Song Review:: ONEWE: Secret Santa- WE X MAS

-

  • Release date: 2024 December 23
  • Album tracklist: We X Mas, Actor

  • Album runtime: 8 minutes

Do I need to do a review of the new Christmas single from ONEWE? No. Do I want to? Yes. I really like the band, and this falls under my principle of trying to focus on smaller groups so that they can get more attention. Plus, they're a band, and I've been vocal about my love for bands.

There's nothing particularly Christmassy about the instrumentals, or at least nothing that particularly invokes the season. If I weren't looking directly at the name, I'd suspect this to be a regular single. There is a sense of nostalgia, or at least fondness, but it's not necessarily seasonal based on the instrumentals. The guitar solo however is my favorite part. It's nothing that's grand or groundbreaking, but going up the scale like it does reminds me of rock ballads from the 80s. We get that same thing in miniature a couple of other times during the song, which makes it even better, because what could have been just a normal feature becomes a preview of that guitar solo, and the foreshadowing instantly marks this as being well-written.

So because the instrumentals weren't as I was expecting, I had to take a look at the lyrics, which do mark it as a Christmas song since it's a love song set at Christmas time. It's actually very sweet and full of nostalgia and fondness, which is echoed in the instrumentals, so well done on the reinforcement. I was most interested to hear that there's a section of melodic rapping because I've been feeling nostalgic lately myself and that style reminds me of Ilhoon. There aren't any big blasts of vocal sound, but there are vocalizations where the members just harmonize beautifully at the end, and that's something I can really appreciate. 

The music video is part live performance and part holiday-edition slice of life. Both of these things make me smile and settle in for metaphorical comfort food. I just enjoy seeing members of the groups look like they get along well.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Song Review:: Sevenus: Can I Love You

-
Image
Release date: 2025 May 27 Album tracklist: Can I Love You, Can I Love You - inst. Album runtime: 7 minutes  I love this pair, and not just because they literally made me cry when I watched Peak Time because they performed Hello by NU'EST for their first round. Full-blown tears. I had to pause it while I recovered. I'm such a sap. Anywho, I'm pleased to be hearing from them again, because they need and deserve all the love and attention. They really do. I'd also really like to hear them live to gauge if they're as good as I think they are, but that's on a third list of goals based on the likeliness of that. I'm absolutely being spoiled right now. Guitar is the leading lady of the instrumentals, although the piano spends nearly as much time in the spotlight but it's not as loud about it if that's the correct word. The song is soft and gorgeous, with my favorite trio of instruments: guitar, piano, and strings. I'm genuinely really happy about the fa...
Read more

Halloween Spookening: 2024 Edition

-
Image
 I love Halloween. It's been my favorite holiday for literally my entire life. I have loved Halloween longer than Sangyeon of The Boyz has been alive, barely because my first Halloween was a couple of days before he was born, but according to my mother, even at the age of not-quite one years old, I have loved it. She dressed me up as a San Francisco 49ers cheerleader. I have pictures.  One of the most important things, then, is finding music that matches the Month of Spookening and horror. I love spooky movies. I love spooky books. I love spooky video games (even though I am a wuss of the nth degree and prefer to watch other people play them). And I love spooky music. THUS, this post is simply going to be a compilation of some of the songs I've added to my Halloween K-Pop playlist. If I were to add all of the songs in there, this post would be ages  long. So I'm only going to add as many as I feel like it. I don't know how long this is going to be. But there will be vib...
Read more

Who is this Random Person Reviewing K-Pop and Why Does Her Voice Matter in the Cacophonous Discord that is the Internet?

-
     Much like a recipe blog, this K-Pop review blog depends on the path leading me to where I am at today to dictate my tastes and how I perceive the world. Unlike a recipe blog, I'm not going to start every review with fifteen pages of backstory to get to the good stuff that you would actually care about.      You'll get the full fifteen (this is a joke, I don't think it's that long) pages up front, so you can decide for yourself if I'm worth listening to. There are a lot of voices out there. I'm merely one of them. Hopefully somewhat entertaining, but considering it took one of my friends four years to realize I was fun, I'm not holding my breath on that one.      So, who am I, and why should you care? Because my story isn't extraordinary. Well, it is because it's mine, but there are at least thousands, probably millions of other stories like it. Maybe something about mine resonates with you. But I do like to think I have some credentials ...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: Fin.K.L: To My Boyfriend

-
Image
 Let's go back in time a little bit to May of 1998, before a lot of newer idols were born. And by newer, I mean, this song was released about two weeks before SinB of GFriend/VIVIZ was born. Fin.K.L is one of those groups which had the Korean name decided first, with the English name to follow, which is why the English meaning is a little confusing (Fin Killing Liberty). Still, they'd end up being one of the greats of the first generation of K-Pop and an act to help break ground for future girl groups and soloists to move further into various markets.  Welcome, Fin.K.L. Their name in Hangeul is the only reason I have any idea of how to pronounce their group name (핑클). This was also the group that saw the start of Lee Hyori, now an accomplished soloist in her own right, as well as Ock Joo-hyun, a celebrated musical theatre actress; Lee Jin of the drama and variety acting persuasion; and Sung Yuri of the drama and film acting persuasion. They've all done very well for themsel...
Read more

