[OLD] Song of the Week: U & I - Ailee

This week I realized that up until this point I have only been focusing on songs by boy bands or single male artists.  I'm going to rectify that this week by choosing a song by possibly my favorite single female artist in all of K-pop.  Her name is Ailee and she's awesome.  She's beautiful, has an AMAZING voice (she's been dubbed the Korean Beyonce; she not only sounds almost identical in the timbre and tone of her voice, with the right hair she also looks a heck of a lot like Beyonce), and she can dance pretty well too.  The song I'm focusing on is her latest music video entitled U & I.  It's pretty cool all by itself, but I'll get to that later.

Below are the lyrics*:

Wait a minute, wait a minute, sorry for interrupting but
Why are you saying the same things over and over again?
One of us has to say it first
Let's just end it here
I want to stop fighting now
There's not a day where we just let things go
My days have no meaning now
I don't smile even for one minute or one second
I can't do this anymore, I want to tell you today

I don't want to care where you are or what you do
Whether you leave or not, do whatever you want
The same thing repeats every day, U & I, U & I, U & I

Wait a minute, wait a minute, will you get off of me?
Why are you doing this, let go of my hand
Even after hearing it several times, your words are all the same
Tired of all your lies and excuses, now just get out my face
We can't turn things back to how it was before
We became worse than strangers, we became burdens to each other
Besides you I have no one else
But I don't care anymore, I just wanna tell you

I don't want to care where you are or what you do
Whether you leave or not, do whatever you want
The same thing repeats every day, U & I, U & I, U & I

You may think I'll be crying here where you left me
But I'm alright because it won't happen again
You and I, it's over now

I don't want to care where you are or what you do
Whether you leave or not, do whatever you want
The same thing repeats every day, U & I, U & I, U & I

So, in case any of you may be unfamiliar with this, there are in fact four types of K-pop.  They are: "We're so in love, let's be together forever"; "I'm so in love with you, but you hate me"; "You're so in love with me, but I hate you"; and lastly, the type that has nothing to do with romance whatsoever.  Ninety-five percent of K-pop can be broken down into these categories, with some variation of course.

So why do I bring this up?  I mention this because this song is of the third variety - the "You're so in love with me, but I hate you" variety.  This brings up something about this style that I think is worth saying: Ailee is very good at this kind of music.  She has a strong voice and this kind of big-band-ish crossed with Broadway style music is wonderful for her.

The music video is also something interesting.  Like I said before, the music is very much like a Broadway musical number crossed with a big-band-ish sort of feel.  The music video fits that perfectly.  It's done in a very Broadway-esque style with lots of dancers in cool outfits and a lot of sparkly stuff.  Aside from the numerous sets and different costumes though, there really isn't a whole lot to this music video, which is not really a bad thing.  The focus should be on the song and the person singing it, and oh, boy, do they do a good job of that.

So all in all, cool flashy music video, awesome song, REALLY awesome singer...I think this one has everything a K-pop fan could ever want.  Well, everything except the obligatory hot shirtless guy.  I guess I can't always have it my way.

*Translation may not be 100% accurate.  Don't fault me; I don't speak Korean.
Translation credited to pop!gasa