Yang Hyun Suk went on the record recently saying that idol groups are on on on their way out. “The idol fad is over,” he said, “Now the market has moved on from idols to singers with artistic qualities such as Busker Busker and Psy.” If he’s right, this may have been the best possible time for Nega Network‘s newest band, LUNAFLY,
to debut. With the exception of two official music videos, all of the
videos they’ve uploaded so far are live performances by the three band
members, who play instruments. You can’t get much more understated than
jam sessions on the couch, and it’s the perfect way to introduce this
acoustic, singer/songwriter style that they’ve got going.
Their debut single, “How Nice Would It Be“, was written by LUNAFLY and Kim Eana. Kim Eana is one of the brains behind hits like Brown Eyed Girls‘ “Abracadabra” and “Sixth Sense“, SHINee‘s “Hello“, and IU‘s “Good Day” and “You & I“,
so it comes as no surprise that the song is good. It’s
a mid-tempo ballad that uses acoustic guitar, bongos, finger snaps and
hand claps with a very basic chord progression and song structure to put
the group’s vocals front and center. This is fine by me- Sam, Yun, and Teo
each have really nice voices with distinct tones, which gives the
songs dimension, but their voices also blend perfectly, creating some
really beautiful harmonies.
I LOVE that LUNAFLY is doing songs in English as well as Korean, but
what I love even more is that they are completely overhauling the lyrics
for the English version. Direct English translations of Korean songs
tend to fall flat- the languages are just too different. By writing an
entirely new set of lyrics, LUNAFLY presents their ability to release
good songs in both languages, and I’m excited to see what they do with
this concept in the future.
With that said, some of the English lyrics are a little clumsy. For example, in “Super Hero“,
I think the line “Ain’t it better later than never, baby?” is
fantastic- I love the slight turn of phrase to repeat the ‘-er’ suffix
on stressed syllables, and it fits the melodic phrase perfectly.
However, the following line, “You know I’ll be next to you lately”,
doesn’t really make sense- “I’ll be” is future tense, but “lately”
refers to something that happened in the recent past, so I’m not sure
what the sentence is supposed to mean. If these songs are meant to be a
bonus for English-speaking fans of the Korean versions, then that’s
fine, but if LUNAFLY is trying to attract listeners who aren’t already
into Korean music, they’re going to have to work on their lyrics a
little.
Beyond that, what I really want to hear LUNAFLY take on is something a
little more complex for their next release. Not to draw comparisons,
because they’re very different bands, but part of the reason that Busker
Busker’s “Cherry Blossom Ending”
has been so popular is because even though it’s not groundbreakingly
different, it just has a couple of little attention-getters in it- an
unexpected instrument here and there, a surprising melody, a few
less-conventional strum patterns- it takes something that could have
been very common and makes it interesting. For their next release, I’d
like to see LUNAFLY experiment with something a little less
conventional- they’ve got the skills to pull it off, and I think that
the risk could result in a big payoff for them.
Like I said before, I’ve been listening to this album non-stop for
two days now- this band’s songs are really pleasant and they put me in a
good mood. I don’t really mean to criticize them, I’m just really
excited about the incredible potential I see in LUNAFLY. If anything, my
critiques are mostly borne out of my impatience to hear more from the
band- and, ultimately, isn’t that how a good debut should make you feel?
Reviewer's Rating:
(3.6 / 5)
(3.6 / 5)
(139 votes, average: 4.76 out of 5)
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