The music video of the century has now been released: Vibrato, by Stellar. I'm going to start off by saying I didn't like the setup I was using for my last music reviews, so like my anime and other reviews, I'm just going to ramble.

And my rambling is going to start off by saying: This music video is sexy. Over the top sexy. Extremely oversexualized. Just plain perverted.

And I love it so much.

As soon as I saw the title to the song, I knew that this concept was going to be over-the-top sexy. I knew that there was going to be something about this video and song that was going to just blow my mind, and maybe the minds of others. The lyrics and video both scream womanhood, and the innuendos in the music video are blatantly obvious. Enough to make any viewer uncomfortable. Which is great. I mean, come on, having purses, eyes, lips...anything open at the vertical angle it was positioned in? All the blood references, with either the use of fake blood or the watermelon splitting open? Everything is extremely obvious. It's something I love. These girls embraced their sexuality and basically gave a middle finger to the world.

Considering all the backlash they got for Marionette (which I never really understood, I loved Marionette) it's no wonder the girls took this approach for Vibrato. Not-so-curiously enough, they're even wearing their Marionette costumes. Their outfits, the exposure of skin, their choreography, and all the allusions create a visual masterpiece, in my opinion.

I really enjoyed the song, as well. The rap in the song was...poor, to be blunt, but the rest of the song made up for it. While this is probably a song feel we've gotten over and over and it's nothing to "wow" about, Vibrato uses its simplicity to its advantage by being extremely catchy. I also enjoyed the kind of oldish feel the song had, kind of like a blast-from-the-past summer song.

Maybe one of the reasons I love this Stellar song and music video so much is because it almost mirrors my love for EXID and how they stand out. Known for being sexy (though not to Stellar's standards, if you ask me), their song Up & Down was aimed at masculinity and the such. Meanwhile, Ah Yeah was aimed at censorship of women and basically telling a guy "no means no" where Up & Down was all for pleasing that guy and the games that came in the process. Meanwhile, Stellar hit the nail on the head with embracing womanhood, being sexy, and pleasing both yourself and your significant other—if you want to, of course.

Whoo-hoo! Another music video release for the summer! And ohmygosh...everyone just stop and hold onto yourselves. SHINee has released the summer jam for Summer 2015! There is no joking around with this song!

THE MUSIC VIDEO

This music video is super fun to watch. With its bright colors and white border, it's very modern and vintage at the same time. Also the saturation of the brighter colors themselves paired with the old band t-shirts and adventures give the music video a classic summer feel. I found the video to be very well composed. I thoroughly enjoyed how the "flashbacks" were shown in black and white and the rest of the music video, the present-time, was shown in color. There were some scenes that were slightly difficult to understand upon first watch, but were easily cleared up with a second watch and some closer attention on my part—the main scene being the beer bottle being smashed over Minho's head (at first I thought one of the girls did it, but then I realized it was the man harassing her at the club).

I loved the entire plot line of the music video. The whole staged kidnapping was a really fun idea, and it looked like the SHINee members really had fun themselves. From what I gather, it seems as though SHINee are exhausted from work, and some fans notice this, so they plan a kidnapping—but they tell the SHINee members about it beforehand! One of the girls is seen whispering into Minho's ear quite often. If you look closely, you can also see that the rags with "chloroform" weren't even pressed against the faces of the SHINee members. Also, the girls wait to put their masks on until after the guys have all seen their faces. Not much of a serious kidnapping, now is it? Which makes it obvious that this was a staged kidnapping just to give the members a break. All that information paired with the fact that the music video gives off a summertime theme—this feels like a well needed break. Even when it gets out that the SHINee members have been "kidnapped", they're seen running from places with access to television. When they come across the cop car, they also make a run for it. Then when some other fans started to take pictures of them, Jonghyun pushed the camera down with a rather grumpy look on his face.

It's well-known that idols don't get vacations very often, or time off. Summer is a season for comebacks, as well. Idols are constantly working, and even if they aren't in the limelight, they're always practicing. So I think this music video pairs together a lot of elements very well and portrays that while they are idols, SHINee are also young men who need to act their age every now and again. Taemin also stated in an interview that they wanted to do a more fun song to connect with their fans better as their next comeback. This is that song.

Lastly...that dance! I cannot wait to see the live performances of this and the full choreography!

THE SONG

I won't go into too much detail on this. I mean, after all, what can I really say? It is the song of the summer. Lighthearted, upbeat, and super catchy. This is a song that is easy to dance and sing along to. You'll want to put it on repeat for hours. I can easily see myself doing just that, even just letting it play as background noise while I go about whatever work I need to do. The vocals are wonderful and mix and blend each member's voice perfectly. The song even switches with ease between each member as their part comes up. There's also a perfect mix of soft notes and high notes that make the song both fun and emotional.

