Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Nicole -- Something Special




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 () 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

1 comment:

  1. 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.

    So 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.

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