Listening to miss A’s amazing new album Colours got me thinking about the quality of music in K-pop this year so far. We’re only four months in now and already I’d claim it’s a better year than 2014 — especially for the girls. Nearly every release from a female artist has been a complete knockout, and what’s best is that there are even more great tracks hidden on their albums. Missing out on great album tracks is something I do a lot and have been wanting to change that recently. So as KultScene’s self-proclaimed girl group expert (i.e. girl group biased) I’m going to go through some of my favourite album B-sides from the girls of K-pop this year so far.
We’re already a few weeks into Spring, but it has only started to really feel like it. The weather is getting warmer, the flowers are starting to bloom, and the lively, lovey-dovey K-pop songs about love being in the air are rolling out. That’s why for this week’s playlist we’re welcoming Spring with our favorite songs with this season in mind.
The weather is finally warming up and the massive snow banks have finally started to melt here in the Northeast. This calls for a celebration since it’s starting to look and feel like spring, don’t you think? And what better way to ring in this delightful season then to listen to the fresh voices of brother and sister duo Akdong Musician. I’m not a big fan of those overly cute, super aegyo concepts, but Lee Chanhyuk and Lee Soohyun’s charming personalities and harmonious voices in I Love You wrapped me right up! It’s springtime and love is in the air; it’s that time of the year where everything feels bright and anew. Their youthful voices remind me of that pure young love and carefree days. Ah, how I wish it could be spring all the time!
For some people this time can be more the end of Winter than the beginning of Spring. Maybe you like Winter or just don’t like change, if so Primary’s new single featuring Oh Hyuk Island is your song. The subdued melancholy of Island is a lonely sound. The song itself feels transitory in that it mourns the loss of those around you and how you react to this. The song mirrors the changing seasons as it picks up halfway through only to return to the same melody as the start. For Island, Primary has ditched his R&B synth sound for something richer and more mature. Island slowly builds and pops, gradually adding new elements. Each of these is perfectly measured and compliment Oh Hyuk’s beautiful voice.
–Joe
In the words of Roy Kim’s words, Bom Bom Bom has come! And with it it brings all the young love cliches, and this song isn’t any different. With his deep yet soft vocals, Roy sings about wanting to be in a relationship with a special girl. The song itself is one of those feel-good tunes that are more than appropriate for a stroll on a bike or a walk in the park. You know, something outdoorsy that lets you soak in all of Spring’s wonders.
When I think of Spring, it instantly makes me melancholic. This season is very romantic and love is in the air. 2NE1‘s song Happy is the perfect example of this feeling. The record itself is very upbeat, but the track talks about letting the one you love go while still wishing for their happiness. Even if the meaning of the song is sad, it still gives you a feeling of happiness and hope. And that what Spring is all about!
–Alejandro
It’s not spring until you’ve heard Cherry Blossom Ending. The acoustic, retro-style ballad by Busker Busker was a breakout hit in 2012, and resurfaces on Korean music charts every spring as South Koreans welcome in warm weather after frigid winters. Lead singer Jang Bum Joon’s vocals are warm and will make your heart flutter as you listen to the song. Read more
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Untitled-design.png7681024KultScenehttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngKultScene2015-04-05 18:30:582015-04-06 01:48:26Playlist Sunday: Spring
Seoul Fashion Week is one of the most coveted events among fashion photographers. From the runway to the streets, the fashion in Korea doesn’t cease to impress and generate a buzz all over the world. Modern silhouettes, perfect tailored pieces, and avant-garde and obscure collections took charge of the runways of Seoul. And since keeping up with all of the F/W 2015 can be a bit much, we did the work for you. Take a look at our picks for the best collections at Seoul Fashion Week this season.
Jehee Sheen
Jehee Sheen presented a collection full of elegance, perfect for the modern man. The color palette was somber but very neutral, with black, grey, and burgundy being shown in different shades. The combination of smarts pieces like jumpers and trousers mixed with coats and leather jackets created crisp combinations that gave off a fresh look. His use of different textures gave a modern twist to the classic suit for men.
