[Album and MV Review] HyunA - 'A Talk'

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HYUNA - 'A TALK' - ALBUM AND MV REVIEW

Track List:
01. A Talk
02. French Kiss
03. Red
04. From Where to Where (w/ Yoseob)
05. Blacklist (ft. LE)

The vast majority of you reading this would know HyunA, but for those who don't here's a quick summary. She is a member of the K-Pop group 4minute,�has a string of hits, and is hot in the international scene. Known as much as for her image as her music, she has a pretty successful solo career. Now, she's dropped her third mini-album, 'A Talk.'

Album Review

The first track, as you might expect, is the intro track. "A Talk" is incredibly smooth. It starts as a honey-voiced, mid-tempo track and drops into HyunA's skillful raps. It has a R&B melody running behind it and sets the tone for the album nicely.

Moving on, the second track, "French Kiss," is pure K-Pop bliss. I'm going to give you some credit and assume you know what this song is about. With a brisk beat as well as insistent chattering of "Ay-ay-ay-ay-ays" and "do it-do it-do its," it's insanely catchy and hook-filled. To be perfectly honest, I would have used this as the title track. One of two songs on the album written by EXID's LE.

The third song,"Red," reminds me a lot of latin rhythms, and I'll admit, it didn't grab me the first time I heard it. The tune is apparently related to a South Korean kids' chant: "A monkey's butt is red. If it's red, then it's an apple. An apple is tasty. If it's tasty, then it's a banana..." In an interview, HyunA stated: "The color red is meaningful to me. It's a color that I liked since my debut...I get into a good mood when I look at the color red... I think this song was made for me."� I personally think the machine-gun raps in the middle help save it, although I think the chorus is a bit busy.� It's still a good, get-out-of-your-seat-and-dance track.

The next song is "From Where to Where," a ballad with B2ST's Yoseob about a bedroom encounter, asking where they go next. While HyunA's raps are good, I'm not much a fan at all of falsetto. HyunA sounds more masculine than Yoseob, and that's a weird thought. I like ballads when they are done right, but this one did little except annoy me. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

The last tune, "Blacklist," is 100% rap and sounds sleek and fierce with EDM accompaniment. LE not only helped pen the track but she also raps in it as well. Two sexy gals rapping on the same track; I can't imagine anything better.

This should be used as an example of the mini-album format. No instrumentals, no filler, just one solid song after another (okay, I don't like track 4, but no one's perfect). One quibble I have is that the tone of the album is a bit "meh." There are no playful tunes like "Bubble Pop" or a track with the sheer bad-assery of "Change." I don't want an artist to do the same music all the time, but I do want the current material to stand up to the old stuff. That being said, it's a good album, and the music is good, I just wanted her to "do it do it do it better."

MV REVIEW

What can I say that hasn't already been said?� There's a lot to look at, for one. Your eyes won't get bored because only a few seconds are spent on each scene. The outfits are nothing special and they achieve their intended purpose: to accentuate HyunA's obvious charms. I like the masks, though, and the monkeys, especially the one playing the drums.

The MV is rife with symbolism. Apples, monkeys, bananas, all references to the chant from which the song is derived. All of these with HyunA and her entourage dancing in sexy outfits.

To me it wasn't as much sexy as it was playful. I think HyunA does sexy effortlessly. And the video matches the tone of the song well -- playful, upbeat, not forced at all, and it just looks like they're having a good time. �

I could have done without the twerking, though. Make it original: make the monkey twerk.

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