(req) Girls’ Generation/SNSD/So Nyuh Shi Dae – Girls’ Generation

OH BOY!!! Ahh geez. I really don’t know how to start this. Well, as most of you already know, I LOVE these girls with all my heart. Really. =] So I’m pretty much getting torn apart as I type this. I’m gonna try to keep this as bash-free as possible (ya right…) without taking away from the actual review. Brace yourselves, folks, this is going to hurt me as much as it’ll hurt you.

Oh boy, let’s see how the female version of Super Junior did with their first album.

1. Girls’ Generation – First track happens to be a remake of the 1989 hit by Lee Seung Chul. Let me start by saying how sick that guy’s voice was. I personally think (after watching a video of the guy singing it live) Lee Seung Chul worked it. Anyway, if you add estrogen times 10 and update the background music, you’ve got the modern day version of Girls’ Generation. Vocals here show range: I mean they start off each verse by screaming at you, then go softly (compared to the beginning anyway), crescendo their way back to the chorus, lather, rinse, then repeat. I find myself jamming more to those annoying synth beats in the background though. The occasional “YEAH!” gets me going, too.
2. Ooh La La! – ROFL, I love the name. The song on the other hand…It sounds like I jumped back into the 50s. I close my eyes and I feel like I’m standing in the middle of one of those old-school diners, seeing girls in long ass skirts and guys with their hair gelled in god awful styles, waiting for a strawberry phosphate. Now, how’s that for a blast from the past? It’s like asian Grease. Yes I went there. I can imagine nine girls in…well not so long skirts bouncing around some random guy from SM entertainment as well. The random spoken bridge freaked me out more than I thought it could even be considered cute. Their “cute” voices (whoever they are) didn’t quite cut it for me.
3. Baby Baby – I gotta say, the intro piano riff (easy crap as it is) made me think of another song I can’t quite put my finger on. Oh well. This is more modern pop than the other two tracks. I swear, I can imagine Mandy Moore singing this. It’s like something from her “Candy” days. So for once, the girls aren’t killing my eardrums by screaming at me. It’s nice; I’d like to be able to hear when I’m 20, you know. I find the redundancy of the melody very tiring to listen to and I end up getting ADD and drifting away from the song.
4. Complete – OH BOY! A BALLAD!! I like the guitar in the background, if that means anything at all to anyone. During the chorus, I can hear about two distinct voices and the others are drowned out or are only background vocals anyway. And thank you, ladies. You make my life complete as well =P I mean without you girls, I’d have little to LOVE about Kpop =D
5. Kissing You – I honestly can’t listen to this song without thinking of the Wonder Girls anymore. The intro singing riff is cute. I really can’t lie. This song is synonymous with lollipops and Dong Hae for me. Actually, some of their voices sound a lot more mature than I feel comfortable associating “cute” with. They show great vocal range (once again whoever “they” is) near the end of the bridge.
6. Merry-Go-Round – The English intro was nice. Awkward and strange, but nice. The string arrangement is lovely in this song. I find the random English in this song just as random as all the other English lyrics in Kpop, just executed better. SM learned after their fob English mistakes with SES (but I actually liked SM then =P).
7. Tears – YAY it’s the kind of ballad where they snap to the beat. YES! I LOVE THESE! Not really, but I’m a music nerd and I love keeping up with the beat. The piano and strings arrangement in the background are so well done, I’m tearing =]. I hate to admit it, but the vocal ARRANGEMENT complimented the music very nicely as well. The “La la’s” near the end I found really out of place. And the “I love you” whisper at the end was…interesting. Another typical way to end a song. Sounded like something from a 90s ballad track in America. This was not a diss.
8. Tinkerbell – They need to write better titles for their songs. This song belongs in a Korean Disney soundtrack or something. Parents would probably riot seeing these girls dance around in short skirts though. Oh and the “I’ll be your tinkerbell in the sky” bit was fitting to the song I guess (the fobby english was what I enjoyed). So let’s put the girls in skimpy green dresses, attach wings, and let ’em sing this song out in Disney. Personally, I haven’t hated Tinkerbell as much as when I last heard Edwin McCain’s Farewell to Tinkerbell.
9. 7989 – KANGTA!! OH MAH GODD!!! Even though you look really creepy without hair, I still find it in my heart to love you. The melody is the kind that you listen to but falters and fades after a minute has passed. I couldn’t find myself actually listening to this song till the end the first time around. The piano at the end was lovely, though.
10. Honey – The guitar caught me off guard, but they had that background synth that I always hear in their tracks come up, so that brought back familiarity (unfortunately). It’s always nice to know that I have 9 ladies telling me they’re perfect for me. I’ll give ’em a thought whenever I decide to go lesbian and have a sudden craving for plastic vaginas. The powerful harmonized bit during the bridge was just about the most exciting thing this song had to offer. Oh and the sudden change in key after the bridge was an eye popper, too =X [/end sarcasm].
11. Into The New World – the background music was actually background music this time. At first I didn’t realize there was any ‘cuz it was far to quite for my ears. The echo-ed chorus is really prominent in this one. I love the random “What???” you hear after the chorus. That’s about as ghetto as they could have possibly gotten (or as SM would allow them to drift away from “cute).

