Best of Weekly Music Shows: 9/23 - 9/29

Welcome to another Best of Weekly Music Shows! This week sees comebacks from the likes of F.T Island and Secret’s Song Jieun, as well as popular returning acts such as KARA, Teen Top, BTOB, Navi, Spica, Nu’est and G-Dragon. Without further ado, these are our highlight performances of the week!

Navi‘s “I Ain’t Going Home Tonight”, KBS Music Bank, Friday the 27th of September

Navi probably has one of my favourite voices in K-pop. It’s very matured and practiced, but still sweetly feminine and young. Her singing is practically effortless, she’s one of those artists that’s just made to sing. Navi has been styled so nicely for these performances thus far, and although the song isn’t particularly innovative and isn’t the greatest Navi could do with her voice, it’s upbeat and catchy and yes, Navi’s voice can make anything sound fairly amazing.

Soyu and Mad Clown‘s “Stupid In Love”, KBS Music Bank, Friday the 27th of September

It’s pretty hard to go wrong with a hip hop ballad, so it’s not surprising that “Stupid In Love” is a plenty good song. It’s just so pretty and sad, and it’s the kind of song that really works with a softer and smooth voice like Soyu’s. Mad Clown’s rapping is essentially identical live and recorded, which is always a good sign, but he needs to work on his charisma on stage and freeing the way he moves. Soyu’s voice, although not as empowered as Hyorin’s, sounds heartbreakingly whimsical on this song.

Hyoyeon, Kai, and Lay dancing to “Centipede” and “COCO”, Mnet’s Dancing 9, Saturday the 28th of September

To contest those who claim that Hyoyeon is simply an “average” dancer within K-pop, this video is further proof what Hyoyeon can do when she’s given  choreography with other great dancers who don’t make it look like she’s doing “too much”. Though I’m not a huge fan of the song choice, the choreography is hot and technical and really, who’d pass up a chance to see a performance with these 3? Kai and Hyoyeon are just stand outs, and although Lay does the choreography all it’s justice, he just needs a better stare when he’s performing.

Jieun‘s False Hope, MBC Music Core, Saturday the 28th of September

The stage production and styling for Jieun’s Music Core performance of “False Hope” is so so so classy, that it makes me kind of jealous. Jieun’s endeavours as a soloist is probably one of the more successful stories when it comes to idols going solo while their own band is still active. “False Hope” is superior to most of Secret’s recent releases, and it really works well with Jieun’s thin and feminine timbre. It’s very subdued and self effacing, and considering that no one is Secret really has that “wow factor” to carry a song on sheerly their stage presence, unassuming is precisely what works with Jieun as a soloist.

G-Dragon‘s R.O.D (ft. CL), SBS Inkigayo, Sunday the 29th of September

Originally sung by Lydia Paek, CL does the song more than justice, especially considering that hearing her proper singing voice is such a rarity nowadays (also, she sounds extremely similar to Lydia anyway). R.O.D was a fan favourite track, and definitely one of the stronger tracks on Coup D’Etat. CL and G-Dragon have great chemistry together on stage, the kind of ride and die chemistry a song like this asks for. CL looked damn fine on stage, G-Dragon will dress like G-Dragon does, but still swag it up better than most of the idols out there.

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