October 25, 2011

There was no chance of any song being reviewed today at all. None at all. Just like how Infinite fans totally dominate our Music Monday Request Polls when a new video is out, so too do Sones dominate our polls for a Girls’ Generation video. So here is their new video, The Boys:

Now, quick notice before we carry on: we reviewed the English version of the video, which we downloaded before we came to Canada. For some odd reason, though, it’s not viewable on YouTube in Canada. Why? The English version is viewable in Korea, where they don’t speak English, but not in Canada, where they do speak English. What was the point of making an English version of the video if you’re preventing your English audience from watching it? Totally mind-bottling, if you ask me. Our guess is that perhaps SM is worried that the view count will be spread out between the two videos, and won’t look that impressive, so it’s better to force everyone to watch one official version of it. Bah! You can find the English version of the video through illegitimate uploaders, but we’re not ones to promote such activity, so you’ll have to find it on your own.

On to the song and video itself: we’re not as happy with it as we should be, and I’m worried that people are going to start thinking of us as SM haters, which is totally not true. We loved TVXQ’s comeback, and loved f(x)’s comeback as well. Super Junior’s comeback, though, we found really underwhelming, and this song also isn’t doing it for us. In fact, this is our least favourite SM song of the year. Yeah. It’s that bad. Or maybe it’s not that it’s bad, more than it’s underwhelming < --which is not a word, but you can get what we're feeling. Now don't go calling us Girls Generation haters, either, now. We really love just about every other song they did. Loved Hoot, loved Run Devil Run, and totally freaking loved Genie, which is one of Simon's favourite Kpop songs EVAR. EVAR! We even liked Visual Dreams (but not the rap part)! Seriously! Girls Generation are great singers and have a history of great songs, and we're definitely fans of their singing. [caption id="attachment_6314" align="alignright" width="250" caption="These are not the monkey balls we are referring to"][/caption]

We are not fans of their rapping, though. Nope. Not even a little bit. It’s irredeemably, terribly, horrifically, monkey balls awful. It makes our skin crawl. We understand that Girls Generation are maybe going for a different image by trying to rap, but this is not working for them. Holy craptacularly terrible. And it’s not that easy for us to say it, because the rest of the song shows their awesome singing, which is what made us originally fans of Girls Generation, but this new twist, this contrast between their awesome singing and monkey balls rapping is like the contrast of watching Jessica Alba in a bikini and then cutting to Simon in his Seungri Time for Kisses wig, in a speedo. Ugh!

The video is just such a terrible match for it as well. If they’re walking around all elegantly, with tiaras in a freaking rose storm, then by what freaking rights should they be rapping afterwards? Who thought of this disconnected image? If you’re going to have them belt out rap lines, about how cocky and arrogant they are, then walking around a giant diamond isn’t the image you need, and doesn’t fit the feel of the song. Put them in a club where they have the chance to prove that they can bring out some boys. Have guys gawk at them. This…this is just all wrong.

We’re trying to figure out why they went this route. We hear that this is Girls’ Generation’s North American debut, so they’re probably trying to change their image to what they think a North American crowd likes more: confident women, rather than aegyo girls. That’s understandable. But it just sounds too unnatural, from our perspective. The whole drumline/cheerleader section sounds like an awkward attempt at Gwen Stefani’s Hollarback Girl sound from a while ago. You know who did drumline right? After School with “Bang”. That song rocked, and it even had sexy drumline uniforms to match and a wicked dance.

And, finally, I don’t think we can belabour this point enough, but we’re totally sick of SM’s boring rooms. They’re so overused that it’s becoming ridiculous. We complain about it with Super Junior, and we thought that we’d get something cooler with Girls’ Generation’s new video, but we got the same ole same ole

I see no difference SM. No difference

SM, this needs to stop. Perhaps you think that this is the formula for music videos, and so you’re going to repeat it to no end, but your laziness is apparent to everyone now. Please, hire a new video team, because the one you have now is lazy and comfortable, and feel no need to innovate or create anything exciting or interesting. It’s boring now, just boring, to see people dancing in weird rooms. We know that you make good music. You have that down pat now, when it comes to making good sounding music. Your videos suck though. Not every freaking video needs to be a display of how sexy and attractive your members are. You can show them off AND still have a decent storyline to the video as well, anything then just FUNKY ROOM + DANCE + CLOSE UPS + 360 degree camera.

Ah! That’s enough. We’re using this video and Girls’ Generation as an excuse to complain about SM’s moviemaking skills, but that’s not fair to the band, who still are awesome singers. If you’re interested in picking up the album, you can do so by clicking the image to the right here to get the album shipped to you anywhere in the world. Or, if you’re indifferent to getting physical albums, you can get the song on iTunes here. Or if you’re not into buying stuff you can torrent it, I guess. BOOM! And, lastly, what good is a Music Mondays if we don’t put up some bloopers!