Mblaq's 'Stay' Review

Haha! I've beaten eatyourkimchi to reviewing 'Stay' by Mblaq. Yay! I win.



So when I first watched this, for the first 20 seconds or so, I thought that some fan had put together a music video for the song since it seemed to me to be made of pieces of 'Cry' and cheesy effects, like turning everything red. I was so happy when I realized that it was a real and official music video.

I can't say I liked the costumes in this video as much as in Cry. I'm not sure why all the fur. Joon's white fur across the back of his black jacket bothers me for some reason, but not as much as the big tufts of black fur on only one shoulder of what's-his-name's white jacket. Just, just no. And then the white suit with the black leopard print. Oh, no. And the worst part? Those horrible gloves. Yeah, what's with the studded gloves lately? TVXQ's Max wore one and it didn't look good on him either. And lastly, the shiny gray pants. Not just a sheen, mind you, shiny! Like, made of plastic, shiny.

The dance was interesting. And I found a video of Rain teaching it to the boys.



For some reason the dance struck me as feminine. I think it has to do with the legs and hips, or maybe it's the fluttery hand... I don't know. It's hard to break down. I'm not saying it's bad, just... feminine. There really weren't any parts of the dance that stand out to me as amazing or especially catchy but it flows well. I thought it was kind of cute when Joon traced the outline of a heart on his chest. I hadn't seen anyone do that yet, so it was fresh and adorable.

Mblaq did not disappoint with the make up. They just really like the 'stand out from the crowd' eye make up. They didn't wear so much eye shadow as eye liner and glitter. Wait, that sounds worse than it is. Um, shiny confetti. It didn't ruin the music video for me, and in fact, with the dramatic lighting, it was less noticeable than usual. It felt like half the music video was either done in strobe light or red light. So while the make up was a little bit extensive, I didn't feel that it detracted from the video.

The song's contents are fairly typical. His girlfriend left him and he doesn't understand why since he thought they were going to be together forever and he'd gambled everything on it. The lyrics make it sound like the singer gave up a lot to be with the girl and he loves her even though her moods are volatile. He says at one point that she'd said words of parting so many times before that he thought she'd been joking this time too, but that was one day, two days, three days ago and still he hadn't heard anything from her. So he's asking her to stay with him, stay in his heart.

There's definitely enough english scattered throughout the song to keep me interested. And it's not as heavily accented as say, Infinite's Before The Dawn. Mblaq actually pronounced their 'heart' like we do instead of 'hairt.' I don't know if anyone else thinks this, or if I'm just special, but Joon looks just a little bit weird when he's saying his english lines, like he's pulling his upper lip tightly across his teeth. I actually thought it looked good, like he was being really intense or something, but it just seemed... different.

And that's what I thought of Stay by Mblaq.