B2ST | BEAST

Haven't done a music feature in awhile, so figured it was about time for another one. Tonight, we're going with B2ST, also known as BEAST. (Apparently the former stands for "Boys to Search for the Top", while the latter is an acronym for "Boys of the East Standing Tall". Where did the "A" go? Although as it is, you could also say it looks like "BEST" ;) Which fits, because their first [mini?]album is titled Beast is the B2ST.) They're a South Korean band that debuted on October 14th, 2009 under Cube Entertainment.

I'll admit - the first time I'd seen their first single Bad Girl I hadn't been particularly impressed. In fact, I think I started out favouring MBLAQ, which I've featured back in November. But then their music grew on me. They're a pretty slick, pretty suave group. Live performances are pretty sick, and the vocals of some of the members are fairly amazing.

Plus Yo Seob kind of reminds of an adorable little monkey ;) I've got a soft spot for monkeys, what with being born in the year of the monkey and all. Basically, the entire group is pretty awesome. The members are: Doo Joon, Hyun Seung, Jun Hyung, Yo Seob, Gi Kwang (AJ), and Dong Woon.

Recently they've released a second EP, Shock of the New Era. Promotions of this started out with Shock, which is a pretty decent song. A few days ago, however, they released the MV (music video) for another song off of that album - Say No (Take Care of My Girlfriend) - and I must say, it's pretty beautiful. There's something very simplistic about the video, the muted, almost b/w tones, the raw emotion of the aching ballad. The vocals are pretty epic on it as well.

So in any case, I'll leave you guys off with the music video for Say No (with English subtitles, of course ;)

MBLAQ

By the looks of it, music is turning into a bit of a regular fixture on Lucid Conspiracy - but it's all good. Today I want to hype a fairly new Korean band, MBLAQ. (The peak of my infatuation with them was probably about a month ago now, as people who know in person have heard about ceaselessly ;) Kind of wearing off now, but they're still awesome, so I figured I'd share regardless.)

MBLAQ stands for Music Boys Live in Absolute Quality - and you gotta admit, it's a pretty cool acronym. The members consist of (clockwise from top left) Thunder (who is 2NE1's Sandara Park's younger brother), Mir, G.O., Joon, and Seung Ho.

From the release of their mini album Just BLAQ and their already sky-rocketing fame and reality tv shows, these boys are going to be pretty huge. Plus, by the looks of live recordings on Youtube, they seem pretty decent live too, which is always crucial.

Their first song I was exposed to is Oh Yeah, which is really catchy. (And Lee Joon has one of the most adorable smiles ever in it!) It's weird, the whole translation factor takes on a whole new meaning. After listening/watching the video numerous times and finally seeing the translated lyrics a week later, it definitely wasn't what I would've expected.

From interviews and shows, etc. overall they just seem like a pretty fun group of people! And considering that they're under Rain's umbrella, it seems reasonable to expect great things from them in the upcoming days. I'll leave you guys off with videos of Oh Yeah and GOOD Luv. Thoughts?