koganbot | When are you going to start writing about K-pop?

braisedbywolves or... does anybody else use livejournal anymore?*

Anyhow, here's my K-pop tag, though you have to go to the comments to find most of the commentary and embeds, by people who know more than I do.

Meantime, performer to ponder = E.via. Seems to be in the Robyn/GaGa category, cutie-pie who's more sociologically like me than are other cutie-pies. Wonder if on that basis she could do well with, say, the current U.S. audience for Robyn.

Is it coincidence that most of the performers that we're discussing happen to be female, or is this an era where women make better frontpeople in K-pop just as they make better frontpeople in Anglo-American pop these days? (Crisis of masculinity part 1,061.)

*Who might be interested in K-pop, anyway:

askbask, anhh (Anonymous),

petronia,

tarigwaemir, and I are carrying the conversation by ourselves, even if one of us - me - seems not to know what he's talking about.

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Miss A "Bad Girl Good Girl"

Glad you gave us the title, since for some reason my computer refuses to load the embed. Anyhow, Miss A are plenty lively, and I'm struck how they use a swing-era-style melody without sounding the least bit retro.

Let's see if I have better luck with the embed. (Also "swing" is probably a wrong designation of the melody; can anyone help me on it? maybe immediately postwar urban American jazz-blues-pop that hadn't evolved into the r&b/rock 'n' roll that was going to take over?)

And here are Miss A not lip-synching:

This song has become a huge hit*, which surprised me. A) because it's not loud, or cute, in-your-face or gimmicky and B) because this is their debut single.

The lyrics had more of an impact on me than the song, so I recommend watching a translated video.

*This is the most official Korean chart: http://www.gaonchart.co.kr/, although various music chart shows offer various winners (but Miss A have won on all three of those as well).

I didn't like the K-Pop I heard in the Pop World Cup - is it typical, do you think? Maybe there's mileage in me trying to work out why I didn't like it (beyond "it beat my track!") of course!

Well, I don't know enough to know what's typical, but I'd bet that the SNSD track that beat you is reasonably typical, but also far better than average. Other than that track, I was mostly meh (well, meh-plus, 6s and 7s) on what Chris chose. But the different girl groups and the different girls within them will apply different images (see

askbask's posts on this thread for a rundown on the various styles and strategies. My favorite of this year's K-pop singles are After School's "Bang!" (this rip has better sound than the one I posted on

poptimists, or louder sound, anyway), and of course "Shake!," which I'm deciding to call this year [I think the single was last year but that the vid was this April when the EP was released], both of which have the same brightness of the PWC stuff but are tougher, and E.via is twisting the elements dangerously, in my uninformed reading. (And she's an outsider in comparison to the company-sponsored idols, according to

askbask.) And she raps really well. I also quite like 2NE1's "Try To Follow Me." For better or worse, none of these are using autumn palettes.

And while we're at it, I think IU, as "the still innocent up-and-comer" (as Mat calls her) does a cover of "Sorry Sorry" that crushes the Super Junior's boyband original.

Hard to go wrong with that chord pattern.

IU is increasingly clever (this is a cover of "I Need a Girl")

Oops, I used the wrong link for Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry": here's the actual original.

I think one thing that put a few people off is the fact that the ROK manager stuck (almost) solely to one branch of k-pop, the aggressive electro tune.. Even when some of the artists represented may usually sound differently.

I like some of that stuff (the 2NE1 song "Try To Follow Me" is a great example of thrilling chaos), but it's not typically catchy or immediate. Listen to this guy (re: original Q -- yes there are a few interesting guys in k-pop) for the opposite of those sharp sounds:

I mention some of that at the start of this ilx thread I made: http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=80662

There aren't a lot of people talking about k-pop there either, which is why I started talking to myself about chart show winners from three years back (going through 2008 right now)

It's kind of you to ask, but I don't really write about music. (Why? Everyone else in Poptimists and Freaky Trigger has already said it better by the time I show up...) However, I am very briefly going to Korea, so I shall educate myself about K-pop first!

I don't like the k/j-pop that I've heard, N.Korean bosh aside; there's (and I don't mean this as a lazy insult, purely a descriptor of an aesthetic I don't hugely care for) an element of indie about it, the slight melodies and a sweetness I don't enjoy but it is of course possibly I'm incorrectly identifying a signature sound. I think it's reasonably likely that my preference for minor keys may leave me a bit out of it, though, even though I'm aware traditionsal oriental scales are wholly different to the Disney western ones that I've heard being used.

As I say I may just be listening to the

...wrong things and assuming they're canon.

I feel it is more my destiny to write about desi-pop.

Hmm...there is a triffic Korean classical strings rec I could do SOMETHING on for sukrat.

I'll have a listen and see if I can find links.

i plan to write up my adventures ion NK-pop at some point -- the western running dogs below the whatever parallel can go whistle

North Korea opened, also did the same on Facebook and Twitter , a YouTube account, and they usually put some music...

http://www.youtube.com/user/uriminzokkiri#p/u

I dunno about E.Via being an outsider, honest - I mean, I don't know, but it's more like she just hasn't quite made it. Like Christina Milian, or something. XD;

Also, there are a gazillion Korean boybands - who knows why we're not talking about them. (Although they come in waves, and I have a vague sense that the last one peaked 2-3 years ago, and we're now into the acrimonious breakup stage - perhaps this will generate a few solo stars a la Rain).

