Red Light Posted December 31, 2017 Posted December 31, 2017 (edited) 2017 has been, bar none, the worst year that I have experienced thus far as a K-pop fan. No year--including the inordinately depressing 2014--has been quite so frustrating and discouraging as the one presently wrapping up. 2014, for all of its scandals and misfortunes, more than made up for it in terms of music quality: Iconic songs like Catallena and Up & Down, as well as personal favorites like Sugar Free and--of course--Red Light, were present from start to finish. Another disbandment? Who cares! New girl groups like MAMAMOO and Red Velvet are sprouting up. Park Bom got caught smuggling drugs? At least 2ne1 had the opportunity to release one of the best female K-pop albums ever released before that happened. Sulli leaving? That’s a shame, but have you listened to the Red Light album?! 2017, on the other hand, has been more like this: I can’t believe 2ne1 is finally over. Why is YG like this? And what the hell do you mean Wonder Girls have broken up?! What did they even learn those damn instruments for? Miss A’s poster was taken down too?! Oh well, at least Red Velvet is coming back soon! ...What in the **** did Red Velvet just release? GFriend’s new song is really good, though. Wait, it’s already out of the charts? How?! Does that mean they’re going back to anime theme songs? Oh God, what's Amber throwing a fit about now? ...And that's just the first three months. Recite it with a tropical house instrumental in the background, and you have 2017. Of course, not all of it was bad, but the really good stuff almost exclusively came from lower-tier groups like 9Muses, APRIL (oddly enough), BP Rania, CLC, and groups that I’d never even heard of, like Momoland. I developed trust issues with Red Velvet after Rookie, and in spite of all that, they’ll be taking up a whopping four spots in the top 20; three of those being album tracks. And, while GFriend flopped, their music quality is still better than ever. So, maybe this year wasn’t quite as bleak as I’m painting it to be. ...Actually, no. It was ****ing awful. But that makes the few songs that I did like all the more worthy of being recognized... Plus, I already made graphics for this ****, so I’m going through with it. * December 31st, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: Since I had been trying to join ATRL TWO YEARS BEFORE I FINALLY MADE IT IN, my Top 10 lists from the previous two years. January 1st, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: Honorable Mentions and the unveiling of this year's Top 20 nominees. January 2nd, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: #20-16. January 3rd, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: #15-11. January 4th, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: #10-#6. January 5th, 8:00-9:00 PM EST: #5-#1. *I'm an unstable human being. Listed times are estimations, not set in stone, and subject to change like my personalities. Edited January 6, 2018 by Red Light
Red Light Posted January 1, 2018 Author Posted January 1, 2018 screaming @ the floppage Only one hour behind. 2015 LIST: Spoiler #10 f(x) When I'm Alone If more songs on the 4 Walls album followed this dreamy sound, instead of throwing in random **** like Cash Me Outside, it could have been just as incredible as its predecessors. The production is spotless, the choruses hit hard, and the chromatic ascension of the "Eodum sok" line is heavenly. #9 Red Velvet Dumb Dumb As soon as that trappy sub-bass kicked in for Dumb Dumb's first verse, I figured it would be a candidate for best song of the year. Add in the unstable brass, weird cowbells in the chorus, funky guitar riffs, vocal harmonies, and overall weirdness, and I was 100% certain of it. #8 Brown Eyed Girls Brave New World I hadn't even begun to memorize what this sounded like until the 5th listen, which I loved. This trippy mess is like a collection of every bell and whistle the producer could find on their synthesizer. Random voice samples, reverbs, echoes, spacey tremolo effects--it's like a assortment of sound effects stitched together to form music. #7 Wonder Girls Faded Love This is like a sedative in audio form, and I can't sing enough praises about the production value. This and its sister, Rewind, should be a staple on anybody's ambient K-pop playlists. #6 GAIN Paradise Lost Where else but K-pop are you going to hear a mainstream artist release a creepy biblical-themed sex anthem with haunted house pipe organs released as the lead single for an EP? #5 BoA Clockwork This angsty thriller takes cues from the Ballroom Tango class of music and packs screeching violins, sinister piano riffs, xylophones, and psychotic post-choruses in the second half of the song that follow a similar scale progression to the chorus of Red Light! #4 Wonder Girls Rewind This is, quite simply, the most orgasmic piece of dreamy 80's synthpop that I think K-pop has ever put out. It's as simple as that. #3 4Minute Crazy I still can't get over how utterly perfect the snare sample is in this song. It is the purest, most audibly satisfying percussion sample I've heard in any song, ever. And that's just scratching the surface of what makes it so great. #2 Red Velvet Ice Cream Cake I remember listening to the iTunes sample of this for the first time and nearly losing my mind at the post-chorus hook, which may very well be the catchiest melody I've ever heard in my life. Songs that are earworms like Ice Cream Cake typically get old very quickly, but something about this one is special. #1 STELLAR Vibrato This is a literal masterpiece. The production, the structure, the melodies, the spine-chilling climax that explodes like a literal orgasm; everything is absolutely brilliant. This is not just the best song of 2015 but one of the best K-pop songs ever recorded, in my opinion.
