2NE1 - Crush from Kpop Mart

So today's review is going to be a bit different to usual because it's going to be more of a review of my purchase!! I recently bought my first Kpop CD (previous CD's have been bought for me) so I figured I'd review it as an actual purchase rather than just reviewing the music. If you like this style of review, let me know in the comments and I'll make more! However, if I suddenly see my follower count drop, I'll know to never do it again!!

Broken Dolls - Reach For The Sky

Japanese. That's right, I don't just listen to Kpop! It's just that there is less Jpop! :P

I bought this at expo because a they were playing it when I walked past. The seller said they are a new Harajuku band but 'Broken Dolls' is also the name of a Harajuku fashion label and shop. All three run by Kensuke (Broken Dolls Guitarist). Now enough about Harajuku, let's talk about Reach For The Sky!
First let me say how cute the album cover is. The mess and destruction that still looks so adorable and innocent! Anyway, when I originally listened to the album I did notice that there was a lot of English, but when I looked in the lyric book I was shocked to see that ALL thee lyrics are English. Well, Engrish. Sachi is a cute singer, but her English fails her.... Most the lyrics are good enough, it's just her pronunciation!! But you have to pardon her Engrish because her cute and bubbly voice should be in Engrish.

SHINee - Sherlock

Yes, it's SHINee again!! Let me just say how much I freakin' love Rachel for buying this for my birthday present!!!! She even got the poster with it!! I don't care that it was late, I LOVE YOU RACHEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that I've got that out of my system I'll carry on with the review. Let's start with how amazing SHINee are, they're a  Korean, 5 member boy idol group of awesomeness and Sherlock is their 4th mini-album. After spending so much time in Japan I was expecting an album of full-blown epics, but all we got was this 7 track mini. But I'll live.
I heard the title track as soon as it came out because I'm a pretty hardcore fan and I've loved it since. The almost erotic whispering at the beginning and the explosive rap where just beyond amazing. And it has such a catchy curious. From now on, whenever I get curious about something I burst out into song. It has got a really good beat with lots of variety in it but I must ask, why does it sound like a kettle whistling in the background? It is probably my ONLY complaint about the song.

U-Kiss - Neverland

U-Kiss are a seven member boy group formed by NH media. They their second shiny CD, Neverland, and I manged to get my dad to buy it for me... I mean for my friend! It comes in a really nice and shiny hard-back book, filled with pictures and 'thank you's. There's some cool picture from back stage the music video too! In general the book is very nice because: one, shiny books are cool; and two U-Kiss are exceptionally good looking!
When the CD starts playing it has a track of pure manliness! Dramatic drums mixed with song lines kind of  manliness. This then moves on to the title track which I have been addicted to since I heard it. Neverland is such an amazing piece of music I get stuck on the replay button! The music video is top class, the snow and the dramatic close-ups, and don't even get me started on U-Kiss' amazing dance skills!! The song is so powerful and with such an epic beat it'll get stuck in your head for eternity! It also makes good use of their vocals, really low part and very high parts and some awesome harmonies. The build-up at the end fits together so well, it's genuinely amazing!!

Brown Eyed Girls - Sixth Sense

More Korean CD reviews!! I really hope you don't mind these!!

Brown Eyed Girls are a 4 member girl group. They are under a smaller label name, NegaNetwork. This means their music is quite different to the big names in K-pop. You can hear this difference just by listening to their Intro song "Swing It Shorty". It has a interesting drum beat and a repetitive bass line and a standard through out the 1:21, but the rest of the song is completely unpredictable! The collision of humming and singing by the members almost make it sound like their in a jam session! In fact, upon releasing the album the agency did state that this is music no other girl group can imitate.
None of their songs are particularly electro and most feature a variety of brass instruments. The only track that has obviously has a synthesiser in it is Love Motion. Although no matter how much the song sounds like a remix they style sing in the same soulful style that they have through out the album!

4 Minute - 4 Minutes left

Yup, I'm doing another CD review because I didn't get enough complaints! But this one's going to be really different to my SHINee one so you HAVE to comment which style you prefer.
4 Minute is a 5 member girl group from Cube Entertainment. Their debut was June 2009 and have since released four Korean singles. It was not until 2011 that released an album - 4 Minutes left.
When I got the CD, I must admit, I was not that interested! I mainly bought it because it was only £10. But it's really good! 4 Minute are really energetic and you can hear that in their album, so much so that you can't help but dance along! The two big songs on the album are Mirror Mirror and Heart to Heart, as they as they were the two songs 4 Minute performed on music shows at the time. The two songs show completely different sides of the girls.

SHINee - Lucifer

I've never reviewed a CD before... But I thought it was worth a go! If it doesn't go well I'll just never do it again! If you actually read it all please tell me if I should do it again!

My friend, Tamzin, got a SHINee CD for her birthday. For those who don't know, SHINee is an all-boy, five member idol group under the SM ent. label. Which basically means they sing dance and look good. So I insisted she lend it to me.
As with most Kpop CD's it came with a decent size book with lots of good pictures in it. They all had similar effects (light leaks, doodles and ink splodges) but they where all done differently! Some of the photos have been made to look quite grainy, I think this was to go with the almost rustic look of the whole album, but I didn't like it! Most the photos were fine though. My favourites were the group photos as their outfits worked better as a group and the placing was well thought out!
So, now we actually get to talking about the music!