeeds where veterans have failed, but Lonely Planet isn’t perfect. The latter half of the album, where the artist seems to take her foot off the pedal a bit, has a couple underwhelming tracks. Some songs, like Oheyo and Stresssss, could have benefited from longer running times to expand their strong sound. June could have done without the excessive moaning and dragging in the (I assume intentionally) nigh-unintelligible climax.
Yet those are minor complaints, overshadowed by the exceptional creativity found in the album. Park’s strong proficiency in a variety of styles helps her expressions emerge more colorfully, and it’s worth noting one more time that she’s clearly using that proficiency as a tool, rather than letting it dictate the album’s character. It reminds me of another recent rookie release - Flight of the Ugly Duckling by Son Seung-yeon - only with more original vision. Full of memorable moments and surprising polish, Lonely Planet is one of the best debut albums of 2012.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. 널 불러보는 말 (Words That Call For You) – Featuring Kim Jong-wan of Nell
2. Oheyo
3. Stresssss
4. (Danse) With Me
5. 유월 (June)
6. Destroy The World
7. 마음의 거리 (Street Of The Mind)
8. Don’t Take Your Mind Away
9. For Your Sleep (잠 못 이루는 이들을 위한 자장가) (A Lullaby For Insomniacs)
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the individual and not of hellokpop as a whole.
Source: Photos – Bugs Music; Videos – BubbleFeetPandaCH1 and CJ E&M Music on YouTube
Have a recent release that you’d like to see reviewed? Tell us in a comment below! Requested albums will be considered each week and may be selected to be reviewed in the subsequent week.
INFINITE’s Kim Sung Kyu releases ‘Shine’
Following Woollim Entertainment‘s announcement of INFINITE leader Kim Sung Kyu‘s solo debut, the artist has unveiled the audio for his first track, Shine.
The music and lyrics for Shine was written by Kim Jong Wan and will be the first track in Kim Sung Kyu’s track list for his mini album, Another Me.
Check out Shine below.
Album Review: G-Dragon – One Of A Kind
Release: September 18, 2012
Distributor: KMP Holdings
Genre: Pop, Rap/Hip-hop
After six years, numerous group works and a critically disastrous solo debut, it still seems premature to say that G-Dragon has found a particular genre that’s perfect for him. That’s partly because he hasn’t built up a consistent discography (neither as a solo artist nor within Big Bang) in any one genre. But as of late, I’m beginning to think that another, more salient reason is that G-Dragon is simply the kind of artist that defies clean, easy categorization.
Consider One Of A Kind as another exhibit of that characteristic. There are two pretty different strands of pop contained in this EP; one is the club-anthem and its derivatives that the GD & Top project showed great promise with, and the other is the unplugged and toned-down alternative that Big Bang proper has been working with lately. I’m still not convinced that G-Dragon is all that proficient with the latter style, but with the former – there is variety and quality in droves.
One Of A Kind is deliciously attitudinal, being perhaps G-Dragon’s most swagger-oriented song to date; the punchy, minimalist beat gives the rapper room to play around with slurred pronunciation and stylized embellishments. Lead single 크레용 (Crayon) presents a frenetic beat that pulses with each cascade of synth throb and headlines the flow of the entire album. GD then changes the pace 결국 (Ultimately), an attractively breezy pop-ballad.
If these tracks’ relative lack of lyricism bothers you, Light My Fire makes amends. Dok2 is really the showstealer on this song with his fiery verse and Tablo is still Tablo even when keeping himself tame, but GD keeps his end of the bargain with a schematically (not quite substantively) clever set of short rhymes.
These tracks are not only well-conceived, but they’re also very nicely executed. That YG Entertainment sample-and-arrangement polish is apparent in all four songs. Meanwhile, G-Dragon is plenty well-versed in the conventions of these genres, and that savvy shows in the album’s smarter moments – the aforementioned Crayon throb and Ultimately’s rousing (and reminiscent of the A Fool of Tears verse recycled by Taeyang) bridge, to list two.
