Back in October, Girls' Generation, Korea's only band (so it seems), released their first English language single. This excited almost everybody. Even I was excited. The song by itself wasn't spectacular, at least not until the remixes came out, but it was still an awesome step forward. These girls have great voices, and actually can speak English quite well.
Then they released their first US album.
This is where my problem with this groups started. The album has twelve tracks with English titles, but only one of them is actually in English. The rest of the tracks are sang in Korean, making their "English language debut" kind of pointless at this point. Why would you only record one English song for your US premier?
The songs aren't bad, per say. A few of them are lazy sounding and not as well produced as a top notch girl group should be, but I don't hate the songs. The problem lies in the presentation. This album's lead single was in English, leading all logical thinkers to believe the rest of the album would be as well, especially given the song titles. It was a huge let down.
As if they weren't lazy enough beforehand, it gets worse. Tacked to the end of the album is the ENTIRE "BOYS" EP. Nothing new here. Just the EP you probably already bought. I can't even begin to tell you how annoying it is to be forced to buy something over again. Speaking of which, the album also features the exact same cover art as the EP did as well. I think these girls take the prize for laziest US debut ever.
It could have been worse. They could have re-recorded a Ke$ha song and not even bother to redo her vocals. What? They did that, too? Damnit!
Great post, although I have two points of fact on which I wish to challenge you:
ReplyDelete1. In fairness, "Run Devil Run" was never meant to be a Ke$ha song. You can read the full story here: http://www.vertigoshtick.com/2011/10/keha-project-k-dolla-meets-k-pop-on-run.html
2. I can assure you that, lazy as it seems to be, the GG US album cannot be the laziest album ever made, if only for the mere fact that someone had to get fourteen East Asian girls to sound moderately passable singing in English, which certainly requires a good deal more effort than, say, the caloric output of Rihanna taking a shit, which is essentially the amount of work said superstar appears to put into her baffling chart-toppers. *Sigh* Not that I'm editorializing
I know about RDR not being a Ke$ha song. It was just a closing joke. I've not paid attention to RiRi's new album because I refuse to acknowledge any single that can get to number one by saying the same sentence for three minutes to a terrible 90's gay club beat.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the subject, Alexandra Stan's full-length "Mr. Saxobeat" follow-up LP is a pretty epically lazy album; with one or two exceptions it's basically "Mr. Saxobeat" eight or nine times with various (and hardly disguised) inversions. But then I suppose it delivers what it promises (Variations on a Tremendously Lucky Break?)...
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