Sunday 28 February 2016

Korean Music Recommendations - Non-idols (Part 2)

Been 8 months since my last music recommendations post! I keep wanting to do an idol version but I'm just so busy (and lazy) all the time.

I'm on a 1 week break now, after which it'll be 3.5 months before my finals. Sounds like a long time but it's actually really near.
I haven't been watching much dramas either because I had an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) test in January, and then Chinese New Year celebrations in February and an Anatomy Spot Test just recently. It's been a very busy couple of weeks. And I've been hooked on Produce 101 lol! Started watching for Kahi, but it's really quite entertaining and addictive. Will do a post on it when it ends in April.

Urban Zakapa is a 3 membered co-ed group consisting of 2 guys and 1 lady. They're friends with a couple of my favourite idols like Yubin (Wonder Girls) and Moon HyunA (Nine Muses). Jo Hyuna even did a collab with Yubin for the Unpretty Rapstar 2 finals! The song is called Who Am I and it's worth checking out.
Get featuring Beenzino is my favourite song from them. It's just so chill and perfect for playing on repeat all day long. The MV is also really aesthetically pleasing!

I shall talk about the 2 indie bands that I mentioned in my previous post.

Standing Egg...honestly I don't know anything about them other than their music. Their members are unknown and they use an egg to represent themselves LOL. But who cares when they have amazing music!
Because You're Pretty is a song I chanced upon while watching a fanmade video. This is the really cute MV starring the ever handsome Yoo Yeon Seok (loveeeee him. Chilbong forever.) and Son Dambi. Another song great for putting in the background while studying.

Dear Cloud is another of my favourite indie bands. The most prominent member of the group is the lead vocalist Nine, who has one of the unique voices in a female singer in Korea.
They have sung a couple of OSTs like Remember for I Remember You and Liar and Liar Game so they may not be unfamiliar to drama watchers. 
They were on the show called Band Generation and the 2 performances below are AMAZING.

This emotional performance of One Million Roses gets me every time.

The energy in this performance of Running in the Sky is just insane! What I would give to see them perform live....

Of their own songs, Ice Fortress is my favourite.

Moving on to solo artists, DEAN has been steadily gaining fans with his smooth vocals and songs. This guy is really talented and wrote a couple of songs for EXO too. I loved Pour Up, his collab with Zico. The MV was super pleasing on the eyes too.

Watching Unpretty Rapstar 2 also made me discover Microdot, who is a dope rapper and the brother of Sanchez, lead vocalist of Phantom (which is also an awesome group).
Celebrate is his latest release and features his brother and 2 other rappers, The Quiett and Babylon. Love it!

And lastly, my favourite, Jung Joon Young, released a new song a few days ago called Sympathy. I usually don't care for super long MVs but this is worth watching for the heartbreaking storyline and beautiful locale shots of Hong Kong. The song is a ballad but it's the opposite of boring because his voice is laden with emotion. I guess it really makes a difference when you write your own songs.