2015 mix CD, part two

As anticipated, the second 2015 mix CD (of my vanity project of creating mix CDs for every year I've been alive) wasn't easy to put together. The first CD came together surprisingly fast and easily, and that probably caused most of the difficulty with the second disc. My satisfaction with it locked in the track list and didn't give me flexibility to move things around between the two discs. 

So that's how not to make a double-disc mix. Collecting songs for 2016, I am already playing with song order, but I'm doing both discs simultaneously to avoid limiting options later.

I found it hard recognizing the segues, which shouldn't be hard. Also elusive was identifying placing of songs, either beginning, middle or end, which also shouldn't be hard. Probably a case of thinking too much.

This mix largely came together by finding two or three song segues by similar type and then jigsaw puzzling them together in a way that flowed. In the end, the final track list does succeed with satisfactory segues and song placings that I hadn't been able to see initially.

The biggest thorns were finding the opener and closer. There was a parade of songs that became final candidates for those positions, only to be ultimately rejected; almost all of them having not been considered for the mix at all, and then not staying on the mix when rejected.

2015 mix CD, part two:

1. Warm Hole (Brown Eyed Girls)
2. Drama (Nine Muses)
3. Joker (Dal Shabet)

4. Not an Easy Girl (Lizzie (After School))
5. Twenty-Three (IU)
6. Radio (Baechigi) (audio only)
7. Don't Be Such a Baby (Sistar)
8. Just for One Day (JeA (Brown Eyed Girls))
9. Oh Boy (Red Velvet) (lyric video) (official audio)
10. Traveler (f(x)) (lyric video) (official audio)

11. Like Ooh-Ahh (Twice) (full stage camcorder)
12. Vibrato (Stellar)
13. Sorry (Park Bo Ram)
14. Please Just Go (feat. Whee In (Mamamoo)) (Louie (Geeks)) (lyric video) (audio only)
15. I'm Ill (Hello Venus)
16. Five More Minutes (Hyosung (Secret)) (audio only)
17. Dice Play (Brown Eyed Girls) (official audio)
18. Don't U Wait No More (Red Velvet) (official audio) (music students react)
19. Skip (Tahiti)
20. You and Me (Kisum)
21. Give It a Little Shake (High Soul x KissN)
22. Sleepless Night (Nine Muses)
23. Can You Feel It? (feat. Youngji (Kara)) (Goo Hara (Kara))
24. Only You (miss A)

2015 mix CD, part one (audio files uploaded for zip download)


The Brown Eyed Girls opener was originally much further down the list, but when I realized as good of an album as they released in late 2015, there should be two tracks by them. I had overlooked that since I had already included two solo tracks by Brown Eyed Girls members.

Once I included a second BEG track, "Warm Hole" became a candidate to open, and it worked perfectly with its silly, sexually suggestive lyrics and brass flourishes which segued well with the Nine Muses song. I did want the Nine Muses song to be the second song, but such were the troubles finding an opening track it was considered for the opener many times.

Red Velvet has been around for a couple years with much hype and huge fandom surrounding them because of the agency they're under, SM Entertainment; one of the "Big 3" South Korean agencies. Sometimes I wonder whether these fans are a cult of personality surrounding the agency and become fans just because of the agency. They seem to be fans before they've heard a single note from the group (granted it's a safe bet that anything from a Big 3 agency will at least be high quality and whether one likes it or not will be a matter of taste).

Their debut track "Happiness", in particular the way they pronounced it, made me realize you can't spell happiness without "penis". That's not in their favor. How would you react if someone wished for your good fortune and hapPENIS? I hope that one day you'll find hapPENIS.

Their follow-up also did not impress, but they did release an amazing cover song which kept my mind open to their talent. So when they released an EP last summer when I was in New Jersey, I didn't pay much attention, especially with the slow internet there. It was only when I got back to Taiwan and caught their promotion on a TV show that I took notice.

That song became a candidate for the mix, but as catchy as it was, I thought a lot of appeal was in the energetic performance than just the song. I am very impressed by their vocals, though. They have serious pitch control and can swing phrases like jazz legends of old, and can handle bizarre and jazzy intervals and make it sound easy. The two tracks I finally chose showcase their monster vocal chops. 

There's nothing special about miss A's "Only You" as a closer. It's simply acceptable as the last track without calling attention to it being the closer. That's not a problem, plenty of closers on these mixes are probably like that. I'm probably just thinking too much.

Originally an EXID song of equal non-notability closed, but I've been having a bit of EXID burn-out. The story of EXID's 2014 track "Up & Down" is practically legend in K-pop circles. It was released and promoted in the summer of 2014 and apparently didn't draw much attention.

I've long been an EXID fan (although not so long as to when three Bestie members were a part of the group's debut), and I thought the song was great and assumed that it was a hit and did well. But apparently that's not what the metrics indicated and the group and agency considered it disappointing.

Then a little later after the main TV promotions for the song were over, a fan filmed a performance focusing just on member Hani and posted it on the internet and the video went viral. It sent the song up the charts and the group began a second round of TV promotions at year's end and they even got their coveted and deserved number ones.

It was unprecedented. Quite honestly, as a fan of the group and the song, I didn't think anything particularly remarkable about the viral fancam. But if that's what it took to draw attention to them, I'm thrilled.

After the success of the song, they quickly put out a new track "Ah Yeah" (on the first mix CD) in the spring of 2015, with Hani figuring prominently. It's pretty easy to discern that it's basically the same song as "Up & Down", or at least the same formula. And that's fine, that's smart for a desperate group trying to capitalize off a success. But all the attention they started getting did lead to a certain amount of burn-out by the time they released "Hot Pink" later in the year.

Finally, for the first time I'm linking songs that didn't make it. They aren't all the songs that didn't make it, but songs that kinda killed me to leave off. It killed me to leave off the solo tracks of Choa and Solar simply because they both qualify as my ultimate bias of all of K-pop girl groups. But the songs are long for K-pop and there would have been too many ballads.

I would have liked to accommodate Kara since they disbanded in early 2016. They were considered a top K-pop girl group, but they haven't always made my mixes. In the end, Hara Goo's solo track is left to represent them.

It kills me to leave off the Bestie, because it's a matter of once again leaving off Bestie (as mentioned having three members who were originally part of EXID). I really like and support them, but I think for a couple of years they've just not made the cut and I wish they had.

Considered songs that didn't make it:

Hot Pink (EXID)

Pippi (2Eyes)
Lived Like a Fool (Solar (Mamamoo))
Flame (Choa (AoA))
Starlight (Kara)
I Can Picture It (Chae Yeon)
Excuse Me (BESTie)
Good Start 2015 (Jimin (AoA), Verbal Jint, Seulong); linked video is without Seulong, but with AoA's Choa).

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