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Single Review
JYONGRI – Hop, Step, Jump!

Hop, Step, Jump! is JYONGRI’s second single. It was released on February 21, 2007, and reached #32 on the oricon weekly charts. It sold a total of 5,895 copies, and charted for 2 weeks.

tracklist:
1. Hop, Step, Jump!
2. Romeo & Juliet
3. Hop, Step, Jump! (Instrumental)
4. Romeo & Juliet (Instrumental)

Quite a long time ago, while I was so busy being in love with JYONGRI and her song Possession, I also took time to try some of her stuff up. I tried a lot of them, and I really liked the majority of what I heard. One of the songs that I tried was Hop, Step, Jump!, which wasn’t quite a fan favorite, charting outside the top 30, and selling only about 5,000 copies.

I seriously don’t know why Hop, Step, Jump is recieving so much hate from many people. I quite find it a favorite of mines because of the uniqueness it has, compared to her debut single.

Hop, Step, Jump! is really different from all of the cutesy pop songs out there, especially the ones from let’s say, Leah Dizon. This song  is like L.O.V.E.U, except it’s a lot slower, it has a heavier beat, and this one has better vocals in it. Okay, well maybe not that alike, but you can see some similarities.

What I like the most about this song is that it brings us quite a crossover between Pop and the regular R&B in the music scene right now. It’s not that much of R&B because it sounds like something that belongs to a poppier side, but if you listen to it carefully, you can sense some. One that helps it sound more R&B-ish is the heavy beat running around the arrangement.The song may also sounds jazzy at times because of the trumpets, but it is kept minor.

So overall, I can’t really say that this song beats the awesomeness of Possession, because it really can’t, but I really think this is one of JYONGRI’s better songs if you compare them to some of her lackluster ballads.

I thought the B-side was gonna suck, because, well, it is a B-side. But come to think of it, not all B-sides are bad, and the perfect example of that is Romeo & Juliet.

Just like many other people said, Romeo & Juliet has corny lyrics, which is a fact that I do agree on. Although, despite the lyrics, I have to say that I like it. Like Hop, Step, Jump!, this track also takes the poppier path. They share the same style, except there are more elements that makes it sound more R&B.

The harmonization between JYONGRI’s own vocals, and the background vocals, which are probably from her too, is perfect. The way the background voices say the line “just like that” everytime the Romeo and Juliet line passes was quite a catchy part. ^^

In the end, when we’re talking about the A-side only, I gotta say that JYONGRI has a few better A-sides compared to it, but if we are talking about the whole package, I have to say that this could possibly the best ones JYONGRI has released. It was nice that there weren’t much remixes in it, because that would’ve made my head spin. This was an amazing single, neverthless.

Favorite Track:
Hop, Step, Jump!, and Romeo & Juliet

shuffle rating!
A+