Wonder Girls - Reboot (2015) (plus a bit of a retrospective on the band as a whole through the lens of my experiences in Korea, and a way too detailed explanation of such for what is, ostensibly, an album review)

I currently have three drafts for posts here that I just haven't finished. I'm not sure what it is about reviewing Metallica, but I find it more difficult than I originally thought. Maybe its because my opinion on Metallica has changed (quite a bit) from where it was back in my high school days.

I still listen to metal, of a large variety of sorts, along with all sorts of eclectic genres. Vaporwave anyone? Well, among that wide variety of genres rests KPop (Korean Pop).

KPop is actually quite near and dear to my heart, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being the two years I spent in Korea 2008-2010. Without going into it much, I wasn't there to sight-see (though I had plenty of opportunity to do so), and I wasn't there to listen to KPop, but none-the-less walking down the street in pretty much any city, you hear a lot of music. You'll also hear it in stores while shopping, on the buses, and somehow it seems that even when you sleep, music, often KPop, will somehow find its way to your ears. What I mean to say is that KPop was everywhere.

To me and my fellow American friends there in Korea, we kinda treated KPop as a joke at first. Haha! Boy bands! How quaint!

But honestly I think a lot of us were instantly attracted to it. Plenty of the Americans I knew easily disregarded it, but there was a core of us that enjoyed it, for a variety of reasons. Some guys were definitely just into it because of the pretty girls. Hard to argue with, there are a lot of them in the genre.

Regardless, I genuinely enjoyed the music.

The first song and artist I ever knew the name of and could recognize was Brown Eyed Girls - My Style. I saw a live performance of it on a TV in a restaurant I was eating in one time.

Remember how this was supposed to be about the Wonder Girls and their album Reboot?

The Wonder Girls! When I was in Korea, they had just released their EP "The Wonder Years: Trilogy" which contained the single "Nobody," which was getting significant airplay (at least, from cell-phone store store-fronts and on buses, I didn't listen to any terrestrial radio except maybe in taxis). One of their previous singles "Tell Me" was also still in heavy rotation (again, storefronts and bus). Its possible they had other tracks still getting airplay as well, but those were the two that I was familiar with and could place with the WGs.

I knew people that were in love with them.

And for as popular as those songs were, I've never thought they were very good. A boring, basic beat, a boring, basic hook/vocal line, and not much else.

This wasn't just my opinion either. In fact, based on conversations I had with multiple native Koreans, this was the prevailing opinion at the time. Pretty faces, sure. Their voices were fine, but their songs were mostly just catchy and not actually good. I was told specifically (by a Korean) that they were a "visual only" group, and no one actually cared about their music (despite it being everywhere).

SO IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I HEAR "I FEEL YOU" SOME EIGHT YEARS LATER.

(And a year after it came out.  -__-  I still can't believe I missed it on release).

Here, just, go listen. Watch this video and listen to how incredibly good this song is. I'll even embed it for you. 

From the first notes, the first notes, I knew this was something different. Something, dare I say it, special.

That synth. The colors! The fuzzy VHS-esque filter on the first few seconds of video. The "WTV" logo (parody of MTV, obvs) in the corner. We're in the Eighties again, man, and we're loving it. Look at the room we start in! Its a bathroom obviously, but look at it! I doubt any real bathroom in the decade of my birth looked like that (I imagine most looked like bathrooms) but everything about it screams the eighties.

(Yeah, I know its a provocative shot. If you have a problem with it just, ya know, chill.)

All of this combined was like magic. It pulled me into its world and everything instantly worked.

The theme here hits perfection. They never let up, aurally or visually, and it works so well. That synth lead is perfect, the sound of the drums is perfect, the costumes, the choreography, everything, is perfect. This song makes me feel things.

Was this the Wonder Girls? The same group that made the nothing-going-on-musically bore-fest that was "Nobody"? HOW?

Well, apparently they'd been through some changes over the years, and as stands they lost two members, and regained a member they lost sometime after I first heard them.

Its important to note that the girls here (Park Ye-eun, Kim Yu-bin, Woo Hye-lim, and Lee Sunmi) actually had an active role in the writing and production of the album. Beyond that, even, each member of the group learned to play the instrument that they play in the video, and (despite not actually playing in the video or on the album) actually do play the instruments live.

I think this played a huge role in how the album turned out. Giving your artists instruments and letting them write their own music, how in the world could that work? (Note the sarcasm).

So after hearing "I Feel You" and watching the music video multiple times, I knew I had to get my hands on the album. I knew that a song so cohesive, so finely tuned, had to have come from an album where and equal amount of care was put into the construction of said album as was put into the song. In other words, I was expecting something amazing. I was not disappointed.

Wonder Girls - Reboot. Probably the best album of 2015.

This 1980's theme is present throughout, and the songwriting stays a similar level of quality throughout as well. Like I said about "I Feel You," this album makes me feel things. There is a deep nostalgia here, but I feel their heartbreak when they sing "Baby Don't Play," the desire to go make and fix your mistakes in "Rewind," and more. Don't think the whole album is sad or down-beat either. "오빠 (Oppa)" is about going out and partying/having fun (with or without your man).

Its easier to note the minor exceptions instead of just going track by track and saying "This one is great as well!" for each one.

Track number eight is called "Back" and its alright. To truly represent 1980's dance and pop music, there had to be more hip-hop inspired track. Its "Back". Its not bad. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with it, and it 100% works for the whole theme of the album, and so I can't take away any points for it. I just, well, I'm just not completely in love with it, like I am the rest of the album.

Other minor exception, track number 12. "이 순간". If you can't read Korean don't worry, it doesn't matter, its just the last track. Every single KPop album I've heard has at least one super-slow low-instrument supposed-to-be-a-vocal-piece-but-you-haven't-given-your-vocalists-much-to-actually-do ballad on it. Its obligatory. This is that track. Is it terrible? I dunno, its a KPop ballad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Does it take away from the album? Not really. Its fine. I just stop the album there and move on (or start over).

I want to note that the track immediately preceeding this one, "없어" (which means "gone") is also a slower song, and could be considered a ballad by some definitions, and its incredible. The difference? The girls actually have something to do vocally, and there is actual music backing them up.

I can still hardly believe a group that was "visual only" got this good. Their Reboot really worked, and Wonder Girls - Reboot is a solid A+.  10/10.  100/100.  Best album.