Rain

I've been meaning to write about "Rain", SM Station's most successful release so far, obviously by the All-Kill Queen Taeyeon, but I decided to wait until the annual celebration of her life (which, as we all know, is a beauty).

So first of all, a happy birthday to my favorite K-Pop artist (my favorite Korean person!) 김태연. I hope you're enjoying your favorite pastime of just relaxing in your room, a pastime that I have embraced as my favorite as well, and by that I mean relaxing in my room, not in your room, though being in your room would definitely be a dream come true for me.

Before I leave to ponder on that interesting scenario some more, let me just give a few comments on "Rain". It is an awesome song. They very wisely decided to avoid too much repetition and kept the lyrics of this slow jam dynamic yet cohesive all throughout. It reminded me of how much better some K-Pop songs sounded after I've sliced off a lot of extraneous bits using Audacity. There are no extraneous bits in "Rain".

Tayeon's delivery is perfect, and combined with the shortness of the song left me with a feeling reminiscent of a very nice dream. I don't think many singers could reach the proper balance of power, restraint, and technique that I feel is necessary for a song like "Rain". It's a song that could have easily been boring or annoying at the hands of a less capable artist, but Taeyeon made it shine.

As for the music video, it was suitably chill and relaxing, except for the really weird waterbending scene at the end where big computer generated blobs of water were hovering in the air. Taeyeon's short hair was pretty cute, and her fluffy sweater and short shorts made her somehow look both innocent and sexy at the same time.

Over all, I think "Rain" reflects Taeyeon's real personality more than "I". Both songs are great, but I feel like I'm peeking into melancholic introverted Taeyeon's inner life in "Rain", whereas "I" is what people want to see from K-Pop Idol Taeyeon. I guess it's apt that she barely promoted "Rain", because sometimes a homebody just needs to take a break from all the outside noise in order to read a good book or two. Hopefully she gets lots of rest before she has to embark on yet another set of promotions.

Oh, and I read an interesting theory somewhere regarding Taeyeon's song choices: 나 (I) + 비 (Rain) = 나비 (Butterfly), which is very appropriate given Taeyeon's fondness for butterflies. Cool coincidence, yeah?

Dancing All Night

I can't believe I missed Crayon Pop's latest MV:

Their cuteness and talent abounds, as always. I think Soyul really stood out here. I think she's becoming my Top 2 in Crayon Pop.

As for my primary Crayon Pop bias, I think I am sadly moving on from Ellin. I still think she's great, and her kicking scene in Dancing All Night is hilarious and adorable, but after watching many Crayon Pop-related videos I've grown really fond of Choa. This might be weird, but I just like her visuals more than anyone in the group, even more than her identical twin sister Way. Every time I see the two of them, the one who I think is prettier always turns out to be Choa. I think it's in the way she moves (Her milkshake! Get it? "Strawberry Milk"? "My milkshake brings all the..."? Never mind...) or perhaps it's the very subtle difference in their faces. Couple that with Choa's singing talent, and she quickly Bing Binged to the top of my list.

But boy was Soyul so cute in Dancing All Night.

Oh, and Crayon Pop won Best Female Group in the 2015 International K-Music Awards. Awesome!

Taeyeon in a red dress: Ooh, MAMA!

Ladies and gentlemen, the best female artist of 2015:

Red carpet entrance and interview

"I" performance (the best one to date, IMO)

Taeyeon in a white dress slaying your noonas

Being Park Jaesang

By the time you're reading this, Psy's music video for his song Daddy (featuring CL of 2NE1) has probably reached a quadrillion views on YouTube.

The video features Psy the kid, Psy the thirty-something old man, and elderly Psy all showing off the skills that they ostensibly got from their daddy. There's also a cameo of Psy the baby early on. The whole creepy/funny adult-face-on-infant head reminded me of the movie Being John Malkovich, hence the title of this post. Check out this scene from the movie.

Alright. So we know Daddy will be hugely viral just like Psy's last two hits (though Napal Baji will probably be a flop). No need to say how awesome it is. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't even finish the whole thing when I first saw it, but it's kind of grown on me now. By the way, would you mind checking YouTube again to see if Daddy gobbled up a million more views while you were busy ogling at John Malkovich's boobs?

Random Thought for the Day

When is Shannon Williams' next comeback? I miss her so much! :'(

If the World Was Perfect

To the delight of Taeyeon-Verbal Jint shippers out there, the two recently released their second collaboration for this year. This time their roles have switched, with Taeyeon being featured in Jint's new song 세상이 완벽했다면:

Unfortunately, Taeyeon doesn't have a cameo in the music video (alas, the world is not perfect). But I do appreciate the artistry and message of the MV, which I'd like to discuss a bit here.

The video's protagonist and all the antagonists are played by the same actor, something that has confused a lot of YouTubers. But I think the message is simple. By showing that the person being mistreated has the same face as those mistreating him, I think the MV's is trying to teach the Golden Rule in a cool way. It basically asks the audience: If you don't want to be discriminated against, oppressed, shoved aside, or otherwise subject to cruelty, why would you do those things to your fellow human being? It is this failure to see ourselves in others that causes us to see them as caricatures (like the ugly face the protagonist wore for most of the video until we saw what he really looked like), and that's what causes war and bigotry and injustice in the world. In a perfect world, these things would not happen because we'd treat each other the same way we treat ourselves.

Anyway, I really like Taeyeon and Jint's collabs so far. Both "I" and "If the World Was Perfect" transcend the kind of songs the two celebrities have usually performed in the past. Personally, I don't care whether they start dating or not, as long as they make more good music like this.

Taeyeon, Byuntae, and I

As I mentioned previously, Kim Taeyeon is my bias in Girls' Generation. In fact, she's my top K-Pop bias, beating everyone else in my eyes and in my heart. She has single-handedly saved many a Soshi song from mediocrity, and her Instagram photos has brightened many of my otherwise bleak days. Every now and then I would listen to Taeyeon's OST solos, with my favorite being the classic  "만약에" ("If"), just to hear her voice and her voice alone, wishing for the day when I can buy a Taeyeon solo album so I could immerse myself longer in the heavenly sounds of this Korean angel.

Okay, that was a bit cheesy for an introduction, I'll admit. Let's just go straight to my review of Taeyeon's mini-album (dammit, SM, why not a full album?!), entitled "I", starting with the title track.