Mamamoo: Is it time for good music again?
Over the past two years, a lot of soloists and girl/boy groups debuted, that it’s weird to not remember any. Why is that? Because they’re all so similar, except for the different –and surprisingly amazing- fresh sounds of Akdong Musician, for example, or as they’re known now as “AKMU”. The point is, besides the occasional different concepts here and there, recently all groups have become one, and not in a good way. So amidst all that auto-tuning and groups debuting obviously before it’s their time, there are certain four girls I’m really looking forward to.
Mamamoo – oozing with confidence.
Talk about character here, I mean blasting full-of-confidence characters, it’s hard to see these girls as mere rookies. There are some “veteran” singers out there who don’t possess half of that sass, girls. Now to basics, Mamamoo is supposedly working under the management of WA Entertainment, along with some big shot names like IU and Sunny Hill. The group consists of four members, their stage names go as follows: Solar, Moon Byul, Whee In, and Wha Sa.
Now back to their music, the girls started doing a couple of pre-debut projects with well-known names like Geeks in “Hi Hi Ha He Ho”, K.Will in “Peppermint Chocolate”, and Bumkey in “Don’t be Happy”. They even did some impressive covers of songs like Lloyd’s “Lay it Down” and Chrisette Michele’s “Love is You”, and already established themselves as more than just a visual group. Before making their official debut with “Mr. Ambiguous” one of the title tracks from their first mini album ‘Hello’.
Now we’ve got some talking to do about that debut song, the song itself is really fresh, you can hear some R&B, some jazz, and it still has that feel of old pop, and original kpop which we’ve been missing these days, there’s even rap there. The music video, on the other hand, features a bunch of super mega stars that it’s hard to miss it, there’s K.Will, Wheesung, Baek Ji Young, CNBLUE’s Jonghyun, Bumkey, Rhymer, and Jung Joon Young. I mean, talk about propaganda, these girls already established themselves a big fanbase before going live, we just hope that not being part of the big 3 entertainment companies wouldn’t affect their chances.
Their concept? None! That’s right, they’re not being sugary cute and they’re not being over-the-top sexy either, they’re just four confident women giving their best performances, with no acting whatsoever, they can wear suits and all, and still draw you in. They prove that they’re more than just some eye-candy, besides having the voice, they have the skills. They write and compose their own music as well.
In the three videos they’ve released so far, we can see some similarities, the focus on their singing abilities is great, there’s a lot of black and white going on there, and they can dance. In “Don’t be Happy” there’s this iconic phone dance, with contrasting backgrounds which surely takes the boredom of black and white away, the music video ends with a little jazz dance, during which we are introduced to the girls’ names.
Following that in “Peppermint Chocolate”, they’re back with suits and fancy clothes walking the catwalk and looking effortlessly sexy, and typical black and white background mixed with a retro feeling, which we get to see more of in “Mr. Ambiguous”, in which we see more retro clothes and accessories, with the big hat and mini dresses.
Their voices are unique, whether was it powerful confident rapping, husky voices, or sweet powerful melodic voice, they’ve got it all. I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say I can’t wait to see them perform live.
If you want to check some Mamamoo goodness, be sure to check the links below:
“Mr. Ambiguous”
“Peppermint Chocolate”
“Don’t be Happy”
“Hi Hi Ha He Ho”