Small Kpop MV review: B.A.P. - No mercy

     First of all, I'm sorry I didn't make the post about the debut MV's, but I got a job now and I don't really have that much free time as before (you can see I haven't post anything lately), and because of that I won't post about those MV's (I'm really sorry for that).

     But, I did make some time for posting today, because B.A.P. has a new MV called No Mercy:

     I have to say that this song is my new favorite song from B.A.P. I can never have a favorite song for a long time from them because they get better and better, comeback by comeback, and they will never disappoint me in terms of songs, dance and music videos.

     The song is a really cool combination of old school with good beats and some traditional (I heard those Gayageum strings - correct me if I got the name of the instrument wrong, and I guess Himchan had a word to say here ^^). I love the fact that Himchan has more lyrics (yes he is my bias) because I love his deep husky voice (not only his, but in general), and Young Jae and DaeHyun look much better with this new style. From what I read on the internet (I looked up for the english translation), the lyrics are about those singers that don't put their whole heart and soul into their songs and singing, and they are kind of dissing them for that (hence the name of the song). I forgot to mention that the whistle is not forgotten in this song as well.

      I love when the "Don't compare yourself, who is like a parrot, to me" lyric comes, because they do reflect the music industry in the whole world, where most of the songs really sound the same (an example could be romanian songs and even kpop songs that use dubstep for the dance scene instead of being original). Here comes another thing to talk about, B.A.P. not using dubstep again and the part during the dance scene really blends well with the actual song (not like Nu'Est's "Action" - don't get me wrong, I love that even more than Face, but the song for the dance scene really does not match the whole song...like at all) and they are original once again for using traditional instruments (Psy used traditional song - Arirang - in his song for the Summer Olympics).

    All in all, the song is awesome and I really really really hope B.A.P. will stay like this (fierce and pro) forever and ever and ever. And don't forget:

Keep calm and have NO MERCY!!

Sexy back

Small Kpop MV review: Comebacks

     Like I said, and I do keep my promises (or at least I try XD), I'm going to do some kpop MV's review. Because I realized there are to many new music videos, I looked on my Youtube favorites playlist, I decided to part them all in 2 separate posts: one that is all about comebacks and one that is all about debuts. That is why the tittle of this post doesn't have a band or the name of the song in it.

     So...let's start!!

     First on my list will be Big Bang - Monster. I don't know if this is really considered a comeback, but it's not a debut for sure and I do want to talk about it. I think that this music video is really artsy and I absolutely love it. Yes, it true, that some of their "costumes" are a little weird (did you see Taeyang's hair?? o_O), but it matches really well with the concept of the song. I think they are like some kind of experiments-made-on-human, realized against their will, and when they realize what is going on they try to escape out of the building they are captured  in. The lyrics are really heartbreaking (I almost had tears in my eyes when I read the english translation) and I think it matches really well the music video.

     Next, we have f(x) - Electric Shock. Let me be a fan girl for a moment: They are freaking back!!! And they have an amazing song as comeback too. And Amber has more lyrics than usual and she's not just rapping. And Victoria looks so cute with blond hair. (fan girl mode off) Like I said the song is really great. I love how their music videos are always so colorful and that has the effect of expressing happiness (at least to me).

     The third music video I'm going to talk about is M.I.B. - Only hard for me. The boys went through an awful thing when they had their comeback with Celebrate and I'm really sorry for what happened and I'm also really sad they couldn't have the chance to enjoy that song and the promotions of that song as they should have (Kangnam said he didn't listen to Celebrate ever since the death of their stylists). As you here the new song you could feel the sadness inside the lyrics and I believe in a way it was written for the stylists even if it's not 100% related to it (the lyrics from The falling Flower are more related to them - I recommend you listen to that song too). The music video is really simple, expressing loneliness and sadness, and I'm pretty grateful to Tiger JK for having so much trust in these four boys. Why I'm saying this? Because he invests a lot of money in them: they debuted with a full album (not many kpop groups debut with a full album, I do believe they are the first group to do so), that full album was most expensive than any other album from a kpop group and now they filmed the MV in LA or something like that. But the boys do deserve every penny Tiger JK invests in them and they do prove they are worth the money.

