KARA 카라 - Damaged Lady 숙녀가 못 돼

KARA - 4th Album - Full Bloom

Overall Score : 3.6/5

iTunes

This is not exactly a new song. KARA promoted this song for their fourth album around last Sep 2013. But this would probably be the last song they'd promoted with 5-member formation. As sad as it sounds, after 7 years together, some of the member would not continue their contract with the same agency. (Hear all the fans crying sound? Yup. It was a pity, really)

I always thought KARA had a nice-catchy songs, especially for the last 2 albums. I was fascinated by how rich the sound was on "Pandora" single. And now this "Damaged Lady" song was equally as nice. It seems that they managed to grow from their previously "cute and fresh" music concept, to "strong, mature, and rich" music.

• Musicality 3.75/5

KARA - Damaged Lady

The combination of rap, rock music, strong vocal, interesting melody, and catchy lyrics; you can find it all in the song. The structure and composition was great; started with a short rap and strong beat which gave a mysterious feeling and catch your attention right away, immediately followed by strong vocal, full blast music and electric guitar. Then it'd held your excitement by pausing all the grand music, giving the vocal and melody a room to steal the show. 

Once you thought you got the song's structure, the strong electric guitar sound returned. Followed by the rich music you've heard in the front earlier. That was your chorus.

Then the rap part returned, now accompanied with more music than the first rap. Then it brought us back to vocal part and chorus, structured  exactly like the previous part to make sure you got it right. Then it went to bridge, with the composition similar to the vocal part but with less music and longer vocal. Then it brought us back to chorus and lastly closed by short rap again.

The Royal Queens

For the song sang by "idol group", this song had its' own league. This was not your typical pop song. There were various musical factor and many solo vocal involved. The push-and-pull structure as also interesting; the combination of give-it-all vs. held-back music was fascinating.

I think it'd be more colorful if there was a mixed of rap and vocal somewhere in the song, blend it all, instead of clearly separated the two.  I wish the rap would be done more seriously too. I think this was KARA's soft spot; they got 3 good vocal singer, and 2, to say this objectively, mediocre rap singer. Particularly in this song, the rap part could be said as "narration" instead of rapping, a fast-melodic talk which was replaceable and not unique.

• Lyric : 3.25/5

Despite the strong and powerful music, the lyrics actually told a sad story about a women who just broke up. The song brought up the anger part of her; angry to her partner, and angry to everyone who seems so happy. As the title suggested, the lyric described a woman who claimed herself as a "Damaged Lady". 

"Eat this!", Nicole said.

The lyric described a woman's feeling when her partner broke up with her, in a seemingly nice day.
    "The sky was too clear today, I knew I’d be like this
    Things were going too smooth, I was wondering
    But how could you pick a day like this"
   
The story continued to how she feels like the world was not on her side, that everyone else was happily laughing and it seemed like they're laughing at her. It also described on, due to her anger, she expect everyone to be miserable like her one day.

    "Except me, everyone seems happy, But all of you will experience it later"

    "Everyone’s excited and laughing, I know the laughs on me"

    "Cause I just broke up, Cause I used to be so happy

On the chorus it was made clear what happened to the woman. That she used to be happy and lady-like but because of the break up, she felt pathetic and didn't mind her courteous manner anymore.

    But now I’m so sick, why so happy you guys?!

    Cause I feel so pathetic, Forget the lady"

The story continued, and it told that she was actually not happy in the relationship
    "I suffered quietly to be with you", "I feel miserable over the days I’ve been through"
   
 In the end of the song, she still couldn’t overcome her feeling and back to the angry, embarrassed mood
    "If you had to say goodbye. why not be nicer."
    "You could’ve said it calmly when the day is over"
    "The sky is too bright, I can’t raise my head"
 

"Whaddaya lookin' at?"

I liked how the lyrics told us a story, not just a repetition of some phrases. The lyric was quite straightforward, it was told the story as it is happened in real life. There were little to none metaphorical words here. I think women who just experienced a bad break up could easily relate to the story. The singing distribution was relatively equal. All the member got their solo part, and not just one or two line. It was a strong lyric, and it was also catchy. The chorus had some easy-to-remember part.

