Greatest Hits:: MAMAMOO: Starry Night

 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 between the MAMAMOO channel and 1theK, there's currently about 232 million views for Starry Night. The album peaked at number 1 on the Gaon chart and number 7 on Billboard.

• Group: MAMAMOO
• Debut Date: 2014 June 18
• Company: RBW 
• Status: Hiatus
• Album: Yellow Flower
• Song: Starry Night
• Release Date: 2018 March 07

So. Let's take a moment to talk about that music video before I start rambling about how gorgeous they all are, because shout out to the country of New Zealand for being green-screen pretty. The fact that there are comments under both music videos from locals who immediately recognized what beach that is tells me that there was very little doctoring done in post. 

This is also an excellent use of the vibes and visuals music video. There are a lot of plant and nature mentions and symbolism in the lyrics themselves, mirrored in the filming locations. It's also a song about the loneliness after a break-up, but also the healing that comes as spring follows winter. So we have a lot of the shots while out in nature being wide shots, to show the members and the openness of nature. This is especially clear when Solar is laying in the middle of the two-lane road. Two-lanes, not a lot of people. Empty, again not a lot of people. Rather than this being a melancholy visual, it feels peaceful. It's the same with Wheein being in the middle of the field with her close zoom-in. Lonely, but not sad. And, the very next scene with Hwasa and the forest greyed out around her while she's a pop of color, is another really good symbol of this process of healing even though the world around her is still grey. Life isn't a flipped switch; it's a switchback gradient.

The aesthetic here. Everything is wallpaper worthy.

And their voices! I've mentioned this before and it bears repeating, but they have such lovely textures to their voices, and it's kind of incredible that the members managed to get put together. We've got the lower, huskier rappers, who balance out the higher, powerhouse vocalists. Everyone can sing. Everyone sounds angelic. And when they go into harmonies, it's so amazing. They kill me and resurrect me all at the same time. 

Moonbyul. Her rapping in this song is an aural work of art. It's low and frankly quite sexy, providing the perfect balance to Solar's epic belts. Wheein and Hwasa's voices circle around each other, different sides of the same coin. All of that combines to something that is a masterpiece. It's actually brilliant of whoever decided to put this one first of the title tracks in their Four Colors series, because this song on its own showcases their different colors so well.

A significant number of comments here are talking about how much they're in love with Moonbyul. And, like, there is absolutely no argument from me. Also, how proud the MooMoos are of them for singing with mics and just doing that.

There's a shot in the choreography where Solar and Hwasa are paired up, Solar with her blonde hair and black shirt, Hwasa with her black hair and pale shirt. The reverse parallel there makes for such a gorgeous picture. Stunning.

There's also a reason for why they all have mics. Solar sings along the entire time almost, Wheein sings along quite a bit. I love that, actually. I love it when they have to have hand mics because they just cannot stop from singing. 

So I discovered this practice because of the above performance. And...they're a hoot and a half. And I'm glad I shared the above performance first so that you know what the choreo is supposed to look like. I saw a reel or a short or something ages ago where it basically said that the unnie line of MAMAMOO are the crazy ones and the maknae line is normal. Not that anyone in MAMAMOO is normal. Again, they and BTOB are two sides of the same coin. 

And if you were unaware, the two at the beginning are Solar and Moonbyul, the unnies. The two that are making dolphin noises. And one of them is the rapper with the gorgeous low voice.

It's always nice to hear Solar dolphin laugh, especially when it's her members being seriously unserious that cause it to happen. And Moonbyul makes her laugh so hard at one point that she is bent over and can't dance. But the entire group goes a bit funny over the course of the song. And then the song ends, changes to what is not their song and they start gloriously goofing off. And also showing off how strong their legs are because wow.

Ah, they're funny.

YouTube tried to play this video on 360p. What year is this, YouTube? What year is this? 

This is actually a fairly recent performance, from 2023. So five years after it came out, about a year and a half ago from the date of reviewing this. And apparently they also came together somewhat last minute to bring the four of them together and moving a MAMAMOO+ fan-meeting to the next day.

First thing I noticed was their costuming. I demand their stylists get a raise, because look at that. And Solar's feathers.

And performing like that in the rain, which was apparently during the heaviest rain of the night. I worry because of the heels, but I really shouldn't because again, it's been almost two years, and I didn't see them slip or anything. But the rain was a professional actor here. Solar is just wow. Stunning. She's normally that way, but in the rain? Double wow. 

Well done for them for performing in terrible, dangerous conditions. In heels.

This one is from 2022. And once again, the queens are so impossibly gorgeous. Aging like fine wine, or a good cheese. Or both wine and cheese. They are impeccable. Impossible voices. Flawless visuals.

And now for a performance at the GDAs, with their absolutely iconic outfits here. Wheein: injured. Solar: told off for dressing too sexily. And the group ignored those things. Also, Wheein. I know I haven't talked a lot about how pretty she is, and this is the wrong video probably to focus on them because again, YouTube tried to play this at 360p, and it's only at 720p for me now (I'm reminded of the ancient days of YouTube when 240p was the norm and I'm pained), but I want to just say that Wheein with bangs? 

While I could and absolutely should rave about Solar wearing the suit with the short hair, Hwasa looks particularly goddess-like here. That hair color looks so, so, so good on her and her white shirts offsets so well. Summer island goddess of some sort forced to work a desk job.

Ooh. That's actually a good idea for a book. I'm going to shelve that for the moment. 

And to cap this off, because that whole video isn't just Starry Night, but Moonbyul during that lift? I had to chuckle. Having the time of her life, that one.