Album review – BigBang “Alive/Still Alive”
It’s time for another album review – this time Kpopalypse is taking a look at “Alive” and “Still Alive” by BigBang!
It seems that I’ve been neglecting the male groups in my retro album reviews so far, so let’s redress the balance and take a look at BigBang’s “Alive” and “Still Alive”. Tracks from these album were much-requested in my DJ days and were also some of my favourite male-fronted k-pop tracks at the time. But how do they hold up over a decade later? Do I still want to “Boom-shaka-laka?”
BigBang – Alive
Technically not an album but an “extended play”, “Alive” was still more or less of album length so it was considered more or less an album by fans. It also came with an impressively ugly chunky DVD-size silver case a full decade before the Cybertruck’s impractical clunkiness, truly BigBang and their label YG Entertainment paved the way for horrid design choices by narcissistic egomaniacs. This mini-album (or whatever) was hugely popular and formed a large part of a platform that launched BigBang from national Korean stars to international megastars across all of east Asia. All tracks were lyrically completely written by members of the group (mostly G-Dragon and T.O.P) and G-Dragon also had at least some creative input into the music of every track, working with Teddy, Choice37 and other YG producers.
1. Alive
A pointless, time-wasting album intro, “Alive” is actually a preview of the title track “Still Alive” from the repackage that was to be released later (covered below). It’s actually a great song in its full form but in this preview format nobody cares, why anyone would do something like this anywhere on any album, let alone right at the start, is beyond me. It’s especially annoying if you like listening to albums on random shuffle. Almost anything else would have functioned better as an album intro than this.
2. Blue
The first proper song of the album is an odd choice given that it doesn’t exactly start with a bang (pun intended) but rather warms you up to the album slowly. The YG semi-ballad songwriting style that was in vogue at the time is fairly evident here, and “Blue” sounds very similar to tracks by YG’s girl group 2NE1 that were released around the same period. It’s not the best or worst example of this type of song, playing all its musical choices fairly safe, but it’s pleasant enough and doesn’t contain anything that sounds embarassing in retrospect, unlike a lot of other songs from the same time period that ruined themselves with endless dubstep drops and hard Autotune. The video might be another matter because nobody wants to see convicted sex criminal Seungri pining for some random music video model in 2026, but you’re going to get that same problem with any of these songs more or less.
3. Love Dust
When I listen to something like Saja Boys’ “Soda Pop” I feel like this is actually what they’re aiming for musically. “Love Dust” feels like a continuation of “Blue” because of the similar rhythms, but the mood here is a lot brighter and we’re definitely aiming for sunnier pop territory. This makes it a worse song however, as the moodiness of “Blue” helped it out, whereas “Love Dust” is just too sunny and bland for me to really give much of a shit. It’s nothing awful but it’s also easily forgettable, don’t be suprised if you have “Soda Pop” playing in your head after listening to “Love Dust” instead of “Love Dust”.
4. Bad Boy
We all love a good k-pop street harassment video, and “Bad Boy” definitely is that, having the guys in BigBang going all-out chasing multiple disinterested women (although it loses points for realism because after the girl he’s pursuing saying no, Seungri actually stops). It’s hard to blame the girls for not being keen on spending time with the BigBang members, as the music these guys are pushing to try and impress them is some mid-paced ballad which just sort of plods along in a dull way, not doing a whole lot of interest. It’s hardly terrible, but this isn’t really a k-pop song you’d listen to yourself, but rather a k-pop song you’d put on while your parents were around so they wouldn’t get mad that you were listening to something that might influence you away from your homework desk to do anything resembling actual excitement.
5. Ain’t No Fun
Accurate song title of the album, “Ain’t No Fun” is dreary and somehow ends up being even more plodding than “Bad Boy” despite having a faster tempo. The entire song sounds like a clearing house for ideas that were supposed to go into other tracks on the album but didn’t fit so they just wind up here in some kind of random jumble. Everything about it is pretty repetitious and dull, although I do like the lyric video here that I’ve chosen for it because the boys all look miserable trapped inside their headwear which is kind of how it feels to listen to. A definite skip.
6. Fantastic Baby
What this great song is doing buried so far back on the album tracklist and behind so many other inferior songs is anybody’s guess. “Fantastic Baby” works where many other tracks on the album fall flat by having a far better command of dynamics in the songwriting. The keyboard riffs are mixed forward and really pop, and the differences between the member’s vocal delivery are used to much greater contrasting effect in this song than elsewhere on the album. This helps the catchier parts of the song really punch through, so the inherent repetitiousness of the song isn’t as irritating. In the last twenty seconds there’s a truly horrid jumping-the-shark moment where the vocal melodies switch to major scale for no reason, but apart from this, we’re all good.
