[MV Review] Big Bang - BLUE

Big Bang kicks off their first round of comeback promotions with BLUE.  Does it live up to expectations?

Rather unexpectedly, Big Bang chose to break their long silence with a softer and more mellow side to them than you would expect. BLUE's MV is really nothing more than "BIG BANG IN NEW YORK."

The whole MV consists of very excellent camera panning of the members and it really captures how grand of a city New York is. But since an MV is supposed to hype up the members themselves, many of the shots tend to drown out the members' individual charms, losing that focus in favor of wide panoramic shots. And most of the MV seems to have been edited in a vat of molasses, with most the pacing and flow of the MV slow as fuck. There's obviously no dance bits to this song, so here are some nice cuts from the MV.

These are some really nice shots of the city.

Nice bridge. 

Shameless product placement.

Everyone looks surprisingly normal hair and makeup wise considering how wacky and bizarre the teasers were. But Taeyang seems to have gotten shitteous styling this time around. The usually plain and safe-fashioned guy was really hit hard with the "fashionista" stick.

Poor guy is K-swaggin it in GD's zebra jeggings.

There is some very vague sense of a thematic direction of Big Bang mirroring the actions of some random white girl love interest. All in slow-motion of course, which combined with some eyebrow-raising editing, leads to some hilarious effects.

A typical day for GD dealing with his stans. (Anyone else find that girl intensely creepy and fug?)

The song itself is pretty good. It's a midtempo-ballad-ey song (I seem to be using that phrase too often these days) very slickly combining a piano and guitar backtrack with a light electronica sound. It's a rather stack departure from the usual heavy-handed autotune and synthbeats Teddy and GD are known for, but it's a very pleasant surprise in this case. And I'm sure there's going to be at least one other song on the mini for those who want the Hawking effect in their music.

Personally, I enjoyed Daesung and Seungri's bits the best. They (mostly Daesung) experiment with a different vocal range than we're used to hearing, and the end result works out like sort of like his bit in Cafe did. Thank god GD doesn't sing, and the rap bits aren't grating on the ears either. No Engrish to speak of.

What's great about this song is how it finally seems like Big Bang is returning to their "band" sound again. Much of the criticism they had with their first time coming back was that Big Bang sounded more like 5 soloists collaborating on one song. BLUE is beginning to return to those earlier days, and it'll be interesting to see if this trend continues into the rest of the title tracks.

Ultimately, I don't see this song converting people into new listeners. If you aren't already a fan, it's rather easy to pass this song up if the style isn't your cup of tea. And the MV does nothing to sell you on the song either.

It's almost like a horror movie setup.

TL;DR:

Solid (if not a tad boring) midtempo comeback song with a forgettable MV. 

I give it a 3.75 out of 5.