Ok-Pop’s first era is usually referenced as the muse for the business we get pleasure from now, however there aren’t sufficient good English-language sources that give its music the main focus it deserves. I’m hoping to vary that with a seamless flashback sequence, spotlighting private highlights from the period – each iconic and obscure.
The period in query is usually thought of to run from the debut of Search engine marketing Taiji & Boys in 1992 to the emergence of TVXQ in late 2003. The music featured on this sequence will largely match inside that timeframe, give or take just a few years on both aspect.
It was a time of bonkers tune constructions, wild trend, slamming techno beats, unhealthy reggae impressions, flagrant use (theft?) of American hip-hop samples, hearty energy ballads, foul language, the growliest rapper tones you may think about and an anything-goes scrappiness that’s not possible to pigeonhole. To borrow the title of a well-liked second-gen act, these years had been the “massive bang” of an rising musical powerhouse, nonetheless discovering its footing and throwing every thing on the wall.
Take a look at different “Again to Ok-pop’s First Technology” critiques right here.
Co-ed Ok-pop teams had been far more widespread within the first era. In truth, within the late 90’s they had been virtually the norm. S#arp stood on the tip-top of this hierarchy, releasing a sequence of standard singles and albums. This was all introduced down by a bullying scandal for the ages, however I don’t need to focus an excessive amount of on that as a result of different retailers have already lined the scandal intimately and this characteristic is all in regards to the music.
2001’s Sweety is the group’s most enduring basic, however I’ve an enormous comfortable spot for 1999’s Inform Me, Inform Me. This tune succeeds not on its bombast (it’s truly sort of laidback), however on the nuance and phrasing of its hooks. Like so many nice pop tracks, it simply scratches sure pleasure facilities within the mind. The tune opens with an immediately memorable “rub a dub” pattern that I’ve heard in a number of different tracks of the period (I’d like to know the place it got here from initially!) earlier than segueing into the chirpy refrain. In my view, the repeated “aniya (아니야)” hook is Inform Me’s simplest second. I simply love how that vocal sounds. However actually, the tune is a seize bag of catchy vocal approaches.
Whereas the feminine traces in S#arp songs typically got here throughout as candy or quirky, the male raps supplied an aggressive (at occasions comically so) counterpoint. The distinction is jarring, however in a approach that may typically be charming in a dated, foolish approach. So far as musical legacy, I hear a lot of early Surprise Ladies on this observe. JYP lady teams typically appeared to have latched onto this sound.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Manufacturing | 9 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 9 |
Grade: A-