Battle of the B-Sides:: f(x): Shadow

 I love when I get suggestions for groups that I've heard of but haven't actively listened to. I know that f(x) has several songs that are on the list of K-Pop influential songs that pretty much everyone should be familiar with, if they don't know them. I don't think this is one of them, because this is a b-side, but I could also be wrong. Which is why I like being able to dig into the albums and the songs a little bit.

So, this comes from their second studio album Pink Tape, released in 2013, which won a bonsaeng in 2014 at the GDAs, and hit number 1 on multiple music charts worldwide. One of the songs on the album was originally supposed to be Ariana Grande's song, and f(x) got it instead. So that's pretty cool. It's the second track on the album and is described as creepy pop, which I am down for entirely and that was one of the reasons why this song was suggested for me to do as the suggestion included the note that I seem to really like eerie or otherwise unsettling songs and thought I might like this one as well. It's true. I do like eerie and unsettling songs, so I have high hopes for this one.

This song has some incredible harmonies, especially during the chorus, and yes, I would definitely describe this as a creepy song. This is a haunted doll song with a matching haunted music box. I've listened to it a couple of times so far, and I could swear there is whispering behind the instrumentals the entire song, which matches the xylophone just cheerfully and menacingly being tinked the entire song. I also kind of get a Peter Pan vibe from the song, which is weirdly fitting. There are also some specific sections, mostly the beginning and closer to the end of the song, that remind me a lot of an old vinyl recording with the vocal effects. I can't decide if my instinctive recognition of that specific kind of sound is because of the number of horror movies that use old music or because my father had an old record player that didn't work very well and made everything sound like it was summoning a demon. It's funny how associations works.

In all seriousness, though, I'm genuinely super into the chorus. The song is a little fast to be a ballad, but it's sung in that manner, and probably half the song is sung in a harmony. The one during the chorus is fantastic because at first, you primarily hear the higher voices, but then, grounding and settled, you can hear the low notes. In the first Pitch Perfect movie, one of the comments about the Bellas is that girl groups will never be as good as the boy groups because they don't have the low notes, which round out an arrangement. Well, f(x) would like to laugh at him because one of the five sounds like she is an alto who actually gets to sing as an alto instead of being forced up into the mezzo soprano area, and even though she's not in the basement with her notes as a bass could be, it's still more than enough for the chorus to sound full.

I also love how the lyrics pretend to be cute and romantic, but they're fully in the stalker genre of songs. It's a beautiful song, as long as you don't think about the words which start off sounding more like a cute crush but get more unhinged as the song goes on. I love it though. 

For the additional performances, I'm going to start off with this one. I don't know where exactly it was from, but Key and Jonghyun of SHINee, f(x)'s immediate older brothers at SME, MC for them. And Jonghyun and Amber match in hair and in color scheme, which I think is cute, as is Key ending the song by hand dancing to it, or playing the air piano. I'm not entirely sure what he's doing, but he's Key.

The introduction to the performance talks about how it's a song sung from the perspective of a shadow who has fallen in love with her owner, and that's why they sang it a little girlishly. It was apparently Krystal's choice of song for whatever the program was, and I'm a little bit delighted by that. She made a good choice. I really like how they embodied the emotions of the song without it being too over the top, because you would genuinely feel for the shadow.

I'm also including the Art Film from the promotions. It reminds me of the movie Sinister, which continues with the unsettling horror vibes. And it's so hipster horror that as I was watching it, I was just fascinated by how they managed to make things that wouldn't be creepy on their own be a little horrifying when paired with this song. 

I'm also including the Gayo Daejeon performance from 2013 because here we get a teeny bit of choreography before they move into the next song, and they genuinely look like dolls. It's a little creepy, not going to lie, but I love that for the song. Also, they all look incredible. The one in the thumbnail looks like the best friend from Boys Over Flowers. She's so gorgeous.