It was a good year.
By Moses Kim
HyunA – Ice Cream
This summer, 4minute ringleader Hyuna inspired some controversy with her cover of PSY’s “Gangnam Style”: she had already developed a reputation for being something of a teenage sexpot, but her vocal style on that video took her to a whole new realm of sensuality. It’s not surprising that PSY would revisit her in the music video for “Ice Cream”, either, seeing as how both have made careers on cartoonish, Technicolor personas and music. Understatement is a completely foreign concept to this song, which bursts to life on chunky, blaring synths and a hip-hop beat. Both are plenty amiable, but the real core of the song is HyunA’s oozing, sticky performance, whether she’s having fun with the robotic “cream, cream, cream, cream,” running through the background of the chorus, vocal hook in the background or declaring “I GOT THIRTY-ONE FLAVORS” with an attitude that transcends camp: throughout “Ice Cream”, she also offers us thirty-one different hooks. No matter what your thoughts are on the song or HyunA, I guarantee at least one of them will stick. B
missA – I Don’t Need A Man
missA’s most glaring flaw has always been their lack of personality: their songs are generally well-crafted and atmospheric, but anybody else could step in to sing and I wouldn’t notice. “I Don’t Need A Man” feels like an attempt to rectify that issue a bit, and unfortunately a slightly artificial attempt at that. It’s packed with vocal harmonies, shouts of “HEY” and “OH”, and a neat little bit in the chorus where each of the four members gets a chance to show some sass. Despite the amiable, sunny vibes of the track, it still falls a little short of feeling completely sincere, though: “This is for all the independent ladies,” they declare, but the song only scrapes its titular conceit, focusing less on emotional independence than on financial independence. In the moment, though, it’s a plenty resonant expression, but I still wish that I could hear what missA has to say that any of my friends couldn’t already say better (albeit much less musically). C+
Lee Hi – 1, 2, 3, 4
Talent show stars seldom make it big after they win it all, but Lee Hi has surprised right out of the gate with “1, 2, 3, 4”, her debut single. Everything about this song demonstrates a maturity to her perspective, from the snappy, measured instrumentation to the refreshingly distanced lyrics: “Time will resolve everything,” Lee Hi declares, accompanied by harmonies that sound weary but wise. That said, she also has a bit of fun with her performance, counting down in the last chorus, adding in flourishes to the melodies, and delivering the kiss-off “Why don’t you just piss off now?” with a scorching intensity that would make Adele blush. All that, and it also does more for feminism than “I Don’t Need A Man” ever did. What’s not to like? A
Noel – Things I Couldn’t Say
What’s nice about “Things I Couldn’t Say” is how surprisingly pretty it is. Noel may just be laying his regrets onto the music, but he does it over a soothing, lush bed of R&B that feels wonderfully lived-in; unfortunately, that’s about all I can remember from the song. Try as they might, Noel and his lyrics begin in sadness and never manage to move on from it, so mired in the song’s conceit that it never suggests anything even remotely personal. By the time the chorus “builds” to a vocally-manipulated chorus of men angsting in yeahs and oohs, the truth becomes clear: there’s a lot of things he couldn’t say, but it doesn’t look like Noel’s going to say very many of them even now. C+
Epik High (ft. Bom of 2NE1) – Up
I know very, very little about the rap duo that is Epik High, but damned if this didn’t just win me over completely. Though the group obviously specializes in hip-hop, one of that genre’s greatest strengths is its ability to seamlessly crib from various other influences to create something wholly novel, and that strength is in full play here: “Up” begins as a sincere ballad apropros of Bom’s emphatic caterwauling before it takes an abrupt turn into a stadium march, eventually settling into an invigorating back-and-forth dialogue between the two. Self-empowerment anthems usually relegate themselves to either extreme of the emotional spectrum, be it weepy balladry or dopey-eyed swagger. “Up” stitches them together and soars even higher. A-
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEWS
Ailee – I Will Show You
Featuring an incredibly powerful performance from the surprisingly gutsy Ailee, loaded with vivid details of things bought and forgotten that sting, anthemic to the max—this song’s only flaw is how haphazardly the two halves of it are patched together. B+
Gain – Bloom
“Bloom” whirs and chugs along at a groovy little pace, but when the chorus goes for cotton-candy sweet, it emerges soaked in corn syrup instead. C
PSY – Gangnam Style
On my first listen to “Gangnam Style”, it would have qualified for an A. You would think that overexposure through the song in literally every medium possible (we’ve seen anime parodies, a political takedown of Mitt Romney aptly titled “Romney Style”, and even a mash-up with MC Hammer’s “Too Legit To Quit” at this point) would sap the song of its immediate, carnal power, but this gem has stood the test of time. A+
HyunA – Oppa Is Just My Style
Nobody dethrones the master, HyunA, certainly not somebody who meows all of her lyrics like a feral kitten. D-
G-Dragon - Crayon
One of the most surreal experiences K-Pop had to offer this year, this track still hits hard; whether it’s a good buzz or a bad buzz is a question for another day. B
Before I end up descending into self-indulgent verbal fellatio, I’ll cut myself off there. Any way you slice it, this was a groundbreaking year for Korean pop, and though I am often disgusted by the naked consumerism of the entire genre, the passion and talent of the artists in our nation always manages to transcend and surprise. In any case, we can all look forward to turning our televisions on in the last week of the year, when all of the Korean broadcast networks will be airing their end-of-the-year music extravaganzas, and seeing PSY dance to “Gangnam Style” about twenty more times. I know I’ll be there.
Cheers to 2012!
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