Insensible is an awkward name for a song, but I love me a big power rock ballad. Hongki is the lead vocal of Korean rock group FTIsland, and because of this I was expecting a straight-up rock sound from his new solo album. To my surprise (and delight), the album incorporates a lot more dance and pop influences than I would have thought. In fact, despite being a ballad, Insensible is probably the rockiest track on the album. It's total bombast, from the squealing guitar solo, to the soaring chorus, to the punctuations of lightning and rain in the video. It helps that the guy's got an amazing voice, and this track really puts that on display. In short, this release was hardly on my radar but I find myself utterly taken with it. Here's to nice surprises!
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Well, this has got to be one of the strangest major pop releases of the year. It's not often you hear a pop track based entirely on a classical symphony piece, but Four Musketeers uses Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff as its backbone, complete with copious breaks for a string section and orchestral flourishes. This sounds right up my alley, but the first time I heard the track I was very let down. I've loved almost all of News' past releases, but the underwhelming, almost droning chorus in this song was not what I expected. That said, the second time I listened to this was a bit of a revelation. I'm not sure I've ever made such a drastic turn with a song before. Suddenly, it all made sense. Better than that, I greatly admire the fact that this is a very non-traditional single release while still remaining incredibly hooky, albeit with some strangely mellow and almost anti-pop hooks. That crescendo that rounds out each chorus certainly helps, along with the general cheesiness of the song and video. All together, it's yet another reason why it's hard for me to go back to western music.
YG continues his strange (and frustrating) 2015 promo plan of sidelining the vast majority of his artists and instead blitzing us with multiple releases by just two groups. First it was Bigbang, and now it's iKON (who are pushed to be Bigbang's successors). Luckily, they released a great mini album six weeks ago and their newest pair of singles are very good too. These two tracks (the somber Apology and aggressive Anthem) sound even more Bigbangy than ever, most likely due to the fact that they've been co-created by Teddy, one of Bigbang and G-Dragon's go-to collaborators. I was struck particularly by Apology the first time I heard it. It's just a beautiful rock/hip-hop ballad. Yes, it sounds exactly how you'd expect a YG track of this nature to sound like, but I guess if it's not broken, don't fix it. The music video is gorgeously shot as well.
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I never thought K-Pop and Star Wars would combine, but I guess Disney knows what it's doing in terms of international outreach, because they paired with Korea's biggest group for a themed track. Now, a short clip of a 2012-ish EXO demo called Lightsaber has been available for some time, but it's unclear whether or not this is the same song. When I first heard it, I groaned at the inevitable dubstep chorus with one-word repetition, but I've grown to really love the song. It's definitely not proper, full-fledged comeback quality, but as an unexpected treat it's shown a lot more staying power on my playlist than I'd anticipated it would after my first listen. The verses are especially catchy.
(If you decide to buy K-Pop physical album releases -- and my god you should, because they're awesomely presented -- try catchopcd for some of the best prices out there. Use this link to get 5% off your first order!)
...Transmissions come in from outposts all over the universe... Unfamiliar melodies stream into our radios... Fronted by colorful aliens with big voices... The music begins to catch on ... It's in our heads and it refuses to leave... And we like it...