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Basically...well, I'm super in love with this song. I hope everyone gives SHINee's View a listen and that it instantly makes their summer at least ten times better. Also, I definitely recommend checking out the entire Odd album. Just knowing how great View is, I think I have enough background to say that I'm positive Odd is great. I've never had a bad experience when it comes to SHINee albums as a whole.

Okay. Wow. Holy crap! I just did a music video review early this morning as a, "This seems cool I want to try this out," sort of whim...and then what happens?! Big Bang releases two of their new songs and music videos off of their MADE series!! I obviously haven't been paying attention much, amidst studying for finals, about when exactly Big Bang's comeback would be. I only knew about the new songs and about them appearing on music show Inkigayo for their comeback stage. I never once realized when the songs themselves were coming out.

In case you can't tell from my rambling, I am extremely excited! I've been with Big Bang since about 2007-2008, when I first stumbled upon their song Lies on YouTube in the related videos while watching anime openings and endings. Ever since then, I've been a huge fan of Big Bang and Korean pop in general. Now, it's been three years since Fantastic Baby and I think they're long overdue for a comeback and some new music to be released. I'm literally going crazy!

So for this feature, I'm going to be talking about Big Bang's two new songs, Bae Bae and Loser. I'll start by order of which I watched them, which leads to Loser first:

THE MUSIC VIDEO

I'm going to try and not compare the two music videos and songs, because they're both their own separate and respective art pieces...but honestly, I enjoyed Loser a lot more than I did Bae Bae. This music video had great camera angles and the colors of it were subtle and appealing to the eye. It was a calm video that was reflective of the mood of the song, in my opinion. Each member got their own story lines dependent upon the theme of the song and I think with the use of the different scenes, colors and lighting that reflected the moods, and the camera angles themselves—those stories were easy to follow and it makes them unique to each member.

On that note, though, I think the composition itself was a bit everywhere at times. The scenes switched to different members quite a lot and made it confusing for me to catch onto the meanings of each member's scene on the first watch. I had to watch it two other times to understand everything completely.

I like the separate stories being told, though, despite it being confusing on the first watch. G-Dragon is the rich and powerful man who is alone, surrounded by those waiting on him who he can't connect with. Later in the video, he's depicted in the streets in his extravagant clothing wandering alone, not interacting with the "normal" people.

Taeyang is the religious man who seems to have lost his faith, or is trying to be faithful and is constantly failing. There are various quotes on the cross and ground talking about sin and truth. He loses his way and ends up wandering junkyards alone. At the end of his story, he's shown throwing and breaking the cross, then drawing the cross on the ground so he may land on it when he jumps to his death.

TOP is an obsessive and controlling man depicted in a room where everything is pristine. He uses gloves to touch anything whether it be the girl—he picks her finger off of him gently with a white gloved hand as though it is dirty—he is with or his art. But it's shown that the girl ends up touching one of his pieces of art, and his controlling side comes out. He's shown choking her with a white, hand—then, later he is shown alone wandering alleyways covered in blood splatters in a bathrobe and slippers, which completely goes against the clean and pristine looks he had before. Also...did he kill that girl?

Daesung is just a normal guy minding his own business, who is jumped by a group of thugs. He's beaten and humiliated when they thrown the bandanna that his girlfriend gave him. He's sensitive and quiet, and is shown trying to man up later in front of a mirror in order to take revenge. But when he does take revenge, he ends up being broken and alone at the end—his girlfriend's bandanna forgotten on the ground—because he has now become that same thug.

Finally, Seungri appears to be a very well off man. Not rich like G-Dragon, but he has a neat appearance and is well stocked on electronics. However, it appears as though he is alone because he has a quick temper. He sees his girlfriend, presumably his ex, with another man on the street and calls her. After she ignores his call and puts her cell away in her purse, Seungri is shown kicking a side mirror off of a random car. Like TOP, he's obsessive. He ends up stalking her and tries to talk to her, but she pushes him away and leaves him alone in the end.

I think all of these themes really play well into the title "Loser" and the lyrics themselves.

THE SONG

Again, I don't want to compare—but I really enjoyed Loser a lot more than Bae Bae. The song was chill and relaxing. It also has some very meaningful lyrics that are really easy to connect with, if you want me to be honest. I think the lyrics reflect what everyone is going through at some point in their life. If you read the lyrics, it's apparent that the song itself isn't about being what is classified as a loser to another person, but about believing you yourself are a loser. The song is about being alone in the world and feeling alone, even when surrounded by friends, or lovers, or faith.

THE MUSIC VIDEO

Okay...so...I'm not really sure what to say about Bae Bae. Except, seriously, what in the actual fuck? This music video was so nonsensical and crazy. There was no plot, nothing to follow. It was just everywhere, all at once. And so freaking weird. Also, um...can anyone say sexual innuendos? This music video was full of them. Not sure if anyone else picked up on that. But Big Bang really has no chill.

