Battle of the B-Sides:: KARA: Mister

 I'm one song behind in my plan, which is a little frustrating. But I may be able to make it up. Also, quiet shout-out to whoever is reading this little blog from Seychelles. That country popped up in my statistics recently and I've got a huge fondness for them because during eighth grade, that was the country my friend had to do her report on (it was a massive project ranging from planning a vacation in the foreign language class to talking about an issue the country has in English class to writing a paper on the history of the country in history class). So, hello! Welcome! You have a beautiful country and I'd love to visit one day. What does this have to do with this song? Well, just like a country doesn't need to have a lot of landmass or a population that's in the top ten biggest in the world to have an impact on someone, a song does not need to be a title to have an impact. This song just happened to start off life as a b-side and then become the debut track for the Japanese discography.

KARA debuted under one of the biggest early K-Pop companies, DSP Media, in 2007 as a four-member group, although the relevant line-up is with Gyuri, Seungyeon, Hara, Nicole, Jiyoung. KARA, by the way, is the only girl group to have wins on music shows in the 00s, 10s, and 20s, and is one of only three groups to achieve that, the other two being SHINee and BIGBANG. They were also kind of synonymous with the term "Hallyu" predating the term "K-Pop", along with several other major groups that stand as major players in the second gen scene. And, you know, every time I think about the group, I think about Soobin from TOMORROW X TOGETHER because we love professional fanboys in this house, and his love for them is what introduced me to the group. And if at any point, you forget what you're currently reading right now, you can come back and re-read this. I'm not forgetting about Goo Hara, but this was literally a decade before everything that happened. The song has no idea that happened, and if I think about it too much, I'm filled with The Rage, which is not conducive to me being able to talk about this positively.

Interestingly, KARA's title tracks are almost always the second track of their albums, and Mister gets the first track position, so when you load up the CD into your CD player, Mister is the first one you hear. It's the first track of their second album, Revolution, released in 2009. As both lyricist and composer, we have Song Soo Yoon (member of Sweetune) (SS501, RESCENE, INFINITE, f(x), Rainbow, Stellar, BBGIRLS, 9Muses, BOYFRIEND, NINE.i, Toheart, CSR, KEEMBO, Spica, n.SSign, Eric Nam, BLINGONE, Lovelyz, SoYou, KEEMBO, Brown Eyed Girls, Teen Top, SNUPER, A'ST1, and Kim Dong Wan), and as just the composer, Han Jae Ho (another member of Sweetune) (SS501, INFINITE, f(x), Rainbow, 9Muses, BOYFRIEND, BBGIRLS, NINE.i, Toheart, CSR, KEEMBO, Fin.K.L, M.I.L.K, Spica, n.SSign, Eric Nam, H1-KEY, BLINGONE, Lovelyz, SoYou, Road-B, DKZ, Brown Eyed Girls, Stellar, Teen Top, Kim Sung Kyu, Click-B, A'ST1, and Kim Dong Wan). And you know what's interesting about this specific song? Skyrockets KARA into international and national fame, helps shape the future of K-Pop as we know it, trailblazes the way for hundreds of major groups to come later, doesn't get a win on a music show.

Because it originally was released as a b-side in Korean, you're getting that version first. It's not the most popular version, but this way you have that version in case you don't want to learn the Japanese version. It's also the version that allowed the Japanese one to happen.

And it just turned seventeen!

It's funny. You actually can hear the After School and Crayon Pop and TWICE to some extent in this song. The musical lineage and influence is so strong here. Like, even if I didn't know that this song was a starting point for not just groups, but for an entire style to develop, I would still be able to hear the branching off from this song that happened. 

And if I haven't been obvious enough, this is part of why there's value in listening to songs and artists who are not your main focus. There are patterns all over the place if you just stop to look for them.

Broad strokes over, it's time for the music video, which has a very impressive number of streams considering the song is so old (relatively speaking; there are idols debuting that are younger) (are your joints creaking yet?). 

