It’s summer time again in Korea! But it’s a little bit different
this year with the tight competition in music industry. Many big names such as Big Bang, 2PM, AOA, SISTAR, Lee Seung Gi, Primary, Girl’s Day, A Pink, and Girls’
Generation have confirmed to make their comeback during summer.
Joining them is EXO,
who just made their comeback with Love
Me Right. Last March, they released their 2nd full album, Exodus, with Call Me Baby as their title track. Love Me Right itself is the repackage album of Exodus.
The anticipation has rising for this comeback. Their last
repackage album is Growl in 2013,
which sold a million copies and created a new record in K-Pop industry. Beside
that, Love Me Right will also be
their album with nine members. During Call
Me Baby promotion, Tao, one of
the Chinese members, considered
leaving the group due to injuries and lack of opportunities. Although SM Entertainment still not giving his
clear position in the group, they already stated that he will not participate
in this album. Moreover, the fierce competition on summer gains more people
interest to see whether EXO will do well or not. For info, they released this
album just one day after Big Bang released their album.
So, are you ready for another EXO comeback this year? Here is my
review of four new tracks in their repackage album (the review of their Exodus album is here)…......
With Love Me Right, EXO
mixed their R&B signature style with funk music. It is dominated by bass,
electric guitar, and synthesizer sound that heavily influenced by Michael Jackson songs. There is
gorgeous vocal harmonization too in many parts. Basically, it is the type of
song that I never imagine a K-Pop group would sing.
However, there is still the hook and rap part to remind us again
that this is a K-Pop song. It does not sound too forced, in fact, it gives more
kick to the song. But still, there are some parts on the verse that feel empty;
they should add more music there. In short, Love
Me Right is fun to listen and to dance. There is a good feeling when you
listen to this song.
For the music video, it seems that SM hears our prayer. No more
one take and in the box music video! It’s quite refreshing to see that most of
the focus in this music videos is not the dance scene.
Love Me Right is one of the best EXO music videos. It has beautiful
cinematography with all those dark tone mixed with pink, purple, and blue
color. Somehow it reminds me with 80s teenage movies.
It has great styling too! All of the boys look good in this music
video, especially Kai who just kills every scene. I love that the boys have
more loose and youthful fashion style compared to the mature Call Me Baby and the tidy Growl. My only complaints would be the
football uniform that looks weird when they use it for dancing.
Then, when we talk about the storyline, I actually have no idea
about what is happening in the music video hahaha. It does not really represent
lyrics about how they love a girl and ask them to follow them. But, they still
convey the youth lyrics theme to the music video.
In this music video, we see how fun it is to be young and free. The
boys run around, play around with each other, and celebrate their football
winning together. At the same time, we see how hard it is to be young. There
are some scenes that show the boys being alone, sad, and destructed something.
I love how they use this theme because somehow I can see how it
resembles the boys themselves. Behind those shining fame, all these nine boys
are still ordinary young boys who also experienced roller coaster live of being
young like us.
Tender Love sounds like a continuation of Love
Me Right. It still has the funk-R&B theme, which is not really
surprising since Gaeko from Dynamic Duo helps composing this song.
But different from Love Me Right,
this song is dominated by electric guitar, piano, and percussion sound. This
makes the song leans towards the R&B side while Love Me Right is more into funk.
Tender Love is really enjoyable to listen. It has cute lyrics about how the
boy wants his relationship with the girl more than only oppa dongsaeng relationship. It has good dynamic with the music and
vocal complement each other. The verses and bridges are really good to build up
the song.
However, this does not followed by the chorus. It seems lacking
because they only sing one word, “Tender Love”, during most of the chorus. It’s
a pity because if they add more lines to the chorus part, it could make Tender Love has more kicks, even becomes
stronger track than the title track.
This song first revealed before Exodus album released. It is a gift for fans because of their success
in unlocking the Pathcode teaser. They uploaded this song on the official
Youtube channel only for 24 hours. But now finally, we can listen to it more
than 24 hours ;)
First Love is sweet and shy just like its title. It has sweet piano melody
and strong R&B beat that stays throughout the song. It accompanied by EXO
members’ warm vocal, especially D.O. and Kai. It also has sweet lyrics about
the boy confusion in saying their love to the girl.
However, this song sounds shy to explore more sound and beat. The
melody becomes quite repetitive throughout the song. It could make the
listeners’ bored.
The last song of this album, Promise
(EXO 2014), is the song composed by EXO members. Lay with the help of Chen and
Chanyeol made this song about the
hardships that EXO faced in 2014.
Truthfully, I am not really feeling this song when I first heard it
on people’s fancam during EXO’s concert. I think the music lacks of something.
But thankfully, the final studio version can cover it. The strong beat puts a
spin to this ballad song. It adds more intensity to the song. Promise could be just the usual ballad
song if it only has the piano and string sound. Yes, the song production is still
quite raw on some parts. However, as a whole, it is a nice attempt for EXO
members’ first composition.
The strong beat may add more intensity to the song. But the strongest
point of this song is the honest lyrics. Like what I mentioned earlier, this
song is about how EXO feels to their fans after the hardships that they face in
2014. We can really feel their sadness, pain, anger, thankfulness, and
confusion through its lyrics and EXO members’ vocal that is full of emotions.
Chanyeol shines the most in this song with his raw and emotional rap part.
Love Me
Right shows a great continuity of the solid Exodus album. It maintains EXO’s
signature R&B style. This album shows that EXO becomes more confident and
comfortable to sing R&B songs. But at the same time, it also gives EXO more
room to explore by mixing it with funk theme.
Previously, I complaint a bit about how serious Exodus album sounds.
However, Love Me Right album makes it up with tracks that is more light,
youthful, and fun without decreasing its quality. Another solid discography
from EXO!
Favorite
Songs : Love Me Right, Tender
Love, Promise
Rating : 4.5/5
0 comments:
Post a Comment