9Muses “Drama” Is ‘Hit Or Miss’

Officially Kmusic

January 24, 2015

The most frustrating thing about 9Muses new release “Drama,” is that I could tell that they were striving for something more than the usual model posing sexy lingerie video, but they played it too safe (which for them, means sexy) and it ruined the particular image they were going for. Better editing could have made this new release much more memorable.

Starting with the song, the rap in the beginning was really bad in terms of flow. The lines were written to bounce off the end of each bar, and it does that well, but it has this annoying kid-like feel to the way the lines are given, almost like a very bored cheerleader was saying them. Listen to how she says “this is drama” and try not to imagine her in a doctor’s office saying the same thing. However, the singing is very interesting, as the progressions are different than the typical pop song. The register is really high, so it won’t suit some sensibilities, but the bass is low enough to balance the song, so I was able to get past the high singing range and enjoy the melody. The song is also fairly up tempo, so I could get into the beat during the main sections.

My main problem with the music video, is that they tried to do too much, and in the process all the parts fell over since they didn’t have enough support. I really liked the lead-in and the exit, because I think that it gave framework for the concept. However, there was very little of the story in the middle to support the intro and conclusion. It took me several times to understand what each “drama” the members were going through, because they weren’t emphasized enough. Adding dimension to each story and separating the setting for each of the stories would have helped immensely, but instead I’m still trying to figure out why several of them were chucking popcorn.

This is furthered by the fact that they have four core image concepts: sexy, classy, cute, and individual. Normally, four costumes is only slightly more than par for the course in K-Pop, but the ladies don’t simply have 4 outfits, one for each concept, they have several extra outfits for certain concepts that they cycle through. The two dance outfits can be argued to be the classy outfits, and are by far my favorite out of all the ones they wear. They were sexy without being super revealing, and I thought the black-themed outfit showed off their curves extremely well. It made me think of like a nouveau-Victorian style, like a toned down version of steampunk. Then they had individual outfits, one for their character, and the other for glamour shots. Next, they had their signature sexy lingerie that they stood in doorways with. And finally, they had their “pajama party” outfit which weren’t actually pajamas, but dresses in a pink cotton candy setting that felt like it should have been a pajama party. It was almost exhausting to keep up with, and I think they fell back on their sexy underwear outfits in order to adhere to their signature style, when they really didn’t need to. If they had cut out the lingerie and the ‘not’ pajamas, and done the dance outfits coupled with their individual outfits, perhaps I wouldn’t have gotten a headache trying to figure out who was where for the entire video, and could have just enjoyed it.

My favorite of all the outfits worn.

The dance was simple, my favorite parts being 0:44-0:54. I feel like I really didn’t get a feel for the dance, because the shots that we got of those parts were pretty frequent but short, so I couldn’t piece together what the whole thing looked like. The cinematography as always was very good. The cameraman and editors always give me reason to focus on a certain area, but never force me to, and I could feel the girls’ personalities. The cuts were a little on the quick side, but that falls into trying to fit too many concepts into one song. The lighting was exceptional for each style that was being presented, and was very effective in changing the feel of the sets, so it felt like they were using many more than just the two they did use.

In the end, I did enjoy the song, and powered my way through the beginning rap to listen to the main body of the song. I was worried that the song wouldn’t feel like 9muses after losing 3 members, but I thought the new members blended well with the old, actually a little too well. I had a very hard time finding the new members in the video, although I attribute that mostly to the scatterbrain video concept. As for the music video, I can do without it. I tend to be much harder on 9muses’ company because I feel that videos like “Wild,” “Ticket,” and “Glue” were really well executed in terms of focus and theme, and I was expecting more from this video.

What are your thoughts on “Drama?” Tell us below, and stay tuned for more reviews and updates!

Source: ktmusic YouTube

Edited by: Laura Dees

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