I don’t know why it took me so long to type up a review of this album.  Maybe I was waiting for my hard copy to arrive or perhaps I’d been too busy enjoying it to even think about writing anything, but finally, I sat my ass down this week to deliver my first review of the new year.  Woot, woot!

First thing’s first: I-love-this-album. Mainly because it captures just about everything I enjoy listening to from the YG Headquarters.  We’ve got quirks.  We’ve got killer beats.  And to top it off, we’ve got awesome vocal performances from GD, TOP and, yes, even miss Bom herself has satisfied my appetite with her contribution to this heartwarming release.

The biggest surprise was hearing this rap duo venture into styles I hadn’t heard them in before, i.e. pop-rock, disco, etc.  And while they step in and out of styles throughout the album, they still maintained a strong sense of cohesion between the songs (excluding one, which I’ll get to in a sec).  Something, I think, that other big companies like SM Entertainment struggled to deliver last year.  The only real album which stood on its own as a strong pop package was SHINee‘s 2nd Album, “Lucifer“.  Others, like Super Junior‘s “Bonamana” and SNSD‘s “Hoot” EP failed to make any sense to me in comparison, so hearing songs on the same album actually blend well, makes me happy.

“GD&TOP Vol. 1” opens with a gratuitous hip-hop intro.  It’s very much YG and I wouldn’t expect anything less from these two, especially when they live and breathe hip hop.  They’re the only few mainstream artists who surrounded themselves with the style and culture day in and day out, which also sets them apart from the herd.  Listening to this, though, almost makes me want to press pause and look for a 1TYM song to really amp up the feel-good vibes the album greets us with.

Song number 2 (High High) kicks in and it hooks you right in with the electro-pop goodness that has become synonymous with performers like G-Dragon and 2NE1.   The production is amazing.  Even if I beg for a ‘better’ chorus, the whole thing still catches my attention and warrants only praise for how well it’s been put together.  I mean, I could stop right there if I wanted to because I can say the same thing about the rest of the album.  From the Intro down to “Turn It Up“; it’s obvious these two put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their work and to know that they pretty much wrote the whole thing themselves escalates my respect for them as artists and YG for allowing them the liberty to do so.

One of my favorite songs on this album is “집에 가지마” and I’m so glad GD nixed Bom from singing the chorus because she just doesn’t have the control to carry the ‘elegance’ of this song with her overpowering voice.  She sounds great on “Oh Yeah“, but here, GD and TOP were clearly going for another style, something softer and delicate.  Which I think they achieved, not to mention their modern approach to disco that came out sounding amazing on the final mix.

One thing I have to point out is TOP’s singing.  TOP?  Singing?  Uh, yeah.  He at least attempts to do it on one of these songs (Oh Mom) and all I have to say is valiant effort.  I know it, you know it, HE knows it – the man can’t sing.  I mean, he CAN, but not well enough to be called a singer.  Personally, I’m not a fan of listening to TOP’s voice for more than 30 seconds at a time, so it goes to show how much I enjoyed him on this song.  What saves it though, surprisingly, is the auto tune.  HA!  Yeah, my thing with it is that if it’s done right and kept to a minimum, I’ve got no problem with it.  And thank goodness, because it worked in his favor during the verses.  I’ve heard TOP ‘sing’ without it, and uh, let’s just say it is not the best listening experience in the world.  (WE AWR DA WURRR, anyone?)  Another thing that saves the song is, well, everything else!  The rock elements are nice.

My least favorite track?  Probably “어쩌란 말이냐?”.  I just don’t get it.  I got the same feelings listening to this as I got when I first sat through Girls Aloud‘s “Out Of Control” album and “Live In The Country” kicked in. Long story short, I had my ‘seriously-wtf?’ face on every second of the song.  It’s a one of these is not like the others scenario for me.  I mean, it’s almost like a song for a children’s rodeo talent show or something.  I don’t even know.  I don’t hate the song, let that be known, but how it fits in with the playboy bunny/gigolo concept is beyond me.

The album in its entirety is worth the 39 minutes you’ll spend listening to it; it’s playful, fresh and full of swag.  If anything, it sets up a perfect idea of the quality there is to come when Big Bang drop their 2011 album.

Thoughts?