So I didn't much like the music video because it was nonsensical. Normally I don't mind videos like that much, but this one...was just too out there for me, I guess. Also, I really like bright colors. But this? This was an explosion of fuchsia that I was just not okay with. Whoever was messing with the settings of this video and set the bar all the way over to "cool" or "warm" made a terrible, horrible mistake.

Also, I hate to say this...but I hate double standards. If white girls in hanboks were to appear in any other KPop group's music video, that group would get a lot of hate comments. In fact, something like that happened to Block B subunit Bastarz recently—their music video for Conduct Zero featured both white and Korean girls in kimonos, and they got so much hate, with anti-fans even telling member P.O to kill himself, that Seven Seasons removed that scene entirely from the video. But Big Bang, the "Kings" do something similar? Well...I'm not sure about anyone else, but I've yet to see any comments on it at all, and it's rubbing me the wrong way.

Besides that, though, I really enjoyed the imagery here. Despite the insanity of the video, it's a work of art if not for all the motifs it features. Even if, awkwardly enough, they are sexual motifs. To start with, an obvious one is the Venus flytrap. Not only is that a plant, but it's a sex position, too. Orchids stand for fertility, and the stag in the video refers to when adult videos were once called "stag films." Also, talking about older movies, the crashing waves during Daesung's scenes reference when older adult films used to feature crashing waves after sex. There's also Korean folklore that goes the whole moon scene, about the rabbits who live on the moon and are pounding rice cakes. Depending on what version of the folklore you know, the story is simple enough and basically signifies a long, lasting life (which is what the moon stands for). But you can also play into the fact that rabbits stand for fertility, if you want. There are also some more obvious innuendos—take for example TOP and his little toy gun—but I'll leave your own mind up to deciding what those are about, if you're reading this.

THE SONG

To me, the song was just so-so. It wasn't anything amazingly Big Bang catchy, and it wasn't mind-blowing amazing like I was hoping for this comeback. However, I do like it. I think if I listen to it a few more times it will most definitely grow on me. It's just not one of those instant-like songs like Loser was—at least for me. TOP's rap style for this specific song did stand out to me a lot. It was very unique and fitting. Also, strangely enough for how crazy the music video was, I do like that the lyrics sort of fit with all the innuendos. The lyrics are talking about being addicted and drunk off a crazy, beautiful woman who can be compared to pretty flowers and more. The lyrics also feature some lines that also hint at sex—but I'll let you read them for yourself. It's not any sort of meaningful, but it's a fun song for what it is.

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So, all in all, I'm definitely looking forward to this comeback. While Bae Bae may take some time for it to grow on me, and Loser was amazing in my opinion...I think Big Bang has set themselves up with an amazing start to this comeback period. It's going to be a long five months...

In my opinion, it wasn't anything special. But, at the same time, it was pretty amazing for what it was. What I mean by that is this is a song that, from what I gather from the lyrics, is about a girl driving a man crazy. Possibly leading him on—I don't find it to quite be a breakup song. But it is definitely a song of intense emotions revolving around love and a back-and-forth type relationship.

Now consider this: Most songs like that feature a female lead in their music video, and the music video typically tries to center around those emotions, and most of the time the music videos also features scenes that show the back-and-forth relationship, often containing the girl lead with members of the boy group in scenes with her. This music video doesn't do that—and I really love that. It just depicts the guys of BTS in different elements, showcasing their emotions and different scenes of happiness and friendship and the single-member shots depict the loneliness of the relationship they are in (or not in). There is literally only one point where a girl—and another man—are shown in the music video. Even then, though, it's just a scene to compliment the rest of the music video and the story the lyrics are telling. I really, seriously appreciate that.

There wasn't anything too notable about the composition of the video itself. The mixed camera angles were nice and simple. I enjoyed that there were no crazy dance scenes, although I do appreciate BTS's choreography. It's just nice to see them mix it up with these last few videos they've released and see them focus on the storytelling aspect of a music video rather than the music and choreography solely. Also, I really enjoyed the subtle colors of the video. A lot of BTS videos were dark to start with, to match the themes of their hip-hop genre and also the themes apparent in their lyrics; but their latest music videos have had some more color in them. I like that this music video's color is subtle, calm, and reflective of the mood of the song.

THE SONG

I'm really in love with the song itself, to be completely honest. It's relaxed, but emotional. The music itself is a great compliment to the different parts of the lyrics, whether it be the opening of the song, the high notes, the rap, or the chorus. I really like a lot of the beats that are heard in the back. The chorus is super catchy and I really love it. The vocals are on-point, too, in my opinion—whether it be with the lower notes or the beautiful high notes. I also enjoyed how the rap bits were spread out throughout the song, too. The rap actually complimented the vocals and the chorus of the song rather than this BTS song, like others, having rap that reflected the hip-hop roots of the group.

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But, seriously: On another note completely—that note being the more fangirl-y one...I'm freaking addicted to this song. Like. In love with it addicted. I really love it much more than their last comeback.