     Number four is B1A4 - Baby good night, another fun music video from B1A4. The thing I like the most is that the MV actually tricks you a little bit. The boys have a really cute image and they are having beautiful voices, so you have the impression the song is a sweet song about the love one (I think the teasers helped them too)... but it's the other way around. They are singing about cheating the loved one. =))) I was laughing my ass off when I read the lyrics in english, realizing I was fooled by them. But even so, I like the MV and song a lot.

     Next is Teen Top - To you. I really don't know if they say To you now or Do you know during the song, because I don't understand why you would say something like To you now...when Do you know sounds ok...in english...with the lyrics from the song. Anyway, I love the rhythm of the song (I sense some old school songs in it) and I love the dance too (it seems really fun). I believe that Teen Top should be the #2 band when in comes to dancing (after Infinite) because they are so in sync that you can't see them making any mistake.

     I don't have what to say about Boyfriend - Love Style and Myname - Hello and Good bye. Well, just that I love the songs, and that the Myname members have really really really beautiful voices and that they should sing more ballads and slow rhythm songs.

     Tomorrow I'm going to talk about the debut music videos of VIXX, A-jax, Cross Gene and 4K.

My favorite song #6: 30 Seconds to Mars - A mondern myth (acoustic)

     I know I started once again to not post something, but I have a good excuse: college. I had two exams I had to retake last week, which I passed because I'm awesome!! (I'm joking, I really thought I will not pass one of them) That means I'm done with school (well for now, because you never know what will come in the future), I just have to present my project and get my diploma and then I'll take a small break, and after that, I'll start looking for a job. I'll probably post some Kpop MV reviews soon (those are some quite popular posts on my blog) because there were many comebacks and debuts in the last period.

     Anyway, let's get back to the main topic of this post, and that's me naming another favorite song. I do have a lot of favorite songs, because music is my number one thing in life, so it influences me a lot.

     I really really really enjoy listening to this song a lot and I love to sing along every time I hear it. It's been quite some time since I last listened to this song, I guess maybe two years or something like that. I do remember I used to listen to it when my ex-boyfriend was here, in Romania, but then I just stopped listening to it. Maybe it was because of me getting to much into Kpop and Jrock or I don't know.

Let's talk about: Eurovision

     As you may all know, there is a annual song contest for Europe called Eurovision. The contest was inaugurated in 1956, so many years ago, and it's one of the most important shows on this planet. But, because there's always a "but", the contest changed so so so much over the years and it turned into a really predictable contest. In other words, you know the winner even before the actual night of the contest. I'm watching this contest - show since I was little, so I'm really familiar to it. This year, I finally realized things are going for the worst and that this show is not as fun anymore.

     First thing first, I do want to congratulate the winner, Loreen, and say that her song was really beautiful. But, again the "but", I do believe that were much more beautiful songs and there was a really good singing technique behind those other songs. Those songs I'm referring to are Spain's, Pastora Soler - Quédate Conmigo. and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's, Kaliopi - Crno i Belo. I believe that one of these two songs should have claimed the win last night. A little bit of hope still exists in my heart, that the contest will go back to how it was before, because Serbia's song was really appreciated (it got 3rd place), and the same goes for Albania's and Estonia's song.

     Second thing, the freaking voting system bugs the hell out of me. I'm not talking about the official voting system of the contest, but the one of each country. People usually vote for their neighbors or countries they have a whole history together with. That's why most of the votes were so predictable. Leo, the one that commented the show for Romania, guessed where most of the high points (8, 10 and 12) went because that's how the countries gave points in the last 10 years. I did the same thing as him, and half of the time I was right. I'm sorry to say this, but this contest is about the best song, the best live voice and the best interpretation of a song. Some of the songs that got a good amount of points didn't passed this 3 important key point of the show. This goes for Moldova, that had the name of the song in romanian but the entire song was in english and I couldn't understand a thing, Russia, even if the grannies were cute and brave for singing on a show like this one their song didn't deserve second place, and Romania, because it got a crappy song (I'll explain this right away).

