17 Mar 2009 | BoA's new U.S. album REVIEWED
BoA, 22-year-old Korean and overall Asian pop star extraordinaire, just released her debut U.S. album today, self-titled BoA, as was described extensively in my previous entry.
Whoa, a review already, Fa? On the day of its release? Sadly, yes. I'm not beneath downloading it illegally, especially when I harbor no respect for pop artists whatsoever. And you could just say I'm mildly curious.
Continue this way to learn all the itty, gritty details (and perhaps snag a free download along the way).
Track list
- I Did It for Love (featuring Sean Garrett)
- Energetic
- Did Ya
- Look Who's Talking
- Eat You Up
- Obsessed
- Touched
- Scream
- Girls on Top (English version)
- Dress Off
- Hypnotic Dancefloor
Overall impact
Firstly, to clear the air of any misconceptions or foolish expectations: sorry, dear Asian pop freaks who were hoping for more Asian pop gold (if such a thing exists) — but BoA has been completely Americanized. The result is nearly unrecognizable. From what I gleaned during my own cursory play-through, I was constantly and eerily reminded of Vanessa Hudgens — you know, that actress turned pop star from High School Musical. The subject matter in the lyrics (dancing at clubs, reproving wayward boyfriends, general heterosexual vapidity) could have easily been ripped off of Hudgens' Identified album. The instrumentation and musical styles, for the most part, are practically identical. Even their voices are similar. Which leads me to one of my other criticisms — BoA's voice.
Vocal performance
Technically, BoA's singing is spot-on. Her English is nearly flawless, although (and that's a big "although") her still less-than-masterful command of the language is largely masked by the omnipresent vocoding/digitizing effects placed over her voice, and the enunciation in some parts is still noticeably non-American. I respect her for her effort, however… though by this time, you'd think that she'd have already gotten the hang of it, especially with that amount of English training, which her fans and producers are always quick to trumpet.
Final word
For those of you wanting music akin to her Asian work, you will most likely be disappointed. On the plus side, the American songwriting has transformed BoA's vocal work to something definitely "mainstream" and palatable for American audiences (or at least the people who are into this kind of thing), which makes her chances for commercial success all the more likely. And in my book, dance pop is always an improvement over love ballads.
In all, the English is good and intelligible. Her voice is constantly vocoded, which gets annoying after a while. None of the tracks truly suck (I'm restraining myself here), but the transformation, for those who knew BoA before her U.S. endeavor, is rather unnerving. I would even hazard to say that, if you didn't know it was BoA, you'd probably mistake her for an American artist. Or Vanessa Hudgens.
Notable tracks include "I Did It for Love" (a catchy duet with Sean Garrett), "Eat You Up," "Girls on Top" (a redone English version of the original Korean from her Korean album Girls on Top, complete with English rap lyrics), "Energetic," and perhaps, uh… "Did Ya." "Touched," on the other hand, totally brought on a case of Hudgens déjà vu…
To be fair, I can certainly see that many people would like this album (which will basically hinge on the marketing and promotion — we'll see how that turns out), and the songwriting quality is actually good despite its overall vapidity. Personally, however, BoA's album will likely follow Identified to the trash. Pop music, as I have and will always maintain, is despicable in all forms — essentially meaningless, vacuous garbage for the masses — and BoA, unfortunately, does not escape this sad fact… though I leave you with the download link and lyrics in case you want to decide yourself.
Download
BoA - BoA (U.S. album) (ZIP format)
Complete album lyrics (courtesy of BoAjjang Forums)
The download I provided above links to my copy of the album, which is completely tagged with album art, lyrics, composer names, grammatically correct capitalization (I hate people who capitalize the "f" in "I Did It for Love"; it's lowercase, you fucking idiot!), etc. It's hosted on Sendspace, which means it'll be deleted automatically in thirty days.
And this concludes your latest musical installment from Jenny-fa. See you later, alligator.
Tags: BoA
Guess who~ says:
Even after going through the entire "Americanization" of her music + lots of digital editing, it's still not what most of the populace is looking for.
