After way too long, 아웃사이더 or Outsider is back! He debuted in 2004 with the EP Come Outside, releasing the Speed Star single in 2006, and then his first album Soliloquist in October of 2007. It’s been a long wait since then, but now he’s back, with his second album MAESTRO.

Outsider is a hiphop artist, and one of the things he’s best known for is his ultrafast speed rapping. I love it. I have no idea how anyone can possibly rap that fast.

His first album featured other hiphop artists such as my personal favourites MC Sniper, 배치기 and Simon Dominic, as well as Mr.room9, BK and 샛별. His second album was a little different from his first, a bit less nittygritty hiphop and with slightly more pop and dance influence. I love pure hiphop but I also love it when hiphop artists aren’t afraid of branching out and trying some different beats and styles. His second album features the talents of Basick, Swagger, JOY, 배치기, MC Sniper, L.E.O and plenty more.

The first single to be promoted from MAESTRO is 외톨이:

And here’s 남자답게, from his first album Soliloquist:

Super Junior are gearing up to release the repackaged version of their third album SORRY, SORRY. It’s being called ‘Version C’ since they know how to suck all your money out of you, and already released two different versions (different covers and booklets, same tracks) of the album back in March. This repackaged version though comes with a new photo concept, as well as four new songs.

One of those songs is 너라고 (It’s You), which will be promoted as their next single, now that SORRY, SORRY (the song, not the album) is ending it’s run. It’s written by E-Tribe, the composer behind the super catchy will-never-get-out-of-your-head Gee, by 소녀시대, as well as pop queen 이효리‘s U-Go-Girl.

But fear not, because 너라고 (It’s You) isn’t cute lollipopbubblegum pop like Gee. It’s still pop, but the sort of strong dance beat and style that fits Super Junior really well.

The MV for the song was released yesterday – in two versions, an ‘unfinished’ leaked version and the official version shortly after. I’ll show the leaked version because the official version didn’t do it for me. It had some lame shiny effect on the boys during the dance sections, and I don’t need even one sparkling vampire, let alone a whole boyband of them.

I think we should play a game. For the uninitiated, there’s 13 members of Super Junior. Now pause it during one of the dance segments, when you can see them all, like around 10 seconds in. Now count them. XD

With Kibum’s lack of dance and zero lines, I suppose fans at least know this time that Kibum won’t be joining in the promotion activities. Heechul does make a brief appearance in the dance for his line of the song, so I guess he’ll be pulling the same magically appearing on stage at the end thing he was doing for SORRY, SORRY.

So what do you guys think of the song? I actually really like it, I definitely think its one of Super Junior’s better songs, and it might even have crept up to the level of Favourite for me.

The Month of May in Korea is often called Family Month. There’s Children’s Day, Parent’s Day, and Teacher’s Day. Korea takes Mother’s Day to a whole different level! On these days you give your Children, Parents and Teachers gifts to show them how much you appreciate them. Children often benefit the most with candy and money being popular gifts. Teachers get quite a lot of gifts as well as they have many students and parents to receive gifts from. And that’s why the month of May is called Family month in Korea!

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Are you a fan of Epik High? Over at KoME we’re in the final stages of putting together a video shoutout for Epik High and MYK, consisting of videos, pictures, and messages from fans. You can participate in English, or in your native language. If you’re interested in taking part, you can check out the project here. Submission deadlines are May 10th but if you really want to take part but need a few extra days then just email me and I’ll wait for you.

So, YG Entertainment have a new group. Marketed as the ‘female Big Bang’, 2NE1 first appeared not too long ago, promoting one of the new LG cellphones. The promotion campaign involved the catchy song Lollipop, which they performed with Big Bang, and an accompanying MV. Although I quite liked the outfits, as eye-meltingly bright as they were, Sandara’s outfit and palm-tree hair pretty much ruined the whole look for me.

Fast forward several weeks to the beginning of May, where a new look for 2NE1 was revealed, as well as 10 second teasers for their proper debut song Fire. Each day another 10 seconds of the song was released, until yesterday when the whole thing was made available and MVs released. Yes, MVs. They made a Space Version and a Street Version. Written by Teddy, of 1TYM fame, I was expecting a pretty awesome song. I wasn’t alone with this expectation, though others had their hopes up for a variety of reasons – it’s YG, it’s the female Big Bang, etc. YG helped get hopes up higher by promising that 2NE1 would be like nothing we had ever seen before. There were promises of fresh, new, awesomeness from CL, Dara, Bom and Minzy.

So, did they deliver?

Street Version:

Space Version:

What do you think?

I personally think no. The potential is there, but so is that freaking palm-tree hair. CL (the chick on the bike in the space version) doesn’t seem to know if she’s G-Dragon, T.O.P or herself – it feels like YG has decided “alright, you’re the jailbait, you’re the sexy bunny girl, you get the palmtree hair, and you’re the GD/TOP clone”. I personally would rather see the girls displaying an image that is their own, and I don’t feel they are. Yet. I’ll keep my eye on them, but I’m really not digging them as much as I was hoping that I would. They have a mini-album coming out later this year, so maybe that will deliver what the single doesn’t quite manage. To me, they just don’t quite manage to stand out.

Before I say anything else: over on KoME we had the chance to interview the very successful, and my personal favourite, hiphop trio Epik High. We asked them about their upcoming album Map The Soul, their musical influences, and they even gave us their opinions on issues such as censorship in the Korean music industry (something I wrote about last year right here), and music in the digital era.

You can check out the interview here. They had plenty to say!

So. 서태지 is on a mission to foil my plans every Wednesday. The MV for Juliet still isn’t out yet (okay, so I have no idea when it’s even supposed to be released, but considering how long the single has been out now I just assumed the MV would be out already too). But there is a 15 second teaser for it!

And last week, 13 member boyband Super Junior released the MV for SORRY, SORRY, the first single from their third album, SORRY, SORRY.

Anyone else notice how 은혁 looks a lot like 비 in this? XD (If you don’t know who’s who, 은혁 is the one at around 2:25 with the patterned pants, white shirt, one black glove, and black sunglasses – with the haircut, the whole look was rather reminiscent of 비’s look for RAINISM)

I actually really like this song. It’s not amazing but it’s catchy. This is the style that suits Super Junior pretty perfectly, it’s upbeat and full of energy, and the type of song that lets them show off their dancing moves in the lives (because with 13 members you can’t really show off your vocals). Unfortunately the rest of the album didn’t follow along in this same style – it was a little more laid back, more along the lines of R&B than anything else. There were some ballads, but they were balanced out well and the ballads themselves were pulled off a lot better than they were in Super Junior’s second album. I didn’t enjoy the album as much as I enjoyed the bubblegum pop of their first album, but it was a decent enough album overall.

If you want to read a review of the album, Rinoa over on KoME reviewed it here.