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JKOO
JKOO’s work with prints and texture is admirable. The use of neoprene and techno fabrics gave off an edgy look to his fall/winter collection. The collection is full of interesting details, like raw edges and faux fur appliques. The silhouettes are modern and play with different proportions that create an interesting look. The prints of the collection tie in perfectly with the fur appliques that create various abstract figures.
Androgyny plays an important part in Byungmun Seo’s collections. His menswear and womenswear almost become unisex and a synonym of avant-garde. Unlike Jehee Sheen who took the classic suit pieces and added modernity with its textures and fabrics, Byungmun Seo played with silhouettes and proportions to create new and edgy suit pieces for men. Dropped crotch pants, wide leg trousers, and hybrids of leather jackets with classic blazers are seen throughout the collection. At first glance, it seems like each look has different layers of clothing, but if you look closely, everything is one piece. The dark palette of the collections makes it timeless and a must for fans of brands Rick Owens, KTZ, and Hood By Air.
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KAAL E. SUKTAE
His impeccably tailored collection made us fashion lovers fall in love with his fall/winter collection, and gave everyone in Korea a nostalgic feel by incorporating the popular Korean cartoon character, Dooly, to the collection. He took a very modern route by mixing the cartoon characters with perfect tailored pieces that were clearly inspired by military elements. Unlike other previous designers that have added famous cartoons into their collections, Kaal E. Suktae’s use of the characters seems like a perfect addition. The inclusion of Dooly doesn’t look childish or foolish, it seems very modern and chic. It feels, in a way, that it was almost meant to be.
Moreover, neoprene is here to stay, and being a very malleable fabric, it adds great texture to a collection, screaming modernity. The mix of industrial zippers, PVC, leather, and oversized buttons gives an amazing edge to every look. The color palette was kept simple, with a few colors added to make a statement in head-to-toe monochromatic looks or pops of color with color blocking. That yellow fur bomber jacket is to die for. Every look has amazing details and the collection itself is very cohesive.
Which one was your favorite collection on Seoul Fashion Week F/W 2015? Did we miss your favorite? We’d love to hear you thoughts and don’t forget to follow us on <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/kultscene” target=”_blank”>Facebook</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/kultscene” target=”_blank”>Twitter</a>, <a href=”http://instagram.com/kultscene” target=”_blank”>Instagram</a>
It’s been a long wait for all the Say A’s out there considering it’s been 16 months since miss A released their last single, Hush. But the four ladies are back with a fun dance track titled Only You. Within less than 72 hours, the music video has already garnered over two million views, which is a first for miss A, and the song achieved a perfect all kill on the music charts. Read more
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/tumblr_nm330kfXsC1tk9qu5o1_540.jpg286540Tam Huynhhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTam Huynh2015-04-01 18:13:552015-04-01 18:25:59miss A “Only You” Music Video & Song Review
Traveling overseas is hard enough for an artist, but how about a whole record label? Well, that’s exactly what Amoeba Culture, a South Korean record label, did with several of their more prominent artists for the Amoeba Culture Tour 2015. Dynamic Duo, Zion. T, Crush, Primary, and DJ Friz, brought to the East Coast of the United States by Music Enkor for two shows. On February 28th, after a stop in Atlanta the night before, the crew made their way over to New York City where a practically sold out show greeted them enthusiastically. Hip hop and R&B fans were going to be in for a treat with this multi-artist show. Every artist was expected to bring a slightly different style, and they did not disappoint.
After an exciting and brief countdown, DJ Friz took the stage behind a raised DJ set-up and went straight into mixing a beat to get the crowd riled up. Not too long after, Crush joined the stage and began A Little Bit. Crush talked a bit to the audience, which was always echoed by screams. He then continued his set with I Fancy You. With his fluid moves across the stage and equally smooth vocals, it was easy for everyone to get excited.
Zion. T eventually joined Crush on stage for Two Melodies. A clear crowd favorite was Just, where the audience sung along the whole way through. Afterwards, Zion. T continued his solo stage with popular songs such as Yanghwa BRDG and Babay. Primary jumped in the DJ booth after, followed by Choiza who joined Zion. T on stage for Question Mark. Not to be outdone by Zion. T, Dynamic Duo exploded onto the stage with See Through. After Zion. T left the stage, Dynamic Duo greeted the audience and went into Lee Dae Ho and Three Dopeboyz. The veteran group knew how to master the stage and work the audience up into a frenzy. The crowd showed no sign of fatigue as they were all screaming and dancing along to Gaeko and Choiza’s set.
