best of Red Light's Top 100 Female K-pop Songs of the Decade!

[Red Light]

BONUS TRACK:

 

Spoiler

 

Unfortunately, since I idiotically have a username and avatar in dedication to the song, Red Light has to be disqualified from the rate. But it would be absolute blasphemy to not pay my respects for it, so this is the review that would have been done had it not been too incredible for its own good.

 

Red Light starts off with tense stadium claps, a slow trap snare loop, and a ticking sound effect (likely in imitation of a bomb), finally followed by a grimey, distorted glissando bassline--chock full of production detail before we’ve even hit the first verse. That first verse finally arrives with the advent of a strong, booming bass drop-off and a serious, all-business delivery of the lyrics in a nearly monotone melody. There’s really nothing resembling a catchy pop tune until the its swaggering, “Aye, aye, it’s a red light,” hook comes in, and even that operates under a bleak, foreboding A minor. The centerpiece here that appeals to general K-pop listeners is the exceedingly heavy, beautifully mixed sub-bass and tight, snappy snares that emulate some of the qualities found in trap music.

 

Before going any further, I’m going to indulge in addressing my interpretation of the song, because this is one of the rare instances in K-pop where I feel the the lyrics actually match the mood of chords and instrumentation--in this case, a song that sounds very dire and war-like--with the introductory lyrics including this: “Under the rule of the jungle, the weak get devoured.” Leave it to f(x) to open their lead single with lyrics about natural selection. The particular “Red light” the song addresses is, thankfully enough, not the prostitution kind. Instead, it addresses the cautionary kind--the kind that you would associate with emergencies and warnings. You know, like this:

 

WARNING! WAXING POETIC INTERPRETATION OF A MINDLESS POP SONG UP AHEAD!

 

Red Light’s music video is basically three-and-a-half minutes of cryptic imagery and symbolism, and the most likely answer is that it’s all just aesthetic and meaningless. But in the parallel universe where SM is smart enough to include hidden messages in their work, this is what I would take from it: The MV starts with a telephone ringing, and subsequently being ignored while Krystal burns a telephone book. This always gave me the impression of somebody “Checking out” from the world and ignoring urgent problems--sleepwalking their way through life. Keeping that in mind, and remembering that that the album comes packaged in either Wild Cats or Sleepy Cats versions, it’s oddly coincidental that the very next thing to appear on screen is a cat. Red Light, quite literally, tries waking you up. It’s about catching the listener off-guard, getting their adrenaline pumping, and opening their eyes. And guess what the very first line of Red Light’s chorus is? “Open your eyes wide.” 

 

To make the impending change that’s coming even more effective, we have a strategically placed pre-chorus, trading in its dirty basslines for a serene set of melancholy synth pads. Soft pre-choruses were far from a new K-pop invention in 2014, but typically, the harsher a sonic departure that a chorus is from the rest of the song, the lengthier and more acclimatizing the pre-chorus will be (the Pink Tape fan-favorite Airplane (#55) is a good example of this). This is not so in Red Light, where if anything, the pre-chorus is there to make the chorus even more jarring than it would have been had it come right after the verse. It’s basically just a “Calm before the storm,” soothing the listener with soft soundscapes and somber melodies; maliciously getting them to let their guard down for a few seconds. 

 

And then: BOOM. All the elements of the chorus sound like they literally crash and burn as the first chorus invades the listener’s ears with no warning or permission, forcing them to wake up and pay attention. Whereas the verses are slow, grinding, ominous trap, the choruses are a full-on electro-house tempest of utter sonic chaos. The biggest shock to the system is the change in key from A minor to D minor, but the rhythm also ramps up significantly: Handclaps during the hook, prominent cymbal crashes that wouldn’t sound out of place in a metal track, and a relentless house kick with a subtle echo that sounds a lot like a pounding heartbeat. The reeling bassline from the verses is back with a vengeance, boasting a new melody at a lower, dirtier pitch, and surging and pulsing at high speeds to add on to the chorus’s wild, turbulent nature. The choruses, in spite of being so noisy and busy, are mixed so phenomenally that they never cross that thin line into outright cacophony. There are no “Loudness wars” at all, which it would have very easily slid into having, had it not been for the 100% perfect sound engineering.

