Keys to Everything

1. Intro
2. With U
3. Baby Baby
4. This Love
5. Mad About You
6. We Belong Together
7. Shake It
8. My Girl (Japanese Version)

I wrote up until We Belong Together ages ago, but that was when my motivation had all but disappeared. But I’m finishing it now. Reading it back I realise that bits of it are a little fangirly and I apologise but Big Bang are one of my favourite groups… just keep with me.

We begin with the Intro which just sets up the tone of the album well. Even though I may not have expressed this before, but sometimes I find the ‘gangsta’ English a little irritating and sometimes just plain funny but I can overlook that because despite the lyrics being a little laughable, at least they’re pronounced mostly correctly.

Track Rating; (Pointless)

Ooooookaaaay….. With U is just plain hot. There is no other way to describe it. I absolutely adore the opening ‘oh’s and the transition into the main melody is a little weird but it still works. Here you notice that their English has gotten better (!) but Daesung does suffer from an unfortunate case of Malicious Consonants XD This track is just plain solid, the synth adds so much to the feel and strengthens the tracks immensely. It’s fundamentally TaeYang’s song as he gets the majority of the solo lines (and rocks them) but with Big Bang, it’s impossible to forget about everyone else as they each put in strong performances with whatever they have to work with. The first few times I listened to With U I felt that the raps-that-aren’t-really-raps were a little out of place and felt a bit pointless but after a while I got used to them. If you hadn’t guessed, I love this song.

Track Rating; A*

And the English version of Last Farewell entitled Baby Baby. I must admit that Last Farewell suffered my ‘OMG I love the track before it’ syndrome, so I’ve pretty much always looked over it. Anyway, I always seem to find myself saying ‘Big Bang is back, most definitely’ for no reason now, just like ‘I love you more, more’ from Lies. Initially I didn’t have very strong feelings for this track, but now I adore it. The pace is ridiculous and when the chorus comes in at the beginning it always takes me a second for it to sit well with me. The rap sections are plain ♥

Track Rating; A+

Sampling and completely messing about with Maroon 5’s This Love, a song I was obssessed with for about a year, I remember the first time I listened to the original (mostly) Korean version I was really impressed with how GD took what is probably Maroon 5’s most identifiable song and threw it into a completely different genre. For all of three seconds I was considering summarising the plot of the song… but a lot is said in the song, all in totally understandable English, so I’m not going to try. One negative thing I do have to say about this is what the heck is up with the ending?

Track Rating; B+

Oh, I love this song! Mad About You is the first time I’ve heard Big Bang sing in Japanese and I think it’s brilliant. After With U it’s probably the second most listened to track on my MP3 mainly because I adore the vocals during the chorus, even though I found them a bit funny to begin with, but probably the biggest reason is because I realised how goddamn much I love TOP’s voice. Nothing is out of place here even though I still find some of the falsetto adlibbing amusing. Also, thanks to this I have a new favourite word… Beauti-damn-ful XD

Track Rating; A+

We Belong Together is another display of the -take a western song and turn it on its head- process that GD is so adept at. I adore Park Bom’s voice and the chorus kills me every time. I love the raps and the fact that the song resembles its namesake in no real way.  Some of the lyrics are a bit laughable and then others have a flow and intelligence that saves the problematic parts. I think that the only weakness with this song is that it’s not for those who don’t particularly enjoy rap. Though the rap is rather melodic.

Track Rating; A

Shake It is the only song that has Korean in it. Shake It is one of my favourite Big Bang songs. Period. The dance elements and addictive, memorable lines along with the vocals performances have always kept this high up in the list (It’s a long list.) The synth that’s used consistantly throughout make this an incredibly recognisable song too.

Track Rating; A+

And finally TaeYang’s legendary solo; My Girl. But instead of being an English version… this one’s Japanese. And I say ‘Well done’. Because, despite a bit of mispronouciation (which I’m proud of myself for picking up), this is very well done. My Girl was always my favourite solo so to get another version was icing on the cake for this album. Unsurprisingly, TOP and GD rap in English but we knew they can do that already.

Track Rating; A-

Overall… There was next to no possibility of me not liking/loving this. Each song has its strengths and weaknesses (though I am blind to some of those) but each is presented and performed well. The only difficulty I can see is that the styles of music are not completely universal and could pose a problem to casual listeners or those who are sort of interested. I just wish that it could be full-length rather than mini.

Mini-album Rating; A+