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T-ara Pure
Jun. 12th, 2012 12:31 pmI remember Gene Wilder in a TV interview putting forth an insight that went something like this: He recalled an old Charlie Chaplin clip where the tramp, famished, was standing behind a burly man holding a baby. The baby was eating a partially peeled banana. Whenever the burly man looked away, Charlie would bob his head forward and take a bite, pulling his head back when the man's gaze turned towards the baby. So you had a funny scene, an accidental dance, Charlie's head bobbing back and forth at the banana while the burly man looked to and fro. But what Wilder observed was that Charlie's motion was absolutely pure: no mugging for the camera, no wiggling eyebrows. The humor was in the idea, in what was happening, and Charlie didn't need to juice it up with funny faces to inform you that what you were seeing was funny.
To me, this describes the sound of T-ara: it's often cute, but the singing is pure. It's high-pitched, in service of catchy-rhymy songs; but the singers are doing it straight, not the vocal equivalent of making faces, not going chirpingly cute. (I already said this in my first quarter wrap-up; just wanted to add the Wilder vignette.)
[EDIT: had a really good live compilation of "Lovey-Dovey" that got deleted, but maybe this'll do]
I wouldn't call it a general principle, that pure is better than ham. Girl's Day go all high and girlie and chirpy in "Oh! My God" and it's a fine energy. And among T-ara themselves, Hwayoung launches into a rib-nudging squawk in "Roly-Poly" and "Why Are You Being Like This? " which helps make the songs potent, the result being aggressive rather than gooey (though Hwayoung's interjections in these two tracks annoy the hell out of Mat). The "oh oh oh ohs" in "Why Are You Being Like This?" aren't wink-free anyway, and again that's no problem. The "oh oh oh ohs" in "Lovey-Dovey" are cute as fuck, they're delivered straight, and the song has an unannounced gorgeousness to it and maybe that's why.
( But taking account of their vids… )
( Emphasis on crazy rather than you )
To me, this describes the sound of T-ara: it's often cute, but the singing is pure. It's high-pitched, in service of catchy-rhymy songs; but the singers are doing it straight, not the vocal equivalent of making faces, not going chirpingly cute. (I already said this in my first quarter wrap-up; just wanted to add the Wilder vignette.)
[EDIT: had a really good live compilation of "Lovey-Dovey" that got deleted, but maybe this'll do]
I wouldn't call it a general principle, that pure is better than ham. Girl's Day go all high and girlie and chirpy in "Oh! My God" and it's a fine energy. And among T-ara themselves, Hwayoung launches into a rib-nudging squawk in "Roly-Poly" and "Why Are You Being Like This? " which helps make the songs potent, the result being aggressive rather than gooey (though Hwayoung's interjections in these two tracks annoy the hell out of Mat). The "oh oh oh ohs" in "Why Are You Being Like This?" aren't wink-free anyway, and again that's no problem. The "oh oh oh ohs" in "Lovey-Dovey" are cute as fuck, they're delivered straight, and the song has an unannounced gorgeousness to it and maybe that's why.
( But taking account of their vids… )
( Emphasis on crazy rather than you )
