The life of a fan of obscure K-pop girl groups is a dangerous one. The fear that they may never come back or in case they do, it’s with members you don’t recognize (either thanks to plastic surgery or new members) is constant. Then again, there is nothing like the feeling of finding a snippet […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/UNICORN-BLINK-BLINK-Lyrics.jpg14001400Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-08-02 05:42:252016-08-02 05:46:02Unicorn’s “Unicorn Plus: The Brand New Label” Album Review
On Saturday, SHINee will take the stage at the Staples Center at the Los Angeles leg of KCON USA presented by Toyota. For the second time this year, SHINee’s coming to Los Angeles to wow audiences and I’ll be sitting in the crowd cheering them on, enthralled by their performance. A big change from […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2016-07-27-at-11.06.21-PM.png6001062Tamar Hermanhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTamar Herman2016-07-27 21:11:152016-07-27 21:23:35An Ode to SHINee on the Eve of KCON LA 2016
The life of a fan of obscure K-pop girl groups is a dangerous one. The fear that they may never come back or in case they do, it’s with members you don’t recognize (either thanks to plastic surgery or new members) is constant. Then again, there is nothing like the feeling of finding a snippet […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/UNICORN-BLINK-BLINK-Lyrics.jpg14001400Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-08-02 05:42:252016-08-02 05:46:02Unicorn’s “Unicorn Plus: The Brand New Label” Album Review
On Saturday, SHINee will take the stage at the Staples Center at the Los Angeles leg of KCON USA presented by Toyota. For the second time this year, SHINee’s coming to Los Angeles to wow audiences and I’ll be sitting in the crowd cheering them on, enthralled by their performance. A big change from […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2016-07-27-at-11.06.21-PM.png6001062Tamar Hermanhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTamar Herman2016-07-27 21:11:152016-07-27 21:23:35An Ode to SHINee on the Eve of KCON LA 2016
The life of a fan of obscure K-pop girl groups is a dangerous one. The fear that they may never come back or in case they do, it’s with members you don’t recognize (either thanks to plastic surgery or new members) is constant. Then again, there is nothing like the feeling of finding a snippet of new music after months of trawling through forums, google translated fan cafes, and defunct instagram pages. The latest of my flop faves Unicorn recently brought me that sweet relief. They, like many before them, lost member Winnie due to bad health, and have switched companies (from Show Brothers to Cartoon Blue). Whatever the music turns out to be like, that company switch has at least given us an iconic album title, “Unicorn Plus: The Brand New Label.”
“Unicorn Plus: The Brand New Label” starts like many other K-pop albums with one of my favourite motifs: album intros. These usually work well in not only being a primer for the whole album, but as abstract musical pieces by themselves. Unicorn’s here does well to move them away from their edgy cuteness to a more chaotic sound. Fidgety electronics beep and crash among beautifully affected vocals. May not be as inspired as other intro classics, but is effective as it is.
It also transitions perfectly into lead single “Blink Blink.” The song is a type of production that suits Unicorn really well. It’s taken directly from SM’s school of weird bubblegum pop where f(x) and Red Velvet studied so well. It combines marching band trap beats with sporadic horns and unwieldy synths in the chorus. It’s something that time and again should not work but just does in “Blink Blink” thanks to expert work in structure. Expertly simple, really, since anything other than the standard pop formula would have distracted extraneously. The highlight is the pre-chorus with its double barrel vocal style. Both vocals are sweet and rousing in a way that sets up the at once twinkly but banging chorus.
Even at that, however, it is lacking overall compared to SM’s girl groups. That’s what girl groups like this are for sometimes, showing us how lucky we are for all girl groups. Unicorn still did a great job, and the best part is maybe the video, which is appropriately seizure inducing and kaleidoscopic.
The following track — again — could also be seen as generic of the current pop climate. “Sun Shower” opens with verse of synths that sound exactly like a less tropical “Work From Home” and not as a way of distancing, but only because they were probably too cheap to recreate them well. These big EDM tracks are all about the chorus though, and that’s where Unicorn soar. The song drops into a sea of floating synths that have a scuzzy edge Crystal Castles would be proud of. The girls shout rather than sing in a moment of great sincerity. EDM tracks like this work best when those feelings of joy burst out.
You know an album is good when groups replace the mandatory ballad album filler with an upbeat groove. Unicorn’s is “I Need You Tonight,” a smooth jam mixing guitars and synths for a late night opine. The verses combine breathy vocals and incisive raps to great effect, giving us a two sides to this song, the desperate and the forceful.
It’s great to have Unicorn back, especially with good work like this. It repurposes a bunch of popular sounds to fit their sort of cute kind of manic style. None of it is particularly original, but it each song works and is a lot of fun. Vocally, the girls are at their best, with each chorus showing a different side to them. Of course, the best thing about it is that it exists in the first place. My hunger has been satiated for a moment, but it won’t last long. Now where is that new D.Holic video?
