After School's Good Year (Year 3)

[koganbot]

Of three recent albums by K-pop big shots (SNSD, 2NE1, and After School, w/ 4minute and Super Junior-M in my to-do pile), After School's is head and shoulders above the rest, once again. I still have no sense of the members' individual musical personalities, if they have any, and not much sense of a collective personality either, sonically. "Smooth vocals with forceful accompaniment" is what I come up with, pretty much, plus occasional strong pangs, the latter more often in Korea than in Japan. In their early days, feisty was good, gentle was bad. Now gentle feels deep, and when the vocals go to what I call "easy vocal washes" the resulting mist is like a sharp shower, rather than blah.

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The album (Dress To Kill) is in Japanese, its two singles written and produced by Shinichi Osawa. Listening to Shinichi Osawa's Works 2008-2012, which also tends to go for a smooth front and a propulsive engine, I'm nonetheless thrown back to the feeling of distance I often get from J-pop, without knowing if the distance is mine or theirs. And I say to myself "I don't get it." Whereas After School's Japanese work gets to me every bit as well as their Korean.

Osawa aside, most of the songwriters on Dress To Kill are European (Scandinavia, Germany) or from the European diaspora (Australia, Canada), though that's not infrequent when K-pop goes to Japan — and probably not that infrequent in J-pop, but I haven't yet paid J-pop enough attention to know. (And, again aside from Osawa, few of Dress To Kill's songwriters are prominent enough to get a Wikip page.)

Sorry I can't give you more than a few vague adjectives here, "smooth," "forceful," "gentle," "propulsive." I'm excited that arbitrary_greay got a keyboard and is "going to go to town with learning music theory." I hope she shares.

(My previous two posts entitled "After School's Good Year" are here: 2013 and 2012.)

Comments

[koganbot]

The very good "Rambling Girls" is an exception to my generalization "Smooth vocals with forceful accompaniment," though less of an exception than my memory had told me; feels loud all the way round, but actually most of the volume and hard rock comes from the instruments; the vocals are fairly unembellished. I do think the precision that the singers give to each word and note produces force. In general, even when After School are the smoothest of the smooth, the words get a precise delivery, rather than a lotta legato. At least that's what my memory is telling me (I'll have to check more thoroughly when I get the chance). The precision may be what makes the mist full of sharpness on "Shh."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr1tLZV36nY

And of course, there was toughness and roughness in the olden days — though checking back, I discover that the singing wasn't what was delivering the roughness, and wasn't what delivered this track:

[EDIT: Video deleted, and I can't remember which of their old rough ones I put here, but "Play Girlz," prod. by rough fellow Brave Brothers, would've been a good choice so I'm linking it.]

So maybe they and their producers have a better sense now of what to do with After School's nonpowerhouse lungs.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

People seem to like the new 2NE1 but to me it sounds like what a lot of good K-pop has managed to avoid -- watery imitations of US- and Brit- and Europop. Not sure why, but nothing is sticking from it.

So far my belated listen to IU's wax museum of neo-bachelor pad has been kind of fun. Will need to check out new After School who almost made my top ten last time around (went with Orange Caramel, whose album I listened to more).

[koganbot]

There's a new Orange Caramel single, "Catallena." In the video they imitate sushi and sashimi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Med2XipHJJM

Oddly, I prefer the two B-sides, "So Sorry" and "Cried Uncontrollably":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1p7De5S-YA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_1Roh3PD3k

[christophe andersen (from livejournal.com)]

While I'm underwhelmed by the After School record, I think you're absolutely right about it being better than the recent SNSD and 2NE1. Skyecaptain's description of it being a watery imitation of US and British trends is spot on for 2NE1 and I think it also applies to SNSD's recent record as well as "I Got A Boy" and "The Boys". I'm tempted to say that SNSD are the most disappointing of K-Pop groups in recent years since my expectations were set so high after "Oh" but there is the one glaring exception of the wonderful "Love & Peace", which also bucks the trend of me really disliking Japanese releases by K-Pop groups.

[koganbot]

Need to go back to the SNSD; I like the single pretty well, and I haven't really characterized the styles on the rest of it though my post up top was partly inspired by the feeling that when SNSD go for smooth on their new EP they don't do it as well as After School.

[christophe andersen (from livejournal.com)]

I have to change this review. The After School record is really clicking with me. I played it while driving to work the other day and the song Shh sounded amazing while driving along Lake Michigan. Suddenly the other songs became interesting too. My boyfriend, who doesn't follow pop music but does like a number of k-pop songs, also loved Shh. We liked how minimal it is compared to most k-pop and felt it might be influenced by Cassie.