OVERALL: I cant differentiate between their voices for shit, so I really couldn’t go into detail with their individual bits. I wasn’t about to take the time to try differentiating 9 voices either. There are random bits in certain tracks where I’m led to believe they hired a bunch of kids to scream certain parts for the chorus (i.e. “YEAH” in Girls Generation and “Ooh La La” in Ooh La La). Why? They sound a little too young for even 18 year old girls to be screaming at such a high tone. I mean, if they can “sing” maturely, I’m pretty sure they can scream at me maturely as well (if that made any sense at all). Also, every time they sing a chorus, I feel like I hear an echo. It’s just that there’s SO MANY OF THEM. I’m sure they’re harmonizing or whatever, but it just gets messy for the ears to listen to. The tracks themselves were very poppy. Like, Dubble Bubble bubblegum-y pop. Backtrack to the 90s bubblegum scene. It’s just like that, except you could actually dance to those songs. I found the songs going through one ear and out the other most of them time. None of the tracks deemed themselves that worthy of my time. Vocals, as I’ve mentioned countless times (I suppose), are very good, okay? Get off my back. That’s about as nice as I’m willing to be for Eggs xD and all you Sushi rollers out there.

EDIT:

I stumbled upon a thread on soompi that listed a bunch of songs remade by other artists. Seeing “2 Blocks Down” by Play on the list sparked my interest. It only grew after I saw that it was none other than SNSD that covered it. I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t feel like making a new page just to include one song from their first single and a bonus track found on their repackaged first album, as well as a remixed version of Kissing You. So…Here I go:

Single –

1. Beginning – Here’s that “2 Blocks Down” remake. They copied everything: from the obnoxious guitar riff at the beginning to the freakishly popped up sung melody. I still hear an echo when they sing. I applaud their attempt at singing English here. Unfortunately, I’m hearing “I’m your girl. I’m your bitch.” Or was it peach? As funny as that would be, I seriously doubt that’s correct. Work on your pronunciation, and ANNUNCIATE. It does wonders. I was just freakishly amused by this remake, though. Way back when, I used to listen to PLAY and I actually liked the album which this song came from. Did they do the song justice? You already know my answer to that.

Album Repackaged –

1. Kissing You (School Rock Remix) – WOW. They added some ridiculous guitar riffs at the beginning. The “rocked up” version of this song tickles me pink. For once I can say I liked the original version. At least it didn’t have obnoxiously irritating guitar licks playing in the background, trying really hard to sound melodic with a string ensemble randomly playing along during the chorus. It totally doesn’t fit the song at all. A sad attempt at heavy “school rock” and sweet poppy music don’t mix well, no matter how many times you try to remix it. The bridge cracked me up. The drums were drowning out the solo singer and when they made the super crescendo (vocally), you heard guitar licks instead. Now that’s music. Half the time you couldn’t even hear the girls sing (can’t decide if that’s good or bad :P).
2. Let’s Go 소녀시대!! – I was really confused. Why would you waste disc space just to make a medley of all your songs into one track? So basically, if you wanted to get a sneak peek at all the songs on the album (or at least the popular tracks), listen to this song. I can’t believe I wasted my time. Long version or short version, there isn’t much of a difference between them. Good job to the person who had to make decent transitions between all the songs. That was the most talent used in making this track.