![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hara's "Secret Love" appeared a couple of months ago in Japan without my knowing it and the Korean version is getting a push now as part of a collection of Kara solo outings. Is an excellent example of the sort of toothpaste-smile disco that would appear in instrumental versions as background music in early '80s American TV shows, and like a lot of other discarded styles is alive and bright in Korea.
EDIT: Japanese music labels keep trying to prevent us from seeing full videos on YouTube. At least I've noticed that some do. DEAR JAPAN - THERE ARE REASONS WHY K-POP IS BREAKING BIG INTERNATIONALLY AND J-POP IS NOT. Well, one is that the Korean market is smaller than the Japanese market, so Korea has to go international if it wants to score big. In any event, Korean labels give us access to their videos, though some Korean TV networks will put the kibosh on TV performance clips (it being the labels and not the TV stations that benefit from international attention, I suppose). But in general, South Korea has opened itself up to the international eye and ear via YouTube.
Meanwhile, the Japanese PV I embedded for "Secret Love" got yanked (the only official Universal Records posting I could find for it is a 14-second teaser). Fortunately I was able to locate another copy of the full PV; we'll see if it stays. The Japanese video is better than the Korean: the song sounds a bit brighter with Japanese vowels and consonants, and the video has a more satisfying — less happy! — ending.
In any event, here's the Korean ver.:
Here are the two vids compared:
Here's a non-PV of the Japanese version:
EDIT: Japanese music labels keep trying to prevent us from seeing full videos on YouTube. At least I've noticed that some do. DEAR JAPAN - THERE ARE REASONS WHY K-POP IS BREAKING BIG INTERNATIONALLY AND J-POP IS NOT. Well, one is that the Korean market is smaller than the Japanese market, so Korea has to go international if it wants to score big. In any event, Korean labels give us access to their videos, though some Korean TV networks will put the kibosh on TV performance clips (it being the labels and not the TV stations that benefit from international attention, I suppose). But in general, South Korea has opened itself up to the international eye and ear via YouTube.
Meanwhile, the Japanese PV I embedded for "Secret Love" got yanked (the only official Universal Records posting I could find for it is a 14-second teaser). Fortunately I was able to locate another copy of the full PV; we'll see if it stays. The Japanese video is better than the Korean: the song sounds a bit brighter with Japanese vowels and consonants, and the video has a more satisfying — less happy! — ending.
In any event, here's the Korean ver.:
Here are the two vids compared:
Here's a non-PV of the Japanese version:
