Album Review: Wonder Girls Vol. 1

WONDER GIRLS ( 원더걸스 )- THE WONDER YEARS

Purchase this album

01 I Wanna
02 이 바보
03 Tell Me (Sampling of “Two Of Hearts”)
04 Friend
05 Headache
06 뭐 어때 (Feat. David Kim)
07 Wishing on a star
08 Move (Feat. Lee Min Woo)
09 가져가
10 Good Bye
11 Bad Boy
12 미안한 마음
13 Irony

Wonder Girls is a group of 5 young girls. They were carefully hand picked by renowned producer JYP. Brefore debuting, they even had their own documentary – MTV WG – and MTV WG Season 3 is currently airing.

The girls debuted in February 2007, showing off their ability to perform live with their much-hyped dancing and ‘uniform’ concept. Their first mini-album, ‘The Wonder Begins’, contains one of my favourite songs, ‘Irony’. Their second album, ‘The Wonder Years’, contains the addictive ‘Tell Me’, which propelled the girls to greater fame.

At first I thought ‘Tell Me’ was a typical poppish song, but it added some 80s beat and feel to it. The song is so catchy and the ‘Tell Me’ dance is easy to learn. I was caught up in the craze myself. With all five members dressed like artistes in the 80s, it even caught the attention of those ‘ahjumma’ and ‘ahjusshi’ from that generation.

I am satisfied with their album as it wasn’t too poppish as expected. It’s more to the electronic and dance genre.

I didn’t really like ‘I Wanna’ at first because it’s so electronic-ish, but I found myself humming and liking the song when they performed it at the SBS Daejun last year. It was a cool performance and had a similar flavour to ‘Tell Me’.

They promoted ‘This Fool’ as their second song. Though it is catchy, I didn’t like the song.

Track 3 ‘Tell Me’ deserves to be the title song. It is catchy and has an 80s disco flavour to it. I wasn’t caught up in the ‘Tell Me’ craze, but this song really boosted the girls’ popularity. They even won numerous awards for this. Many people believe that the girls’ vocal skills aren’t up to par, but when they perform on stage, they simply ooze charisma.

Track 4 ‘Friend’ is one of my favourite ballads from the girls. It has a similar mid-tempo like their other ballads, but they pulled it off well with the song’s melodic background and showed off their vocal capabilities, especially those of Sun Ye, Sun Mi and Ye Eun. So Hee even sounded good here, though I didn’t hear yoo bin’s voice.

Track 5 ‘Headache’ is my least my favourite song in the album. Though many liked it, I didn’t feel the song. It is just merely screaming at me. It’s just another 80s disco song. Yoo Bin’s rapping is a plus and the arrangement is all right, but that is about it.

Track 6 ‘So What’ is nice and relaxing. You can hear Sun Mi, So Hee and Sun Ye rapping in this song, something you don’t get to hear that often. Ye Eun’s powerful voice blew me away. David Kim is good as well.

At first I didn’t like track 7, ‘Wishing on a Star’. But it has grown on me after I saw their newly-released MV that was shot in New York. The lyrics and MV were touching and that made the song more meaningful. Definitely one of my favourite ballads.

Track 8: ‘Move’ is produced and composed by M. I felt the whole song was at a slow and lazy pace. It sounded like a ‘lazy song’. They could have done better as the song doesn’t do much justification to their vocals.

Track 9 ‘Take It All’ is one of my personal favourites. I just love how Sun Mi sang the first part with such a low voice, and Yoo Bin’s super fast rapping was lovely. Ye Eun and Sun Ye once again proved people wrong about their singing skills.

At first, I thought track 10 ‘Goodbye’ was a slow song, but it’s not. It’s my favourite song in the album after ‘Take It All’. I love the beat to the song. It’s very catchy and I definitely recommend it.

Track 11 ‘Bad Boy’ is a cool song. Girl Power rules! The drum beats of this song are cool. The song has a sort of ‘Red Indian’ feel to it. Hyuna sang and Sun Ye did the rap, so it felt different. The song was fast-paced, as if everybody was rapping. I somehow prefer this song to ‘Irony’.

Ever since I heard track 12 ‘Sorry Heart’, I’ve loved it. I can’t get enough of this song.It is almost similar to Bi’s ‘In My Bed’. Sun Mi, Sun Ye and Ye Eun shine in this song. Mid-tempo ballads are their forte.

And finally, how can I miss the girls’ debut song, track 13 ‘Irony’? It is catchy and the MV is so cute. I got to know the Wonder Girls through this song. Even the dance steps are good enough for you to watch their performance.

My recommendations would be 1,3,4,6,7,9,10,11,12,13

I would rate 4/5

5/5 – Even if you’re not a fan of this artist/group this album is a must buy.
4/5 – If you’re a fan of this artist/group, you must buy this album.
3/5 – If you’re a fan of this artist/group, you might want to add this one to your collection.
2/5 – I don’t think a fan would even buy this.
1/5 – You might as well just flush your money down the toilet.

Written by ~ cherrie ~