Let me reiterate; follow Keys-the-Queen.tumblr.com and you'll see these posts much sooner. Starting next week, I'll only post these on Saturday Evenings. Anyway, leave some comments and tell me how you liked my review and what you would like me to review next. 

Ah, SHINee, you’ve made strides from your…erm…Juliette. I’m not saying that the video and the song were bad, but as an up-and-coming fledgling KPop analyzer and admirer, it did nothing for me. I couldn’t find myself taking SHINee seriously in the visual department when I was first introduced to Juliette by my good friends in New York. And like honestly, though, those glasses in the music video? They deserve the greatest award; bawdy, yet the music video left me wanting a pair. And the belted-out notes? Splendid.

But this isn’t a review of Juliette. No, this is a review of Lucifer; dark, sultry, and pulsing with well-placed bass and underlying techno instrumental. And who didn’t like this song?

 

SHINee debuted in May 2008, becoming yet another good-looking group of talented vocalists and dancers in SM’s arsenal. With their chicken-crazy, silky voiced leader Onew, SHINee began making an impression. They won “Rookie of the Month” in June 2008 and the “Best Newcomer” award in February 2009. Even with their numerous successes and rising popularity, some songs did well vocally but not visually (Juliette) and some did not-so-well vocally (Love Like Oxygen). For me, SHINee has had their number of hits and misses just like any other developing group and that’s what has really attracted me to them. To me, SHINee did a really nice job in performing and deliveringLucifer to their audience and fan base.

What a Change in Scenery…

Score: 4//5

With there being no clear plot line to this video, I was left with nothing else to do but to compare the setting of this music video to the settings of other music videos. For example, Juliette gave off a really soft feel, especially since it just a year after their debut date. SHINee’s never really had a set setting and feels to their music videos, though. If you compare Replay to Lucifer to Sherlock to Amigo, you’ll see that they have the same members but into different roles and settings. Lucifer was substantially edgier than any of their songs thus far.

In addition to the darker, edgier setting, I enjoyed Onew’s house of mirrors… 

and Jonghyun’s y silver car.

I really think that they could have put a plotline in the music video that would have matched the setting and the lyrics to a T, but I guess that this video was about highlighting the edge and choreography of the SHINee boys. I have to say that it worked since it was pretty much the only thing to focus on. Also, I liked how the whisper was portrayed during the song. I kept on following it whenever it came on screen; it certainly did get around.

Lyrically Speaking…

Score: 6//5

When you first hear SHINee’s song, you (if you are like myself and are not proficient in Korean) don’t understand a word of it. It’s just the catchiest tune and the lyrics fit right into the beat; you start singing along anyway. It’s not really saying anything, right?

WRONG.

This song is a dream for me! It is deep for a KPop song. If you listen closely to and interpret the lyrics in the way they’re supposed to be listened to, you’ll be apt to find out that SHINee’s Lucifer didn’t even need a music video. Nope. The sinewy gorgeous dance machines were just bonuses. The lyrics make this song and you have no idea how rare that really is. Let me give you a few examples here.

“The love stories I shared with you,

You look towards the same places I do

When we feel that we can’t get any more perfect.”

Or how about

“I feel like I’ve become a clown trapped in a glass castle

I dance for you, who will never be satisfied

You look into me openly, touching my brain; I think I’ve become a fool.

I think I’m only getting more and more attracted to you.”

And don’t even get me started on the chorus, which is my favorite part. Actually, yes, get me started on the chorus. Get me started on the deconstruction of these lyrics, please! Oh, I was having so much fun with this a few days ago.

Okay, so the basic premise of this song seems to be a relationship of giving and taking in excess. The male is giving his all to the female who is constantly sending him mixed signals. The male begins to feel like a fool, like a joke; always dancing for a queen that will never, ever be satisfied because sheenjoys the way that they fall together.

“Even though I knew it was really you

You really confused me.”

The male feels like he has to give, but at the same time he’s leaning towards breaking away from the female because he knows that this kind of relationship is bad for him. His love for her is so poignant that he believes that he would have been able to break away from her by now or at least have a less destructive relationship if she didn’t put this “spell” on him. Her love borders on the obsessive and she is always eliciting these overcompensating responses from the male. She is never satisfied, it seems, and the male realizes that he can’t love her if she’s always obsessing, wanting, needing, snatching, and draining him.

“Your undeniable spell is the Lucifer

Your undeniable magic is the Lucifer.”

“I’m tired of your obsession

I’ve been cut a lot; my heart is bleeding.”

The lyrics that further support my above theory are:

“Leave me alone, when I’m free, I’ll be able to truly love you.

Leave me alone; don’t make me sick of you

So I can truly look at you.”

The male loves her, but the female is literally making him sick of loving her. The fact that he just can’t say no makes the self-pity and loathing start to trickle down…

As for the Engrish in this song, it is, though awkward at first, extremely fitting after you read and analyze the lyrics in English (or, Korean, if you can speak the language fluently (I ENVY YOU PEOPLE)).

