Year in Review [part.2]: the bad

First off, Happy New Year! 2010 has finally arrived (now whether that is a good thing or bad thing is up to you to decide). I wish all the readers a wonderful new year and to the artists a good start for the new year.

Here we go for round 2: the Bad. In the movie The Good, The Bad, The Weird, Lee Byung Hun took the part of the “bad”, and took the spun off connotation of sleek, cool bad as his character, and I guess it kind of applies here: these are the songs that were hits that lacked that musical oomf to make it as true fleshed out pieces of art. Now please excuse me, I’m not tearing down these artists. Actually, for the most part, these artists have songs handed to them that, well, do no justice to their talent. For that reason, I’m going to be looking at the biggest songs that I thought flopped. 

Year in Review [part.1]: The Good {editor’s picks}

2009. It was the year of the Korean debuts and the boy band curses.  Every year, the Asian music industry never ceases to fail me by putting out something interesting, maybe that’s why I fell in love with it.  But here’s to 2009:

NOTE: I’m splitting my song review into 3 parts: 1) The Good, 2) The Bad,  3) The Weird aka the Ones That Made Their Mark/The Best (yes, after the Korean movie The Good, The Bad and The Weird. Blame me for having a lack of creativity after scholarship essays drained their portions.)

.status.update.

My first status update. Here’s how the last 12 hours of 2009 will work:

Strophic and I will be posting our year in reviews plus a couple other editors’ picks we think you should take a look at (which pretty much amounts to huge long posts).

In the mean time:

NOTE: These are artists that promoted this year. I meant to do this earlier… but things called scholarship essays got in the way. So I’m keeping this poll open until January 2nd 11:59 PM.

Blast from the Past: Miss You

This is probably one of my favorite songs that I found this year. It earned a 2 week snippet in my status. Haha. I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I do.

Props to m-flo for their m-flo loves…. series.

Blast From the Past: Are You Doing Well? (잘 지내나요)

This song was a suggestion from a friend who posted it on her own Xanga. I listened to the song and Sung Si Kyung’s vocals are amazingly soothing and the lyrics are beautifully written.

잘 지내나요?

Featured Artist of the Week: Kim Jong Kook

Name: Kim Jong Kook (김종국)

Genre: K-Pop, Ballad

Blast from the Past: After Love

This past week, Clazziquai made its return to the Kpop scene with a new remixed album and its new song Ping.  But rewind a few years to take a listen to some of their classics, namely After Love.

Featured Artist of the Week: Justin Lo

Name: Justin Lo (側田)

Birth Name: Lo Ting Wai (羅定偉)

Genre: Pop, R&B, Hong Kong Ballad

Ever since his 2005 debut as a singer, Justin has been known for one thing. No, not for his signature cap- his smooth voice with the ability to calm (or quicken) the hearts of his fans. After his performance in an a cappella section in Leo Ku’s Solid Gold Hits Concert, he caught the eye of Mr. Paco Wong from Gold Label Music Ltd. and was soon signed as a singer, moving his career from backstage to front and center.

Never “Too Late” : Johnnyphlo feat. James Ha

While a lot of us are focused on all the awards and music scene overseas, time to hit a little closer to home.  Since starting this blog, I haven’t really highlighted any Asian American artistes.  Many of them are amazing, brilliant to say, reconciling their mother Asian culture with the reality of American culture to produce music of their own.  Johnnyphlo is no exception to this.

Blast from the Past: Alive

As we all mourn Epik High’s up coming hiatus, here’s a collaboration between Pe2ny, Tablo and Yankie: Alive.

If you guys didn’t know, Pe2ny used to be the producer for Epik High’s albums and has also collaborated with Tablo to produce Korea’s first soundtrack album.  The style of this song is definitely different from everything that is currently out in the Korean mainstream.  Give it a listen.