Entertainment companies and their issues
Ok, I am not a music or a video critic of any sort and while I know a thing or two about music, I am pretty clueless in the movie-making area. However, as a consumer to whom the pop-stage material is presented, I have my expectations and opinions and I sometimes I need to spell them out. Even though nobody actually reads this journal... Here it goes.
So what is this all about?
SNSD's new Japanese song "Bad Girl" and the video that came out with it. Hm. I saw the teaser videos and from SME-experience *coughhardcorecassiopeiacough* I've learned to not really rely on the teasers to give me a realistic image of what is to come. But recently SME (along with Avex on the Japanese side) have given me a disappointment after disappointment.
I believe this (seemingly endless) sequence started with f(x) and their song/video "Hot summer" (don't get me started on the re-made/copied/shared-rights songs they've been barfing out). Then the other big blow for me came out just recently- Super Junior's comeback "Mr. Simple". But I will refrain from commenting on those two. I will only focus on SNSD with their "Bad girl"- what I'm about to say is valid more or less for all SME videos that came out during the last 2 years.
First, here's a link, in case you live under a rock and haven't seen the video yet:
http://youtu.be/9gQs7damTIE
Now that this is out of the way. My opinion about this product (yes, I referred to it as "product", deal with it) was surprisingly straight forward. Unlike most of the times when I'm faced with new productions, my mind did not go all over the place. If it had been possible to depict my thoughts' progression throughout the video on a graph, they would have represented a straight line form the start, until the end of the song. I suppose this has a lot to with the video itself, because it does not give you any material to think about- simple, clean, a traditional, signature SME video.
Now here's the thing.
In short- 1) Did I like the song? Yes. 2) Did I like the video? Not so much.
In fact, remember the line of thoughts I mentioned just now? During the whole 4:05 minutes it was bordering between "total disappointment" and "meeeh, it might not actually be so bad after all". Which side won? Hm. Well, let me express that with a picture, kindly provided to us by http://www.fuckyeahkpopmacros.tumblr.com , which... can be a pretty cool website... every once in a while:
Anyhow. Why did I like the song? Well, it matches its title, the lyrics and the melody give off this kind-of-mysterious feeling and I like it. The sound is very contemporary, matches the style of the band, but in the same time it has this rock-ish undertone (no matter how faint), which matches the concept of the product. Quite the successful combination, I might say. However, this observation is the base for the actual problem that we have: the video, or rather, everything else about the production.
The no-no part.
Following the same pattern of question- answer as done above, my conclusions were as follows. 1) Did the set match the concept? Yes. 2) Did the wardrobe match the concept? Very yes. 3) Was the video "plot" appropriate? A big, huge NO.
With a visual that corresponds to the song, I personally expected a NOT- clean cut video. The "dark aura" of the product just asked for a more complex, action-thriller-secret agents type of MV. But what did we get instead? A bunch of dancing girls. Also, what exactly was with that dance anyway? Don't get me wrong, the girls are wonderful dancers, but this is just. No. Bad, bad, bad idea. The worst part about it is that the choreographers don't have much fault. There was only so much that they could do with almost 4 minutes, 9 girls and this music (although I still believe that the flail-flail-aboriginal and the Egyptian-style hand-dances just went way over the top; ref. @1:26-1:38). But here comes the key part.
SNSD should change their concept as a whole if they insist on introducing a new, darker image. I understand that this style is an important thing for SM because they want to introduce it to the Japanese audience and be recognized for it. However, they need to realize something. You cannot have 9 girls jumping around the place and build a cute image with it ("Gee Gee" and "Oh!"), and expect the same thing- 9 girls, jumping around the place- to build a "bad girl" image, just by changing the clothes of the artists and the background set. It simply does not work that way.
All in all, I believe that SME should start taking notes from other ent. companies, instead of trying stubbornly to make their video productions all the same (save for the very few, such as TVXQ's "Before U Go", which have some plot and action, yet after all end up being banned if they're lucky enough). I understand that they want to be true to their style so that when one looks at a video, they could say without hesitation: "Omg, that's been made by SM!", but they risk chasing the fans of their bands away, due to excessive eye-bleeding, caused by too much repetitiveness. *cough*
Anyhow, that was my rant about the current SM problems as a production company, provoked by a single video, which, in the end, I still have yet to decide weather I like or not...
