Best of 2014: K-pop

2014 is coming to an end, so I also want to talk a bit about the Korean music industry. As you probably realized, I'm not really a big Kpop fan anymore. I'm still listening to korean music from time to time (especially older music), but I just don't really enjoy it as much as I did in the past.

This year has been a very dramatic year for Kpop. Two members of Ladie's Code died after an accident which shocked the whole Kpop fandom. Then we saw lots of members who left their group and a few who even filed lawsuits against their companies.
S.M Entertainment had a very bad year. Jessica leaving Girls' Generation and EXO losing two members were pretty hot topics and surprised a lot of fans. To me it just shows that the Industry isn't all that nice as we would think..

But enough about the bad news, I still want to talk about a few awesome songs that I didn't have the time to review before.

EXO - Overdose

It's a shame I never talked about this. This is also the last song with all the members still in it and even though it was released early in the year it is still a song I like. Overdose is a pretty strong dance track. It gets me pumped up and I just really like how serious it is. EXO's songs still didn't disappoint me until now, so it is sad to see them losing members and fans.

T-ara - Sugar Free

This is probably my favourite Kpop song of the last few months and shows again that T-ara never disappoints. Sugar Free is a freaking catchy song and follows their usual techno disco style.
The MVs are giving me headaches and the dance isn't anything special either but it's still nice to see the members looking all beautiful. ^^

Kyuhyun - At Gwanghwamun

Within SuJu I think Kyuhyun has the best voice. So it made me really happy to see him getting a solo debut. But well, I don't really like ballads thaaaat much. Like, there are deifinetely ballads that I LOVE and some just have awesome instrumentals and lyrics but I get bored by ballads really fast (especially Korean, since there are just sooo many Korean ballads that just sound the same). SM The ballad also wasn't really my cup of tea, but as I usually enjoyed enjoyed Kyu's OST songs and stuff, I hoped this to be good (Edge of Rain, The way to break up and Listen to you are like three of my favourite ballads ever!)
And I have to admit, I like ''At Gwanghwamun''. I mean, it won't be my favourite song or something, but I'm surprised how well this turned out. The song isn't a snooze fest as it's actually pretty emotional and the chorus is beautiful. I mean, of course I'm a bit biased because I love Kyuhyun's voice, and that's definetely what makes this song special for me. If it wasn't for his voice I would probably like it a lot less. The video is pretty boring but seeing Kyuhyun is nice enough I guess.^^

My TOP 2 favourite korean songs of 2014

I really didn't review a lot of korean songs this year, but there are two songs that I absolutely love.

First of is Orange Caramel's Catallena (my post). This is actually also the only korean CD I purchased this year! I really love the whole concept of this release, the song is freaking catchy and the lyrics are also very inetersting. Then video is so interesting and different!

But I guess the song I liked the most this year is Gain's F**k you (my post). I really love the song and I'm just so impressed that Gain talked about abusive relationships, which is such a serious topic. The video is brutal but I think it is executed very well and shows the struggles of such a relationship.

Coming to an end now, I do think I will continue to listen to Kpop a bit. There have been a few very good comebacks this year. I would say everything I reviewed was very well done and I lieked those few releases. But as a whole I'm just not interested in it as much as I used to be anymore...
Well, let's see what 2015 will bring in terms of K-pop music! :3

Best of 2013 - K-pop

Well, this year of music has been pretty interesting. I already talked about the 48group releases, so let's now concentrate on the Korean music!
Okay, so I really want to follow Kpop, but it's just so hard as I don't have enough time. I couldn't talk about every song I wanted to talk about, and I'm happy I thought about the K-pop Wrap-ups, as they are a good way to still talk about these songs! I hope to continue with them next year, too until there's nothing left that impresses me (which hopefully won't happen!!). But let's now talk about the K-pop songs that were the best of 2013 (in my opinion).

