koganbot | Wonder Girls THE DJ IS MINE Over On The Jukebox

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Wonder Girls "The DJ Is Mine" is reviewed over on the Singles Jukebox, and I share the general Jukebox confusion (i.e., once again I tend to agree with what people are saying whether they like the song or not).

There are two versions, one with School Gyrls as guests, one without, with a slightly different virtue or flaw here and there. Track will be part of an unpromising-looking Wonder Girls movie to run on TeenNick on February 2nd. Whether we get six more weeks of winter will depend on the type of shadow it casts.

Watch on YouTube

Yubin's rap is a disappointment; her restraint feels wrong, whereas generally she's a fine rapper and her gentle rolling style works well:

[Video no longer available]

The internationally famous Wonder Girls track is "Nobody." The great one is "So Hot," possibly my favorite K-pop track ever.

Current Music: Wonder Girls "The DJ Is Mine"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

koganbot

Don't know how much of a hand JYP (the man Park Jin-young, that is) had in "The DJ Is Mine." All I've found in a couple of Google searches is that "The high energy track was written by Crystal Nicole Johnson, a Grammy Award-winning songwriter who's worked with Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Natasha Bedingfield, and more." Johnson (who performs under the name Cristyle) is from Atlanta.

From:

arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com

Huh, "The DJ Is Mine" certainly sounds like a JYP melody. If it wasn't him, I wonder if the songwriter chose/was instructed to imitate the JYP style in order to have a cohesive sound across the WG song catalogue.

So Hot's english version:

Huh, the english translation is extremely true to the original's intent. "Mommy why did you make me so special? it's not so easy to be hot hot hot" is actually closer in sentence structure to the original than the "My mom's to blame, she made me this way, My life is tiresome" english captions.

It's interesting how this song, and most of WG's most distinct songs in general,("that wispy gravity") are technically that way because they're based on WG's weakest singers.(For their classic repertoire, Sohee and Sun Mi) It's not until WG reached back past the 80s and went Motown retro that Sun Ye and Ye Eun were able to show off their vocal chops, and it could be said that "Nobody" and "Be My Baby" would be rather generic without the unique timbres Sohee, Sun Mi, and Lim bring/brought to the table. (For that matter, Miss A's sound is kind of also built on their vocal "weakness," and they have no clear lead singer with a better voice than the rest. Maybe it's a JYPE thing.)

Is it coincidence that their first single "Irony" did not feature any Sohee lines in the first half, while it would be their second single "Tell Me," defined by Sun Mi and Sohee's whispy vocals, that would be their breakout smash?

I wonder what "The DJ is Mine" would have been like in a Hyuna WG. It certainly sounds like it would fit 4minute better.

From:

koganbot

For some reason, "So Hot" doesn't sound nearly as good to me in English. I don't think this has to do with my hearing directly what the words mean — I'm pretty good at ignoring lyrics, when I want to, and I don't necessarily think there is anything wrong with these lyrics anyway, to the extent I've paid attention — but rather that in English the Girls' flow sounds far more fragmented. Or the tones are different. Or something. The original feels richer and warmer.