 

The most intricate production in the chorus, however, is in the vocal layering, which never stray from f(x)’s complex harmonics, no matter how crowded the instrumental happens to be. The cherry on top comes in the random vocal samples, like the ferocious “HEY!” at the end of each bar, and some surprisingly effective rapping from Amber in tandem with Luna’s delirious vocal run. The climacteric second phase of the chorus hammers the hook into your head, repeating the title in an emotional, frantic V/i-V/VII-Vb/iv-III-V-v descending tetrachord--aka, a 24 or 6 to 4 progression. And, finally, the producers also manage to squeeze in a sample of robotic vocal stuttering that chants, “Red. Red. R-r-r-r-red light,” which gives the experience a malfunctioning vibe that complements the high-turbo, machine-like bassline.

 

And now for the less technical aspect: The mood. As you saw time and time again throughout the course of this countdown, I have a thing for secondary chords. In general, secondary chords tend to sound angry, suspenseful, sentimental, and basically any kind of intense emotion that would fall under the umbrella of drama. Red Light, in terms of the drama factor and in terms of its sheer darkness, is in a league of its own in K-pop. There are a few songs that are similarly dark, such as Paradise Lost by GAIN (#33), and another song on the Red Light album called Dracula, but those are both much slower examples and come nowhere near the tornadic quality of Red Light. The i-V/i progression in the first half of Red Light’s choruses has a sense of urgent dread to it, which is most apparent if you try covering the song on a piano or other instrument yourself. When played without the pounding beat and electronic soundscape, you realize that, acoustically, Red Light’s chords are more suited for a pipe organ or some other dirge-like instrument. A buzzword you can often find in reviews for the song is psychotic, which is truly the most accurate single word you can summarize Red Light with. The bottom line is that Red Light is, in my subjective opinion, one of the most unique, well-produced, smart, brave, enduring, incredible K-pop songs ever, and one of my favorite songs of all time.
 

I never made a bingo card for it though. 

 

[Red Light]

YEARLY SCORES:

 

Spoiler

 

(Abracadabra was placed in the 2010 category. Jazz Club and Heart Attack were placed in the 2018 category. 2014 would probably have the crown if Red Light was counted.)

 

[Red Light]

ALBUM OF THE DECADE:

 

Spoiler

 

(The Red Light album would be #1 had I included the title track. )

 

[Red Light]

HIGHEST AGGREGATE SCORES:

 

Spoiler

 

(f(x) would be the winner by literally 100 more points than Orange Caramel if I had included Red Light. )

 

[Red Light]

42 minutes ago, The Destiny Hope said:

 

 BTW, do you like any of SNSD's Korean music? Besides I guess Trick, Oscar, IGAB, and The Boys (since you mentioned them)

 

 

You know yesterday I streamed Dreamcatcher's entire discography and their music is actually really good! It's actually so unfair to them that I haven't listened to them much

 

 

 

Oh, sure! I've bought most of their Korean stuff too tbh, I'm just not over the moon about it like I am with their Japanese stuff. If you count TTS then OMG is my 23rd favorite song!  But some songs I also really love are Top Secret, Holiday, Romantic Street, One Afternoon, and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. I like Mr.Mr. but I wish it didn't wait until the bridge to get good ffff.

 

36 minutes ago, The Destiny Hope said:

"Part of the genius is that I Got a Boy is disjointed for a reason--it’s written as a conversation between a group of girls with different perspectives and opinions on love and relationships."

 

I NEVER SAW IT LIKE THIS OMG. Your MIND  (or I'm just stupid nnnn) OMG. 

 

"I Got a Boy is the textbook example of a beautiful mess. I was listening to this song a few times a day back in 2013 and I still got chills every time. It’s one of the most divisive songs in all of K-pop, with those who hate the disjointment insisting it’s one of the worst K-pop songs ever released, and those who love the disjointment insisting it’s one of the best. The only thing that pretty much everyone can agree on is the fact that it has become one of the most infamous and influential K-pop songs of all time, and in my opinion, it’s unquestionably earned that status."

 

BUT YESSSS  I can't believe they got #2 omg it's SOOOOO SO SO deserved! I played this daily pretty much since release until Mr.Mr. came out. This is so iconic and it really was game-changing. Nowadays we have disjointment on the regular from popular groups but back then people ABHORRED this song.

