Kings of Leon "Wait For Me" and "Supersoaker" Music Video

"Mechanical Bull" is fast approaching and Kings of Leon want to keep their fans pleased so they dropped two surprises on us in one day. First, they released another song from the LP, "Wait For Me" which a bit more slow and a lot more melancholy than first single "Supersoaker", which is what I always seem to enjoy by them. Speaking of "Supesoaker", the band has also released the video for the song as well. The video reflects the vintage feel of the song set in a mix of early 50s and 60s nostalgia, thanks in part to the camera filter and effects.
Wait For Me Supersoaker Video

Lee Yu Rim "Call My Name"

Thanks to the overall awesomeness of Simon and Martina of "Eat Your Kimchi", I found this! Lee Yu Rim is a rookie K-Pop artist signed to one of LOEN Entertainment's many sub-labels, and has released her single, "Call My Name" a week ago and it's pretty good. It has a predominately pop/dance instrumental, but incorporates that catchy dum-dum-dum piano line that is found in Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and with some added indie elements, makes for a sunny and compelling listen.

Fefe Dobson "Legacy"

I had a friend in high school who stanned Canadian singer-songwriter Fefe Dobson's first album. During my sophomore year of college, I stanned her "Joy" album, as it had those two great cuts "Ghost" and "Stuttering". Since it seems now that she doesn't have any foreseeable label woes, a third (official) album is on its way and has a single in the form of "Legacy". "Legacy" starts with some guitar, which transitions into a handlclap-piano-medley like in house music, add military drums and let the euphoria take you. There were some parts that remind me of a sped up version of Walk Off The Earth's "Red Hands", but that can just be the similar drum patterns, which are present in a lot of mainstream pop songs.

The Wanted "We Own The Night"

If you asked me back in 2011 if I was a The Wanted fan, I would have said hell to the yes! "Glad You Came" and "Heart Vacancy" are better anything your faves could come up with on their best day. But from "Chasing The Sun" onward, I've grown tired of the boys with their constant bitchingbrooding because they aren't as famous as their fellow British-Irish fivesome One Direction and the quality of their songs decreasing with each subsequent release. Today, they premiered their new single "We Own The Night", which sounds like a PG-13 version of a song that you would hear on a direct-to-DVD sequel of a Disney movie. It's tons better than "Flops Like Riri", I'll give them that.

Graded Song:Jessie J "It's My Party"

Jessie J's first two singles were two contrasting forces: the brashness of "Do It Like a Dude" likened her to the UK's response to Nicki Minaj, while the guitar driven pop "Price Tag" showed her as a top forty goldmine. I forgave her for releasing "Wild" earlier because I assumed that it would grow on me like "Laserlight" did, but it did not. Then I looked to the 2nd single, "It's My Party" because Sir Calvin Harris produced it and he had yet to disappoint with his productions.
Jessie, gurl we know you can sing. We don't need you to go Christina Aguilera on us and oversing the whole song. It was cute when you did it on "Domino", but that should have been a one time thing. And the fact that Calvin did nothing to make the song even remotely interesting is a crime in itself. It sounds like he blatantly ripped off Dr.Luke's signature recycle-a-song format and paired it with what David Guetta did with "Laserlight", which was essentially a copy of his flaw-free collab with Sia "Titanium" and out came "It's My Party". And with all the amazing songs he's released in the past year (he even made Cheryl Cole sound good), there is no excuse why this shouldn't have been "Sweet Nothing" 2.0. Jessie is officially 0-2 in this era.  
Final Grade:C-

Graded Song:EXO "Growl"

Now that EXO is finally out SM's basement, they aren't ready to put them back just yet. After "Wolf" became their highest charting single to date (and on the contrary of hatin' azz netizens slays all to high heaven), SM has prepped a repackage of the group's "XOXO" album and offered up a new title track, "Growl" continuing with the whole lycan theme.
So I guess since most of Korea didn't enjoy the genre-bending slayage that is "Wolf", they have opted for a more straightforward release. Like with "Wolf" the dance practice video was leaked days before, so I had an idea of what the song sounded like in LQ. It's an alright song, but compared to "Wolf", "History" and "MAMA" this is pretty dryyyyyy. The part that starts with the red haired one singing and the other four come in and begin to harmonize with each other is the most interesting part of an otherwise boring piece. Shame on you SM.  
Final Grade:C

