More K-pop and J-pop
Jul. 6th, 2010 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotSome excellent, excellent commentary on K-pop and J-pop (and a bit of Chinese pop) by Anonymous down in the comment thread to my mid-year lists, along with over a dozen video embeds.* Anyway, I'd like to stir up the local hivemind on what you think is going on in these three videos (and K-pop and J-pop in general, if you have any ideas; you're likely to know more than I, are extremely unlikely to know less, and shouldn't feel you have to know what you're talking about; I don't). First vid is Sandara's "Kiss" (Dara of 2NE1). Seems to be a standard, "I want your kiss, but your respect and commitment too, I'm not easy" story (while the lyrics are more "I want you to come through and kiss me," sorta like "Blah Blah Blah," though not really), so it's a flirtation, I'll-love-you-I'll-love-you-not, but there seems to be a cake-and-eat-it-too relationship to us, the viewers: is Sandara projecting strength or availability, is that a tension or can strength and availability go together? (Rapper, not in vid, is someone called CL, I think, and she's good.) Second vid is E.via's "Shake!" and from Anonymous's comments I gather she's really trying to have her cake and eat it too, pushing the envelope, critiquing and putting herself at a distance from the sex sell by throwing it in our faces, while at the same time, you know, still using the sex to sell. Of course, such strategies and such envelope-pushing occur in the U.S. too, and have the same tension and uneasiness, and get force from the tension and uneasiness, as does this. The Latin riffs help too.
Those two are K-pop, the third is from Japan, AKB48's "Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou," and when I was in my early teens I'd have lapped something like this up, 'cause it's about a suicide, and I lapped up songs about suicide: "Most Peculiar Man" and "Richard Cory" and "Save The Life Of My Child" by Simon & Garfunkel, Judy Collins' version of Leonard Cohen's "Dress Rehearsal Rag," which isn't a suicide per se but sure seems a suicide threat (Cohen hadn't recorded it yet; in a few years I made my way to his "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy"). "Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou" definitely plays the suicide as some form of rebuke, though it's complicatedly uncertain as to what the rebuke is rebuking: Our attempt to understand it? Adults with their know-it-all explanations? (Were the lyrics written by adults?) Is it a statement of a deeper wrong than just the dead girl's? As I said, as an early teen I lapped this stuff up — and by my mid teens I'd found Dylan and in my late teens I'd found the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, though this song doesn't romanticize self-destruction to the extent that those Americans did. But it does throw it at us as a brute fact.
And here it is live with an English translation.
Click the k-pop tab for other good discussion we've had here on the subject, mostly not by me.
*Also, Chuck's lists and a link to Josh's are down there too.
Those two are K-pop, the third is from Japan, AKB48's "Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou," and when I was in my early teens I'd have lapped something like this up, 'cause it's about a suicide, and I lapped up songs about suicide: "Most Peculiar Man" and "Richard Cory" and "Save The Life Of My Child" by Simon & Garfunkel, Judy Collins' version of Leonard Cohen's "Dress Rehearsal Rag," which isn't a suicide per se but sure seems a suicide threat (Cohen hadn't recorded it yet; in a few years I made my way to his "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy"). "Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou" definitely plays the suicide as some form of rebuke, though it's complicatedly uncertain as to what the rebuke is rebuking: Our attempt to understand it? Adults with their know-it-all explanations? (Were the lyrics written by adults?) Is it a statement of a deeper wrong than just the dead girl's? As I said, as an early teen I lapped this stuff up — and by my mid teens I'd found Dylan and in my late teens I'd found the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, though this song doesn't romanticize self-destruction to the extent that those Americans did. But it does throw it at us as a brute fact.
And here it is live with an English translation.
Click the k-pop tab for other good discussion we've had here on the subject, mostly not by me.
*Also, Chuck's lists and a link to Josh's are down there too.
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Time is always the eraser of time
Date: 2010-07-07 03:47 am (UTC)You came to school!!
The school is unclean
because you came!!
The air is unclean!!
I don't want to breathe the same air as you...
You're unbelievably gross!!
Annoying
Can't you die for once?
Because everyone hates you
*[EDIT: Both of those translations were killed by YouTube.]
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 05:20 am (UTC)** International Emo: contrast and compare Jena Lee - Je Me Perds (I Lose Myself), which is also about texting and teen suicide from school rooftops, only IN FRENCH FROM FRANCE. Interestingly I'd very much characterise the artwork in this video as a manhwa (Korean comic) aesthetic; the artist is Asian in origin, while Jena (despite her stage name) is not. But then, manga/manhwa aesthetic permeates French-Spanish-Italian youth culture at this point, it may as well be Japan or Korea with regard to visual language.
That isn't even her big hit - that would be J'aimerais tellement, which is ALSO ABOUT A DEAD BOYFRIEND. It was the biggest summer tune of 2009. I don't even know, the French are weird.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 07:05 am (UTC)Kim Ok-bin (born in 1986) named the Korean Beyonce due to her dance skills is an actress and model who was voted Hottie of the year 2006 by M-net. When she won the honor of being the co-host for the annual M-net music festival, as a Lady, she was supposed to do something that is intended to warm up the audience. While supporting her, M-net put some of her moves on the air to help promote the festival.
omg... she was naturally shy and a quiet girl actually. so no one expected that she could dance like this, jesus in lingerie thing
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 07:37 am (UTC)(Also is amazing to me that groups with so many members can connect to an audience. I'm sure there are a whole lot of subtleties in how this happens.)
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Date: 2010-07-07 10:12 am (UTC)I don't know too much about j-pop, k-pop is my bag, so I don't know who has written this. I assume it's an adult.
