Greatest Hits:: BB Girls: Rollin'

 After a January filled with big profiled names (three of which were from the same Big 4 company), I wanted to settle a little back into the smaller companies. And after the last few posts, I wanted to shift back to something a lot brighter both lyrically and compositionally. So, while I wait for some more submissions, you're going to get this one. You know I love those underdog recovery stories, so let's talk about a well-known one.

Technically, they're going by BB Girls now, but since this was what they were called when this song was released, that's how we're going to refer to them in this post. Brave Girls originally debuted in 2011 under Brave Entertainment as a five-member group. They've had extensive line-up changes over the years, and Rollin' was their first single without any of the original members.

This makes the second such song I've done in the last few weeks like that, which feels like a pattern except I'm not doing it on purpose. This is also the second song I've done that's ended up saving the group from disbandment after it was released. That one is a little bit more on purpose.

Rollin' was the first track of their eponymous 2017 mini album, Rollin'. 2Champ (Teen Top, DIA, Samuel, T-ARA, Park Bom, mimiirose, Stellar, Romeo, OnlyOneOf, AOA, and GIRLKIND) is the only one of the composers that wasn't also a lyricist. The other two are Chakun (AOA, The KingDom, HELLO VENUS, TRENDZ, Samuel, Teen Top, Weki Meki, Boyfriend, T-ARA, Sistar, DreamNote, INI, DKB, Candy Shop and BAE173) and Brave Brothers (4Minute, After School, Park Bom, Sunmi, Samuel, BIGBANG, AOA, Sistar, HyunA, Boyfriend, T-ARA, Lee Seung Gi, HELLO VENUS, DKB, BTOB, Uni. T, Dal Shabet, ZE:A, and UKISS). In 2021, it got a triple crown on Inkigayo, as well as narrowly missing out on a grand slam (Lim Young Woong won on Show! Music Core, and that was his first win since debut). It was the first song to achieve a perfect all-kill by a group in 2021, and topped the charts for a total of 198 hours, which broke the previous record held by TWICE. It also took the record for the longest time for a song to climb to number one after release. First win for the group after ten years. What a story.

• Group: Brave Girls
• Debut Date: 2011 April 07
• Company: Brave Entertainment
• Status: Active
• Album: Rollin'
• Song: Rollin'
• Release Date: 2017 March 07

So, the original music video is age restricted for being too provocative. This is the clean version, which basically means that the scenes which were found to be a problem were removed and replaced with the choreography. If you've been around here for a bit, you'll remember that this is very similar to what happened with VOODOO DOLL by VIXX. So, I'm giving you the clean version in case you're not 19+.

Lyrically, it was also deemed unfit for broadcast by KBS, for a too vulgar slang term, but that got fixed. 

It's just one of those funny things, you know?

So, what's the whole issue with one of the best K-Pop summer songs of all time? Well, for a start, it's not a summery music video. That is a vampire and apocalypse music video, which, I'm not going to lie, is a bit of an interesting choice and definitely gives an edge to the song just by virtue of association. I also find it a little amusing how summery the album artwork is and then the music video is like that. 

I'm going to come back to the music video in a moment, but I want us to do something. I'd be willing to bet you've at least heard of this song before, if not outright heard it before, but humor me for a moment. Now, I did share the music video so you can use that or you can use your favorite streaming service. Your choice, but I want you to take a minute and not watch the music video and just listen to it. 

This song is just brimming with wonderful confidence. There's a very settled stability to it, which is impressive because of how high it can be in spots, but at the same time that height is compensated by the fact that most of the song is not. That balance right there speaks loads to the fine craft of the song, as does the way the song does soften, but not enough to actually lose energy, because we get some gorgeous ad-libs immediately after it. That timing is great.

There's a little bit of a latin music rhythm to some of the English lines, which is doubled up a little bit with the instrumental, but neither is the dominate feeling here, which instead is a strong flirt of a song in an established and long-lasting relationship.

I also love it when groups say their name in their song, and in this case, that's a statement because this is this lineup from the group's first release. 

Okay, now that we've gotten some time with the song, let's go back to the music video. It immediately turns that flirtation into a dark seduction, which makes sense given the vampire concept. But at the same time, you can't go into the comments without finding (once you get past the comments from back in 2021 about their meteoric rise from near-disbandment) agreement that the concept does not match the song. The difference between the concept, which is dark and thundery, and the song, which is bright and summery, is kind of wild. I honestly can't wait to see what the promotion stages from 2017 looked like. Are we going to get the music video concept? Are we going to get something that better matches the song? I don't know, and we'll find out! 

And while I've found the original music video, I'm not going to embed it here because I have a feeling something will break somewhere if I try considering I couldn't even get the link to share it until after I'd agreed that I was over 19. I will add the link, howp;ever, so if you're of an appropriate age (not that I could stop you anyway, so you do you), feel free to watch.

The scenes that were removed were because they were too suggestive and sensual. You know how one of the big motifs of vampires is the seduction aspect? They're laying on each other on the floor. It's an interesting choice for the song.

"4 years later and Rollin and Brave Girls are going viral in Korea. They deserve the success coming their way!! Hard work has payed off!!  Update they are now charting again in music charts omg, they about to pull a second EXID.  Update 2: OMG they got NO.1 on bugs music chart and are back in melon top 100. Their success is coming  Update 3: NO.1 in genie also, in top 10 of flo and rising in melon. PAK IS COMING!!!" (@Kpopsegye, Brave Girls - Rollin' (Clean ver.), YouTube, 2021).

Before we get to the actual dance practice, look what I found! I found hilarity! This is a special choreography video 

Dance Practice