[Single and MV Review] Shannon - 'Daybreak Rain'

AKP STAFF

SHANNON - "DAYBREAK RAIN"

British-born idol singer Shannon has dropped her newest single. She's done more than a few performances, has released a couple single albums, was on SBS's�'Star King,' and was almost a member of F-ve Dolls (except that she wanted to be a solo artist instead). "Daybreak Rain" is her official debut single.

The track is primarily acoustic-guitar driven, a slow ballad that talks about losing her lover. Like most songs of this type, it's soulfully sung with sustains and highs that characterize the emotions we're supposed to feel. While it starts out a bit spare, the dance-tempo beats drop at 1:46, which actually makes this song interesting rather than sleep-inducing.�

Also, the lyrics are fairly poetic with some nice imagery. "Wake up the morning rain" and "Tomorrow will forget" are interesting and varied and tend to make a song more, well, song-like. I want to hear interesting things, to think about things in a new way. "I love you, I miss you, I'm crying" gets old. Describe how your pain feels. This song does that well.

I was a bit ambivalent until about halfway through. Anyone who's been following my reviews knows that ballads do little for me. This is one of the exceptions. I expect to see great things from Shannon in the future. �

MV REVIEW

The MV starts off innocuously enough. She's driving a nice car through the rain. She gets out and starts singing. There's no plot, but there's plenty of imagery.

Instead of a plot-driven video or even a symbolic one, we have a series of shots that tend to complement the lyrics in various ways without being a slave to them. In one shot, she's standing next to a pillar with the various ways to say the syllables that make up "real eyes" and morphing them into different words. In many scenes, she's soulfully singing in the rain. There's even a spot where a neon sign is shown: "I know you're coming back."

The video moves along at a nice clip, never lingering on one scene long enough for me to get bored, which is nice. It makes good use of its limited scenery and combines different camera angles, lighting, and dance moves to help keep interest.

This MV is nice and respectful to our 16-year-old singer. It's pretty impressive despite the fact that there's really nothing going on and it doesn't move into a different room. Kudos go to the director, the storyboard artist, and the cinematographer.