Girls Day - Expectation/ Female President

Girl's Day really impressed me this year and I LOVE both of these songs. They are just so full of confidence and I actually think the sexy image fits them really good! These are also two awesome songs I love to dance too.. xD

BEG - Kill Bill

Yep, this comeback was definetely awesome. Perhaps not as awesome as some of their earlier works, but it's overall one of the best releases of this year!! The video is really exciting, and it's cool, that they used the Kill Bill story in it. xD Lots of fighting scenes, oh yeah!!

Lee Hyori - Bad Girl

Lee Hyori's comeback surprised everyone.. including me. This song + video is just so awesome and individual.. Especially the whole feminism thing. Thanks Hyori for this awesome comeback!

ChoColat - Black Tinkerbell

A unerrated song! I don't know Chocolate that well, but this song just has so much emotion and is so dark,  I love it soo much.. I will defintely watch out for them!

EXO - Growl

Unddoubtly this has been EXO's year!!
I like this a lot more than Wolf, especially for ist rather slow and rhythmic beat. It's not chaotic like many K-Pop songs nowerdays. No, it's smooth and shows the talent of the boys clearly!!

SHINee - Everybody

And there I thought SHINee won't release an awesome title song any more this year.. well, until Everybody of course (their Album tracks were awesome before!). Such an amazing song, I especially love Minhos parts.. **

VIXX - Hyde

VIXX totally rocked this year!! But I really like Hyde a lot more that Voodoo Doll, even though both Songs are freaking cool! Hyde is just so dark and creepy and gaaah, it's soo cool!!

2PM - A.D.T.O.Y

Oh right, I almost forgot that 2PM had a comeback. Well, I looped this song soo much, and I still really like its sexy tone.

T-ara - Number 9

T-ara really showed why they are so popular with this amazing dance track. I really love the song!

Kara - Damaged Lady

And this is the last featured song, but nevertheless it is a very cool and confident song.

I honestly really like these songs, but somehow I really lost a bit of interest in Kpop. There are so many groups and they get more every year. Also in my opinion K-pop got a lot more Americanized last year. You know, I love a few English phrases, but after Psy's succes it seems to me as if everyone only releases their music for the international fans and to me it seems as if K-pop isn't even that succesful in Korea itself.
Well, as you can see there are still a few songs I really like but I'm not concentrating that much on the groups anymore..
Sadly Big Bang didn't have a comeback this year.. Oh right, that's another thing that annoys me: the newer groups all have thousands of comebacks, while the older and bigger groups just have one or no comeback the whole year.. So as a Big Bang and Super Junior fan, the year sucked for me. Okay, all the members of Big Bang had individual comebacks which was great and Super Junior had their two japanese releases. But honestly, I am so bored by ''Blue World'' and the only reason why I want to review it is Heechul.. But enough of that now. I listen to music, because it makes me happy, and these groups still make me happy even if I only listen to their older songs. I'm all happy with the songs I like, so I look forward to the next year!! :D

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

It's finally that time of the year again. Bring out the presents and don't forget to watch over the candles on the christmas tree! This years Christmas actually comes very early for me. Even though it's winter it isn't cold at all.. Well all the lights and Christmas trees do create a Christmas atmosphere and it's not like we ever had snow on Christmas Eve.. (still sad though) 

So to help creating that atmosphere there are of course many new Christmas songs that were released this year. Korean groups dominate of course with their songs and I wonder why AKB48 didn't have a Christmas song this year. Well, anyways enjoy the songs!!

 

Now to round up the post I will post a few pictures that are to the Kpop contrast mostly Jpop. Yeay!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Random Videos:

 

 

K-pop Wrap-up: August 2013

Here I am again for this month's K-pop wrap up. This month was a very hard month and I didn't have much time. September will probably be the same, so I won't blog that much. Still, I want to talk about the songs that were released this month (of course not all, but some of the best). I will do the same for Jpop when I get into that a bit more (it's very much H!P and ALL48 until now, and the releases are pretty exciting so I can talk about them). But back to Kpop for now. I though about not ranking them anymore but rather ordering them chronological.

