Ailee 에일리 - Singing Got Better 노래가 늘었어

Overall Score : 3.7/5

Ohh.. Ailee.. Personally I think she is one of the best female pop singer active in South Korea right now. Her voice is so powerful, and she has good control of her pitch and breath. She could perform any song and make it her own. 

With Whitney Houston as her role model, on her rookie days she often sang one of Whitney's song, The Greatest Love Of All. I've also seen her performing Beyonce's Halo and Alicia Keys' If I Aint Got You, and on all those performance, she totally nailed it (YouTube it, you'll find many videos of her performance). Her first official single, Heaven, was my personal favorite. 

Now she came back with her new single "Singing Got Better", let's hear it.

• Musicality : 3.5/5

With soft intro of guitar & piano and Ailee's humming, one might mistaken this song as a slow ballad. Up until the second verse, Ailee still performed with her soft voice. On the last line of second verse, Ailee showcased her distinct vocal and then brought us to chorus, where the beat started.

After the 4 line chorus, next verse has the same note and pattern as the first, with little more beat. Then on to another chorus. After that, there's the climax ending bridge. Ailee showed her powerful voice here. Then it ended with the chorus and freestyle adlib singing. Then it went decrescendo with soft piano, violin, and Aliee's humming once more. The song had a many dynamics. It went soft and strong in an instant.

This song could be so bland if it’s not Ailee's. Standard verse-chorus-end bridge structure, and the music was nothing out of the ordinary. I think there were many of instruments involved in the music part; piano, guitar, drum, violin. They were all fit together nicely, but there was nothing special. A lot of songs already used this formula. And Ailee's already has a rich voice, that might be unnecessary to have a rich background music. It seemed too full.

I was thinking that it might be more interesting if it has part in the middle where the music stop, or where there's only one instrument accompanying Ailee's singing. It might intensified the drama quality in the song.

Unfortunately, unlike "Heaven" with its' catchy-repeated  words and interesting beats, this song was lack of charms. I nodded my head to the beat when it's on, but it's not catchy enough to be my next ear-worm.

• Lyric : 3/5

The song has a pretty straight forward lyrics about a singer who overcame her broken heart by singing. The title supposedly came from the first line of the chorus "Noraega neureosseo - My singing got better ". The lyric told a short story of how a singer once fell deep in love with a man, even changing her dream to good housewife, got hurt and broken-hearted, and manage to rise up on the occasion and become even a better singer.

Considering the condition the lyric had some similarities to the real world, at least the one where the public can see. Ailee is a lady singer who recently got in a pretty serious scandal which rumored to be caused by her ex-boyfriend, and yet she managed to overcome those and continue being the diva she is now. 

Scandal aside, although the lyric able to captured the story well, I, as a foreigner with little understanding to Korean language, personally thought it's not that catchy. I guess it's one of the song which lyric had good meaning, good message, yet hard-to-sing-along. I think the producer, Wheesung - her mentor, the one who produced "Heaven" as well- was trying to get the audience attention more by the meaning of the song than it's catchy musicality or lyrics.

• Performance : 4.75/5

MV 

I loved the MV. It's the kind of video which told the story of the song, and this one's fit perfectly. The video featured Ailee as a singer and MBLAQ Lee Joon as the composer boyfriend. At the beginning there were 10 seconds clip of Ailee's performing freely, which later shown, was a clip the boyfriend  took when they were together. 

The music start with Ailee's in a black dress with many bodyguards, supposedly present Ailee who's famous and successful. Then it showed the past clip of Ailee & Lee Joon working side by side, while having a date and enjoying their time together. Then came the drama, when Ailee caught Lee Joon with another woman. Then the fight, the reminiscence of old times, and the separation. In the end it showed Ailee continuing her life as a successful singer. With addition of Ailee's solo singing clip, the video able to illustrate the song well.

I admired their acting here. Both of them are singer and both of them can act very well (at least in this MV they did). They have a great chemistry and able to capture the feeling of the song well. Lee Joon able to portrayed a cool yet tender guy and so did Ailee as the lively singer. My favorite scene was from the part the had their fight & the reminiscence. Their expressions were so believable, it fit perfectly with the story. 

Live Performance

Unfortunately as of now (7 Jan 2014) there were no live performance of this song. I will update when I've watched one.

Updated on 10-Jan-2014 

Okay, some performance video has came up. 1st one is from 8th Jan Show Champion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCAd3XKv4bg) and the second is from 10th Jan Music Bank. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBC_Nk_90lA)

For the Show Champion performance, I loved the stage. I like the calm approach with the piano, cello, and all those violinist in the back. It all make the performance more grand. And the white theme which make it seem more pure. There were also some light work, but I didn't find it noticeable.

Ailee performed well, as expected. As usual, no lip-sync.  She seems more mature now, more lady-like,  with the white suite, loose hair, sitting calmly,  no dancing and all. While the setting projected calm atmosphere, Ailee's voice was as powerful as usual. She delivered the song perfectly. 

What seems to bothered me was, why she was sitting in a -seems like a- large box in the middle of all the musician? It seemed strange and unnatural. And it just produced more unimportant question, at least for me (how did she get up, how will she get down, what is that, a box?)

I assumed it was to ensure her to be the center of attention in the performance. But, can she be sitting in a normal chair or a sofa? Or perhaps sitting in the piano? :/

On the second performance (Music Bank), the stage has a different layout. The setting was still Ailee in the middle of all women musician, cellist and violinist (they got rid of the piano, which was a pity, grand piano always brings more "grand" feeling).

Ailee was no longer sitting (Thank God they got rid of the silly giant box), but she's standing in the middle of mini stage, like a mini gazebo, surrounded by lamps. She's wearing a white suit with her hair tied up. Personally for this song, I prefer her having a loose hair, it seemed more appropriate to the song's feeling.

The stage seemed to have more visual effect, which was cool. The lamps went on and off to the song's beat. There was a large display of white fur falling in the back, and fake snow was also used. 

I realized that the song has many dynamics, on some part it was strong, then went to soft, and then strong again. A difficult song to be sang live. But I had no doubt in Ailee, and she delivered it again perfectly. No sign of out-of-breath or out of pitch. 

I was wondered would it be better if they got rid some of the musician and add an theatrical performance in the stage. Hmm.. It might lessen the attention on Ailee, but it may brought more interest. Anyway, the second stage was cool enough. Hope you guys enjoy it at least as much as I did.

That's what I thought, what do YOU think? Post a comment!