Lena Park

With a total viewship of 1! This blog really sucks... well, it'll get better eventually... Hopefully...

I've been also wanting to change the layout and background... But that will have to wait...

Anyho. I can't believe I'm still going to do a 3rd post... Here goes nothing....

Name: Lena Park (Park Jung-hyun 박정현)
Genre: (According to wiki) R&B, Korean pop, Japanese pop, Gospel.
(Personally I haven't heard her J-pop or Gospels....)
Age: 33 (March 23, 1976)
Active since: 1993
Born in Los Angeles but hails from Seoul, Korea (whatever that means...)
Website

~ Intro ~

In theory, I've known about Lena Park since her album Op.4... well... that's in theory. I still remember it was my 2nd sister who sent me her song "plastic flower" (and I love that song so much....), but at that time I wasn't really into pop yet (It was still my pre-anime/rock/pop period of my life in which I mainly listened to Final Fantasy music and Band pieces... yes, I know... that's kind of sad...). Eventually I lost that song together with the rest of my old collection of songs when I formatted my computer (or something... can't remember...).

I eventually forgot about the song and its artist as I blissfully spent my poly days listening to J-pop/anime songs. The interesting thing is that I never forgot the "plastic flower" melody even though I didn't remember the name or the artist of the song, but being the lazy person I am, I never bothered to go look for it. Years past and I entered army etc etc blah blah blah...

I heard "Plastic Flower" 's melody again one day from one of channel 8's adverts. I stupidly mistook it for a Japanese song and started a fruitless search of the song through my Japanese song library (I mistook it for Selenite by Rurutia and was throughtly disappointed when I found out I was wrong). I eventually gave up hope and resigned to the fact that the song would just become another beautiful but faint memory. But as fate would have it, I stumbled upon her name on a website while I was looking for new songs to download... *ahem* new albums buy... completely legally and all...

I now have become somewhat (only somewhat as I've only listened to 3 of her albums so far... and she has had a 16 year music career to date...) of a fan of Lena Park and have a new found respect for K-pop. I'll be blogging about the album which invoked my love for her music - Op.4.

What to expect:
- Powerhouse vocals.

- Passionate singing (seriously...)
- Somewhat old school American pop/RnB style of musics. (sometimes resembling Celine Dion/Mariah Carey)
- Wide variety of genres and styles.

Its a good break from Japanese music for me.

Op.4 (released on 15/06/2002)

Tracks (Song I like in Bold):

1. Plastic Flower (상사병) *All-time-Fav*
2. In Dreams (꿈에 (타이틀곡) )
3. Someone
4. Will Love Come (사랑이 올까요)
5. Life’s Discovery (생활의 발견)
6. Hated Duck (미운오리)
7. In The Beauty Salon (미장원에서)
8. What a Pretty Girlfriend (여자친구 참 예쁘네) *Fav*
9. Lazy Bones (게으름뱅이)
10. The Road to Parting (이별하러 가는 길)
11. Make Noise (떨쳐)
12. My Mother (나의 어머니)
13. PUFF

I should mention though, I love (almost) every single track in this awesome awesome album, but I picked out a few that I liked better over the rest.

Plastic Flower...what can I say... I love listening to "Nobody" by wondergirls... I loved "Abracadabra" by BEG... but "Plastic Flower" is by FAR my favorite Korean song OF ALL TIME (admittedly though... I don't really know that many Korean songs...). This song is the reason why I even listen to Lena Park in the first place, its a song that was deeply rooted in my mind for at least 6 years without fading. What I like about the song? I really can't pin-point it on anything - Maybe its the string section's emotionally provoking score, maybe its the hauntingly sad intro part of the song, maybe its Lena's incredibility passionate singing... All in all it comes together perfectly for me...

(So far nobody seems to share my love for this song... but nevertheless I still think its one of the greatest songs ever written... btw its the first song on my Box.net wiget on my blog's right section ->)

As for the other songs in the album, most of them are pleasantly nice depending on your mood and preference. I personally love What a Pretty Girlfriend (여자친구 참 예쁘네)  which is my 2nd favorite song in the album. The song really shows off Lena's vocal ability. Same can be said for In Dreams (꿈에 (타이틀곡) ) and In The Beauty Salon (미장원에서). PUFF is an interesting song and worth special mention... Overall the songs sound dated, but are still very enjoyable.

Recommendation level: 5 of 5

Now that I'm (somewhat of) a fan, anything less would be unacceptable. Lena is now tied with Shoko Nakagawa as my favorite artist...

(1976-0