 

Everything from the roll-out, the wait (no SNSD comeback in 2012), to the MV, to the song, to the album, to the performances, to the wins... iconic

 

The way we all of a sudden got bombarded with disjointed songs when IGAB became a hit. That's impact. 

 

18 minutes ago, The Destiny Hope said:

 

THESE ARE MY FAVORITE PARTS TOO  

 

This song dominated my summer of 2015.  I really like your mention that so many songs in your top 10 have like an "upgrade" in the song - and to a non-music expert that's the first that thought has ever come into my head  That idea 

 

 

Wait this whole bit is soooooooooooooooooo beautiful and actually really cute. Like so cute  This was a smart idea and honestly, yeah, I'm left feeling happy and so I get it. 

 

I'm very happy with this #1 and this whole countdown in general. You should be proud  And I can really see the love and fun you put into this and that passion is great

 

Thank you so much! Yeah, I had a lot of fun doing this. I love K-pop and I love challenging myself and I wanted to see if I could actually pull this off.  On an even better note, I've been "Fasting" from almost all these songs for like two years, and when 2020 hits I'm going to finally get to listen to all of them again. 

[Hug]

I think you have a good choice for #1  Kinda sad that Stellar's career....went like that. When you think that they're success stories when compared to so many others as well...it's kinda hard to imagine if you're used to your TWICEs and BLACKPINKs etc, but it's the sad truth.

[K$Ellie]

I listened to most of Hyuna's discography yesterday and I like Do It! but U & Me outsold tbh

Sugar Free a bop  Shh is quite iconic-like, they'd deff at the top of my list of artists to get into next year

Good Day is cute but Red Flavor deserved #1 on that Billboard list over it  Closer's outro is soooo good

Heart Attack being that Loona song that made it  it's so cute I can't, that key change in the final chorus ugh  

The graphics for it as well  nnn I like I Got A Boy for how messy it is it wouldn't be my fave from them though

I like Abracadabra more I think but Sixth Sense is iconic too  ugh Vibrato is such a banger  great #1

Pink Tape is my fave from them I think, Reboot outsold tho  Loona coming in 3rd place whew 

amazing rate, the graphics put me to shame  

[Red Light]

8 hours ago, K$Ellie said:

I listened to most of Hyuna's discography yesterday and I like Do It! but U & Me outsold tbh

Sugar Free a bop  Shh is quite iconic-like, they'd deff at the top of my list of artists to get into next year

Good Day is cute but Red Flavor deserved #1 on that Billboard list over it  Closer's outro is soooo good

Heart Attack being that Loona song that made it  it's so cute I can't, that key change in the final chorus ugh  

The graphics for it as well  nnn I like I Got A Boy for how messy it is it wouldn't be my fave from them though

I like Abracadabra more I think but Sixth Sense is iconic too  ugh Vibrato is such a banger  great #1

Pink Tape is my fave from them I think, Reboot outsold tho  Loona coming in 3rd place whew 

amazing rate, the graphics put me to shame  

 

Red Flavor over Good Day?

 

 

Heart Attack is so beautiful.  I'm a cold-ass unemotional bitch and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. 

 

Yeah LOONA coming in 3rd place is really impressive, considering literally every song that made it (New, Sonatine, Kiss Later, Love Cherry Motion, Loonatic, Heart Attack) is from the same year. 

 

Thank you!   I think @Jet still has me beat, though! 

[K$Ellie]

On 12/26/2019 at 7:20 PM, Red Light said:

 

Red Flavor over Good Day?

 

 

Heart Attack is so beautiful.  I'm a cold-ass unemotional bitch and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. 

 

Yeah LOONA coming in 3rd place is really impressive, considering literally every song that made it (New, Sonatine, Kiss Later, Love Cherry Motion, Loonatic, Heart Attack) is from the same year. 

 

Thank you!   I think @Jet still has me beat, though! 

