Ok-Pop’s first technology 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 target it deserves. I’m hoping to vary that with a unbroken flashback collection, spotlighting private highlights from the period – each iconic and obscure.
The period in query is usually thought-about 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 collection will largely match inside that time-frame, give or take just a few years on both facet.
It was a time of bonkers track buildings, wild vogue, slamming techno beats, unhealthy reggae impressions, flagrant use (theft?) of American hip-hop samples, hearty energy ballads, foul language, the growliest rapper tones you possibly can think about and an anything-goes scrappiness that’s unattainable 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 all the things on the wall.
Take a look at different “Again to Ok-pop’s First Technology” opinions right here.
Co-ed Ok-pop teams had been way more frequent within the first technology. In actual fact, within the late 90’s they had been nearly the norm. S#arp stood on the tip-top of this hierarchy, releasing a collection of common 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 function is all in regards to the music.
2001’s Sweety is the group’s most enduring traditional, however I’ve a giant tender spot for 1999’s Inform Me, Inform Me. This track succeeds not on its bombast (it’s really type 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 track 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 only second. I simply love how that vocal sounds. However actually, the track 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 instances 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 monitor. JYP lady teams usually appeared to have latched onto this sound.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Manufacturing | 9 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 9 |
Grade: A-