Song Review:: The CrewOne: Hit the Floor {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2024 November 1 Album tracklist: Hit The Floor Album runtime: 3 minutes  Considering Ace of Ace  has been over for weeks, I had no intention to do any reviews on the final tracks. But by the time this gets published, The CrewOne will have been on ASC, which means that I have to follow my rules. For the uninitiated, The CrewOne was a team put together for Ace of Ace  consisting of the fourth gen boy groups ATBO and JUST B. Apparently disbandment was in their future before the two groups got put together, which is completely ridiculous as JUST B debuted in 2021 and ATBO debuted in 2022. I'm sorry, there are a number of groups that went on to be very successful after three not-successful years and if their companies had disbanded them, the face of K-Pop would be radically different. And yes, one of those groups I'm talking about is in fact BTS, though I wouldn't be me if I didn't also mention NU'EST here. But, I digress. If The CrewOne are going to be an...
Read more

Song Review:: Plave: Caligo Pt. 1- Dash

-
Image
Release date: 2025 February 03 Album tracklist: Chroma Drift, Dash , RIZZ, Island, 12:32 (A to T) Album runtime: 17 minutes  I wasn't originally going to do a review for this group because I don't know where to put them in my mental classifications (I had to work really hard as a kid to learn that animation = not real because I believed literally everything was real until I was about seven, which also coincided with my realization that I couldn't actually visit Jurassic Park, so I struggle with the idea of a virtual group in general), but because this song got a win on a music show, I kind of have to for the pattern I've established. So, here we are, although I honestly don't mind being forced to do a review because of my pattern. PLAVE is a virtual group using motion capture that debuted in 2023. And that's all I've got for you on that end. I apologize for the rambling thus far. I'm assuming the real people are all adults for my own sanity, but I also h...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: VANNER: WANT U BACK

-
Image
I know that The Roulette Wheel gave me VANNER to do, but I was genuinely pleased about this because I love this group. They're goofy goombahs with incredible voices. Also, Gon is a day older than SCoups, who is a day older than Minhyun. That's a clump. I was originally going to do Diamonds  or Savior from their first post- Peak Time  mini album, but then as I was listening to VENI VIDI VICI, waffling between the two songs, I realized I should probably do the one that I have in more of my playlists. Thus, WANT U BACK . The entire album is great though. Highly recommended.  Good news, the song has been out long enough that they have done performances of it. And you'll also be getting one of my favorite things: choreography video. Because they released that a few months ago. So they have a pair of rappers in the group. The always impressive Gon and Sungkook of the deep voice, currently doing his military service. Normally I have to warm up to rapping, which I'm working on...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: MAMAMOO: Starry Night

-
Image
 Coming up as we are on March 15th, I'm starting to get emotional. Between certain anniversaries, and a certain member leaving his company on the group disbandment date, I'm not doing incredibly well. So, for the dopamine hit, I picked a group that has very little connection to my boys, other than having two more 95z and their maknae being born within days of one of the members, but also one that I already love. MAMAMOO is the girl group version of my emotional support group, BTOB, and I'm into the emotional support right now for myself.  So I picked an emotional support song because I need it and I'm sure that someone else out there needs it. Starry Night  is, as the post title suggests, the title track for their EP "Yellow Flower" from their Four Seasons, Four Colors series (which serves to highlight each of the four members, beginning here with Hwasa). It kind of feels like half the album got a music video of some sort, something I think is super cool, and ...
Read more

Song Review:: IU: A flower bookmark, Pt. 3- Never Ending Story

-
Image
Release date: 2025 May 27 Album tracklist: Red Sneakers, Never Ending Story, October 4th, Last Scene (Feat. Wonstein), A Beautiful Person (Feat. Balming Tiger), Square's dream Album runtime: 22 minutes  I'm trying out something different with writing these because I actually have a tried and true method for my writing that I haven't been using for the last ten months or so. I write faster and more easily when I can handwrite things. Also, airplanes (as long as someone isn't wearing a cologne or a perfume that makes me nauseated) are an excellent time to write these. Apparently, I've never looked at IU's homepage on Spotify because I didn't realize how often she's worked with BTS or BTS members. Huh. That's pretty cool. I mean, I thought she was pretty cool before this, but I also  really just like it when there are collaborations of people I recognize. The runtime makes me very happy.  Wow, this is incredibly Disney-esque. I think I heard both "...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 01/29 - 02/04

-
Image
What did I say in the review (which you can refer back to in the link in the graph directly below this) for Minnie? I said that I thought HER  would get two wins and we're already halfway there. Nice. I'm still waiting for Show Champion and The Show to resume, because when one of the others, like, say, Show! Music Core , doesn't have a winner, that decreases the number of potential first place wins for groups, and I know how important those are. On After School Club, we had KickFlip with their ASC debut, and despite the technical difficulties, it was absolutely precious watching them see the dance covers and the fan art that got submitted. How sweet for the rookies, especially since some of them were trainees longer than some groups are together full stop. That was the majority of what I was texting my friend while we watched it.  Show Champion: N/A MCountdown: IVE "Rebel Heart" (note: This is from the 20250116 episode) Music Bank: Minnie ((G)I-dle) "HER...
Read more