What do you think of the new Unicorn album? Share your thoughts in 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/2016/08/UNICORN-BLINK-BLINK-Lyrics.jpg14001400Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-08-02 05:42:252016-08-02 05:46:02Unicorn’s “Unicorn Plus: The Brand New Label” Album Review
On Saturday, SHINee will take the stage at the Staples Center at the Los Angeles leg of KCON USA presented by Toyota. For the second time this year, SHINee’s coming to Los Angeles to wow audiences and I’ll be sitting in the crowd cheering them on, enthralled by their performance. A big change from the last time I saw SHINee perform in the US.
Walking into Madison Square Garden on October 23, 2011, I was ridiculing my friend who was a SHINee fan (Shawol). “Look, they’re all short!” I said, pointing out how the fans with their pearl aqua green paraphernalia. “They’re all young. They don’t know what it’s been like stanning these groups for years!” As a longterm Super Junior fan who spent much of 2009 heartbroken over a variety of departures from Super Junior and TVXQ, SHINee had no place in my heart. But then the quintet got on stage and I had to accept something I had been denying since I discovered K-pop a few years before:
SHINee is the best K-pop group of our generation.
And that’s something I will go on the record declaring, despite people trying to counter this claim pointing to sales records. Not that other groups aren’t iconic (Super Junior and INFINITE will forever be extremely talented groups in my eyes, and nobody can deny the insane response BIGBANG and EXO have received from audiences both in and out of South Korea). I’m not writing this to upset anyone. I’m writing this because I was on a very hot subway, listening to “Symptoms” (thanks Alexis for rectifying that emptiness in my life a month ago) and I had an epiphany about SHINee’s career as a whole.
“Symptoms” isn’t a single, although it was promoted alongside “Everybody” back in 2013. It shouldn’t be a mind-blowing song. But it is, because it exhibits some of SHINee’s best vocal performances, like Key’s glorious, unexpected vocal trill. But it doesn’t matter. Single or otherwise, SHINee’s songs are always a step beyond the rest. Both because of the performers themselves and the production team that one day sat in a room and decided that SHINee wouldn’t ever follow the trend: this is a group of trendsetters and they have been since day one.
When they debuted, SHINee made a splash for their song and style and then they became known for their insane dance skills and fashion. (Thank SHINee for all the colorful skinny jeans on male idols).
Now, SHINee is primarily known for their experimental styles– but I’m going to go further than that and say that their singing is what makes SHINee such a long-standing group. Good production isn’t alone when it comes to K-pop, where every song is manhandled by production teams. SHINee is a top-tier group because they’re produced by SM Entertainment, but it’s their talent that the whole thing relies on.
When things come down to it, idol groups that release better music have far more of an impact even when they’re not necessarily the strongest fandom: This quintet can take a simple b-side and make it an aural experience that any listener can enjoy. And that’s why they’re able to hold multiple shows in the United States this year even without any new material. Unlike much of K-pop, there’s no need to be an innate fan of SHINee to like their albums. It’s becoming more and more common; Red Velvet and BTS have released exceptional albums lately and Seventeen will likely join their ranks soon thanks to their production creds — but only SHINee does it in a way to appeal to even the most casual listeners.
(Sorry to literally every other idol group out there. I still love and appreciate the majority of you, but SHINee does it better than the majority.)
The combination of raw talent and precise production make SHINee the most accessible K-pop group of the past 10 years. Listening to their songs, SHINee’s members have surpassed one another consistently to become a group that lacks little, if anything, sonically. Gone are the days when Jonghyun and Onew were clearly the main vocalists of the group; dancer Taemin has a solo album and Key surpassed expectations with his unique baritone tones, becoming a mainstay of their songs. Even rapper Minho has surpassed the dibidibidi days of yesteryear. Their performances of “View” last year were some of the most evenly distributed lines in K-pop in the past three years (the group’s size clearly affects this). Aside from Minho, who smiles as he delivers his sweet but clearly less impressive vocal performance, the other four divide the song nearly evenly with each member given a chance to express his own vocal color.
It’s been said before, but the only time SM Entertainment has seen such strong, unified vocals was from TVXQ back in the day when they were still a quintet. (TV5Q may have been better technically, considering that the group’s harmony enable them to continuously impress with strong a capella performances.) But SHINee is so consistent that it’s impossible to deny that we’re really living in a SHINee World. Here’s to their upcoming performances in the United States in California and Texas and their soon-to-be-released album.
Needless to say, I’m hyped to see a group I very much once loathed this weekend.
What do you like/dislike about SHINee? What’s your favorite song? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear you thoughts and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Bloglovin’ so you can keep up with all our posts.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2016-07-27-at-11.06.21-PM.png6001062Tamar Hermanhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTamar Herman2016-07-27 21:11:152016-07-27 21:23:35An Ode to SHINee on the Eve of KCON LA 2016