The festival-like atmosphere continued with all of the artists on stage while performing their closing song, Friday Night. As confetti and streamers shot into the air, the show came to a close and all of the artists gathered together for a final bow. The concert was exciting and each artist brought something unique and special to the stage. With all of the artists performing together, a spectacular blend of excitement and music created a highly enjoyable evening.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_7180edit.jpg533800Katherinehttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngKatherine2015-03-31 17:42:222015-04-02 12:04:09Amoeba Culture Tour 2015 With Dynamic Duo, Zion. T, Crush, Primary, & DJ Friz Turn Up New York City
Disney’s Mulan is going to be remade as a live action film, which means that actors of Asian descent will get their chance to shine.
Who better to partake in the film than K-pop stars? While that’s highly unlikely, there are a few Korean stars that we think would be realistically good choices and should definitely be considered for the starring roles in Mulan.
Despite losing two members and various controversies, EXO is still one of the most popular K-pop boy groups, at least until Big Bang makes its eventual return. Thanks to its immense popularity, just about whatever EXO releases is bound in some way to be quite successful. With this sort of safety net and the fact that they are an SM Entertainment act, a company known to be innovative, I still expect them to go a relatively safe route. This is probably because their safest song, Growl was also their most successful and because SM need some stability during this turbulent time.
Call Me Daddy, sorry, Call Me Baby therefore was surprising to me in its understated yet strangely structured whole. It is in short, a new version of Growl with a few added bells and whistles upon first glance. Yet further inspection offers some more unique aspects to the song.
Call Me Baby jettisons the genre and crazy structure bending of EXO’s previous songs like MAMA and Wolf, and keeps the simple instrumentation of Growl with a slightly updated song structure. This seems quite fitting given this comeback has been seen as a kind of rebirth for EXO after Luhan and Kris’ departure. The newest title song holds onto EXO’s most successful elements and lets go of now irrelevant parts.
The most notable element from before is the RnB beats that carries the song; it is instantly recognisable and fun to any listener. The horn riff that follows it is equally satisfying and recalls the earlier work of Justin Timberlake. The horns accompanied with the strings, which come in later, are the extent of the aforementioned bells and whistles. Instrumentally and musically, Call Me Baby has little else to offer listeners looking for a new style of music from EXO.
Luckily for EXO and its fans, Call Me Baby is also the group’s most interesting single vocally. As a K-pop fan I can’t really complain that there aren’t enough techniques used in songs, as K-pop is a very diverse genre of music.
But if I were to ask K-pop acts to focus on certain elements of vocalization, it would be harmonies or vocal rounds. While Call Me Baby doesn’t exactly use these, the song highlights the members vocal talents and matches them to their respective strengths. The song also has varied vocals all at the same time as melding the members vocals together in new ways, ranging from the falsetto chorus “call me baby” to contrasting raps with screams. It adds a great deal of interest to a song that at first listen could have been left alone and seems like a very simplistic choice to be a group’s comeback song.
The chorus, if you can call it that, also takes on a slightly more complex form. Depending on how you see it the chorus either kicks in very early or has a long pre-chorus which contains the “call me baby” parts. It all makes for an interesting structure as there is no discernible chorus or hook whatever way you look at it. This again provides a slightly more challenging listen than first anticipated, something which SM Entertainment specialises in (see all of the songs from f(x)’s Pink Tape).
Call Me Baby has a number of things that warrant more than one listen but does that make it a great song?
Rating
Call Me Baby has the elements of a great, traditional SM song and a great weird SM song but comes out on the other end not really shining with either. It exists in a kind of dull middle-ground with nothing but a few interesting features to prop it up. It doesn’t play with the form enough to make a comment on pop music and doesn’t have a good enough hook to be an ear worm. Lyrically it has nothing to offer either, just another guy pining for a girl. That being said I really like the vocal contrasting and some other stuff so it’s not the worst EXO single. But it doesn’t really seem like a title track either.