A/N: Every single comment above has been made according to my own, personal understandings and you are not obliged to agree with it. In fact, you are encouraged to disagree so that I can see another point of view on the topic and hopefully, learn something new.
THE EEEND
So what is this all about?
SNSD's new Japanese song "Bad Girl" and the video that came out with it. Hm. I saw the teaser videos and from SME-experience *coughhardcorecassiopeiacough* I've learned to not really rely on the teasers to give me a realistic image of what is to come. But recently SME (along with Avex on the Japanese side) have given me a disappointment after disappointment.
I believe this (seemingly endless) sequence started with f(x) and their song/video "Hot summer" (don't get me started on the re-made/copied/shared-rights songs they've been barfing out). Then the other big blow for me came out just recently- Super Junior's comeback "Mr. Simple". But I will refrain from commenting on those two. I will only focus on SNSD with their "Bad girl"- what I'm about to say is valid more or less for all SME videos that came out during the last 2 years.
First, here's a link, in case you live under a rock and haven't seen the video yet:
http://youtu.be/9gQs7damTIE
Now that this is out of the way. My opinion about this product (yes, I referred to it as "product", deal with it) was surprisingly straight forward. Unlike most of the times when I'm faced with new productions, my mind did not go all over the place. If it had been possible to depict my thoughts' progression throughout the video on a graph, they would have represented a straight line form the start, until the end of the song. I suppose this has a lot to with the video itself, because it does not give you any material to think about- simple, clean, a traditional, signature SME video.
Now here's the thing.
In short- 1) Did I like the song? Yes. 2) Did I like the video? Not so much.
In fact, remember the line of thoughts I mentioned just now? During the whole 4:05 minutes it was bordering between "total disappointment" and "meeeh, it might not actually be so bad after all". Which side won? Hm. Well, let me express that with a picture, kindly provided to us by http://www.fuckyeahkpopmacros.tumblr.com , which... can be a pretty cool website... every once in a while:
Anyhow. Why did I like the song? Well, it matches its title, the lyrics and the melody give off this kind-of-mysterious feeling and I like it. The sound is very contemporary, matches the style of the band, but in the same time it has this rock-ish undertone (no matter how faint), which matches the concept of the product. Quite the successful combination, I might say. However, this observation is the base for the actual problem that we have: the video, or rather, everything else about the production.
The no-no part.
Following the same pattern of question- answer as done above, my conclusions were as follows. 1) Did the set match the concept? Yes. 2) Did the wardrobe match the concept? Very yes. 3) Was the video "plot" appropriate? A big, huge NO.
With a visual that corresponds to the song, I personally expected a NOT- clean cut video. The "dark aura" of the product just asked for a more complex, action-thriller-secret agents type of MV. But what did we get instead? A bunch of dancing girls. Also, what exactly was with that dance anyway? Don't get me wrong, the girls are wonderful dancers, but this is just. No. Bad, bad, bad idea. The worst part about it is that the choreographers don't have much fault. There was only so much that they could do with almost 4 minutes, 9 girls and this music (although I still believe that the flail-flail-aboriginal and the Egyptian-style hand-dances just went way over the top; ref. @1:26-1:38). But here comes the key part.
SNSD should change their concept as a whole if they insist on introducing a new, darker image. I understand that this style is an important thing for SM because they want to introduce it to the Japanese audience and be recognized for it. However, they need to realize something. You cannot have 9 girls jumping around the place and build a cute image with it ("Gee Gee" and "Oh!"), and expect the same thing- 9 girls, jumping around the place- to build a "bad girl" image, just by changing the clothes of the artists and the background set. It simply does not work that way.
All in all, I believe that SME should start taking notes from other ent. companies, instead of trying stubbornly to make their video productions all the same (save for the very few, such as TVXQ's "Before U Go", which have some plot and action, yet after all end up being banned if they're lucky enough). I understand that they want to be true to their style so that when one looks at a video, they could say without hesitation: "Omg, that's been made by SM!", but they risk chasing the fans of their bands away, due to excessive eye-bleeding, caused by too much repetitiveness. *cough*
Anyhow, that was my rant about the current SM problems as a production company, provoked by a single video, which, in the end, I still have yet to decide weather I like or not...
A/N: Every single comment above has been made according to my own, personal understandings and you are not obliged to agree with it. In fact, you are encouraged to disagree so that I can see another point of view on the topic and hopefully, learn something new.
THE EEEND