 

Absolutely, song of the summer luv x

 

Butterfly a bit robbed I gotta say but Hyper Ballad will surely be top 10 next decade if they ever release it

 

both iconic, it's not like me to pit two strong women against each other

 

Now that I've had a chance to get into EXID a bit more, I gotta condemn you for including LIE over DDD  Full Moon and Eclipse are flawless minis  

[Red Light]

5 hours ago, K$Ellie said:

 

Absolutely, song of the summer luv x

 

Butterfly a bit robbed I gotta say but Hyper Ballad will surely be top 10 next decade if they ever release it

 

both iconic, it's not like me to pit two strong women against each other

 

Now that I've had a chance to get into EXID a bit more, I gotta condemn you for including LIE over DDD  Full Moon and Eclipse are flawless minis  

 

wtf is Hyper Ballad 

 

Oh I love DDD too. It was in my 2017 countdown, and I think Alice was too. idk why I love LIE so much I wish I didn't tbh 

[K$Ellie]

1 minute ago, Red Light said:

 

wtf is Hyper Ballad 

 

Oh I love DDD too. It was in my 2017 countdown, and I think Alice was too. idk why I love LIE so much I wish I didn't tbh 

 

 

tell me this doesn't sound like SOTD material

 

 

not Too Good To Me, their best b-side?

[Red Light]

On 12/29/2019 at 4:54 PM, K$Ellie said:

 

 

tell me this doesn't sound like SOTD material

 

 

not Too Good To Me, their best b-side?

 

mess some of these future bass songs just be sounding like dubstep in disguise  but I was the only one that always liked **** like this so yeah I stan. 

 

Too Good To Me is cute! But best b-side when the ultimate T-ara tribute Are You Hungry exists? nom nom nom nom nom nom nom

 

[Red Light]

Apparently I downloaded 1110 files over the course of the year to make this rate! 

[jose168]

I'm gonna be late and look through this! Ready to be educated

[jose168]

On 12/11/2019 at 8:22 PM, Red Light said:

 

I didn't have time to do write-ups for these (and didn't feel like it either), so I'm just ****ting out a quick list of songs that almost made it and moving on. 

 

  Hide contents

Afterschool - Heaven

Afterschool - In the Moonlight

BoA - Hurricane Venus

Girls' Generation - Trick

Girls' Generation - Flower Power: I'll never forget right before this came out and somebody uploaded a song from the Powerpuff Girls soundtrack claiming that the song had leaked. 

Girls' Generation - Boomerang/Talk Talk

HyunA - U & Me

HyunA & LE - Blacklist: Queens of sounding exactly alike.

IU - Dlwlrma

KARA - Miss 'U

Miss A - Bad Girl Good Girl

Oh My Girl Banhana - I'm Not in Love with You

RaNiA - Just Go: This is probably the one I'm most sad about not including. As far as I'm concerned, this is #101.

T-ARA - Cry Cry

Weki Meki - Crush

 

Trick, Hurricane Venus, U & Me, Blacklist, GGBG already

[jose168]

omfg the graphics linking to youtube LEGEND. Kinda shocked at New being that low but I get your critique

[jose168]

Mess at you including 4 Walls to lowkey drag it But stan View!

Guilty  

 

Kiss My Lips, Day By Day, I Love You triple knock out

[Red Light]

omg yes!  Thanks! Maybe I can get to 10 pages and satisfy my OCD. 

 

And turns out the number of files I downloaded was 1977. I wasn't counting the screencaps I used for the graphics. 

 

5 minutes ago, jose168 said:

omfg the graphics linking to youtube LEGEND. Kinda shocked at New being that low but I get your critique

 

 New was practically included due to peer pressure so it's lucky it made it at all tbh. 

[jose168]

Decalcomanie is fantastic, so bombast. Glad its getting that praise, and sad I forgot about it (though I guess it's not too late to boot something out

 

 

Shadow and Airplane back to back, my heart

 

I Knew it is such a bop. It's weird id never have described it as latin pop but now listening to it those guitars are so prominent. I guess the vocals are still very much kpop girl group style, but that makes it an even cooler fusion

 

 

[Red Light]

10 minutes ago, jose168 said:

Mess at you including 4 Walls to lowkey drag it But stan View!

Guilty  

 

Kiss My Lips, Day By Day, I Love You triple knock out

 

Guilty made such a good companion track for Marionette.  Glad to see another stan.