Negelcted K-Pop Songs: July 2013

There are always those comebacks or debuts that I miss (or totally forget to blog because I have a life outside of the internet) in the K-Pop world. And as you can see, Taeyang is not pleased with my neglect. I'm sorry. I can't do them all!!!! So I decided to retread the K-blogosphere and wrap up ten (because if I tried to do all of them my eyes would bleed and render me blind from blogging ever again) and plan on doing this at the end/beginning of every month.
1.BTS-We Are Bulletproof (Part II)
After "No More Dream," BTS was one of the groups where I was like, meh. Then they went and released an MV for this Americanized urban smash and I was sold! The delivery, the clothes, the choreography, Jimin's hips... TEN! TEN! TEN!
2.Xia Junsu-Incredible
Not a big fan of the former TVXQ member's "Taratellegra" which was just a bit too "forward thinking" for me. "Incredible" however nice, the video is very colourful and diverse but the rap (shake your spaceship candy...really?) just really brings down the quality of the song, much like Flo Rida and Pitbull do whenever they feature on anything.
3.Brown Eyed Girls-Recipe
The pre-release single before the girls unleashed the beast, sounds like it should have been on Ga-In's "Talk About S." But that's not me hatin', just making an observation. Funky, smooth, perfect for mature late night drives through the city. And Miryo, how I live for your raps...
4.Brown Eyed Girls-Kill Bill
 
Their official comeback song, Brown Eyed Girls do the unexpected and tone it down instead of turning it up and making all the other K-Pop comebacks look basic as fuck.While sonically Kill Bill sounds like a basic, Western (as in westerns genre not Western)inspired song, the visuals are a comedic blend of the Taratino film it's based on and dash of "Abracadabra."  
5.Girl's Day-Please Tell Me
Like the saying goes, if you have too much of a good thing, something pleasant becomes unpleasant because you have too much of it. Girl's Day has already come back twice and on the 30th, they released a special digital single. I guess Dream Tea is still trying to push them, even though they have proven themselves as a second-tier girl group but they need to give them a rest. I probably won't be ready for another Girl's Day comeback until late November/early December at the earliest.
6.Ailee-U&I
Ailee ripped off Gloria Gaynor and Nicole Scherzinger The Pussycat Dolls for her last release, "I Will Show You" and now she serves up Beyonce doppelganger realness for "U&I," which sounds like "Crazy In Love" 2.0. Ailee gives some serious attitude with her vocals, shakes her little rump and even drops it low behind a lighted stage complete with monochrome dressed background dancers. Somewhere in the world, Beyonce is asking Ailee for her wind machine back.
7.AOA Black-Moya
AOA has finally broken up into a subunit! The band part of the group released their first single, "Moya". Moya is another throwback sounding tune, this time girl group sixties is what they aimed for, and they hit the mark. Also, whoever styled Youkyoung in the video, A+! Could someone explain the premise of the MV though and why the guy from SNL Korea looks so surprised when the girl points at the end?  
8.Dynamic Duo-BAAAM (feat. Muzie of UV)
The only thing that I had heard from Dynamic Duo was their feature on Jay Park's "I Love You" and Choiza and Gaeko featuring on other people's tracks. "BAAAM" is a funky 80s-inspired bop that is quite easy on the ears and sounds like a response track to all the bad girl concepts K-Pop has been dishing out. However, the bad girl gone badder line sounds like bad girl gone better (which actually sounds a lot better imo).
9.B2ST-Shadow
While everyone else seems to be loving the newest from B2ST, I am having mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the song does something different by deviating from the typical fun and sunny singles that plague the summer months. On the other, the disturbing imagery in the MV like with Vixx's "Hyde" make it a bit less enjoyable. Song=ok, video=not so much.  
10.B.A.P-Hurricane
B.A.P have been pumping out tunes like hell this year and I was a fan of all of them up until this point. The group has proven to be versatile in almost all the K-Pop concepts, even aegyo! But "Hurricane" just suffers from a major identity crisis, and not the good kind like Girl's Generation's "I Got a Boy". Also, the loofah's on fire thing wasn't funny the first a thousand times so...