"Abracadabra" is a song by Korean girl groupBrown Eyed Girls. Released as the second single from Sound-G in July 2009, it marked a change in the group's image and style. The song topped various on- and offline charts, including a 3-week chart-topping run onmusic portal M.Net.
History
The song is written by Hitchhiker Kim Eana and composed by a hit-songwriter Lee Min-su. Due to the various girl groups that debuted and succeeded in 2009, the Brown Eyed Girls felt that having a cute and innocent concept would work against them; as such, they came back as "sexy bad girls".
Promotion
The group returned to the various network music shows at the end of July, continuing the mature concept.
Lyrics
The song was originally titled "Voodoo". The lyric is about a blind love, and especially the phrase, 'a doll resembling you' implies a ritual popularly associated with the religion. However, as the title mentioning the specific religion was caught up by the censorship, it was replaced with the current title meaning a conjuration.
Charts and performance
The song was released to various digital outlets in July 2009, after which it quickly topped various online charts. The song also won the "Mutizen Song" award on SBS's Inki Gayo music program. The song also won a "Best Dance/Electronic song of the year" in the 2010 Korean Music Awards. By the end of 2009, the song was downloaded 3,095,468 times becoming one of the best-selling singles in that year. In December 2011 it was reported that the song actually is one of the biggest hits in the South Korean music history, with a huge popularity in Asia and 4,986,293 downloads in South Korea alone.
Music video
The 4-minute-long music video was directed by Hwang Su-a, who had studied Film at New York University and established a career as a music video and commercial director. The video was praised for its sensational and intense presentation but also garnered controversies regarding its sensual contexts. In a 2009 interview, Hwang said she wanted to express the feelings of the subject in the song going back and forth between reason and emotion in a modern and fashionable choreography since the main theme is a curse and blind love. She divided the video into two settings; performing scenes of the band and narrative drama scenes. The former are in a white background with toned-down saturation to prevent other narrative stories from conflicting the latter, and to represent an infinite space. Teasers for the music video were released in mid-July 2009, hinting at a possible kiss scene between members Ga-in and Narsha. After its full release, netizens posted critical remarks of the video due to its suggestive content. However, the "Saucy" dance, showing the members moving their hips left and right, became a popular dance. Various news agencies reported that member Ga-in watched pornography in order to prepare for the video's dance sequences. However, on the August 29 broadcast of Star Golden Bell, Ga-in clarified the misunderstanding, stating that she watched sensual movies, namely 9½ Weeks.
In August 2009, a parody video was done by members of boy bands 'One Day', appeared there as "Dirty Eyed Girls" in an episode of 2PM's reality showWild Bunny; the Brown Eyed Girls said that they were thankful in response, as it showcased the video's popularity. Psy used the "Abracadabra" dance in his music video for "Gentleman", which also featured BEG's own Ga-in.