     Third thing, even if I repeat myself, Romania's song was a piece of crap. In my opinion it didn't fit the contest, I hated it that it was in English (I always hate it when our songs are in english because I think it should be in our language when it's a song representing Romania - you can say that my romanian pride makes me say that) and Spanish (why the hell spanish??!!!!), and because the lyrics were totally not making sense (what does Zaleilah mean?). Besides all that, the vocalist of the band was totally unprepared: during the rehearsals she forgot the lyrics, her voice sounded really different when she was singing live and last night she started off the tone and her voice sounded hoarse during some parts. In other words, the perfect combination of a big failure. Costi Ionita, even if you still sustain that this song should have won, I'm sure it's your pride talking and not your mind. Plus, even if I didn't watched the second semi-final, I saw last night that from it came most of the good songs, so it made me realize that if Romania were in the second semi-final it wouldn't have stand a chance against the other bands/singers.

    Anyway, all we have to do is hope that next year the show will be better than this year, regarding the above mentioned problems, and that Romania will be represented next year by a better song (even if I have my doubts that that will happen).

Let's talk about: Books

I know I haven't written a "Let's talk about" post since a long time, so I thought today was a great chance to do so. Please do keep in mind that this post might contain spoilers (I don't want to ruin a book for you before you even got the chance to read it).

I'm going to start by telling you how I started to get this addiction of reading. Back in my 5th or 6th grade (I can't remember well), the romanian literature teacher at that time gave us a list we had to read for the summer. Some of the books were good but some were not that really interesting at that time. I remember I read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (I still have the book), Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and many other books by Jules Verne, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. These are probably hard books for a 15-16 year old kid, but I enjoyed them since the stories are really nice.

Then, when I entered high school, again, the literature teacher told us that we had to read the books she will give us or we got a bad mark. That's when I read Ion by Liviu Rebreanu, Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent and With the Gypsy Girls by Mircea Eliade, The Moromete Family (first part) by Marin Preda, The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War by Camil Petrescu, plus many other more. Besides all these books, I read some on my own for extra credit, like The Moromete Family part 2, Procust's Bed by Camil Petrescu and Jar by Liviu Rebreanu.


In college I didn't have romanian literature anymore, so I started to read books on my own. The way I pick books might be a little strange, but usually I read the synopsis found on the back cover of the book and if I find it interesting I buy it. If not, then PASS!! :)) What I started to read during college are all books written by international authors. I read books pretty fast, like a 400 pages book I read it in two days, but if you put the hours I actually read head to head, it probably takes me less than a day.

As you can see in the picture I did read the Twilight series. I know that some people don't like the movies and the books but I do love them. The movies are not that good. In my opinion Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are trying way to hard to get into the skin of the characters, that they go to the opposite direction. Good actors are the ones that don't look like they act, like they are getting a new name and they are living the action for real. Kristen and Robert are really showing that they are acting. Sure, some of you may say "You read the book first and then you saw the movies so that's why you have this impression". Believe me, it's not that. Plus, books are always better than movies. Anyway, people should keep in mind that these books are for teenagers or young adults (however you want to call them) so that's why the story is so cheesy.

Another book from this series, the young adults books, that I have read is Fallen by Lauren Kate. I haven't got my hands on the next books, but I'm planing to read them. I really love books with creatures from different legends, but the ones I love the most are the angels and if a book is about them and the fight between angels and demons, then I must have it.

Before I got to buy books, I read them on my PC in english. This is when I read The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine. I haven't finished the series or if it's still ongoing, I haven't got the chance to be ut to date with this books, because after the 5th book, the story started to get boring. I wanted to start readying them again a year ago because I saw the books translated into romanian in a bookstore, but i dropped that idea pretty fast.

Now, let's move on, to another type of books I love to read: horror. From this genre, I only read books from John Saul. I really love his books because it's super fast to read and easy to understand. The down side to all of this is that I don't find them that horror. Yes, the books are full of suspense and mystery, but the only book that scared me was The Right Hand of Evil. The other books, Darkness, Sleepwalk and Creature weren't that scary, in my opinion. One thing that I realized after readying these books, is that the action follows a pattern: the main character of the book moves to a different city than before and you find out about what the connection between the title and the book near the end of it.

