Day 5: 2NE1 and the glittery design

Something I appreciate with K-pop (and a lot of Asian music in general) is the attention put on packaging. A standard jewel case might fit in a CD-shelf, but lets face it, it is a boring way to package music. This is 2010 and who cares about a plastic case with a thin dull booklet in it?

Korean pop goes for value with their packaging. Like when girl group 2NE1 released their first full length album, To Anyone. The standard edition comes DVD-case sized. The cover is reflective silver with pink and purple tints, depending on the angle and light hitting in. The lettering sparkles in all the colours of the rainbow.

2NE1 is one of the biggest K-pop acts, they recently won Korean "Grammy's" for Artist of the Year, Female Group of the Year, Video of the Year and Album of the Year (To Anyone). Their team also won several "lesser" awards like Best Choreographer, Best Stylist (it helps being good friends with Jeremy Scott) and Best Video Director.  And when you open up the case, we find the CD, and a 50 pages thick book with lyrics, thanks you's, postcards, photos and all that jazz.

One could think that this is lavish because of 2NE1 status, as one of the bigger groups on one of the 3 major talent agencies. But in fact this is a rather ordinary k-pop packaging. All other releases I got are more extravagant. In an effort to stand out smaller agencies usually go further in their designs and packaging, which I'll show later.

What I like with 2NE1 is the attitude. Their leader, blonde CL, is pretty much one of the coolest women in pop right now. Just see how she owns the second verse of Can't Nobody. The group dynamic is good, CL being the OTT leader, Minzy the maknae (youngest member) is like a firecracker that occasionally explodes. Bom Park doing lead vocals and Dara.... well. She's the salt of the group. Not really standing out, but essential to the flavour. Here is her "Thanks" page in the book, of course designed by Dara herself.

The fact that the booklet is filled with the members handwriting is a nice touch. The music is decent enough, some really really good pop hits, some filler, but everything with strong urban touch and attitude. They don't fall into the saccharine "cute" concepts Korean girlgroups often have, instead project a strong, determined femininity, and being four girls with distinct images and opinions. The big downside is the overuse of autotune. The girls get few chances to prove just how well they can sing and that saddens me. Of all k-pop acts who wants an English career, 2NE1 might be the ones with the biggest chance to success. Their sound is much more westernised, they are distinctive (remember the "all Asians look like" clichë ?) and they have connections in the US fashion world. And they sing nonsensical but awesome things like "Fiancé? Beyonce! I'm walkin' out of destiny" and "We're Asian, we rise with the sun."

Go Away deserves a mention. It's the one track where the autotune really grates, but has a superb "arms waving in the air, chanting along" break and the video goes to some surprisingly dark places. Abuse, vengeance, death, CL giving a look that could shatter ice and watch carefully what actually happens in the end. No happy ending here. On the more humorous side, the video also includes some really unconvincing "we're rocking out as a band" segments that are good for a few laughs. Can Minzy be kept at 2 meters distance from all drumsticks in the future, please?