[jose168]

On 12/19/2019 at 8:40 PM, Red Light said:

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Oh, boy. Finally time to talk about the STELLAR situation. The story behind Marionette is certainly an infamous one, isn’t it? On the surface, Marionette is a song about being lead on in a relationship by somebody who treats you poorly, tugging you around like a marionette. But then you look at the rest of the context, and Marionette is potentially one of the darkest K-pop songs ever released.

 

Marionette gained nationwide controversy before it was even released back in February of 2014, being promoted as an edgier, sexier era that went way too far. It all started with a Facebook game that the group’s agency created as pre-release promotional material: the fans liked posts on STELLAR's official fanpage, and the likes unlocked photos of… the ladies’ body parts. It was essentially like a cyber strip show. The more likes you threw at them, the more they exposed. This immediately led to fan discomfort about sexual exploitation, and STELLAR’s agency put out a statement that only fueled the fire: The strip game tied into the concept of the song, of having no free will and doing whatever your puppet master wants you to do… you know, like a sex slave.

 

Then the music video was released and caused an even bigger ruckus, instantly being restricted to viewers 18+ due to its suggestive imagery and provocative choreography, as well as being banned from television, and promotional performances on music shows having to be substantially toned down. STELLAR, who had been flopping considerably, had finally gotten people talking, and the end result was their highest charting and best-selling single ever.

 

Marionette, sonically, is a pretty dark song, with icy synths and harsh electric guitar riffs. It’s produced by the genius Sweetune and their funky basslines and rock undertones are all there, but it’s up there with a very similar Sweetune song, KARA’s Pandora, in terms of moodiness. The composition is a wasteland of bleak diminished chords and somber sevenths, with the VI⁷-V/i-i⁷-viiøᵃᵈᵈ⁹/VII, iv-ii°-V⁷/i pre-choruses standing out as particularly angsty. The chorus starts out with a more basic i-iv-VII-III⁷ progression in the first four bars, but descends back into madness with a dramatic VI⁷-iv-V/i-V⁷/i-i in the second half. 

 

And that dark undertone fits the song once you look at the whole package: Marionette started out being a song about a bad romance, and coincidentally morphed into something much more sinister. In the song, STELLAR lyrically degrades themselves, calling themselves stupid, sad, and reducing themselves to a joke. “Look at me, a sad doll, tied under a string,” “A doll in pain, being torn by you,” “Tell me, am I a joke to you?” “The more I fight against it, the more I get tangled up,” and worst of all, “When you touch me, I accept it.” These miserably submissive lyrics combined with the vulgar choreography and exploitative imagery are ironically fitting for STELLAR’s position in the K-pop industry at the time: Puppets, being played with by a higher power who objectified them.

In the end, the most important thing is that Marionette is a fantastic song that would have been fantastic no matter the circumstances surrounding its release. It’s one of Sweetune’s greatest creations and when you think about it, it was actually very nice for them to give it to an unknown group like STELLAR. For the majority of the fans, the song is marred by the degeneracy that bloomed in association with it, and they prefer to compartmentalize the rose of the song from the thorns of its promotion (as I try to do with Vibrato, another excellent STELLAR song). 

 

But for me, I try turning the STELLAR legacy into something that can enhance the listening experience of Marionette. It’s not like it was a happy song to begin with. Take everything else into account, and Marionette is one of the saddest K-pop songs ever made, and as such, one of the most painful and emotionally effective. The dark soundscape, the dire chord progressions, the disturbing lyrics, and the explicit imagery combine to create one of the most unsettling and intense girl group songs of the decade, and in a twisted, gothic way, it’s kind of poetic. If you ask me, Marionette isn’t beautiful in spite of its thorns--it’s beautiful because of them.
 

 

Just.. my wig. take it ladies

 

On 12/20/2019 at 8:42 PM, Red Light said:

  Hide contents

 

It’s appropriate that Hush is coming in exactly 10 places after Rum Pum Pum Pum, as they’re fundamentally two of the most similar songs in the countdown: Both are world-influenced acoustic uptempos (with Rum Pum Pum Pum having more of an Indian vibe and Hush having more of a latin one), and both are almost solely driven by their outstanding vocal harmonies. There’s also a similarity in the strength and sharpness of their percussion, only with one major difference setting the two apart--Hush hardly has any percussion until the second half of the song.