Next, I'm going to talk about Dan Brown's books. From this author I only read Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons and Deception Point. What I love about this author is that he can trick my mind a lot. In every damn book, he gave me the impression that the one to blame for the bad things in the book is someone else than the actual person that is guilty for everything. A friend of mine told me that the same happened to her, but only for the first book. I guess I need to read the other two books in hope that I won't be deceived again.

I'm sure that by now everyone realized that I love Japan and South Korea, so it's not going to be a surprise when I'm going to tell you that I read books from the japanese literature. Fumiko Enchi, Yukio Mishima and Taichi Yamada are ones of my favorite authors. I find them really easy to read and I think the stories are really interesting. Of course there is a bit of SF in the books that make them even more fun.

Even if I usually read fast, there are some books that get the best out of me. Those are the books that explains the action really good, like to the smallest detail you can think of. The author wants you to understand the characters even more that you would do, by reading a book, like they are real persons. These books are Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (this is a case where the movie is as good as the book) and Independence Day by Richard Ford.

One of the books I love the most, the one that I enjoyed the most and the most fun one, is and will always be Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern. This book is not a normal book. The book is a collection of messages, emails, letters, instant messages and newspaper articles and follows the life of the main characters. The book teaches you that sometimes, some decisions we take in life can change your whole life and can keep you away from things you wanted really in your life.

I know that the post is really big, but I hope you will pick some of the books I read as something you will read in the near future.
 

Small Kpop MV review: JJ Project - Bounce

     I know that lately most of my post are about Kpop, but there are so many comebacks and debuts of bands I love that I can't help to write about them. Today I'm going to make a review for JJ Project. JJ Project (because of the last word, it makes me think this is a subgroup of a future to debut band - something like how things were in B.A.P.'s case - or this is made just for the fun and the members will be actually be apart of two separate bands) is a band created by JYP, with two members: JB and JR that we all got to know in Dream High 2.

     They really showed their skills in the drama, JR is like a dance machine and JB has a really cool voice, so I was expecting a great debut from them. And I got it, with a few bad things attached to it.

     The song has a fast rhythm, one that I love, but I have the impression that I'm listening to 4 different songs: a hip-hop song (I think I can hear a little bit of old school hip-hop and it makes me think of Lil Mama's songs), a rock song (even if JB says "rock'n roll" there is no freaking rock'n roll, because it's actually pure rock), a house song (it does not make me remember of the club songs these days but the old house songs - like Basshunter songs) and I guess a pop song (I really can't name JB's part anything else but pop). The things is, because these music genres, the flow of the song changes and you can feel it right way because the difference is so big from one genre to another. Overall, the song is really good, but if I were in JYP's place, I wouldn't have tried to put 4 music genres in 1. Maybe two the most, but definitely not four.

    The fast rhythm makes you want to dance, which is a good thing (you don't want to see me dancing right now). I really enjoy the part where they go "Now everybody bounce bounce let it bounce bounce" and I'm like jumping with them and when the rock part starts I go all headbanging (this song gets the rocker out of me). After listening to the song for a couple times (what couple?? I'm at my 6th listening right now :)) ), I realized it's really catchy. That's a good thing, because catchy songs makes you listen to them more and more.

     Anyway, remember people:

Keep calm and bounce!!!

I need a little bit of help

     Hello everybody!! How are you today? I hope you are all having fun and enjoying your time...because I'm not doing so. Outside is a shitty weather (it freaking rains!! :| ) and I had some plans for today that got canceled because of the weather.

     Anyway, I'm making this post because I want some help from you. I want to win some Kpop CD's, but I need people to click my link (I'm going to give them to you in a few seconds), so that I can have more chances to win. You can be or not, a Kpop fan, because if you click the link it will count anyway. If you want, you can create an account and participate in the giveaways too. Also, if you do that, please leave a comment to this post with your link and I will help you back. ^^

     So here are the links:

1. Baek Ji Young giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/18/67757275706f7034353530

2. Hello Venus giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/17/67757275706f7034353530

3. Wonder Girls giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/14/67757275706f7034353530

4. J.Y. Park giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/15/67757275706f7034353530

5. A Pink giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/16/67757275706f7034353530

    For those of you who will help me, THANK YOU!!!, and for those who won't, Don't worry. I'm not going to hate you or anything like that ^^.