CNBlue was one of those K-Pop groups that I discovered while I was in my "newbie" stage when I was still trying to figure out all the names of SNSD and I had no idea who Super Junior was (gasp!). So, when I heard about their comeback, I decided to check it out. It didn't disappoint. What I love about CNBlue is their consistency with their music. They don't change their concept very often; rather their music sticks to the same pop/rock genre without sounding too much like their old songs so you won't get bored. Instead of reviewing one of their songs, I figured I'd review the whole mini album since I love it so much!
1. Hey You
Hey You, one of their title tracks, has got that feel-good melody and upbeat tempo similar to their songs Love Revolution or LOVE. Regardless Hey You has its own tone and its own character. It has the classic characteristics of a CNBLUE song such as the doowoopebebop sounds which are what I like to call filler words. These are words are neither in English or Korean; rather their just words that used to make the song sound fuller, make rhymes, and/or are used to make the song more complete etc. It's like when K-Pop groups sing LaLaLa or NaNaNa (which end up being the only lyrics in the song you can actually sing). Overall it was a good song. As for the music video, there wasn't a story line. Basically it was just them walking down a hallway to their gig.
2. Still in Love
This has to be one of my favorite songs(also a title track) in their new album.With all the "stabirabi rapststabira" parts, Still in Love is reminiscent of a Jason Mraz song with more instrumentals and less acoustic sounds. What I love about this song is the tempo changes. It's like the tempo continually rise and falls in a way that transitions well. It's refreshing to hear and I feel CNBlue's Hey You and Dream Boy also follows the same pattern of low to high tempos. As for the music video, there wasn't any story line here either. It was just the band recording the song, but I still liked the music video because it focused a lot on their faces and they looked all cool as they were really into playing their instruments.
3. Dream Boy
Dream Boy starts with the slowest tempo out of the whole six songs in this album and then the chorous rises so quickly and then it goes back to slow. It's one of my least favorite songs, but it's definitely not a bad song. It's the kind of song you'd hear in a drama like Heartstrings to put it simply (<3 this Drama).
4. Run
This song, another favorite of mine, has the most pop/rock feel. It's very upbeat once it hits the chorus and you can be assured that it's really easy to sing along to. With that said, it's very catchy so the chorus is mostly likely to get stuck in your head. My favorite part of the song is the 2:00 minute mark in which it hits an epic mini guitar solo leading into a bridge with backup vocals, until it returns back to the chorus! Daebak!
5. Rock n' Roll
One Word: Dance. This is what I call a Jump-able song, as opposed to a dance-able song, a jump-able song is the kind of song, where the beat makes you want to jump and dancing just doesn't do the song justice. Also, this song has the most rock influence. Again, at the 2:00 mark there is rockabilly-sounding guitar solo, but the song as a whole is far from a rockabilly song. The core of the song is in the chorous because unlike the others, this has a prettty fast but consistent tempo. I also love Jonghyun's vocals in the chorous because they immediately follow Yonghwa's vocals and their voices complement so well with each other!
6. In My Head (Korean Version)
Lastly, we have the Korean Version of In My Head. This song was orgianlly written in Japanese, and if you've had the pleasure of listening to songs translated into Korean or other languages than you know it's not really a pleasure. Most Korean Sung songs don't sound good when their translated into a different language and vice versa. It feels like the lyrics are being squished to fit the melody and it's just awkward to listen to, but CNBlue's in My Head was not like that all! The Korean version sounded almost the same as the Japanese version. As for the song itself: very very good. It's similar to Rock n' Roll and Run, but the tone is what's different. Check out the song for yourself and you'll see the difference.
This is the Japanese Version, so you can compare, plus the music video is really cool.
OVERVIEW:
This is definitely a good album by our boys. I guess if I had to be critical of them, some of their song are similar to each other, but it wasn't a big hindrance, because all of the songs individually are very catchy and they have their own character and tone. I loved the tempo changes and the overall power in their voices as well. Enjoy!
I give this 5 out of 5 cups of steaming bowls of Beef Ramyun!
-A
*All pictures and credits belong to rightful owners*
No comments
Post a Comment