7. Wings
Actually a solo song by Daesung, I’m not sure why it’s here, but I’m glad that it is as it’s definitely one of the better tracks and probably should have either been placed higher on the tracklist, or perhaps even had the entire group involved and made a BigBang song proper. Some pretty nice clean guitar riffs drive the song until the drums kick in, and while the more synthetic sounding chorus guitar is a bit of a weakness it’s overall still a more interesting track than the album’s first few songs.
REPACKAGE – STILL ALIVE
The designation between what is technically an album vs something else isn’t that important for these album review posts, as long as we have enough songs in total for a decent length post. That’s fine in this case as we’re also looking at the repackage “Still Alive” in this post which has a surpisingly different tracklist, making it somewhat less scammy and money-grubbing than the usual k-pop repackage which only usually has one or two new tracks but expects you to buy the entire thing again at full price. “Still Alive” also has a much more sensible tracklist order in general, which is great to see but it also makes me wonder how they managed to fuck up the track ordering so badly on the original release.
1. Still Alive
The full “Still Alive” track is a crazily good disco banger and a much, much better choice as an album opener than the cut-down version on the original album. Harking back to Bee Gees style disco but with the added punch of modern production and synths, T.O.P’s rapping is actually the highlight here, as his deep delivery gives everything some much-needed grit which BigBang as a whole could have probably leaned into a bit more. It’s so good that I might even listen to it again after I finish publishing this album review, now that’s fucking unprecedented.
2. Monster
The semi-ballad “Monster” is actually BigBang’s finest hour as a group, and is genuinely emotive in a way that k-pop as a whole usually lacks, with beautiful piano backing and a soaring melody that hits all the right notes. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right to be thinking it, but the song actually hits way harder just as a song in the wake of Burning Sun. “Monster” was supposedly released in response to some nothingburger scandals from back in the day that everyone has since forgotten, but the songs’s plea to forgive the performers of their sins resonates much deeper now that the group members have clocked up a few more of them. Not that we should forgive Seungri of course, but listening to him and his friends beg sure is entertaining.
3. Feeling
Back into the disco and “Feeling” isn’t too bad but after “Still Alive” it certainly comes off as a lazy distant second-best. This song probably sounds pretty good in the club at 3am after you’ve taken some whiskey laced with GHB but as a sober listening experience it’s nothing much all that interesting and hits some fairly generic disco cliches.
4. Fantastic Baby
5. Bad Boy
6. Blue
7. Bingle Bingle
“Bingle Bingle” has a rock sound not found anywhere else on the album which definitely sets it apart and the placing on the album here is sensible, a song to wake you up a little after the main slower and semi-ballad songs from the original “Alive” release. It’s nothing that great as a song though and has some pretty insipid lyrics but at least it’s not one of those horrible songs where they have the acoustic guitar that slaps the strings on beats two and four.
8. Ego
One of those horrible songs where they have the acoustic guitar that slaps the strings on beats two and four… well, at least at first. Fortunately, the song claws its way out of “More Than Words” territory by the time the chorus happens, thank fuck, but then we also have a completely terrible chorus hook that sounds like G-Dragon is taunting the listener, so there’s no escape from the awfulness really. Definitely a skip and by far the worst song on the either version of the album.
9. Love Dust
FINAL THOUGHTS
“Alive” and “Still Alive” were hugely popular releases back in the day and I don’t regret picking them up at the time. “Still Alive” is especially notable, as it’s a rare case of a repackaged album not only being superior to the original but also fixing a lot of problems with the initial release just by drilling down to the better material, fixing the song order and adding enough extra quality tracks to make it a worthwhile additional purchase even if you already have the original album. BigBang sadly jumped the shark hardcore after this came out, when G-Dragon fell in love with trap music in 2013 and sadly let this influence pollute both his and BigBang’s output way too much, and later music from the group suffers horribly in retrospect. However there’s no denying that in 2012 BigBang were firing on all cylinders and despite a few patchy weak spots, they achieved a hit-rate for quality k-pop songs at that time that very few male idols groups have come anywhere near.
That’s it for this post! Kpopalypse will return!
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