Album Review: T-ara's John Travolta Wannabe

As a fan of sorts, this album certainly had a lot weighing in its shoulders. Admittedly, after the fail that was YaYaYa, which apparently sent its composers, E-tribe hiding for a while, it was going to have to take something credible for T-ara to restore its credibility amongst K-Pop lovers and resume its upswing in the K-pop girl group hiearchy.

Question is, does it stand up to the scrutiny?




The album comprises of seven songs, two of which are new (Roly-Poly and Really Really Like You), together with five remixes, which aim to give "Temptastic" (the only T-ara album I did not buy) a better sound.

(If it's your first time, watch the full vid, and lose 12 mins of your life, as it's only good in bits. Subsequent viewings, find the short versions/live performances)

The album opens with "Roly Poly". Going with a retro themed feel, this song certainly does take retro all the way. Compared with SNSD's "Hoot" and the Wonder Girls' "Two Different Tears", which had elements of the 70s and 80s, but largely moved to a modern sound by the first stanza, "Roly Poly" does take the retro sound way into the second minute, where it then breaks into a rap cut, hinting it's a 2011 composition, not a 1981 one.

However, the most impressive part of the song is not the retro sound, but the very strong bass hook, after the short introduction, that just seems to scream "Dance!!". That part for some reason just sends me doing the hand swinging actions shown in the video.

The voices in the song were only adequate to say the best. From Qri's introduction, one might have been led to believe that the whole song would be a squeaky affair, but fortunately it does not descend into that territory. However, it appears that the stronger and more distinctive voices, especially Soyeon's and Eunjung's have taken a back seat, in order to let everybody have a role, and so the voices settle into a nice middle tone.

For me, the member that gave the strongest impression was Boram. Some real lines, looking cute in the vid, and having your dad cameo. Dang, why none of these things when you were leader. Speaking of leaders, Hyomin, I'll say impressive self designed outfit (the blue polka dotted aviator miss inspired garb) . I guess when you did it yourself, you know what parts of your figure are best accentuated, and what, less so...

The next song in the album, "Really Really Like You" follows the same conceptual vein as "Roly Poly" only a fair bit more toned down. It does come across as sounding more post 90s, thanks to the use of some Kongrish (Lets have a dance) and less use of the synthesizer-like sounds.


Why this EP seemed a bit of a marketing coup to me:

So far, so good, not a bad hint of concepts for future groups to copy. However, this is where it gets really bad... the remixes.

If I am to be very honest (and blunt) about it, it was as if CCM decided to just "reheat old dishes, some of them slightly rancid" to put out an EP, rather than just release it as a digital single. But to release it as a digital single, in my opinion would have been a great waste, given how much effort I felt was put in the Music Video and the obligatory photobook, so I can kind of empathise with their dilemma.

The remixes DO NOT add anything meaningfully new to the songs' feel. YaYaYa was certainly not any more listenable to me. A greater shame was "Why are you being like this", which just got a new intro and a slightly sped up feel, which sharpened the synthesisers. It's a good song that could have been made better post remix, but the sad result is that one could hear the original , then the remix and not be worse.

The worst remix of the lot was "Ma Boo". What started off with a nice Clazziquai-esque intro later just threw it away by resuming business as usual, same tune, same structure, no changes. Why give me a fine teaser when all you're going to do is just scrap it.

Ironically the best "remix" was one where the sound was stripped down. "I'm Okay" with it's cleaned up instrumentals, actually allowed the three vocalist (Eunjung-Hyomin-Soyeon) voices to come though nicely. Better part the imaging, was clearer, so one could hear where they were standing relative to the microphone.


Conclusion (cause everybody only reads the last paragraph!!): Was this album a good buy? For S$13, there was a decent retro-themed poster, a decent photobook and nice packaging (though not as elaborate as Absolute First), I'll say the value was there at least compared to some other companies. As a musical product, I'll have to say not really. If you really love the new songs, then go for it. If you want new impressions of T-ara (as that beyond faddish dance pop), or a re-understanding of Temptastic, then no. Having fallen in love with the Absolute First sound, and being impressed by it, I wait again for an album just as cohesive as it.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5.


(I will write something about the trend of bad remixes in K-pop in the future)