Red Light Posted January 1, 2018 Author Posted January 1, 2018 2016 LIST: Spoiler #10 HyunA U & Me I loathe tropical house, as it's generally under-produced and sucks the energy that belongs in an uptempo K-pop song. However, there's always been one quality in most tropical house that I've appreciated very much, and that is the strength of the drum kicks. U & Me manages to obliterate every other kick I've ever heard, hitting so hard it feels like it could crack your skull. #9 Wonder Girls Why So Lonely In one of K-pop's biggest travesties, Wonder Girls broke up just as they had blossomed into a legitimate girl band. Beyond their musical talent, Why So Lonely is a pleasure to listen to, with moody verses, light choruses, and a perfectly subtle, catchy hook that is both instantly lovable and slowly growable. #8 STELLAR Sting The winners of 2015's insanely competitive countdown, and one of the most underrated girl groups of all time, STELLAR were not immune to the Terrible Tropical Takeover of 2016. Sting is different, though, as Sting actually lives up to the 'Tropical' classification and nails the attempt beautifully. The sub-aquatic instrumental is brimming with colorful detail, from the bubbly bass to the weird accordion-sounding synths in the choruses. #7 MAMAMOO Decalcomanie The typically silly and quirky MAMAMOO finally showed us their mature side for the first time since Piano Man back in 2014, and this is just as good. The song is just plain tense, with its hardened, austere vocals, foreboding melodies littered with moody semitones, and an intense tribal beat reminiscent of Adele. #6 LUNA I Wish 2016 was full of dreamy, ambient electronica, but nothing was quite as wonderful for me as the haunting, lustrous synthpop ballad, I Wish. It is a veritable dreamland of heavenly synth warbles, murmuring sub-bass, spellbindingly serene vocals, and overall hypnotic wooziness from start to finish. #5 EXID L.I.E This is a very underrated song, in my opinion. Yes, the airhorns are awful, but the choruses are beautiful in spite of them. They're delightfully melancholy, and chock full of high notes which are impressive in how effortless they are. The instantaneous way Solji reaches that high F# is astounding, and the extra harmonies in the final chorus are perfect. #4 Red Velvet Russian Roulette If you could visualize sound, Russian Roulette would be like some extraordinary gush of rainbow substance akin to something you would buy in Toys R Us. With glitchy vocals, chiptune synths, robotic semitones, thumping club beats, and gorgeous harmonies, Russian Roulette is a high-energy, high-pitched, high-BPM, high-detail masterpiece. #3 Hyuna Do It! Do It combines the insanely sharp electronic snare from 4Minute's Crazy with the kind of gleeful, adventurous, bittersweet semitonic melodies that make up some of my favorite songs of all time--including Red Velvet's Ice Cream Cake and Girls' Generation's Paparazzi. The wistful minor second in the chorus never fails to tear me to pieces. #2 GFriend Navillera This heavily produced cornucopia of disco, electropop, rock, and even hip-hop in spots, is truly a sonic roller coaster. Like all GFriend songs, Navillera has a hint of nostalgia, and the climax of the song, with its stunning guitar solo, is probably the best of 2016. #1 SISTAR I Like That By far the darkest song SISTAR ever did, I Like That mixes feisty melodies, oppressive, metallic synths, a heavy syncopated rock beat, dense 808's, and a complete powerhouse of a bridge that makes for one of the most badass moments in all of K-pop.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 If you think I'm not going to keep this up until the bitter end because nobody's checking for it, just know there is nothing I have more experience in than talking to myself. And now I don't have to abide by a schedule! AOA EXCUSE ME I love this sexy mess of a song because it’s like they didn’t even want it to be catchy. The hook is an earworm, but the trippy instrumental is erratic, hard to remember, and vaguely dissonant. Mix that with the teasingly slow falsettos and it’s like a nightmare and a nocturnal emission rolled into one.