Freaky Trigger Poll Disconfirms Koganbot Sense Of Isolation

A track I voted for made the Freaky Trigger Top Forty, Dev's "Take Her From You"! In the 2011 poll a track I voted for made the Top Four, so this should be no big deal — except I'm sure nothing I voted for this time will make the Top Four. In fact, I was surprised anything I voted for made it at all.

But to the point of this post. Is there anyone out there who can parse the lyrics to Dev's "Take Her From You"? Who the "you" is seems to change, therefore confusing me as to who is being taken from whom, and where she's being taken!

Thank you.

"DEV - Take Her From You" (Watch on YouTube)

The other point of this post is that I love everything about Dev's demeanor. She's absolutely her own strange-shaped self! She's absolutely confident! She's absolutely self-aware!

Also, she's got the sexiest singing in music. Tied with Cassie, anyway.

E.via splits with agency, forced to use new name, chooses Tymee

Sad situation: E.via posted on Twitter that she's split with her agency, Dline Art Media, and that they're not letting her take her stage name E.via with her. The issue seems to be almost total nonpayment over the last two years. (Allkpop provides a translation.) Even if we take into account that we're only getting her side of the story, it nonetheless does seem as if she's acting as decently as possible and the agency is being vindictive and destructive. Yes, it's by her own account that she looks good, and of course the smart strategy is to appear generous and understanding when one is recounting the alleged bad behavior of others.* But her tone and generosity are entirely consistent with what else I know about her. The goodness seems credible. Not that I know much at all; I haven't had a lot of time to follow Korean performers in their role as personalities beyond the singing, dancing, and dressing. But E.via was one of the very very very few to speak up to the mob that was attacking T-ara, she didn't have to do it, it was a risk, and she did it in a kind rather than an accusatory manner. Art heroes aren't always wondrous human-being heroes, and they don't have to be, but here's one who most likely is.



Another thought, though. Yes, she's an indie rapper, not a product of the idol system. But nonetheless, she's recognized internationally, she's been in the top 30, she's appeared on Music Bank. She's something of a star. Yet in effect she's been working for not even peanuts, for practical purposes an artist in her garret, her art life as shoestring and/or part-time as that of any writer or poet or painter laboring in obscurity or hanging around little-known fringe scenes. Even doing okay in the fame business, she's getting thrown down the ladder in the business business. That's the way things shake out, money and power generally going to the people who already have it.

Here's my E.via tag, if she's new to you. My most substantial posts about her are these two:

E.via (artist of the year, 2010)
The Five Faces Of E.via

Anyway, love to you, 이옥주, Lee Ok Joo, Napper, E.via, Tymee.

h/t davidfrazer

*A strategy that I rarely manage myself, I must say. Not my temperament.

Top 95 Singles, 2012 (repost)

[For some reason, when I was adding tags, livejournal deleted this entire entry, along with its comments [EDIT: Likely I hit a wrong button]. So I'm reposting this list. It originally went up January 1st, 2012, 23:54.]

Watch on YouTube

1. T-ara "Lovey-Dovey"
2. Orange Caramel "Lipstick"
3. Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker"


Shinsadong Tiger w/ bodyguard. Co-producer and co-writer of #1, #3, #13, #37

4. ChoColat "I Like It"
5. Dev "Take Her From You"
6. Dev "In My Trunk"
7. Cassie "King Of Hearts"
8. Wonder Girls "Like This"
9. Sistar "Alone"
10. T-ara "Day By Day"
11. Davichi & T-ara "We Were In Love"
12. 2NE1 "Scream." Over at the Singles Jukebox, commenter My cheap on accurately pegs this as "let’s sing about screaming but not scream." But then, 2NE1 aren't the ones to take terror and act afraid of it, are they (as opposed to using it to add frisson to their party)?

Watch on YouTube

13. 4minute "Volume Up"
14. Flashe "Drop It"
15. After School "Rambling Girls"
16. Taylor Swift "Red"
17. ChoColat ft. Sung Hyo Ram "One More Day" (also called "Same Thing To Her")
18. Orange Caramel "My Sweet Devil"
19. Miss A "Touch"
20. Yoon Jong Shin ft. Kim Wan Sun "I Love You All Days"
( Ana Victoria through Nicki Minaj )

( Paulina Rubio through Charles Esten & Hayden Panettiere )

( Los Mesoneros through After School )

( Clazzi through A-Jax )

( Jhene Aiko through Ciara )

( Knife Party through Cloud Nothings )

( Gangkiz through Dawn Richard )

( Tony & Smash through Bae Geon-seok )

To reemphasize the demographic points I've been hammering at you during all of my quarter-year writeups: There's only one male singer in my Top 10, the male half of Trouble Maker — the half that moves half-paralyzed in terror as a warm, endearingly emotionally sweet and massively sexy fun girl wraps her arms around him. This is fitting for a time in which male vocalists don't seem to know WTF they should do. The next XY chromosome doesn't show up till a negligible guest shot on ChoColat's "One More Day" down at 17. First vocalist over forty is Kim Wan Sun, the guest singer on "I Love You All Days," number 20. First male voice over forty is Jay-Z's in "Clique," track 27.

( Cuteness more authoritative than strength is? )

Watch on YouTube