Monday, February 23, 2015

Rainbow Black Swan MV Review


Second MV review of the year and it's a girl group! Who saw that coming? Not me that's for sure. I had forgotten that Rainbow was making a comeback so I was getting ready to put my VIXX hat on and while I haven't taken that hat off, that Rainbow hat is sitting on top at the moment.

I can't believe that it's almost March and I have hardly written anything yet, but none of the music that has been released thus far has appealed to me. I had high hopes for Amber's solo debut, but to be perfectly honest I didn't love "Shake That Brass". It wasn't bad, but it didn't grab my attention the way that I had hoped. "Beautiful" on the other hand was, well, beautiful. I much preferred that song to the former.



Back to Rainbow though, I actually really like Rainbow and I am not a girl group person at all. There are some groups that are okay and a few that I am a littler more interested in, but for the most part, they don't interest me. A female friend of mine who isn't much into girl groups either thinks it's because girls have nothing to offer us. This is true.

"Black Swan" is definitely a far cry from their last release of "Sunshine" which I also wrote a post about and wrote my own story about the "plot" of the the video. Everything from the sound to the filming is different and while I really like the song, I think that more could have been done with the video.


When I think of The Black Swan, of course that Natalie Portman movie comes to mind, but more than that, I think of good and evil and graceful movements and very paradoxical world that is trying to be two opposing things at once and those forces are tearing it apart at the seams. This video goes a little into that with the "crazy" shots, but it ends up being mostly glamour shots and butt shaking. There was nothing new or interesting about the butt shaking either, it is literally what every girl group does, angle your butt at the camera and then roll your hips while looking sensually at the audience. DSP could have done a cool ballet inspired dance with more grace and sensuality that wasn't as in your face as what they did.

The video itself had a lot of cool ideas though but none of them were used in an interesting way. They were all just a backdrop to the face shots of the girls. The "forest" set reminded me a little of VIXX's video "Hyde" and the dual personality angle that was used there and I wish that something like that had been done for this video. Those scribbles that appeared in the video also reminded me of "Hyde" and it does make me a little sad that such a fun concept was wasted.

The room with the mirror was also a good idea and the girls could have looked in the mirror and then looked away but their reflection stayed and stared at them with some sinister look. I'm not sure how I feel about the chair in the puddle though.


Man, rereading what I have written makes me feel really mean, but for me, there is nothing interesting about this video. But it's okay because at the end of the day if I decide to spend money on Rainbow I am buying the song, not the video and I do really like the song especially the chorus. I was already bopping along to the verse and when there was that break before the chorus I figured that we would either keep with the beat or whiplash would occur and I am glad to say that this song didn't give me whiplash. I'm also not always a fan of high nasally voices, but I think that it works with this song because the synth in the background is a little whiny itself.

One thing that I did notice about the song it the gross imbalance of singing parts. It doesn't bother as much as it would a "true" fan of Rainbow, but dang are the only members in the group who can sing Jaekyung, Ji Sook, and Hyun Young? I guess there was another girl in the chorus too but I don't know what her name is. For the first minute of the video you would think that Rainbow was a two woman group with five backup dancers.

The last thing I want to know is what scary thing is behind that wall with the hole? Apparently it is pretty nasty because all the girls recoiled in horror after taking their peek. I really wish I could make some connection to the story I wrote for the A-Jax "Insane" post but there isn't anything here to work with! Maybe after the A-Jax boys got out of the hospital they retaliated on Rainbow. I wish this video was more interesting!


So, overall; video: boring; song: I like it! Since Rainbow did a complete 180 in the concept department I wonder if they will stay with this for a while or not? Speaking of 180-ing your concept, it's time for VIXX! Woo~

~ Alora

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