This is just a test for me and since I'm too lazy to write anything new, I've just cross-posted my review of Rain's 5th album from my Xanga.

Rain 5th Album review - MUCHO overdue >.<

I got Rain's 5th album Rainism (real creative, no?) last week and mentioned it briefly at the end of my Pseudo-iPod-Touch story (still being resolved btw). My first impressions were that it wasn't his best and that it strayed too far from his previous styles and that it would suck (this was mostly directed at "Rainism" the song...more on that later)

That would be before I actually listened to it. But like I said it was a first impression.

Over all, the album is great. The straying-from-his-previous-styles is actually a good move for Rain considering this is his first album without his mentor JYP (J.Y. Park). Rain actually penned some of his own lyrics, including the ones to the aforementioned "Rainism" and "Love Story." He also composed some of the melodies, mixed the final tracks and produced the whole album. Pretty good for a guy whose spent a year in Berlin eating eggs and chicken, lifting weights and just generally torturing himself.

Back to "the album is great": It has a great mix of upbeat, pop songs and some low-key ballads where dear Ji-hoon can really show off his pipes (his falsetto makes a not-so-welcome comeback, particularly on "You"). Rain had mentioned in a previous interview that he was interested in power-pop music currently and it really shows with the synthesizers in many of the songs.

Before I list my must-listen tracks, I have to tell my story about the song "Rainism." The reason I hated it so much at first was because of the lyrics. The first lines (repeated like five times) are "I'm gonna be a bad boy/I gotta be a bad boy," which just made me cringe because Rain was singing it. I've seen enough interviews of him to know he's not a "bad boy." Plus, I know it's his first stint writing lyrics...but boy's gotta have better lines than THAT. So I decided to hate it. Listened to it again; meh, it's not so bad. It got stuck in my head in Calc (where most of Rain's songs get stuck in my head strangely enough) and then it came up on shuffle on Ye-Olde-NOT-iPod-Touch. Now, I've decided Rain can be a bad boy if he wants as long as he keeps cranking out these catchy beats. DAMN YOU RAIN!

The music video is also very strange. In the words of a forum poster, Rain looks "ridiculously gorgeous" but...it's still weird. Love the glowing cane (MAGIC STICK FTW! see below)

AND I word on "내 여자 (My Girl)." It starts with Rain saying, "Hey baby. [chuckle] I love you, girl." And OH MY GOD IT SOUNDS LIKE HE'S TALKING TO YOU. Needless to say, I fangasmed a bit (just a bit). I was completely not expecting it. Imagine me sitting at my computer with the iPod (NOT touch) plugged in my ears and that comes up on shuffle. My face was close to 8O and then ;D (Brittany, I'm sure you can picture it, can you not?)

FAVE TRACKS!
Rainism (I'm a hypocrite. Shoot me.)
Love Story
Fresh Woman (Afro + Comb + '80s track suit = LOVE)*
내 여자 (My Girl)
고개 돌려 (no romanization for this one)

*Give the man some props. He knows how to work his crowd ;)

Now...the hair. I can only use a visual for this:

 And then there is no comment...except dig the eyeliner in the "Rainism" video.

And thank you to the lovely people at FanRain on crunchyroll.com for this:

Rainism Lyrics Are Just References to his Dance

Rain’s dance tune Rainism from his new 5th album of the same title has come under fire for it’s rather explicit lyrics and it has gotten so serious that Rain’s company had to defend him through the media, “The lyrics and song content are definitely not referring to sexual acts between a guy and a woman.”

In a phone interview with J. Tunes Entertainment by SPN Daily, “The lyrics in Rainism are describing the dance movements performed by Rain. We considered using magic stick, body shake to describe the long cane stick dance that Rain had incorporated for the Rainism performance. We never thought that this would become a dispute over whether it was inferring to explicit sexual acts. We never wanted to present that but just the dance only.”

Netizens pointed out that the line “Inside your shaking body, there spins my magic stick” was referring to the male sexual organ, while the line “I’ve felt the unbreakable limit of body shake…” was referring to a sexual act between a man and woman, and questioned the explicit lyrics used, causing Rain to become the brunt of attack. But some showed their support saying that the negativity was too harsh since the album had already passed checks.

credit: coolsmurf

And thus the magic stick comment. When I told Mom she said, "So THAT's why you wanted a lightsaber at the fair. So you could have Rain's 'magic stick'." LOL Mom. Considering that he gets flustered when asked if he HAS a girlfriend (not what he does with her)...I thought this was a little ludicrous.

That's about it for my Rain news. Enjoy the links and stuff provided <3

And now a gratutious shirtless pic for kicks:
Check out that bod!

Later, loves <333