Now isn’t this cute: G-Dragon, T.O.P. and Park Bom together again after, what, 4 years since their first collabo? I personally love “Forever With You“, far more than 2010′s “Oh Yeah“, but times have changed and so has the group’s style, so what we’ve ended up with is a sweet and reinvented take on their signature singles…featuring Bom, of course.
Bom is the go-to girl for features because that’s all she’s good for, to be quite honest. I love her dearly. She has an adorable personality and there’s something unique about the color of her voice, but the thing is that it’s so potent and loud that as much as I’d like her to sing more, she’s not cut out to carry as much as a full verse on her own. At least not now, anyway.
Sure, she took on a whole song by herself (“You & I”), but that was a freak accident gone right. At one point, I would have been convinced that she was well capable of pulling off anything, such as that really nice cover of “Anystar” by Lee Hyori, where she proved that there is indeed a head-voice in her, along with a nice and resonant chest voice.
In the past year, however, Bom has ditched all the sweet subtleties in her vocals and resorted to singing as loud as humanly possible and hitting high notes left and right because she, as I’ve observed, has lost her grip on the low ones (LINK).
And, apparently, she’s gotten herself stuck in this really ‘gobble-y’ area of her voice (LINK) that she can’t seem to paddle out of. This is stretching it, but her voice reminds me of Beyonce‘s when she sings the chorus of “If I Were a Boy“, except it’s obvious that the Queen Bee has tons of technique and therefore she doesn’t pierce through your speakers as uncomfortably as Bom (LINK). It’s a lack of control and breathing, I think.
For me, she’s like a sack of candy: I can only handle very small portions of it at a time and I believe Teddy and the YG producers feel the same way. That’s why she only gets the choruses now and has vanished from the middle 8s. Not convinced? Listen to 2NE1‘s 1st mini album and the new songs on “To Anyone” and you’ll notice that she has been allowed a total of zero ad-libs in the newest material. Why? Because she’s become too piercing for comfort. That, and she’d throw off the rest of the maddening electronic elements that Teddy is addicted to.
With the cons come the pros, though. Like I mentioned, Bom is the one voice people like to go to for features. That’s why I think I like her timbre. Because it works with everything, she manages to take average songs to new heights (i.e. several 2NE1 songs) just by briefly opening her mouth.
Big Bang seems to agree: (LINK) (LINK).
Speaking of Big Bang, G-Dragon and T.O.P. performed “High High” and “Oh Yeah” for the first time last week, and what can I say – the guys have been together for a helluva long time and have developed an amazing chemistry on stage. They’re so experienced, that both of these gangsters can stand still on stage and own it all the same. That kind of presence takes years to develop and it’s a damn joy to finally see it again.
Ooooh controversial. I do somewhat agree with your opinion of dear Bommie though. She doesn’t do subtle.
I agree with you to some extent. I think Bom can kind of be overpowering in huge doses, but I wonder if her getting to this point is entirely her fault? Seeing her sing in the recording studio on YG Live… it just seemed like she keeps getting coached to sing the way she does now. Who knows though! I love her feature and think it works fabulously. “High High” and “Oh Yeah” are really fun songs and I’m enjoying GTOP’s album a lot.
I agree with you on Bom’s overpowering vocals and her limitations. I saw 2ne1′s “stay together” live they had on a radio program where Bom obviously struggled to hit the high notes under pressure rather than delivering the emotions of the song properly as an artist.
I used to have the same kind of impression on T(Yoon Mirae) when she was younger, and thought
T was like competing in a sports competition under the motto of “singing louder, stronger, higher,” which bothered me a lot. As time went by, though, T managed to learn how to control her vocals better, and I hope that Bom also could do it.