Okay everybody, SHINee is back once again, this time with the second part of their little 2 part album that I can't figure out the combined title of. So for the time being let's just call it the "misconceptions" series. I was a really big fan of SHINee when I first listened to them, a lot of their songs had so much heart and emotion in them and they sounded like they were just loving it. But, lately, and by that I mean since their Sherlock album, I have not been an impressed squirrel. I mean, really, SM. SM Entertainment has stopped putting in effort with a lot of their artists it seems. I mean, I heard that "The Grace" is still supposed to be active (although I'm not too sure about that), and they have yet to put anything out since god-knows when. And EXO? Yeah they're never having a comeback. Girls Generation, up until "I Got A Boy", was becoming more stale than the nasty bread my grandmother feeds to the pet rat. The same thing was happening to SHINee too! BUT THANK THE HEAVENS ABOVE, SM got their act together with SHINee and actually started putting out good music again with them. The video for the title track "Why So Serious?" is just as bland as every other SM video as of late, so it's a good thing this is a review of the album itself. Okay, so here's how it's gonna go down. Being a squirrel, my rating system works from 0 to 5 acorns per song. At the end, I add em all up and I get a percentage for my score. Let's see how SHINee stacks up against the acorn rating system.
Track One -- Nightmare
Oh you know someone was having fun with this one. The whole song is just riddled with dark imagery, the singers call who I can only assume is the "Dream Girl" from the first "Chapter" of their album a nightmare and a vampire, yet sing about being unable to pull away from her. The lyrics to this were pretty interesting if I do say so myself, and my favorite part of them was the clever reference to the album in the ever present phrase "Come and be my dream, girl". Get it? Dream Girl? But what really got me about this is that even though this thing sounds like, well, most other pop songs nowadays, the way SHINee sung this (especially Jonghyun, who's voice is most prominent in the chorus, I believe), was so atypical to how this songs are usually sung. Although, I sadly can only give this track 2.5/5 acorns, due to the absolutely lazy ending, and the fact that, as a whole, if you don't speak korean or take the time to look up the lyrics, the song is pretty forgettable. Once you see how clever it is though, it really makes you wonder why they wasted such clever writing on an easily forgettable song.
2.5/5 Acorns.
Track Two -- Why So Serious?
When a band releases a music video to a song on a new album , it's a good idea to make it good, so people will want to actually purchase and listen to the rest of the album. For example, still sticking with SHINee, after I listened to "Dream Girl", I did not want "Chapter 1. The Misconceptions Of you". I haven't even listened to that whole album yet, because Dream Girl left such a bad impression on me. It was funky, but it was played so safe. "Why So Serious?" on the other paw, entranced me. I heard that it was made with the intent of a musical number in mind. I don't see too much of that inspiration in the music video itself, but this is a song that you could hear in Rock Of Ages if it was in english. My only complaint about this song is the lack of Jonghyun , and the difficulty of actually singing along to this. But they got daring and it really paid off. I give it a 5/5, because frankly, the lack of Jonghyun really let the other members show off their vocals. Also -- not gonna spoil anything for you , but let's just say it's inspired by "Warm Bodies" :)
5/5 Acorns
Track Three --- SHINe (Medusa I)
Medusa? Vampires? Zombies? I'm beginning to see a theme here, and I absolutely love it! Although....admittedly, this track bothered me a little bit. I sensed a mysterious lack of Jonghyun in this particular song, again.. I'm not quite sure why, I mean, maybe this song was recorded after his accident, but I don't get why SM didn't just wait for the comeback until he recovered. I mean, we've seen how long they've waited for EXO (angrysquirrel >.>). Regardless, though, this particular song is a mid-tempo track that has the same sort of idea as "nightmare" , with SHINee yet again basically killing themselves over some random girl. This song did bother me though because of the rap. The rap was not needed. That rap sounded so out of place in this song, it was just making me say "why?" the whole time. I'm seriously considering using audacity to make a version of "SHINe" without the rap , and listen to that one instead. I just really didn't like that rap.
2/5 Acorns.
Track Four --- Orgel
Yes. SO much yes in this song. This song had me torn between a stalker idea and a ghost idea, but after closely analyzing the lyrics, I settled on the idea that it is a more stalkery sounding song. This song isn't really heavy on the background music, it's a rather simple piece, that, the more I listen to it, the more disturbing it becomes. I mean, going off of the past three songs we can see that SHINee is definitely in the mood to celebrate Halloween, so as I entered this fourth track I was aleady in that mindset. Plus I mean the way they sing it, they're just sound like they're slowly going farther and farther away from something. They sing it like ghosts but the lyrics scream STALKER! I give it five out of five acorns, because even the usually awkward-placed-rap-breaks sounded right in this song.