What’s your opinion of Call Me Baby? Leave your thoughts on the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/57487-3051191.jpg15203000Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2015-03-30 17:07:142015-04-20 04:25:51EXO’s ‘Call Me Baby’ Song Review
Kisses and kissing aren’t always openly talked about in the K-pop music scene. But there are many songs about first kisses and kissing in general. They can be as innocent as a peck on the cheek or as steamy as a full on lip-to-lip, tongue-to-tongue contact. Sometimes these kissing songs aren’t as blatant as others, but one thing we know for sure is our K-pop idols love to sing about kissing.
Like many before her, Jeon Hyosung used her solo career as a way to show off her large, um, charms. Her solo venture turned out to be just as successful as bandmate Jieun’s but offered something completely different. Goodnight Kiss is an hypnotic trap lullaby for a boy whom Hyosung sings to goodnight. Yet she clearly doesn’t really want to go to sleep but to just kiss and kiss him. Updating fairytales and lullabies is popular these days and this song does a better job of it than most. The song comes off as a reworked lullaby to perfectly suit Hyosung’s sexy image. It starts off relatively innocent but becomes sexier with each part before finally hitting that trap drop. We forget about the lullaby element after a while as it becomes stranger and sexier. It all comes together to create something quite sophisticated and shows that given the right material Hyosun could become a soloist on par with Ga-In.
Dara’s Kiss is filled with ridiculous yet catchy engrish lyrics, yet there’s one line that I’ll occasionally find myself singing to in public; I just wanna kiss, I never wanna miss. Kiss is a fun and rather playful song whereas the music video, which features actor Lee Minho and if you look closely, Kim Woo Bin is also featured, is rather on the dramatic side; I guess that’s what happens when you feature actors in your music video, it suddenly turns into a short drama! Aside from the dramatic acting from both Dara and Lee Minho, the overall production was entertaining and to me, it felt like a commercial!
— Tam
If we talk about kisses, what’s better than a french kiss? Hyuna’s song French Kiss recounts a story at a scandalous party. Hyuna meets a guy and it;s like love at first sight, or maybe lust at first sight. Right then and there she wants to be only with him, alone. The chorus is very addicting and the part where Hyuna whispers “Let’s french kiss” sounds so seductive and sexy. It almost makes the listeners feel that you are the man she lusts over and she is whispering those words to them. The song has a great beat and it’s a great song to just dance let loose and make out.
— Alejandro
Rather than celebrating love, Super Junior‘s My Love, My Kiss, My Heart mourns it. The song is the classic tale of missing an ex lover post break up while reluctantly trying to move on. You know, when it still hurts. The boys lament the love lost, saying they will bury their love, kiss and heart through a heartfelt ballad.
X’s are for kisses, sings EXO in XOXO. The song is an adorable, upbeat, jazzy ode to the woman EXO loves, filled with sweet lines about dreaming of hugging and kissing the one you love. EXO’s vocals really shine in the song, with enough lines for EXO’s multitude of members to express their own individual vocal colors.
— Tamar
miss A’s Hush actually uses the word ‘kiss’ in the chorus. The ladies sing about their steamy wants and desires. And at the top of the list is kissing, which is a great way to get to know someone intimately. Hush takes things a few steps further than kissing, but the sexy ladies of miss A know what they want and clearly depict all of that in this song. Aside from the content of the song, Hush has an infectious chorus and sultry dance moves perfectly executed by the quartet.
— Tara
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https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Screen-Shot-2015-03-27-at-6.09.02-PM.png397631Tamar Hermanhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTamar Herman2015-03-27 17:42:022021-05-07 11:35:45The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of ‘Tazza: The Hidden Card’
If you’re like us, you’ve been keeping up with Mnet’s Unpretty Rapstar and are obsessed with it. All of the contestants are immensely talented and the differences in their personalities have made viewers pick their favorites. You have your sweet ones, like Kisum and Jimin, and then the badasses Cheetah and Jessi. Of course, there are other dimensions in between and beyond that spectrum. So, if you were to be one of the Unpretty Rapstar contestants, we created a quiz in order to know exactly which one you’d be.