The album’s other part is another story. 그 XX (That XX), which made headlines by attaining an adults-only rating from Korea’s media rating board, turns out to be primarily a clever marketing ploy. It’s not a bad song – austere acoustics and melody are easy on the ears – but what is the point of the track’s rating? To slip in that one swear word with minimal implications? There were a lot of directions GD could have gone, thematically, once he decided to bear the nineteen-plus label. But That XX is a thoroughly, disappointingly pedestrian song.
Missing You and Today feature marquee names in Kim Yun-ah and Kim Jong-wan, but their talents seem ill-fit to each song. The former primarily has issues with pacing, as the repetitive beat isn’t given enough variation from the vocal lines to throw off the sense of monotony. And though it’s great that Kim Yun-ah can pull off the lithe tone asked of her as effectively as she does, the truth is that this isn’t her strongest or most unique suit. The latter, attempting a dramatic modal switcharoo between Kim Jong-wan’s tender verses and GD’s party anthem chorus, instead ends up completely burying Kim’s sections under the splashes of rock.
So One Of A Kind could serve as a good where-are-we landmark for G-Dragon. It shows what he does really well on one hand, and what he still needs to work on on the other. The reason why I’m not writing off the non-hip-hop side of this EP, and the same reason that I was able to say earlier that G-Dragon defies clean categorization, is that he still shows promise in those three tracks. GD performs well in slower tempo, vocally and instrumentally. The task now is to figure out what he can do to make these songs consistently engaging. YG isn’t an agency known for its downtempo artists, but GD has every potential to be the guy starting to change that.
Tracklist
1. One Of A Kind
2. 크레용 (Crayon)
3. 결국 (Ultimately) – Featuring unknown member, YG’s upcoming girl group
4. 그 XX (That XX)
5. Missing You – Featuring Kim Yun-ah of Jaurim
6. Today – Featuring Kim Jong-wan of Nell
7. 불 붙여봐라 (Light My Fire) – Featuring Tablo, Dok2
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the individual and not of hellokpop as a whole.
Source: Photo – Bugs Music; Video – BIGBANG on YouTube
Have a recent release that you’d like to see reviewed? Tell us in a comment below! Requested albums will be considered each week and may be selected to be reviewed in the subsequent week.
Album Review: Nell – Slip Away
Release: April 10, 2012
Distributor: Loen Entertainment
Rating:
Nell‘s music is often dark, disturbing, hopelessly depressing, sonically bizarre, or all of the above. In other words, inaccessible. On the other hand, their brand of incisive, frank lyricism and emotive melodies resonates with us. It’s why Nell is one of the most popular bands (of any genre) in Korea, and the driving force of their numerous acclaimed works. Slip Away, the band’s fifth (seventh if you include the rare underground albums) studio album and the first since a military-service-spurred hiatus, unfortunately offers us less of both.
Slip Away‘s lyrics aren’t bad. I’m not sure if that would even be possible for this band. Instead, they’re wildly inconsistent. Lead vocal Kim Jong-wan pens the album as always; now, I don’t think there would be much dissent to the statement that he’s simply a masterful lyricist. His writing spans testimony and allegory, mundaneness and fantasia; it tells haunting stories in beautiful prose, explores the darkest depths of the psyche and puts into words what we cannot. There are glimpses of that in Slip Away, to be sure. For example, Go‘s evocative language and the achingly illustrated tragedy of Hopeless Valentine, as well as some choice phrases elsewhere (“The footsteps of time // Couldn’t be ignored as if I hadn’t heard”, in In Days Gone By), show that Mr. Kim hasn’t lost the touch. But other than these and some other exceptions, the lyrics settle for the monotonous – with The Ending, 그리고, 남겨진 것들 (The Day Before; literal translation And, The Remnant), and the majority of In Days Gone By being prime examples.
It’s not to say that the topics are the problem. The vast majority of Nell’s best lyrics dealt with common themes – love, break-up, loss, pain, despair. But Kim Jong-wan always found new things to say about these and new ways to say them, which is how we ended up with the kind of chilling imagery and suicidal despair in 시작의 끝 (Beginning’s End) and 51분전 (51 Minutes Before) as well as the type of hidden irony and gorgeous expressions in Thank You and 마음을 잃다 (Losing The Mind). But Slip Away doesn’t display that creativity. The most disappointing tracks in this regard are the two all-English tracks, Loosing Control [sic] and Beautiful Stranger. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind these was, but they rapidly become clichéd; it seems like Kim boxes himself in when writing in English, sticking to bland language and being a bit more repetitive than he’d like to be. A line in Beautiful Stranger reads “It’s like being locked up in a cage”; in fact, that’s exactly how these tracks read.