 

One of the most minimalistic tracks in the rate, Hush is a grower in practically every sense of the word--it’s a song that takes a few listens to really start getting into, and it’s a song that starts out bare and grows in richness and intensity the longer that it progresses. There’s one acoustic rhythm guitar that makes up almost the entire instrumental, along with some mild piano and whistle accents, but the rest of the track depends almost entirely on the beat and the earworming hook.

 

There’s definitely a distinct latin influence in Hush, with a very busy, intricate rhythm section consisting of bongo drums and shakers. Of course, the song doesn’t really take off until the second verse, when the more conventional electronic beat starts to sink in. If the percussion samples in Hush were weak or unremarkable, it would be a pretty boring, anticlimactic song, but both the sharp bass kick and the clean, walloping snare lashes enhance the song exponentially, with the well-mixed kick sample in particular being one of my favorites of the decade.

 

So finally, after building up a good minute and a half of tension, installing a heavier beat while still retaining its exotic hand drum accents, and a repetitive, infectious harmonic vocal triad, Hush explosively intensifies. Just before the second chorus, there’s an awesome, sinister VI-V/i-V/#vii°-V/i guitar switchup that virtually tells the listener “**** is about to get real,” and even though it only lasts for one bar, it’s one of the most effective single bars in all of K-pop and one of my favorite musical moments of the decade. 

 

After that, Hush maintains a plateau, with a final chorus that’s satisfying and climactic while yet still leaving you hungry for more. I can understand why there are some people who don’t like it--the whole song is practically one big tease, and a true, unadulterated pay-off that warrants the track’s unbearable tension feels just barely out of reach. But, unlike other songs that attempt that same structure, Hush feels more strategic and more fluid. It’s climactic enough to not be utterly maddening, but subtle enough that it has a very addictive component. Thus, with its excellent production and inordinate addictiveness, Hush has had a superlative longevity since its release in 2013, and these merits have managed to squeeze the depressingly underrated Miss A into my top 30.
 

 

M'am I'm already bald 

 

-

 

Also big thank you for the I'll be yours reminder. So many other classics to mention up until this point, shaking at whats top 20

[Red Light]

4 minutes ago, jose168 said:

Decalcomanie is fantastic, so bombast. Glad its getting that praise, and sad I forgot about it (though I guess it's not too late to boot something out

 

 

Shadow and Airplane back to back, my heart

 

I Knew it is such a bop. It's weird id never have described it as latin pop but now listening to it those guitars are so prominent. I guess the vocals are still very much kpop girl group style, but that makes it an even cooler fusion

 

 

 

Wait are you doing a BOTD? 

 

Yeah looking back it probably would have been more accurate to list the latin-style tracks as latin fusion instead of latin pop, since latin pop makes it sound like they're actually singing in latin or something.  But the acoustic guitars and bright trumpets are totally latin-flavored. 

[jose168]

On 12/23/2019 at 10:28 PM, Red Light said:

AND THE WINNER IS...

 

  Hide contents

 

Well, here it is. Before we get started, I’d like to thank (and apologize to) any of the victims who may have actually read any of my rambling, self-absorbed reviews, taken the time to leave comments, or pretty much even clicked on the thread at all. I promise I am being committed tomorrow.

 

In response to the criticism surrounding their 2014 single Marionette (#36), STELLAR toned the sex appeal down and released two non-sex-traffick-implicated singles--Mask in August of the same year, and Fool at the start of the next. Neither song managed to chart. So, in July of 2015, STELLAR essentially sighed and stripped their clothes back off, and along came Vibrato. Accompanying the track was a music video that completely blew Marionette out of the water in terms of raunch, filled to the brim with unsubtle vaginal imagery.

 

In spite of doubling down on their tragic sex kitten personas, the song didn’t come close to matching its predecessor in success; achieving a measly #97 on the Gaon chart. Their journey as K-pop idols followed this brutal, lousy trajectory until finally being put out of its misery on February 26th, 2018. At the beginning of this year, member Minhee revealed in a Q&A that during their seven year career, they earned less than $9,000 USD. 

 

What makes STELLAR’s headstone in the K-pop graveyard so particularly tragic is that their last ditch effort at success in the summer of 2015, Vibrato, happens to be my favorite song of the decade. Produced by MonoTree, who’ve made several appearances on the list, and whom I pretty much worship at this point, Vibrato is pop perfection: There isn’t a single dull moment involved, in spite of the fact that it doesn’t go through any truly jarring structural changes ala Red Light or I Got a Boy. 

