AOA to Release “Short Hair” while Copying Everything

I don’t really understand AOA simply because of the ridiculous concept. Are there 7 members? Are there 8 members? Why do only some of them play instruments? What is the point of this group? Why didn’t FNC make two groups out of these girls – the band and then the dance group?

AOA debuted back in 2012, and did all right, considering they’re a girl group from a semi-established company (the same one as CN Blue and FT Island). Girl groups never have outstanding debuts from what I’ve seen during my time as a fan. “Elvis” was a very strange song, with awkward CGI in the video that added nothing. “Get Out” wasn’t a bad song, but I was again thrown off by the concept of the girls dressing as popular film (and literary) characters. After a sub-unit that didn’t do too terribly and a sub-par full group song, they released a Brave Brother’s song, “Miniskirt” and finally hit it big. It makes sense that FNC wants to have a quick comeback to capitalize off of the success, since the song is number 11 on Gaon’s Social Chart, and 93 on Gaon’s Digital Chart – impressive since the song came out in January.

“Short Hair” is another collaboration with Brave Brothers, one of the biggest hit makers in K-Pop these days. Anyways, all of the girls hacked their hair off, since the song was originally called “Bob Cut” – but for some reason, FNC changed it to “Short Hair” – similar to what happened to G.Na’s song (why would you ever call a song “G.Na’s Secret”?). The first teaser was kind of cute – showing the girls at the fake beauty salon getting their hair cut by a flamboyant biker, but the second teaser shows just how unoriginal this group is:

While I get the whole “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” concept, which is exactly what FNC did here, I just can’t see anything original about this. I’m not a fan of teasers because half the time the whole song is so different from what we see in teasers, but here are my thoughts anyways. The dance looks like a combination of every APink dance ever, combined with the “Miniskirt” dance – for some sort of adult aegyo presentation. ChoA, one of the main singers, can be heard singing over the generic Brave Brothers beat – she actually has a pretty nice voice, and it’s relatively unique in the realm of K-Pop so I kind of like it? I love female singers who I can pick out from the crowd. Her voice is somewhat soulful, so the slight R&B vibe I get from the track will suit her well.

But what I initially noticed, when I saw the individual teasers:

is how this group is ripping off every SNSD concept known to man. I actually only can pick out JiMin and ChoA from the rest, so I’m gonna just go in order here of who appears first through last.

• The first girl looks like she could step on to the stage during “The Boys”
• The second girl looks right out of the “Oh!” video
• The third girl looks she stepped out of the fake airport from the Girls and Peace album
• Even though I get more of a Kara vibe from the fourth girl, it’s essentially a sexed-up “Hoot” outfit
• The fifth girl stands out a bit with her fast-food-mixed-with-golf attire, but I can argue that it’s similar to an “Into the New World” look
• JiMin basically is a direct rip off of the “Genie”/”Mr. Taxi” concepts
• And ChoA, despite having a bit more originality – still looks like she’s wearing a yellow version of Sooyoung’s outfit from “Kissing You”

While it’s quite sad I know SNSD’s concepts enough to pick this apart instantly, it’s still more unfortunate for a company that has three successful artists to essentially dress each girl up as a different SNSD concept for this video when the company already had them cut their hair. Isn’t having short hair a concept in itself? Aside from that new rookie group, I haven’t seen a K-Pop group comprised entirely of girls with short hair – so why add the additional costumes? From the MV teaser, these will probably be the individual scenes each member has – maybe it’ll show that ‘no matter what you do, you can rock a short hair cut’ – maybe it’ll highlight independence – who actually knows, until the MV comes out. I remember Miss A all were put in different ‘careers’ during the “I Don’t Need a Man” concept – maybe that’s another homage that AOA will be paying in this MV.

I will say that I’ll wait to hear the full song before I judge it, since “Miniskirt” grew on me after a month or so, and since this sounds like it has the signature Brave Brothers sound, the full song won’t be too bad. I know the video will be a bit cringe worthy, but when there are trends, it’s hard to escape them unless you’re dealing with a group that sets the trends, or isn’t afraid to be different. Sadly with AOA, they moved away from what set them apart, and now have fallen into the generic girl group category that produces radio friendly hits.