NOTE: I’m not a fan of
Tudou, but as I had this article ready for posting with a couple of
music.163.com links, and I didn’t want to throw it away, I used the Tudou link
as a one-time emergency solution.
I
became quite sad when I was informed that Nicole
(ニコル) had left South Korean girl group KARA in late 2013. She was my favorite member
of the group, so the fact she parted ways with KARA just meant the end of an
era for me. Also, I could never guess she’d have a solo career as a singer,
because, come on, she’s a gorgeous and sexy young lady, but with very few singing
skills, to say the least.
I
was wrong... Nicole did start a singing career in South Korea with a mini-album
called “First Romance”, which was released in 2014. To make things even better,
the girl also debuted in Japan a
couple of months ago, and it makes sense, as KARA’s fanbase is quite strong there.
At
first, contrary to the song’s title, “Something Special” didn’t sound very
special to me. It was just a formulaic
pop song with some catchy samples
of Nicole singing the “something special now” line, but nothing more than that.
Well, I was wrong again... I’ve been listening to this thing for three five
months now, even though, initially, I thought I’d only tolerate it for two or
three weeks, at the maximum.
The
thing is, “Something Special” may not be
innovative by any means, but it’s a catchy
and short tune. The effectiveness resides in the fact that you’re not going
to hear the chorus looping for five minutes, which makes this light pop tune a
good and quite dynamic listen. Also, the video, even though far from great,
showcases Nicole’s beauty in a
positive manner with lots of close-ups of her face and lips (she kind of
reminds me of Arashi’s (嵐) Matsujun (松本潤)
because of the cute black mole she has below her lower lip).
I
really don’t know how Nicole’s career in Japan will progress, but I’m eagerly
waiting for her next step. I hope the powers-that-be makes the right decision
with her, maintaining this cute
teen-oriented aidoru concept.
“Something
Special” was released in June 2015,
reached #8 on the Oricon charts, and
sold 12,268 copies. Lyrics were written by SONG SOO YOON, MIN YEON JAE and
MEG.ME, while music was composed by HAN JAE HO, KIM SEUNG SOO and KO NAM SOO.
Source: generasia.com
The group of people who produced the song for Nicole are also known as sweetune. They made just about every song for Kara (and some other K-Pop) groups before Nicole and Jiyoung left. Songs produced by sweetune are very iconic for their 80's influenced guitar riffs, bass lines, and synth.
ReplyDeleteSo if you're interested, you should go look up some songs produced by sweetune. They've made a couple of songs for aidoru groups in Japan as well.