Battle of the B-Sides:: MBLAQ: Darling

Travelling to Oakland for Seventeen, and when my flights were absolutely killed my sleeping schedule, and I'm still recovering from it. Thankfully, there weren't a ton of releases in this second half. So instead, I'm dropping my first proper Battle of the B-Sides segment from MBLAQ's first album, BLAQ Style. Not going to lie, a lot of their title tracks are really good and I think would be popular again if they were to be rediscovered by this generation's current fans. But this isn't for title tracks. This is for b-sides because they need love too. 

Also, all of this yapping is because I'm still trying to figure out how to format this, and talking about it usually helps me.

It's more difficult to pick out what fans like about b-sides, (especially when they're older ones) because there isn't a dedicated music video typically that I can look through the comments for some repeating ideas or thoughts to pass on if it isn't a group I love myself. So I have to go to fan sources. But I found one that gave me a very good idea that Darling wasn't just a song that I happened to like: the Men in MBLAQ concert DVD from 2011. Now, granted, as I know from SHINee World IV, new songs are often included with the old favorites and this could simply be the case with Darling, especially given the timeline of when BLAQ Style was released.

But that's why, dearest reader, we have comment sections. 

Mir's rap is one of the frequent flyers in the fan love skies. The first part of it has a heavy amount of voice altering attached to it to mute his voice. It's not necessarily auto-tuned, just muted, and then the second part with its repeating "popcorn" is full voiced. And honestly, even without being a fan of the group, the "popcorn" part is incredibly catchy. That's an earworm and a half. But the topic of the rap is essentially "life is hard and it's okay to take a rest if you need it." That plus the style of the rap (a little lazy, very smooth) gives it the hug vibe, which I appreciate. But here's a little anecdote that I feel needs to be shared. Apparently, he had a particularly hard time recording this rap and Rain had him do it over and over and over until he got the flow correct.

Joon's verses are another section that is most loved by fans. I'm relying on Genius lyrics for the split between song sections. I wouldn't necessarily call them verses and suppose by today's standards, they'd be a pre- or post- chorus, but if Genius calls them verses, then until proven otherwise, I'll call them verses as well. He has a very lovely, mellow tone to the chorus. And personally, I'm most excited about the bit of vibrato we hear from him. The style of the song actually doesn't require vibrato here, and it wouldn't have hurt the song to have it absent, but I really appreciate its presence. I find it kind of hilarious that the instrumentals don't change a whole lot over the course of the song, which means that this song is very steady. No matter that the singers are doing, the instrumentals are a very solid backbone to the rest of the song. Also, the instrumentals are very 2011, which makes me smile as well. 

Also, shout out to Joon's verse near the end with the key change. We don't have enough key changes.

And speaking of that key change, G.O's aggressively high-pitched ad-lib during it is, like with Mir's rap, something that he apparently really struggled with during recording. I'd have been surprised if he didn't struggle with it. The first time I heard it, I initially it was part of the instrumentals, until the instrumentals moved, his part didn't, and my ears finally registered it as a voice. That is scarily high.

I'm a little concerned about the English lyrics because they don't make a ton of sense and it must have driven Cheondoong (now called Thunder) absolutely nuts. But since there's only a few sections where it would be a problem, it because a feature instead of a song-breaking bug.

Have the live performance from the concert DVD. It's entertaining and reminds me of 2PM a little. They look like SHINee. But they act like 2PM. It's cute.