I love the eyeliner from 2009. I mean, just look at it at :33. That is a proper smokey eye with winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a man. Not that this song would because it's not a man-eater song, but it is very much a "hound dog catching a scent on the wind" kind of dog. There's a lot of interest and curiosity and sudden potential energy as the titular "Mister" catches the eye of the POV character. 

Before I actually knew anything about this song, because the orange pants feature in the part that everyone always uses when talking about this song in compilation videos, I called this the "women's prison song." In my defense, they're in orange jumpsuit style pants. But they're also in army green coverall style pants as well later in the music video and in very shiny blue science fiction pants. It's a range of genres. I'm personally partial to the red ones because the red stands out well against the yellow letters of the group's name behind them and because I like the white gloves with the red paste gems best.

And the key change at 2:20 gives me life. Key changes automatically add so much depth to a song that when I find them, my interest is caught like a hound dog with a scent on the wind. 

The thing is that as bright and hyper as this entire song is, this music video is largely a performance video and the choreography is a major part of the driving force behind this song's popularity, and also the main reason why it's had a surge in popularity again the last little bit. 

So the question now is when is the best time to address the choreography?

I don't know.

Maybe during the stages. If there is more added onto this section, know that I decided to come back here and talk about the choreography here.

Those dresses the hosts have on are a relic, they look so young and sweet, and I'm smiling over it. Also Soohyun has a great voice.

Anyway. I believe this was from the original album release and they're in the orange pants. I'm assuming they're the orange pants because those tops are the orange pants tops, not the red pants tops and those are not the red pants gloves.

KARA's hips are so in sync I'm in awe. Just look at 1:45. And I know that's the point of the dance, but also, holy wow. Their hip action is no joke and it's just so fluid.

Also, I'm not even going to bother trying to decide if they're singing live because this was the sweet spot where the broadcasting companies didn't allow AR, so all those wobbles and "flaws"? Live. And at 1:22, for instance, there are little spots where, though the members are singing together, occasionally you get a voice that has a little bit more volume than the others, so they stick out a little bit more. 

I'm also super pleased that we can see the ab-lines on most of them. I wish there was more definition, but the double-standard wouldn't allow it. I don't agree with that, but I understand.

At 1:37, the member at the front of the line, first one on stage left, pulls those suspenders up over her shoulder with the choreography that has her raising her arm. 

For the record, if you go down into the comments on any of these videos, what you're going to find is a lot of "Wow, look at Nicole. She deserves the center for this song" or "Nicole digested the choreography the best". As Shakira once said, "Those hips don't lie," and Nicole swivels hers like she doesn't have vertebrae right above her hips. Her part is at 1:32 here, but she's easily identifiable because she's the one with short hair, and she just flows in a way that is mesmerizing.

Most of the song is a full-group moment, with each member only actually getting one or two lines a piece, and if you remember back with Bang by After School, that's how a lot of that song is as well, but that's also a strong mark of the times. I might want to go take a look at a Girls' Generation song and a T-ARA song from around this time period as well, just to compare since those were the TWICE and Red Velvet and GFRIEND of their generation. My point being that the full-group vocals is reflected in the choreography as well, because there's so much group choreography even during the members' solo parts. 1:19 is one of the rare parts where that is not the case.

There's also a cute little finger heart at :29. It's very subtle. I didn't notice it for the first four times I watched this. It's very subtle. 

We're going to jump forward to their reunion for their fifteenth anniversary at the 2022 MAMAs. Normally I would skip the opening stuff, especially since Mister is not the first song, but y'all need to watch until at least 2:07, because do you notice which one of their songs they used to introduce themselves? It wasn't Lupin or Step, both of which got at least five wins on music shows.

That intro should be familiar to you by now. KARA reintroduced themselves at the MAMAs with Mister.

Twelve million views on a stage for a fifteen-year-old group that had disbanded six years earlier.