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Date: 2010-07-07 11:29 am (UTC)After that phase they went to a more pop side of them, changed record label and started another sound of them, the epicness of everyday life, more uplifting and at certain points almost self help music. But the thing is that I don’t think that they “sold out”, didn’t change the negativity for a false happiness, they still see all that is wrong in the world but they try to overcome it, even when they know that they are going to fail on that mission. If you want try to read “River” on the light of “Keibetsu…”
On “10nen Sakura” a graduation song, they talk about being able to keep this moment of happiness forever with them and to try to get together again in ten years even if, to quote the lyrics “Even if the hurt keeps coming/ and things don’t go so smoothly/ As the number of passing springs add up,/ I can become lonely,/ but if I believe in the future,/
I can keep going”
Or in this year “Sakura no shiori” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura#Symbolism), with a music video by the director of “All About Lily Chou Chou”,
“Happiness and sadness are/ passing away with the season/ We’re starting to walk/on a new path
This cherry blossom petal is a/ bookmark of parting/ It brings back my friends’ expression/ when they waved their hands/ This cherry blossom petal is a
bookmark of tears/ So those important moments/ won’t ever be forgotten...
When I look up to the sky/ within such wideness/I’m starting to grasp the length of/this never ending path
Be it sunny day or rainy day,/ tomorrow will surely come/ So with a smile,/I’m taking one step forward”
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 11:46 am (UTC)One of the b-sides of the last single, “Boku no Yell” picture some of the girls as soccer team, and even if they try their best, they loose the match.
On “Choose Me”, that ends this way “Please choose your love/ from among your classmates/ Only one person/ Yes, your lover/Please choose your love/Everyone is cute/Everyone also has a good personality/For sure, I am out of range/ Just one thing that I can win in/I like you more than anyone”, there are stairs that you can never reach the top, watching beautiful landscapes (through the window), the sea, open, immense at their backs but they never look at it, playing DS while you are almost crying, etc. But maybe that is one of the subtleties that make me connect with the group…
Mexicans do car crashes better
Date: 2010-07-07 07:57 am (UTC)But Mexicans do car crashes better:
no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 06:24 pm (UTC)I imagined, when I heard this, that at 1:12 the statement "I can't fuck you here" was piped-in in the background, in English. But that's probably only my invention, and what was being said was probably actually in Korean. [UPDATE: I have no ideas what I'm referring to. Had to re-embed, 'cause other version was snuffed by YouTube; maybe my fantasy voice shows up at 2:05 in this one.]
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 10:47 am (UTC)Musically there are no equivalents to AKB48 or C*ute Morning Musume or the other cutesy, hyperactively sugary girl groups in k-pop. SNSD, at their cutest early days, don't come close. The young age of so many j-pop girl groups also contrast. The term "idol" itself has been lifted and is used liberally, but the application and appreciation is very different.
I talked to a j-pop knowledgable buddy about that, and how idols in Korea seem relatively laid-back about conserving a particular image, frequently making fun of themselves, appearing on tv shows where there is no "purity" to their behaviour. In Korea they have a specific term, "aegyo", describing a skill in cutesy flourishes, like making a childish voice or showing doe eyes to your loved ones. In relation to idols it's used on shows as a gag, performed ironically or in half-jest, even mockingly. According to my own observations and spelled out by my j-pop pal this forced cutesy is more a vital part of japanese idols' personality, and would not be made fun of on idol talk shows.
Example: SNSDs Sunny's trademark "aegyo that calls for a punch", or seriously annoying cutesy. Her group members (here Yuri) show in caricatured ways how much they hate it:
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Sunny catching a chicken on the same show:
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Of course, some cultural similarities remain.. like the zealous, jealous fan-empowered rule of idols not dating anyone in public until after a certain number of years.
Sunny Chicken Refresh
Date: 2011-11-10 07:28 am (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
Meanwhile, HyunA screams:
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 10:31 pm (UTC)She played around with the sexual controversy baiting on her album last year and it's obviously not a road to mainstream recognition in Korea, but it sure does sound great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amqaA8wntB4
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Date: 2010-07-08 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-10 11:14 pm (UTC)f(x) as the edgy, punk-y youth:
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Narsha (of Brown Eyed Girls fame) as the Madonna/Lady Gaga thought-provoker ( /catchy gibberish chorus provider):
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4MINUTE as the well-known sexy n' dangerous electro vixen:
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IU as the still innocent, young up-and-commer. This song has been a huge hit for the past month:
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Take a look at her interpretation of SNSD's Gee (and Super Junior's Sorry Sorry) for what seems to me like a hint that she'll come to find her own artistic signature soon enough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbuSGltOync
* Note how 'concepts', a different word for roles, is (constantly) used when groups come back from a break as a way to frame what new tricks they're bringing to the floor. Sometimes that means 'going dark', 'going hip hop', or just "dressing up in marine/naval outfits" as when SNSD released Genie, but they're almost always given a tag.
Sometimes a group changes styles ever so slightly but remain more or less the same - f(x) have stayed with the spunky, DIY style so far - and sometimes it's a 180 degree turn, a group basically throwing previous musical signatures and image out the door for a try at something else -- see KARA going from cutesy crayola pop to dark and mysterious with single "Lupin". Narsha's development has come off as organic enough: BEG were a fairly anonymous group for years before they found their true selves as sexualized and daring women, and now her solo debut is placed in a quirkier, more adult setting -- no doubt according to her own preferences.
New embed for IU's live version of Gee & Sorry, Sorry
Date: 2010-12-07 08:30 pm (UTC)New Embed for IU & Seulong Nagging
Date: 2010-12-07 08:31 pm (UTC)Re: New Embed for IU & Seulong Nagging
Date: 2011-11-10 07:16 am (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
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