As for the lyric integration, I think it would be more appropriate if the story ended more positively or perhaps more powerful. Since the song had such powerful music and tone, I was expecting more powerful lyrics. When combined with the music, the lyrics seemed a bit off. The music tone was too cheerful to be put out on a angry story and too powerful to be combined with sad lyrics. 

• Performance: 3.75/5

Music Video 4.75/5  

The music video was also interesting. As I saw it, there were 3 parts of the video. KARA as The Royal Queens, KARA as an androgyny group, and one when the group illustrate the song's lyric. The concept was great, personally I like the androgyny looks, and the member pulled it off with style.

Pulling off the androgyny looks, with style

For the story part, at first we could see all the member was having a meal date with their partner and seemed not pleased with their attitude. Then it continued with the part when they'd seemed to break it up with their partner, and were seen leaving their table. Then they changed their previously lady-like costume to sleeveless shirt with black tie and black pants, to illustrate the strong power they had. They then returned to their table, looking for some revenge to their ex-partner. In the end, they danced it off with the water running because the sprinkler was turned on.

Which restaurant is this?

For the queen part, we can see the member, shot one-by-one, dressed in black-gold costume, complete with the crown and many shiny jewelry. It was mainly shot in white background, even the throne was white, which emphasized on the member's royal and powerful concept even more.

5 Queens

Then we could see all the member in their chick-androgyny costume, with their black suit and slick hair, not so manly - they still wore heels. They did their danced part in this costume. The color theme for the video seemed to be black and gold, with white as the contrast.

The "Ring Off" Dance in suit

I liked how they can balanced between the story part and the dancing part. I loved the choreography, how it matched with the melody and the lyrics. The unique moves were one of the factor of why this song was memorable. I personally enjoyed the "Ring Off Dance", which resembled the moves when you took off your ring from your finger, to emphasized the break up. The group made a video related to the dance :

Despite the cool MV and dance, I was a bit confused. The MV pictured such a strong women, who's having fun despite the break-up. But the lyric was about a sad mood until the end. 

Live Performance 2.75 / 5 

I watched their comeback performance on MBC Music Core on 7th Sep 2013. It was a fun performance. Without any properties or additional dancer, KARA reclaimed the stage. As I watched this I noticed that the song has such a good choreography, which still exciting and related to the song, yet not that intense so the member could still realistically performed their lines without lip-synching. They wore white suite with black stripes in this performance, simple yet edgy. And for the "Royal" theme, they  performed on a gold stage. They seemed to be working hard for the comeback stage, some of the member's make up were unable to cover their dark circles T_T

MBC Music Core Comeback Performance

I also watched their performance from one week afterwards, again on MBC Music Core on 14th Sep 2013. On this performance, they wore their MV costume, the black suits, and now with gold crown visual effects in the background. The lighting effect which followed the music's beat was pretty cool. The performance were pretty much the same, they performed their song and choreography in sync, as it was planned to be so.

MBC Music Core, 14th Sep 2013

On their performance on 29th Sep 2013 SBS Inkigayo, they performed with a different outfit. They wore all black 2-pieces skin-tight clothes, it seemed like it was their inner part from the black suits costume, without the blazer. There were some fire-sparkler used in the beginning of the performance, that was new. Other than that, the stage has several visual effect and lighting effect, which was cool, but seemed a bit dull now. 

SBS Inkigayo, 29th Sep 2013

I know that I said the stage without properties would simplify things, but for this case, I thought, some little properties could be considered. For example, how cool it would be if the group really had a ring to toss from their fingers. They could toss the ring to the audience, treated it as a marketing gimmicks. Or if suddenly there were water pouring like from the sprinkler in the MV. That would be messy, but fun :D

And this song had plenty repeated part, so it could get a bit boring when you watched the same planned performance several times. I was thinking how to make it more interesting; the member could have more interaction with the audience or by minimum with each other; have some drama act in the middle; or to have a live band accompanied the performance - that would have been superb. The song had repeated chorus 3 times with similar music structure and choreography each. They needed something to keep things the audience interested.

That's what I thought, what do YOU think? Please post your comment below :)