After a long wait;
delayed, data corrupted, media ploy, Girls' Generation new mini-album finally
came out. The fourth mini album consist of 6 new songs with the title track
"Mr. Mr.", which had been teased, intentionally by the agency or
spontaneously by the girls themselves, since -what it seems like- forever.
Girls' Generation
was the one captured my interest in K-Pop. I've hooked by their "The
Boys" song, and since then haven't been able to be completely sober up
from the K-Pop influence. Just like they said, "Once you're in, you're in
for good, there's no way out", I've completely fell for this group and their antiques.
Let's see if this
title track worth the wait and drama.
Musicality 3/5
From the start you
could obviously heard the electronic vibe the song had, which unfortunately I'm
not a fan of. The intro had the member sort of shouting the lyrics - not
exactly singing the song. Then onto the more melodic part, the chorus, but
before you'd heard an exceeding amount of electronic interference added to
some simple phrases as the bridge. The low pitch of tunes gave off a sort of
mysterious feeling. If that's what they after, then it's a success.
The chorus
surprisingly had slower tempo than expected, a more pop-ish sound, and a bit
more easier to be sang, and heard. There were several sound effect, ad-lib, and
of course more electronic beats added here and there. A heavy amount of
"mister mister" phrases was thrown, as if to ensure you get the title
of the song. Just when you thought you had enough, they thrown in some more
"mister mister" repetition in the end of the chorus.
Your heart beat after listening to this song
Then you got to the
same mode as the intro, a heavy electronically-composed part. Then back to the
more sing-able chorus. The same pattern just repeated here.
Then the song went
into a short break, and "1,2,3,4" four beats later, you got the more
exciting interlude break, composed with sort of hip-hop beat complete with a
cool rapper ad lib, and of course "mister mister" phrase, a song piece
which they used in the official teaser. I could visualized a super cool dance
performance on this part. It even had a short pause in the middle, short enough
for a shout, then it continued like nothing happened. Despite lack of lyrics,
this was my favorite part of the song, which reminded me of the dance break on their previous song "Into The New World" and "Genie".
Then the song
continued to the ending bridge and brought us to the supposedly climax of the
song. But I couldn't feel the tension which should be piling up before the
high pitch piece. It felt sort of bland. I felt the music and the beat are not
proceeding fast enough to built enough tension it needed. And the high pitch
piece was also not executed as powerful as expected.
Then we got to the
last chorus, then after that the song just end. I supposed it was kind of cool
to end the song without any precautions; the beat was not slowing down, the
music just stop. And just like other GG's song, this one grew on you. You'll get more interested to it as you hear it several times.
The song was not as
catchy as previous hits Girls' Generation had, but it did felt a bit more, emm,
how should I put it, global? It could be the effect of having a song produced
by international producer, the feel and vibe were more "internationally
acceptable" - and at this time, "international" still means
"The West Side, particularly USA".
"We're GG, we (should) have our own brand"
It sure has it's pro
and con. It seemed like the main target was to be globally successful and the
agency approach was to casually blended in with the trending theme today. But
as much as "blending in" could eased up the process to get in the market,
it has the dangerous effect of not standing out.
The song did feels
more mature though, seems appropriate for the nine girls. But it's felt like a
song anybody could do, a safe song with a tested formula. For me, I don’t want
"Another Britney" or "The Next Pussycat Dolls".I want "Girls' Generation". The
group was as unique as it could gets. And I wish they'd dig in more on their
own strength and story.
The lyrics spoke to
encourage all the "mister" out there to take the lead, to dream
bigger, and be stronger.
Well it's a positive
song, but I found it a bit weird to be sang by the top girl group who
usually sang about girl power, but, I'm all up for good variety. In this song, they told their
"mister" to be more confident, to "throw themselves more intensely to fulfill the dream
they'd be lived in tomorrow". I think this could be a perfect song to be
addressed to the male in the army, or any male who's working hard or having a
hard time.
As stated before,
the song consisted of abundant repetition of "mister mister", which
could be a catchy phrase. As usual, the lyric
distribution was far from even (well, they have their own vocal line and dance line
anyway), but the ones who had many portions managed to get it done well. I sincerely hope the dance line will redeemed themselves on this song's
performance.
Performance 3.5/5
Music Video 3/5
Okay, the
long-awaited MV had came out. And my first impression was… "what?".
They managed to got that "mysterious" concept alright. The distorted-blurry
scenes mixed with several black-and-white frames matched well with the
electronic music and so-called intended "mysterious" concept.
The video, like the
song, sure grew on you. It got more interesting after you watched again, and
again. Because there's so many members, and to top that, they had so many
concept; I counted 5 concepts here, it might got confusing and you might not
get it the first time, but I'm so thrilled it wasn't just another S.M.
trademark "MV in a box set".
Started with the
pink-surgery concept, the MV first set was in the operating room, GG style. There're
the girls as pink nurses (or doctors? I didn't know), a guy in a tux, and some
sort of gem-embedded medical instruments (and candles, and "rubic's cube",
and cupcakes, in short, all kind of things.)
Well that seems to be a fairly easy rubic's cube, don't you say?
Whoa, what a cupcake that is!