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 GIRLS' GENERATION GIRLS ARE BACK This soulful funk banger was obviously intended for TTS at some point, but it all worked out in the end, because SNSD’s last album as an 8-member-group couldn’t have asked for a better opener than this quintessential hype builder. The vocals are stellar, the production is sharp… and they still can’t pronounce “Girls” correctly. Some things just never change.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 RED VELVET PEEK-A-BOO I am beyond ready for the tropical house fad to die a painful death, and I see any song that incorporates it as terrible until proven innocent (and there’s really only been two tropical house tracks that I’ve ever really loved: U & Me by Hyuna, because of its irresistible production, and Sting by Stellar, which I think is the only K-pop song that has ever really nailed the genre). Peek-A-Boo, interestingly enough, still isn’t quite off-the-hook yet. I hate that dry bassline used during the choruses, which is basically an 808 with none of the low-frequency sub-bass that makes 808’s so pleasurable to listen to. I’m including Peek-A-Boo on the list more as a prediction, as I’m in love with the satin-smooth vocals throughout it, the scratchy handclaps, and the hook is catchy enough that I can picture the song growing on me against my will, as happened with Red Flavor. Just, please, let this be it for this boring bracket of music so we can move back to uptempo songs that actually have a shred of energy.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 5 minutes ago, Antunes said: Hide contents Spoiler That's in the Top 20.
Hug Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 Okay so as a K-meninist, I'm not very big on anything revealed so far...Peek-a-Boo is fine, but it's not something I would listen to on my own time! Paradise Lost being on your 2015 list, though. We love art masterpieces.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 GFRIEND ONE-HALF GFriend, if nothing else, is consistent when it comes to uptempos with dramatic, bittersweet melodies that sound as though they were recorded for a Disney movie, and this wistful disco anthem is no different. That brief orchestral spotlight during the bridge and the outro is one of the highlights of GFriend’s discography and one of the best bridges of the year.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 EXID Alice Add this to the list of songs that fit the sonic direction of the 4 Walls album better than half of the songs that actually made it (there’s another song that fits this description which makes it into the Top 10). Compare a darker, more heavily-produced song like this to something lighter and simpler like Meow Meow by CLC, and you have a prime example of the difference between deep house and tropical house. With ethereal synth pads and a plethora of psychedelic sound effects, this song does a fantastic job making the listener feel as though they’re being taken down a musical rabbit hole.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 BP RANIA BREATHE HEAVY This is normally the kind of song I despise in K-pop--with that annoying and overused “Eh eh” voice synth that’s being shoved into every future bass instrumental in existence; not to mention something about the song sounding unmistakably and generically western, which I moved to K-pop to avoid. But, those bizarrely oppressive, foreboding semitonic hooks outside of the chorus, in tandem with the well-mixed sub-bass and slow, sputtering beat, makes it irresistible to me.
Antunes Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 6 minutes ago, Red Light said: EXID Alice Add this to the list of songs that fit the sonic direction of the 4 Walls album better than half of the songs that actually made it (there’s another song that fits this description which makes it into the Top 10). Compare a darker, more heavily-produced song like this to something lighter and simpler like Meow Meow by CLC, and you have a prime example of the difference between deep house and tropical house. With ethereal synth pads and a plethora of psychedelic sound effects, this song does a fantastic job making the listener feel as though they’re being taken down a musical rabbit hole. The best song on Full Moon . Is the other 4walls sounding song by a nugu girl group??
