C-Clown, the latest addition to 2012's onslaught of rookie bands, released their first mini-album, 'Not Alone', on July 19, 2012. Coming out of Yedang Entertainment (Chi-Chi, Ali, Rania) and working with tried-and-true producers Shinsadong Tiger and Rado on their side, does C-Clown (which stands for "Crown Clown", to signify their desire to rule the Kpop industry) have what it takes to stand out in the ever-growing crowd of new faces in kpop?



The title track, "Not Alone", is the intro to the album, and is written by B.Plan. I don't understand why this is the title of the album or why the intro is about not being alone, since every other song on the album is a sad breakup song. Musically, the song is very repetetive and forgettable. I felt the mixing could have been better- I think the instrumental overpowered the vocals. Also, as Yedang has made a point of promoting C-Clown as a group that eschews electronic sounds in their music (the video description of their MV on YouTube says "Unlike the standardized hook phrases and electric sounds prevalent in today's idol music, it focuses on analogue emotions"), I find it strange that the intro track starts off with very obviously electronic sounds.



"SOLO", the lead single off the album, is a bitter breakup song. The video feels kind of tired- we've seen the tough-guy-prisoner-security-camera-footage-grit many times at this point (B.A.P.'s "Power" and "Warrior", Big Bang's "Monster", F.Cuz's "Number 1", and Dalmatian's "ER", to name a few from the last six months), and this video doesn't even have a cohesive story to make it interesting. Also, the video stops several times to magazine-like still photos of the members, presumably to help us all learn their names. This has been done before- for example, B1A4's video for "OK" introduces all the band members by name- but C-Clown's utilization takes away from an already boring video. �What I found most disappointing about this video, though, was the fact that the choreography [barring the chorus] is actually pretty good, but the director seems determined to hide this fact from us. �I was really surprised at how much better the dancing seemed in their debut performance than in the video.

I wish I could say that the song itself makes up for the video, but it's mostly unremarkable. Even after listening to the song five times, I couldn't hum the chorus for you, and that's not a good thing in a genre that thrives on catchy hooks. �I think the main problem is that the chorus does not live up to the buildup it gets at the end of the verse, so it ends up falling flat.



"In the Car" is far and away my favorite track on the album- you can hear that the singers have really nice voices and harmonize well. I appreciate the simple instrumentation, which features fingerpicked acoustic guitar, piano, and even a little violin. The rapping sounds good, and is appropriate to the feel of the song. C-Clown avoided the oh-so-tempting trope of trying to show off their singing through an overwrought ballad, instead giving us a nice, midtempo tune. �This is the first track that got me humming along.



The disco-influenced final track, "Destiny", tells the story of someone who meets the girl of their dreams while they're already in a relationship with someone else. The spoken-word intro is irritating- very, VERY few songs can pull off a spoken-word intro, and "Destiny" is not one that can. Rome and T.K., C-Clown's rappers, helped write the rap in this song. While there's nothing that really stands out about this song, it's not bad as far as filler tracks go.

It's a shame that C-Clown's material doesn't live up to the talent that its members appear to have. �Here's hoping for a comeback with some better songs, so that we can really see what these guys are made of.



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