Moving towards the
chorus, the set then changed to the dance scene in the indoor car park, where
the girls performed their dance routine. Their costume here was nice, they
looked sophisticated even in black and white, but the scene was too short I
could barely paid attention to the member. The dance was not entirely shown,
perhaps their keeping it for the dance version MV (slick strategy,
right? Double the MV, double the attention).
The next set for all SM clip; car park
The (cufflink) dance, this should be huge
Oh and then we get
to the vest & fedora theme. The girls were dancing in an all white set, no
props, just focus on them and their routine. They didn't reveal the whole dance
though; the scenes were mixed with the surgical scene, just enough to keep the
fans anxious for the dance version, and it worked.
Then all the fans went "waah"
Then there was the
scenes where the girls were out of the operating room and wore some sort of
party clothes; dress and all, and as short as those scenes were, as expected,
they were gorgeous.
Surgery's over, let's party!
For the last part,
we had the girls in black & white one-piece dress, dancing in a blue-themed
room. The clothes reminded me of their "Papparazi" costume, minus the
pink gloves, which was pretty cool.Here
we can see that there are boys back dancer for their routine. Well, that's new.
With 9 skilled members, Girls' Generation rarely used back up dancer, but this
is a nice change.
"In the end, they all bowed to the queens"
So, there it was,
the MV with 5 concepts; the pink nurses, the car park, the vest & fedora,
the party dress, the black & white dress. They'd sure have a lot of costume
options for live performance.
As this supposed to
be the story version of the MV, I tried to picked on the story line. We could
see the guy's laying unconscious on the bed at first, then the blurry scenes, the girls' sort of operating on him then they're out of the operating room,
and he woke up at the end. I supposed the
blurred distorted frame were the guy's memory of the girls.
How much did they paid you to just lying there?
If we were to matched it up with the song's lyric, I supposed it sort of aligned. The lyric was about giving encouragement to a
guy, and in this MV, they gave the guy a surgery (a heart surgery, I assumed
from the pink-gem embedded heart prop, to made him more courageous ?).By S.M. standard, I suppose this was a new
"out of the box" concept (pun intended). But there was too many theme
in 4 minutes video. Girls' Generation already has 9 members, to show on 5
concepts in just 4 minutes was a bit too much to comprehend.
As much as I loved
it, the dance concepts may be better to be kept for the dance version MV
entirely, or well, keep 1 for the dance break. They seemed to be uncorrelated with the story line. I thought the MV would
be much more understandable if it was shown the story and its' plot more.
There's better be a super cool dance version for this song, I'm looking forward
to it.
Update (27-Apr-2014)
Turned out, it
seemed that there will be no dance version of the MV, which, in my opinion, was
such a shame. Did SM already had enough of SNSD? Did the girls was too much to
handle for them? Cause it seemed like that's the case. Despite their long
career in the business, SNSD was still popular, and to have a big agency
handling such powerful icon's promotion in a reckless way was…. a
disappointment. Please do better next time!
They did released their dance practice video, which was cool.....but.. still... we want more!
Live
Performance4/5
Oh my.
Remember when I said
they'd have a lot of costume options for live performance?
And boy, what an
understatement that was.
They performed this
song in multiple sets of costumes (even changing costumes in one performance).
Some of the costumes
we've seen in the music video (the vest & fedora and the black & white
one piece dress), but many of the costumes were not in the music video, and
they were equally awesome.
Pick your favorite :
Cool White Suits from 20140330 Inkigayo Performance
Black Suits from 20140313 M Countdown Performance
Pink Dresses from 20140314 Music Bank Performance
Black Sleeveless Suits from 20140315 Music Core Performance
Pink Suits from 20140316 Inkigayo Performance
Yellow Suits (!) from 140322 Music Core Performance
Black Suits and Mr.Mr. customized ties from 20140323 Inkigayo Performance
Red and White Suits from 20140328 Music Bank Performance
White Suits and Red Shoes from 20140308 Music Core Performance
Black and White Dresses from 20140309 Inkigayo Performance
Maroon Suits from 20140311 MTV The Show Performance
The MV's Suits for their comeback performance on 20140306 M Countdown
Black Suits & Fedora Hats from 20140307 Music Bank Performance
As expected, this
group's strength is their performances. The dance routine was perfect! And they
seemed to get better in every performance. Oh and need I even explain about the
perfectly executed dance break. Awesome!
The dance was
enticingand not as exhausting as their
previous promotion, "I Got A Boy". With many catchy moves, fans could
enjoy and perhaps even follow the dance routine more easily.
The additional male
dancers, which was the first time for them to utilize it, was a risk worth
taken. The drama dance movement such as kicking and step over the male dancer
was fascinating.
The delicate camera
works, which seemed to be SM's favorite since they managed to do it right with
EXO, was quite impressive. With it, they delivered a creative performance and
each of the 9 got their own screen time.
And just when you
think their performance was the finest, they showed their dorky side during the
encore. Haha, looked it up, you won't be disappointed.
Where else would you found this antique behavior on live music performance? :D
It's such a pity
that this great song and album promotion only scheduled for 1 months in Korea.
I think the minus points for this song was that the agency's sloppy promotion
preparation and execution which resulted in non-maximal outcome.
That's what I
thought, what do YOU think? Please post your comment below :)
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