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 GIRLS' GENERATION LIGHT UP THE SKY Girls Are Back was the perfect album opener, and the breathtaking Light Up the Sky was the perfect album closer. Ending an era on a perfectly somber, reflective note, Light Up the Sky manages to stand out from the myriad of other cinematic mid-tempos they’ve done with surprisingly heavy percussion that almost sounds as if it was placed in the wrong track. Between the syncopated groove, the sub-bass, and the massive snare sample that would have been more appropriate in a dubstep instrumental, Light Up the Sky never bores. Even without the beat, I love nostalgia trips like this, and it was a fitting end to their last album as an 8-member group.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 CLC DEPRESSION THIS is how you properly do a ballad. K-pop ballads, for whatever reason, tend to have boring, basic melodies that would fit better in an R&B track and thus possess no emotion or power at all. To make a long point short: If you’re going to do a sad song, IT SHOULD SOUND SAD. Depression establishes its, well, depressing tone right off the bat--employing a pensive piano run and lamenting strings, which all briefly soften for the verses so that the tension level is maxed out by the time the beat kicks in. The lalala hooks are insanely bleak and yet insanely catchy, like some sort of bizarre suicide lullaby. The modulated strings that swoop up during the choruses add a kind of frantic dissonance that beautifully match the miserable mood--as do the theatrical drums and bleak semitones--all creating a gut-punching, heart-wrenching resonance that only rarely is delivered so effectively in K-pop.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 RED VELVET KINGDOM COME Mature, understated, and faintly haunting, Kingdom Come is Red Velvet’s best Velvet-side song since Automatic. This is slow R&B at its purest and finest. The melodic choices are oddly mournful--the “I will love you till K-i-ingdom Come” hook sounds nothing like the giggly schoolgirl crush concepts we’ve come to anticipate from Red Velvet, and more like a raw, emotional profession of love from weary women who have been through a whole lot of **** in life. Wendy’s deep vocals are heavenly, the compressed breathiness of the choruses give the track a hazy, gloomy quality, and Joy popping up out of nowhere like a bat out of hell with her wailing high note in the final chorus is positively chilling.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 10 minutes ago, Antunes said: The best song on Full Moon . Is the other 4walls sounding song by a nugu girl group?? Indeed it is. And now that the honorable mentions are over, it's time for the unveiling of the Top 20!
Antunes Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Red Light said: Indeed it is. And now that the honorable mentions are over, it's time for the unveiling of the Top 20! If it's the song I'm thinking it is then it's a good () choice Edited January 2, 2018 by Antunes
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 AND THE NOMINEES ARE... Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler ^idk why that one turned out bigger Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Come back tomorrow night for the first four reveals!
Antunes Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 So Loonatic is top 10 Spoiler I thought it was Good Day's Party After Party
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 17 minutes ago, Antunes said: So Loonatic is top 10 Hide contents I thought it was Good Day's Party After Party mess, I've never even heard of that. Lemme go check it out.
Red Light Posted January 2, 2018 Author Posted January 2, 2018 @Antunes PARTY AFTER PARTY IS EPIC AND PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOP 20. WHY DO I KEEP DISCOVERING SONGS AFTER I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN MY YTT FOR THE YEAR I'M SO PISSED
Antunes Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 1 hour ago, Red Light said: @Antunes PARTY AFTER PARTY IS EPIC AND PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOP 20. WHY DO I KEEP DISCOVERING SONGS AFTER I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN MY YTT FOR THE YEAR I'M SO PISSED It really is and just like Jeonghwa their lack of vocal talent makes the song. The last chorus always gets me 2017 was filled with quality F(x) tributes
Red Light Posted January 3, 2018 Author Posted January 3, 2018 7 hours ago, Antunes said: It really is and just like Jeonghwa their lack of vocal talent makes the song. The last chorus always gets me 2017 was filled with quality F(x) tributes why couldn't songs like that have become the hot trend of 2015-2017 instead of basic trop house #20 revealed in just a minute!
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