Miss A: A Brain In Every Muscle

[koganbot]

New Miss A vid, with song and album attached. Miss A are natural dancers, while their singing often feels like a struggle. This struggle imparts charm, puts me on their side. I hope there's a true payoff, an evolution into total awesomeness before they're eased out of the pop world as happens to all idol groups.

Watch on YouTube

[If there are no English subtitles, click CC.]

This single, "Good-bye Baby," is a light breeze atop a nice little swing rhythm (what those of you who are still wet behind the ears call "schaffel"), even if their voices have to huff and puff a bit to catch up. Jia's rapping is excellently precise. The thing will be a grower, though its immediate merit is in how its light bounce helps propel their feet. Overall I'm disappointed: their digital single "Love Alone" from earlier this year was simultaneously warmer and more glistening, and "Breathe" last year was astonishing, r&b jammed into Gilbert & Sullivan, exuberant and adorable and hilarious with a live dance to match.

Although Miss A's YouTube site describes the "Good-bye Baby" vid as suspenseful, the only real suspense is wondering when they're going to start the song already. The dancing is terrific, of course, not trying to overimpress us this time, just playing natural movement against stops and poses. Min especially - the short one with dark hair - seems to have a brain in every muscle, movement her fundamental state, a good round flow that even feels present when she stands stock still.

Am waiting for the live dance routine, though, which I hope does try to impress.

Here's a dance vid Mat found of Min's training days in the U.S., when she was being groomed for a potential r&b career here that never panned out (and there's a lot more where that came from):

Watch on YouTube

The album, A Class, has seven of the eight songs from their two EPs (strangely leaving out "Looking At Each Other (딱 마주쳐)," one of my favorites), plus four new tracks and a remix. Of the remaining three new ones, "One To Ten" goes for the same lightness as "Good-bye Baby" but feels more like air freshener than a breeze; the effort from the women gets this by, sorta, along with a bass that keeps pushing on the offbeat. "Help Me" needs ease from the singers and lushness from the arrangement, doesn't really get either. But "Mr. Johnny" is my favorite of the new tracks: acid squelches, up and bubbling roughness, while the voices provide disco fizz on top.

Comments

[koganbot]

Here they are on the M! Countdown:



Similar to the MV, this is elegance meeting larkiness, stop meeting go, with added drama at the end as several strands of hair attack Suzy's microphone. Nice, but I miss the poplockin', night-at-the-operetta lunacy of their live "Breathe."

[askbask.livejournal.com]

It's not quite up to their two previous singles, even if it tries to (and commercially succeeds in) repeating the success of "Bad Girl, Good Girl". I still like it quite a lot, the unassuming catchiness of it, the roleplaying they do with their voices. The album is not what I'd hoped for. If JYP produced all the new tracks he should learn to let his ego go - Love Alone was not his work and I wouldn't have minded more tracks like it.

[koganbot]

Wikip info is sparse for Miss A songs/albums; it does list JYP as the producer of the album, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that that's an indication he produced it all. In any event, he can argue that the numbers indicate that he knows what he's doing, not just with Miss A but in general. But yes, I'm disappointed; though that's just 'cause "Breathe" set such high standard. Actually this is par for the course, Miss A nonsingles tending not to rise above pretty good.

JYP Wikip page is barely more than a stub; e.g., other than including him on a list, there's no discussion at all of Rain. The little I know about JYP I got from Mark James Russell's Pop Goes Korea. (Definitely worth reading: it's a too short book that takes on a wide variety: movies, PIFF, TV, music, entertainment, Web file sharing, comics. Russell's much more a business reporter than a culture critic; but I find that approach useful, since that's exactly where my own eyes and ears won't be able to fill in the gaps. Business guys are good for providing a focus on how this stuff comes to get made in the first place, even if they're usually not great for speaking on behalf of the artistry or appeal.) Anyhow, I get the impression that, for better or worse, JYP is a taskmaster who himself works as hard as a motherfucker. Don't know what he's got in the way of staff writers and producers.

A surprising bit of info on the Wikip page: CL on the list of former JYP trainees. That's not mentioned on the Wikip page for CL (and of course, its being printed somewhere doesn't necessarily mean it's true).

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Don't know if I'd conciously heard that info about CL before, but it's not surprising. It's become something of a running joke that every few months we hear about another star who JYP once let go. Contrary to what the wiki says IU didn't work with JYP, she auditioned and was told 'no'. I think that may be the case with more of the names on that list, but I don't remember who had what relationship with the label. IU's audition tape is on youtube.

“My heart breaks every time I see IU,” JYP said in an interview with KBS 2TV’s “Entertainment Weekly” on Feb. 12th. “I’m going to find the person who rejected IU from our audition and penalize him,” JYP jokingly said, adding he tries to avoid eye contact whenever their eyes meet, much to the laughter of many viewers. But he did say it’s really difficult to find all the hidden talent at auditions, although it’s regretful to miss on a chance to sign her under JYPE.

He seems like a work-a-holic with a need to be 'out there' all the time. He starred in that musical drama with IU as well. I don't know what creative people are hired at JYP either, I should try to find out. But then when he does give up most of the hands-on work to others, as with the forthcoming Wonder Girls album, it ends up being endlessly delayed.

(Reading the wiki page for the latest 2PM EP, because I'd heard that some of the members wrote some songs, I see that JYP was very hands-on, but more surprisingly I find this for one track: "J.Y. Park, Polow Da Don, Tommy Park". Polow involvement seems random, but I guess it has to do with WG. Haven't listened to the track, called "Electricity" yet, but will do that now)

[koganbot]

Also, not really related to this except for some JYP Entertainment, but I found this fan-made rap "battle" between CL and Yubin; I've only heard maybe three songs by the Wonder Girls, so Yubin here is a surprise to me, kind of old school, rappin' and rockin' the mic. This doesn't make much sense as a battle, CL's and Yubin's respective rhythms being so different, Yubin rolling her syllables across the beats, while CL uses syllables like chisels.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I'm always taken aback when reminded that the Wonder Girls and Big Bang did lots of performances together - seems like such an unlikely pair until you remember WG was the biggest girl group and Big Bang the biggest boy band. Yubin sounds good, though, makes me want to hear her do more of that on their singles. 'So Hot' really is amazing, btw.