Showing posts with label Lee Hyunjoo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lee Hyunjoo. Show all posts

Saturday, 24 January 2015

On Nine Muses' comeback...

After much anticipation, Nine Muses is finally back, having hibernated for one year due to the painful loss of three members: Lee 'Leesem' Hyunjoo, Park Eunji and Ryu Sera. That's rapper, main dancer and main singer respectively. And they're back with two new members: Jo Sojin, who previously appeared in the sub-unit Nasty Nasty with another Nine Muses member Park Kyungri and ZE:A member Kevin Kim, and Lee Keumjo.

It took me a long time to decide what to focus on regarding Nine Muses and their comeback, but I finally decided to focus on their new single "Drama" and Sera's decision to continue her showbiz career apparently as indie musician.

In light of their comeback in mid-2003 with the single "Wild", Sera released a cover of Joss Stone's "Karma." It was professionally shot though it was very low-budget, filmed on the set of "Wild" music video. It kept Mines on the edges of their seats, as promises of her solo career seemed to be looming.



Sera released a couple more cover videos courtesy of Star Empire, but no actual solo career materialised, until news broke that she 'graduated' from Nine Muses.

Now fast forward to January 23 2015 when Nine Muses released a new single titled "Drama." Take a look.



Eldest member Moon Hyuna just celebrated her 28th birthday on January 19. Yes that's her international age, which means in Korean age she's 29 years old. Anyone with any real musical talent and self respect would want to stop prancing around pulling aegyo and looking every bit manufactured past the age of 25. Since her departure, Sera has been very active on her own YouTube channel that she calls RyuTube, releasing cover songs and songs that she writes herself. I guess it was the same reason for Jessica Jung, who left Girls' Generation in October 2014 to focus on her fashion line, Blanc & Eclare.

Friday, 28 March 2014

Crap real '80s and awesome pseudo '80s

Hi kids!

As I grew up in the '80s, I'm familiar with the "Dance Club Barbie" and "Barbie and The Beat" ranges. I have both their cassettes - the "Dance Club Barbie" cassette I bought in 1989 and "Barbie and The Beat" cassette I obtained a little later, maybe 1991 as the songs on the "Barbie and The Beat" cassette were my third grade jam. "Barbie and The Beat" range itself is believed to have come out in The US also in 1989.

After years of perusing through YouTube to find songs from "Barbie and The Beat", I finally came across this.



One of the comments is from a girl who said the songs drove her mother crazy because they sounded like they were "recorded in the garage." Honestly I can't agree more. The songs are probably '80s at its cheesiest. The vocal alone is weak and if you listen carefully, there are parts where the vocal is not well-timed. And don't get started on the rap...

Sick of this at the first listen in 23 years, I found remedy in one song that I always play when I don't know what song to play on YouTube. The one song that sounds VERY '80s yet was actually released in 2011.



Yes, this song again. Isn't it ironic that the video reached one million views only very recently, after the departure of Leesem (real name Lee Hyunjoo) and Park Eunji...