Uh, honestly, I don't have anything more to say to that. I already told you my thoughts on it. XD
6:19 pm | Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Jenny-fa says:
What, did you actually listen to the album? It's not bad for a first effort. Right now "Energetic" is stuck in my head, which is sort of mortifying in a way.
Actually, no. It's awesome. The song, I mean.
After listening to it a few times, the album has started to grow on me, since the Americanized BoA is strangely… endearing. It's a whole lot better than her Asian ****, which is what I mainly dig about it.
May Asian *** burn in hell.
Oh yeah, and the last time I checked, Vanessa Hudgens' Identified album was positively received, and since that and BoA are fairly similar, we'll see how that goes.
Which populace are you referring to, Jacky? Certainly not the Asian American minority?
11:36 am | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Guess who~ says:
Yeeees, I did listen to it. I'm still waiting for her promotions to pick up speed with new listeners (such as her apparent feature on Forever 21's website). Her initial CD sales were mostly devoted fans of her previous music. Feel free to point me to signs of her success, though, because that'd be fantastic.
Uh, no. XD The populace of the US consists of mostly white, middle or working class citizens. Next biggest minorities are blacks and hispanics, also of the same socio-economic class. I'm all for foreign music making headway into the US music industry, but it's still got a long way to go.
5:33 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Guess who~ says:
And besides, a lot of Asian Americans listen to locally produced music more than they'll ever touch Asian mainstream ***.
5:40 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Guess who~ says:
P.O.P. <- I was trying to figure out how I accidentally typed a cuss word. XD
5:40 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Jenny-fa says:
It's not really "foreign" music, since all the songs (except for "Girls on Top") are composed by Americans. And Hispanics are the U.S.'s biggest minority.
Yep, that word is a swear word here. I personally added it to the blacklist.
Actually, if we're speaking about the music itself, I think BoA should do better than Identified. BoA's album is much more mature, and there's quite a bit of catchy songs on it. The only problem is publicity — SM needs to market her a lot more aggressively if they want to see a return. And plus there's the unfamiliarity of seeing an Asian face adorning the cover, which is unfortunate.
9:49 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Guess who~ says:
That's why I meant foreign music still has a long way to go– even if it's in English, it still has to conform to certain things for it to catch on well. Unless it's one of those viral things like O-Zone's Dragonstea song.
Haha, really? When did that happen? Interesting.
Utada Hikaru's apparently trying for a 3rd time to break into the US market, but from the clip I saw, she's trying to keep her own style? She was featured in one of the random clips on Yahoo.
10:20 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Jenny-fa says:
*Zooms off to YouTube* Oh, duuuuuuuuuude, O-Zone! THEY'RE SO COOL! I TOTALLY DIG EURODANCE! Beautiful language, too.
Hahaha, I seriously don't think Utada will have much more luck than her previous effort. Even though she's a native English speaker and writes her own music. Did you see "Come Back to Me"? Such a cheesy song.
11:15 pm | Thursday, March 19, 2009
Amy says:
Ok, I'm just going to interrupt now and add in my little comment. XP
I agree, her English still needs work. It's funny because my ****** friends who've only been in the U.S. for a year have nearly perfect enunciation but BoA does not?
Heh, her songs are still about love, even if they aren't ballads.
Hmm… "Obsessed" is pretty catchy (I'm listening to it right now on youtube). I kinda want the album now, but I don't know if it's worth it for just one song…
3:33 pm | Monday, March 23, 2009
Amy says:
Why is ****** blocked??
3:35 pm | Monday, March 23, 2009
Jenny-fa says:
Haha, sorry. It was added to the blacklist a while ago to stop pesky ****** *** lovers from rambling about their favorite boy bands. It seems rather superfluous now.
You have to remember, though, BoA hasn't lived in the U.S. (or any other English-speaking country). She doesn't have the total language immersion experience that your friends had.
You want the album? Why not download it? The download links (as well as the lyrics) are at the end of the post. As for legality — don't worry, I won't tell.
6:06 pm | Monday, March 23, 2009
Amy says:
Yeah, I'm not a fan of those boy bands, either. -_- Hehe, I actually did see the download links. If I do decide to take the album, you can bet I'll be getting it from your post.
6:50 pm | Monday, March 23, 2009