Queens. Icons. 

Downright legends if I may be so bold.

After you watch the intro, then you want to pop on over to 3:27. And at 3:37, in a moment that brought tears to the eyes of fans and non-fans alike, you can just hear one of them say "I missed you all so much", in Korean, but even my Korean is good enough to be able to understand that. My concert Korean is better than my conversational Korean, for obvious reasons.

They finish off their performance on the thrust stage with probably fifteen back-up dancers with the final chorus and all of that gorgeous ad-lib work. Nicole, still the beloved center for this song, stares down the camera at 4:35 while she counts and moves into the center for the iconic butt dance. I wish the camera cuts were a little bit longer so that we could really linger, but I acknowledge that the cuts are there to support a sense of energy and excitement in the viewer.

Also I'd like to point out the much younger girl groups and the boy group(s) behind at 4:33. They're singing along. They're dancing along. 

And the last of the KARA performances of this song. Again, normally I would deposit you when they perform Mister, but their intro as they're walking into view of the camera on their Killing Voice is one of the most adorable things I've seen in a hot minute, and I'm not going to deprive y'all of that.

Once you get past the introduction, you want 5:25. Unfortunately, I'm not sure who anyone is here, except Seungyeon is the one in the black-and-white striped shirt and the thigh high boots and Youngji is the one over on the right in the gray sweater and the black skirt.

They're all doing the choreography in tiny through almost this entire snippet. They're also smiling for the most part through almost the entire thing. We've got dimples on display from the tall one on the left.

The one in pink spends a lot of time lip syncing along with the other members. At 5:45 with Youngji and at Jiyoung's part at 5:50, but she's also happy wiggling while she does it, and it's very cute. I'm pretty sure the one in pink is Nicole, since this was released only a few days before the MAMAs and she's the only one with short hair. 

But oh, my gosh their voices are incredible. Gorgeous.

So. Fun fact. Namu Wiki, my bestest new friend, includes links to covers of this song. So there you go. I'm not going to show off all of them, because I'm still considering doing posts on covers, but I'll give you some that I thought were interesting. 

Considering how big of a presence EXID has here on this blog, you know I had to include their cover from 2016, even if YouTube originally tried to make me watch it in 360p. I thought we've been over this. If I can help it, I don't want to be dealing with anything under 720p. I did my twelve years in Azkaban with the bad video quality of the olden days. 

The main highlight of this, other than recognition from the younger groups, is that Main Rapper LE is singing! She sounds so good!

Kep1er performed it at KCon in 2024.

The thing with the survival show groups is that, a lot of the time, they're superlative with the covers because it was digest the songs well, or get voted off the metaphorical island. Kep1er regularly does an amazing job with their covers. Plus, this is actually the full song and not just a snippet, which we haven't gotten in a while. 

At 1:18, Xiaoting has all the sass and drama. We love that.

And last but not least, Young Posse did a cover of this about a month ago with a proper music video which makes them the latest in a long line of groups to cover this song.

This one isn't so much a cover as it is a remake, but if you've been kind of lukewarm about it so far, you may like this version better. It's not just about the fans that prove a song's iconic status; it's the other groups that continue to reinvent and put the song back into the public psyche, new meme unlocked notwithstanding.

This one took me far too long to post and I'm now wildly behind. It's fine. I hope you enjoyed this, and if it was your first time hearing the song, I hope you at least appreciate it, if not enjoy it outright. The second gen artists built the structure of what we call K-Pop after the first generation laid the foundation, and this b-side did so much work that it's an event outright. It lives on because the hook is as much in the hips and the melody, but its identity is flexible enough to survive seventeen years and so much of the context around the group changing.

If you've got any songs you'd like me to cover, do feel free to drop a comment, Champions, or you can always fill out The Form! I'd like for some more, even if you don't think that I'd enjoy a song. If you submit it, I'm going to talk about it from your perspective. It's a good challenge, writing from a different point of view.

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