안녕하세요 K-entertainment lovers,
Have you ever had a bad break up or left something unsaid with your significant other? Have you felt the emptiness without his or her presence? If both answers to the questions above are “yes”, then I have got the perfect song for you. MADTOWN just recently came back with their new mini album featuring the title track, “Emptiness”, which they hope everyone with a broken heart will relate to very well. Let’s see if they achieved that!
Before getting into the song, a little background on MADTOWN. They debuted in October of 2014 under J. Tube Camp, which is most notably known as the home of legendary boy group MBLAQ. Their debut garnered a lot of attention due to the numerous K-pop stars, such as g.o.d, SISTAR, VIXX, BTS, and Dynamic Duo, showing up in their teasers. The group is famous for their trap, hip-hop sound but returns this time with a more sentimental and emotional sound. We can’t wait to see how they do exploring this new style!
Song Review:
This song starts with a very nice acoustic guitar at the beginning which leads into the drums very well. The sound of the drums is very prominent but sets the pace of the song perfectly. It was amazing how the producers hid the sound of the piano between all these instruments and somehow still made it flow with the melody of the song. The small use of synthesizers makes a high pitch sound in the rap part which balances out the sound of the song. The fluctuations between the amounts of bass that are applied throughout the song is a welcoming sight as it creates the feeling of the song just floating in and out of your ears. The production on this song was cleverly thought-out and we hope to hear more of this sound in MADTOWN’s future releases.
The emphasis of this song, I think, is the vocals of the group. We start off with Moos’s deep vocals which fit perfectly with the theme of heartbreak, as he sounds like he’s longing for someone. We then move up an octave to where Heojun is with his clear yet emotional voice. Then we have Daewon’s nasal but raspy voice which complements Heojun’s clear voice very well. We get to hear the combination of Lee Geon and Jota next. Here, the vocals of Jota really surprised me because in the previous releases, we got to see a lot of his rap skills but haven’t explored his vocal range. In this song, we can see how talented Jota is at singing and hope to see more of this in the future. Buffy’s slow rap of emotions fits very well with H.O’s clear deep voice and completes the feeling of the song. The boys give up their tough image here and show how sentimental they can be. The harmonization of the vocals has also been done very well to showcase the talents of the group. A very nice change for MADTOWN and hope they show this style more often in the future!
Song Rating: 8/10
MV Review:
As you can guess from the title of the song, the color use in this video was very minimal. The theme of break-up is very prominent which was shown through the use of special effects. The silhouette of Jota at the beginning had such a deep meaning. Even if you watch the video and read the lyrics, especially around the 1:12-1:18 mark, the lyrics hold such a sad and painful message that everybody who has had a break-up with someone they really care about would understand. The cinematography on this video was also done really well thanks to the motion cameras that capture each of the members’ sadness in different angles. Thanks to that, the sadness seems to be multiplied by ten folds (This song is good, but bringing back some memories for me 😢😢). Overall, nothing to complain about, a very solid K-pop music video from a solid group!
MV Rating: 9/10
This post was written by our guest blogger, Hallyu Dongsaeng.