The verdict on Slip Away‘s sound is similar – it’s just as inconsistent as the lyrics. The album starts out nicely – the band is in its element with the eerie guitar-string combo and split drum beat of The Ending. A few tracks later, Standing In The Rain presents a gorgeous pop-rock arrangement adorned with punctuating claps and ambient synths. And Beautiful Stranger, even with those lyrics, sounds pretty nice with a deliberate and ponderous electronica beat powering its melancholia.
Even these are somewhat unfocused, however. For The Ending and Beautiful Stranger, the culprit is an overly long outro – clocking in at nearly three minutes for the former and a minute and a half for the latter. Normally, Nell is extremely proficient with this technique; for example, 12 Seconds (2008) had an even longer outro that kept the listener enraptured to the very last second. Listen to the following live version (which has a 4-minute outro, longer than even the studio version).
The trick to this is that 12 Seconds first hits hard with a soul-stirring series of refrains, and then allows the outro to slowly decompress the atmosphere and formulate an ending impression; with the outro serving this specific function, the song does not lose any of its focus. Unfortunately, the two tracks in question do not get this luxury. They’re not powerful, cathartic tracks (they’re not meant to be), and don’t have the same strong impact on the listener. So the long outros have a limit to their viability, and both The Ending and Beautiful Stranger allow theirs to way overstep that limit.
More serious problems arise with the album’s slower and toned-down tracks. Go holds its own, but neither In Days Gone By nor Slip Away (the track) can claim a memorable melody, instrumentation, performance, or atmosphere. Loosing Control suffers from an inexplicably lackluster and unevocative vocal performance from Kim, and the minimalist instrumentation, while good, is insufficient to cover up the vocal line. Lead single And, The Remnant also falls into this slower-and-unplugged category, although it fares a lot better than the others. It’s a fairly straightforward ballad driven by a tasteful string line; still fairly unremarkable, but it feels the most polished out of the bunch.
This procession of inconsistency and mediocrity leaves the listener thirsty by the album’s tail end. Thankfully, we are quenched – albeit briefly. Cliff Parade is the album’s best track by far and a genuinely powerful work. Kim Jong-wan puts in a minimal but brilliant performance as an inexorable snare beat marches on alongside solemn strings, before the song explodes into an unbridled, torrential riff. It’s tightly structured, massively scaled, and magnificently executed. It’s early, but Cliff Parade is great enough to become an instant frontrunner for best rock song of 2012.
The follow-up, Hopeless Valentine, is no slouch either. Along with the aforementioned lyrics, Nell adds perhaps the album’s most “unpolished” sound – dull guitar riffs, abrasive strings, the irregular polyrhythm scheme – that produce one of its most cohesive tracks. The rhythm is great, but the sense of rush in the song’s chorus and intermission is also breathtaking. It’s the only track here that justifies a six-minute length.
This one-two punch is outstanding, but by this point Slip Away has already made a thoroughly disappointing impression of itself. It’s worth noting that the album does achieve a surprising diversity in instrumentation, as well as some remarkable arrangements – they just get overshadowed by the ineffective composition and lyrics. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Nell applied the same edginess and melodic strength of older albums to these improved sound elements. It might have become the band’s greatest masterpiece. On the plus side, Nell does have all the pieces of the puzzle now. It’s just a matter of putting it all together.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. The Ending
2. Go
3. In Days Gone By
4. 그리고, 남겨진 것들 (The Day Before)
5. Standing In The Rain
6. Loosing Control
7. Beautiful Stranger
8. Cliff Parade
9. Hopeless Valentine
10. Slip Away
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the individual and not of hellokpop.
Photo credit: maniadb
Video credit: dydald, Woolliment, xhdl99 on YouTube
Have a recent release that you’d like to see reviewed? Feel free to tell us in a comment below! Requested albums will be considered each week and may be selected to be reviewed in the subsequent week.