5/5 Acorns
Track Five --- Dangerous (Medusa II)
"They say the moment our eyes meet is the end". is the third line of the first verse of this song, and the disappointment of the first Medusa is more than made up with just that line, because I didn't catch any Medusa-like references in the other one. So right off the bat I'm loving this song. However there is a very large, unignorable flaw in the song. How many times does it say DANGER or some variant in both korean and english? count them. There is NO need to include the same word so many times in the course of one song. I mean I understand that the song is "Dangerous", but honestly the songwriters were just lazy there. The second verse was pretty good but aside from that , just no. However, the song makes up for it by being a pretty low-brow song unlike similar songs by artists like Justin Timberlake. I do like that they played the "dangerous woman" card in a less heavy way. The song was sleek and sexy just like the Medusa they sing about.
4/5 Acorns, because I just can't forgive the lazy songwriting for 80% of this song.
Track Six --- Like A Fire
This is awful song placement really. I couldn't identify a monster in this. This just sounded like a cheesy disco love song, and I love disco and I love this song but this song was NOT for this album. This song should have been on "The Misconceptions Of You", and not on this album. It's so terribly out of place and inappropriate for this album and although it's an interesting song I have to give it one out of five acorns cause this song RUINS the flow of the album. It's smack dab in the middle and interrupts the flow of the previous 5 songs so badly. I'm sitting here in absolute confusion as to why anyone thought it was a good idea to put an upbeat disco groove with NO connection to the theme of the album right in the middle of the album. This song is NOT needed and that's all I can say. It doesn't even follow the same low-brow feel of the other songs, it's full and robust which makes it even more obvious. It's like showing up to a funeral in tie-dye.
1/5 Acorns.
Track Seven --- Excuse Me Miss
Another song in the spirit of "Like A Fire". I'm not...sure...why? It's a really good song that follows the general less-heavy style of the other songs (with the exception of Why So Serious? which was loud proud and all over the place like a spastic musical), but again I'm not really seeing a reference like I did in the other songs. Unless it's going for the same creeper feel as "Orgel", except listening to "excuse me miss", I would be flattered if a guy said these things to me.Although the song does have a little bit of a creeper feel , because I can't tell if he's singing all these things about a girl he just met, or if he's confessing his love to a girl who he's known for a while. I'm on the fence about this one, but the general feel of the music does fall nicely onto the album, and the lyrics are rather exciting, I give it a 3 out of 5.
3/5 Acorns
Track Eight --- Evil
Okay at the beginning when I first heard this song I wasn't really digging it too much, but as the song went on it really pulled me in and I was rocking out big time to it. I like the heartbeat in the background, and the autotuned chorus that makes them sound like robots , rather fitting considering their little "Terminator" reference. Evil is basically my savior from the last 2 songs (specifically "Like A Fire"). It's dark but danceable, creepy but exciting, and has some awesome phrases in it. My only complaint is that really, this song could have been remixed with Nightmare and marketed the way they marketed Sherlock. That and the fact that the ending kinda left me hanging.
However, from my original reaction of distaste with this song....I've gotta say this is probably the best produced and written song on the album. This song is the closest to perfect that SHINee has come in a long time, aside from Orgel.
4.5/5 Acorns.
Track Nine --- Sleepless Night
4/5 Acorns.
FINAL WORDS: All in all, the only song I can really say needs to get off this album is "Like A Fire". Like A Fire should have been on there Sherlock album, and Stranger should have been on this album, it would have made a lot more sense. The album as a whole though is very fun to listen to, it shows a lot of different sides of SHINee, from their ballads (Sleepless Night, Orgel), to their rock and roll side (Why So Serious?) and even takes them back to their "Lucifer" days (Evil and Nightmare), but all of it isn't like the SHINee we've heard before. It uses the styles we've grown accustomed to, but with new and clever twists that most pop acts don't go for now-a-days.
FINAL SCORE: 70% (roughly).
Yup. I honestly did have some harsh criticisms about this album, but like I said the songs on it that are good, are REALLY freakin' good, like blow your mind good. But to be totally honest, I think "Why So Serious?" set my expectations too high, along with the themes that I heard they were going for in this album. If someone can point out references that I may have missed, the score will definitely improve, because as a fan of ghosts and ghouls, I love any clever references about them that I can find.
Heres the full album if you want a listen.