 

Vibrato kicks off with a bang, instantly flooding your ears with a hurricane of polished sonic detail, including punchy piano chords; lush, glitzy, harmonic disco strings; distant, clamoring handclaps; deep, admirably mixed sub-bass; and, most notably, a wobbly, volatile, 80’s analog synth bassline… quite literally a paragraph’s worth of production detail just in the first four bars.

 

From here on out, the song turns polyrhythmic, with a traditional four-on-the-floor kick-and-snare beat on top of the more complex line of 808’s. The song continues its assault of all the stems featured in the intro and geniusly peppers them with just two additional, distinct details that make all the difference: Jazzy trumpet interjections, as well as my overall favorite stem in the entire instrumental, a shimmering 80’s synth riff that glides across the soundscape like a shooting star. These transient features--as well as the mainstays of the instrumental, most notably a subtle twangy guitar pluck--are all spread very far apart from each other so as not to get lost in the clutter. The persistent guitar sample, for instance, does all its dutiful strumming in the left ear, while the trumpet stays put in the right. Every bit of the instrumental is thus not only mixed with excellent care, but also an immersive, binaural experience for the listener. 

 

The only thing that Vibrato is possibly, arguably missing, is a distinct pre-chorus. Songs like Red Light, Crazy (#11), Hobgoblin (#64), and countless other K-pop bangers are substantially bolstered by their tense, soft pre-choruses, which make the choruses sound even larger and more climactic. But one of the things I find so remarkable about Vibrato is that it really doesn’t need that extra help at all. No buildup is included, and no buildup is really all that necessary.

 

The choruses are among the most finely crafted in all of K-pop, adding on an awesome, cinematic set of colorful synth stabs that pummel the listener in the fashion of orchestral hits; manic, high-pitched synth arpeggiators; and most importantly, a deep, dense electric guitar that works in tandem with the synth stabs. I’ve talked about certain “Emotionally versatile” chord progressions in pop music, and while Vibrato doesn’t employ my favorite “25 or 6 to 4” progression, it’s just as emotional as the best of them. The i-VI-V/VII-V/i progression is equal parts ecstatic, triumphant, urgent, and nostalgic. The first chorus alone is enough to get it on the top 100, but as everyone who’s heard the song before knows, it’s just getting warmed up.

 

Following the first chorus comes a brief but exhilarating dance break, consisting of an altered, more classically disco bassline, along with everything else that made the chorus so thrilling; all given the chance to shine without any vocals to distract the listener. By contrast, the second verse is a lot calmer than the rest of the song, not as instrumentally layered as the first verse, and with a refreshing new hook that functions much like the pre-chorus that the first verse had been missing. Small details and changes like this give every section of the track its own merits, and allow it to keep its insane momentum going. To say the least--if every song was given this much careful sculpture, pop music would be a much better place. 

 

Thanks to the newly added quasi-pre-chorus, the second chorus hits even harder than the first, to the point that it seems impossible for the song to continue topping itself. And it doesn’t top itself. Topping itself is too much of an understatement. Vibrato eclipses itself in the last act. And it starts by taking out the riveting post-chorus that you expect to make a return, and instead, reverses the momentum, collapsing in on itself. The beat slows down to a trudge and makes way for a dramatic building sound effect, appropriately sounding like an uphill roller coaster climb. The song edges near ballad territory for the bridge, boasting a beautiful, nostalgic piano arrangement; slicing the light, exuberant tones of yore and replacing it with mysterious, painful anticipation. The climax is almost threatening the listener at this point, until the increasingly distressed vocals finally tip the entire thing over the edge. The roller coaster finally shoots downhill. And thus begins one of the most beautiful, intense, and inordinately satisfying climaxes ever crafted in K-pop.

