[Exclusive] MR for SNSD’s “The Boys”, Super Junior’s “Mr. Simple”, and T-ara’s “Roly Poly”

While MR (music recording) removed videos are scattered all over YouTube, the MR itself is never found anywhere, and probably for good reason.

While MR removed videos are interesting, they are still limited to what a television or stream can record. As a result, the sound on those videos are often murky and distorted, and finding the truth behind the MR depends primarily on the technical skill of the person doing the MR removing. All in all, it’s hardly anything you want to judge an idol’s talent on.

Ideally, you’d like to get the MR itself so that you can know for certain which members excel on stage without help, and perhaps more interestingly, what the companies themselves think of the talent level of their own artists.

Well fortunately for us and for you, Asian Junkie recently acquired three official MR tracks.

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A source in the industry has provided us with three music recordings that the companies give the music stages to use for their artists.

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re a hater), two of them, Super Junior’s “Mr. Simple” and T-ara’s “Roly Poly”, are only interesting in the sense that both groups might as well lip sync their songs on stage. For both tracks, the MR basically plays the entire song at full volume in the background for all the members, making it basically impossible to screw up live and completely uninteresting to you and me, other than the fact that we now know watching live performances of these songs basically amount to watching the music videos.

Bleh.

Fortunately, the third MR is SNSD’s “The Boys”, and it’s significantly more interesting because the MR comes and goes depending on the vocalist.

Unlike for the other two MRs, I need to give an audio example to show the breakdown of the parts, so I uploaded it as a video.

Section – Music Recording

Chorus – Loud & Clear

Taeyeon – None

YoonA – Loud & Clear

Sunny – None

Seohyun – None

Chorus – Loud & Clear

Sooyoung – Loud & Clear

Jessica – None Except High Note At End

Seohyun – None

Taeyeon – None

Hyoyeon – Loud & Clear

Yuri & YoonA & Hyoyeon & Sooyoung – Loud & Clear

Jessica – None Except High Note At End

Taeyeon – None Except High Note At End

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Perhaps to hardcore fans, it’s a bit of a Captain Obvious moment, but if nothing else, you can basically confirm your own suspicions as far as what SM Entertainment thinks of SNSD’s live performing capabilities.

Unsurprisingly, Taeyeon stands out, needing assistance only with the inhuman high note at the end of the final verse. Jessica didn’t have much help either, but her parts didn’t require much range, and she gets assistance on the only segment that shows any. The real underrated members in this song are probably Sunny and Seohyun, especially the latter since she was required to hit high notes like Jessica and Taeyeon but did so without backing.

No surprise that YoonA‘s not an amazing singer, but her part had basically zero range and she might as well lip sync the entire thing. Maybe she does, who knows? As for Hyoyeon, I know rapping live is hard for those who aren’t legitimate rappers, but I’m a bit disappointed that the whole thing is basically track. I expected it out of the Yuri/YoonA/Sooyoung rap/talk trio, but not out of her.

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The beauty of the MR audio though is that there’s no need to take my word for it regarding whichever artist is in question, as the company created the track and it speaks for itself.