05.08.
EXO - Growl

Growl is the title song for EXO's repackage version of their XOXO album. I think it's pretty cool that their first title song of this album was called Wolf and now comes Growl. Well song-wise it's totally different from Wolf. While Wolf was a strong rap-dance song, Growl is more rhytmic and slow. It shows us great vocal skills from all the members and is really catchy. The dance is also very cool and it's even more impressive that the first version of the music video was shot in one shot!!

Look at how beautiful this is!
This is now on my list of: Eventually buying if I have enough money left over/ it's such a great song but I'm not too sure about the whole album/ I WANT MONEY!!

06.08:
B.A.P. - BADMAN

B.A.P. is back with their song Batman.. err, I mean BADMAN! (What's great about being a bad man?)
The song is good. Yes, it really is. It's catchy, it's cool, it's better than their last song!! BUT it is still not as amazing as many of their other songs (like One Shot).
The chorus is AMAZING. I would really like this if it only were the chorus. Sadly there are other parts and even though they aren't actually bad, they don't really fit with the rest and don't have the epic feeling of the chorus.
Luckily the video shows the epicness:

There is some fighting, the boys look pretty interesting and the dance is really cool. The storyline is a bit unnessecary, but it's okay.

07.08:
2NE1 - Do you love me

This song is finally like their old songs again!!
It's catchy and funny and very interesting but luckily not as random as Falling in love. Everything works really good together. WIth this, 2NE1 can somehow make sure they are still one of the top groups!

The video is self-made and that's so cool!! I guess they still don't actually filmed this alone, but it's still a great idea and shows the personalities of the group so much more!!

12.08:
MBLAQ - No Love

Another repackage song.
No Love is our typical cutesy love song. I'm not too found of it, but I love MBLAQ soo I at least enjoy it. The voices are very beautiful and I like the personality everyone brings into this song, expecially through the video:

Yep, the video is really good. It shows us the fun side of MBLAQ and is way more personal than a real high quality video.

22.08:
Sunmi - 24 hours

FINALLY!! Finally we hear something from Sunmi. I'm serious, she was my favourite Wonder Girls member and I was really sad when I learnt that she wasn't in the group anymore.. Post Sunmi WG songs didn't grab me as much as the songs WITH her. For me, her voice is very special so I'm happy she still wants to sing. 24 Hours is a typical sexy JYP (Miss A etc..) but since this is the first one this year, I'm very happy. Ooookay, of course it's different from other songs, but you can hear it's from JYP..
It's very catchy and danceable so I really like it!!

The video is cool! Amazing dance and she looks awesome. The hair colour isn't my favourite, though. Oh, and she's soooo skinny.. o.O Okay, she has always been, but I hope she will gain a bit wight.

23.08:
Henry - 1-4-3 (I love you)

Another song from Henry, wow. Even though 1-4-3 (I love you) is a pretty typical K-pop song, it's cute and funny. Henry is cool!! Still, it didn't impress me THAT much (sorry Henry)..

The video only shows how Henry worked on the song and of course also on the dance that is shown most of the times.
Amber appears for a short time but it diesn't make the video that much more interesting.. Well, at least Henry is very cute.. *-*

26.08:
Teen Top - Rocking

Tenn Top always has these odd songs that I somehow like. They have these songs that I find so typical but they add something childish to it and make it very special. I also like their concepts. They always have very colourful hair and clothes (I wonder if their hair will fall out from all this dying) and that's very interesting.
This song and video isn't any different. It's funny and I really enjoy listening to it!!

The dance is sooooo GOOD!! Then there are some random fighting scenes, but the video is cool. I also really like C.A.P and L.Joe very much here.. ;)

So that's it from me. This was August!!!! xD