“Loverholic, robotronic, loverholic, robotronic.”

Now, if anyone is an English buff like me, you know that repetition in a story, in a poem, and in a song MEANS THAT A MESSAGE IS TRYING TO BE CONVEYED. As I see it, “loverholic” is a portmanteau of the two words “lover” and “alcoholic”. We all know the basic conventional definition of a lover; someone who you spend plenty of time with, engage in some skinship, have some semblance of an emotional connection. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about; some of you out there have lovers. Now, to combine the word “lover” with the word “alcoholic” is pretty  drastic. To be an alcoholic means that you have a pathological dependence on alcohol. It’s an obsession; the thing you think about from the time you get up to the time you fall asleep at night. So, the definition of “loverholic” is? An obsession with your lover. A word that the female and the male in this song should know by heart. The two think about each other morning, noon, and night, and…

“It’s not that I hate you or that I dislike you,”

But that obsession is slowly breaking them! The male overcompensates andgives and the female takes and gives back more. It’s destructive, just like alcoholism.

“Robotronic” was kind of a stumper, but I finally figured it out for myself. You can see “robotronic” as a portmanteau of any number of words; “Robotic” and “Electronic”, “Robotic” and “Cistronic”, “Robotic” and “Technetronic”; the list goes on. But I believe that “Robotronic” is it’s very own word.

A robot is a mechanical device that is usually constructed for a purpose; built and programmed to do something and do that something perfectly and do that something again and again and again. Lyrically, you’re supposed to pull the definition of “robotronic” out of the surrounding words. I believe it’s a way of expressing just how emotionally uninvolved these two individuals are. These two individuals feel programmed to love each other and feelprogrammed to have the drastic obsession with one another. They feelprogrammed to give and they don’t take as a result because they weren’tprogrammed to do so. They can’t have a balanced relationship without extremes because their relationship was programmed to be extreme, obsessive, tumultuous. And there’s nothing they can do about it. Placing “loverholic” and “robotronic” together in this song really outlines the gist of their destructive relationship.

The chorus? I could write a book about this song; it’s deeper than most people think it is. But since this is a review of the song in all of its aspects and not just the lyrical components, I have to make this a bit briefer. The chorus is basically the male saying, “Stop trying to imprison me; I’m right here. If you tie me down any more, there won’t be a me left for our future. You are destroying me.” But, near the end of the chorus, the lyrics take a very…possessive, domineering turn.

“Freely empty yourself and look at me,

I’ll fill you only, I’ll completely fill you only.”

These two lines in the chorus—along with other isolated lines—tell me that the female isn’t the only toxic one here…

Of Clothing, Sync, and Taemin Swag

Score: 3.5//5

So smart. Oh, SM, you are so ing smart.

If anyone has taken any class geared towards art, then you know exactly where I’m coming from when I say that any odd element draws your attention immediately. The phrase “sticking out like a sore thumb”, “the black sheep”, and idioms like that convey this point too. Take Masaccio’s The Trinity, for example (if you’ve ever seen it). Isn’t your eye immediately drawn to Christ because he’s crucified in the middle? Or take brain teasers for example; if someone puts a red dot in the middle of a black background, you stare at the red dot, don’t you? It draws your attention by being different; by separating itself from the rest of the background and the rest of the figures and creating a presence on its own. And this is exactly what they did with Taemin.

When he’s not walking through his dark tunnel of angsty loverholic-ness, Taemin holds your eye throughout the dance sequences by doing what? Dancing well, yes, but being the only one wearing black and red amongst a sea of silver and white. Why would SM do this? Simple; to overemphasize him. They could have easily chosen colors that were closer to the white/silver spectrum and still emphasized him, but no. They put the maknae in black and red; they didn’t even put Onew in this outfit. This music video was made to be visually appealing with our beautiful SHINee boys dancing in synch; being as one. Taemin is DANCE LORD in SHINee and SM wanted us to know this!

Overall, I thought the outfits were a bit boring. They could have got sultry and ridiculous with them this time; I wouldn’t have minded one of theseensembles.

YUM.

I digress. Their choreography was amazing. The way that they moved in that pop-and-lock fashion in the beginning and did the slow finger motion pointing thing during the slow parts without the robotic underlay—brilliant. And I love that they’re a five-man group because they can make such use of all the space and fold into a single line or spin out into a diagonal—I swear; they’re the dancing kings. Although, my eyes were inadvertently glued to Taemin and Onew during this video…

And the Verdict Is…

Overall Score: 13.5/15

The lyrics blew this song out of the water for me. I mean, like, really; how could I not overinflate that score? I basically wrote an essay for that song, man. Everything else could have used a bit of work, but when you put so much into the lyrics, you don’t need the extra workload! SHINee definitely brought it in Lucifer, and that’s why it’s one of my favorite songs. It’s on par with, like, I just can’t—let me fangirl now.