 

The best final choruses in K-pop all sound like “Upgrades” from the rest of the track--Red Light, I Got a Boy (the runner-up), Sixth Sense (#3), Expect (#5), Heart Attack (#4), and Good Day (#8) all immediately come to mind. The last three examples in that selection all entail key changes that transform the sound. But oddly enough, I can’t pinpoint any fundamental difference in the instrumental of Vibrato’s last chorus from its first two. I don’t hear any additional synths, percussion, or changes in key or chord structure. Yet it manages to outshine every other example of the “Upgrade” phenomenon in K-pop. The last chorus of the song somehow sounds remarkably sped up, despite not actually undergoing any substantial increase in tempo. To this day I cannot figure out how it achieves this quality, and that just makes it all the more magical. The only thing I can analyze is the “Double feature” chorus it boasts: Instead of immediately recycling the typical chorus, it recycles the instrumental of the chorus, while changing everything about the vocals. Hyoeun slams the listener into this segment with psychotic wailing adlibs before the group desperately cries, “I got trapped!” 

 

Following this is my favorite part of the whole song: A reverse pedal point harmonic vocal line that belts out, “Tell me, tell me, tell me now,” overtop a bittersweet layer of chromatic backing vocals. It’s powerful, wistful, electrifying, and quite literally breathtaking. To top it all off, Vibrato ends by finally returning to the regular chorus that you expected right after the bridge, with the addition of multiple new, shrill adlibs. The three minutes and three seconds of Vibrato finally wraps up with Gayoung breathlessly saying, “Oh my God.” I’m not lying when I say that, during my first listen to the song, me and Gayoung made that exclamation at exactly the same time. 

 

So, with all that said, why choose Vibrato over Sixth Sense and I Got a Boy? Sixth Sense, after all, is the darkest of the three, and scratches my pretentious wannabe-artistic itch, while I Got a Boy has more variety and a climax that’s just as good, if not arguably better. So what makes Vibrato my #1 song of the decade?

 

Throughout the course of the year, all three have been my #1 pick at some point. The truth is, any preference that I have for one over the other is so slight that it’s pretty much undetectable. So, to make the final decision, instead of making an impossible choice that I would undoubtedly change my mind about as soon as the countdown ended, I chose the option that I thought the largest number of hypothetical people could be happy with. Not that I’m saying this was an objective list by any means, I’m just saying that objectivity helped fuel the decision when I was no longer capable of judgement. Vibrato is a very beloved song (the MV and promotion for it, of course, was NOT beloved, as you'll see in the YouTube comments). Not everyone loves it (that’s literally impossible), but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a single comment of anybody saying they hated it--and that’s as close as you can get to objectivity in pop music. When it came to choosing the #1 song, a consensus like that meant a lot. I know that it’s MY personal countdown, but it still would have felt wrong placing I Got a Boy, a song that half of the K-poppers loathe with a passion, as my #1. Pop music is music for the masses, after all. Like KARA’s Step (#34) or Brown Eyed Girls’ Abracadabra (#20), Vibrato possesses that magical quality that makes it almost universally likable. It’s hopelessly catchy, expertly produced, utterly timeless, and in the hands of practically any other K-pop group around town, I wager that it would have become an instant classic. Congratulations, STELLAR, and R.I.P. 

 

So what do you think? Agree or disagree? Are you one of the hidden Vibrato haters I’ve never come across before in the wild? Of the 100 songs, what would you have preferred win? Leave your thoughts!  PLEASE. 
 

 

WIG WIG WIG

 

Really shocked IGAB didnt take this. BUt this is such a great song to get recognition. Top 20 is great, really surprised Whistle and Rough didnt make top 100, but also I listen to alot less kpop so less album tracks and such to fill out a list  

 

 

Bravo

[jose168]

10 minutes ago, Red Light said:

Wait are you doing a BOTD? 

Yah   The albums are (mostly) English but I def have a few kpop groups making the singles list

[Red Light]

4 minutes ago, jose168 said:

WIG WIG WIG

 

Really shocked IGAB didnt take this. BUt this is such a great song to get recognition. Top 20 is great, really surprised Whistle and Rough didnt make top 100, but also I listen to alot less kpop so less album tracks and such to fill out a list  

 

 

Bravo

 

Yeah IGAB is just too divisive imo! For every person who thinks it's one of the greatest K-pop songs, there's another who thinks it's one of the worst. And there's some objective issues like the clumsy slowdown back to the rockier portion of the track and how short that part is, which just makes it come off unnecessary. Vibrato isn't as exciting but it doesn't have as many flaws.

 

Thank you!  This was a nice surprise as I thought the thread was 100% dead.