Edited 2010-08-10 21:31 (UTC)

Well, especially since I don't know the language, I can always fantasize that E.via is some kind of intellectual - a critical thinker and a provocateur.

I've been talking mostly about what you guys are introducing me to, and boys are not it.

I haven't had the time or energy to listen to any of this* (or even read this entire post-plus-comments), but here's a link to a piece about K-Pop and J-Pop that Jaime Lowe wrote for me at the Voice 10 years ago. Not sure whether it'd be enlightening now or not:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-02-01/music/so-much-difference/

* -- Well, except for "Gee", which Frank put on his latest "Frank's Ears" CD-R, and which I loved. So I should investigate it more. But youtube runs really slow and iffy on my laptop, etc etc etc etc etc

A SLEW of new girl group singles yesterday. And they're all worth listening to.

A slightly Rich Harrison-sounding thing:

A robotic new nine-member girl group's debut single (the chorus really gets to you after a while):

And finally an AMAZING tune:

Use this for the Rainbow instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6jnCTkojOM

Any thoughts about producers/writers? I haven't followed through at all in searching them out, except to know of Park Jin-young (who appeared in the Wonder Girls vid and has written for Cassie and JoJo) and Lee Soo Man (produces SNSD), each of whom has his own label and each uses his initials in his company title. Haven't explored them beyond their Wikip pages.

Park Jin-young (YYP) seems to be extremely hands on with the artists in his label, producing most of their material as far as I know. Lee Soo Man on the other hand seems to be executive producer only these days. I know he didn't write or produce any tracks on SNSD's newest album. Not sure about their first - he produced, but didn't write their lead single "Into the New World".

One name to take note of is E-tribe, the duo producers behind "Gee" and Lee Hyori's "U-Go-Girl" from 2008, which I praised here http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=1831293&boardid=41&threadid=80662

They also did Super Junior's hit "It's You", two tracks on the new SNSD album and infectuous novelty summer hits like "Cold Noodles"

Their gentler side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twa3kAcdiA0

One more name I'd like to add: YG Entertainment's Teddy, member of a dormant hip-hop group and involved in all of 2NE1's tracks (and Sandara's "Kiss") plus many other YG artists like the aforementioned Taeyang.

Even if I might be interested in the music - the Korean entries in the PWC were generally good - I have no YouTube access currently. And if I were to write about anything at the moment, I think it would have to be about goo.

Here's another new girl group song

It's catchy and light, and I found the lyrics to be pretty funny/interesting. The narrator goes through all these tricks to make her boyfriend love her even more, and instead of seeing herself as a perfect woman she's a "shady girl" and "two-faced". I don't know if that's a clever plus or an odd minus for the song yet. Is that the only way he likes her, so she HAS to act that way? If not, she could just relax, right? Or does she, perhaps, have a history of luring boys in, and outside of the songs story then brutally dumps them... so her conciousness reacts to these shallow love tricks. Some lines seem too honestly loving for that theory to work, though.

What's even weirder is that the music doesn't even acknowledge how fraught the lyrics are. It's all a sunny day, as far as the sound is concerned. And the video pretty much acts as if the desperation is all a game - when the girls put on unhappy faces they might as well be playing emotional dress-up, and they look like they're having a happy time doing it. Very strange. (Again, this may be my misreading the culture, hence misreading the video.)

The polyphony at the end reminds me very much of Spector, though of course with a much glossier finish than Phil would use.

What's with the gender switch at the end of the video?

To be honest, lately I can’t stand K-pop. I still consume it on the same way: enjoy the music (music videos, albums, etc.) you can enjoy, avoid the rest (fans, media, the propaganda). To be fair, I don’t think that you can separate one from the other. Some of the things I like about K-pop (the belief that a song can be an event and/or can change your life, how this treatment applied on the producer side can make a song you don’t care about something that you never want to get out of it, etc.) go hand in hand with the propaganda side of it. The single is just a major event on a continuous field of micro-events (from X getting fat to Z saying something inappropriate to Y group adding new members), a critical point that justifies the level of exposure of this singer or that group, the “moment of truth”. Not really a “moment of truth” because I really think that idols are just multimedia figures, and they generate more money for their agencies/companies via advertisement campaigns, reality TV, film, or when they broke on the charts on another country, etc. than from the money they generate as artists with their music. Somebody posted the sales for the first half of this year on South Korea (girlbands data) and SNSD moved around 160.000, KARA 24.000 and people like 2NE1 around 9.000 (piracy on Korea is quite wild, so they can be more popular than what their sales imply, but still, why somebody would spend so much money on it if they are going to lose money with it…). If one read blogs or websites, it looks as if the fans (or anti-fans) are the ones that are generating all those “news” and gossip, as pure feedback that goes again to the artist or group but lately I’m not even sure about it (read some news about the mother of a girl in KARA having cancer, something that the record label denied saying that was something that started from a misunderstanding of what she said on an interview and was used by their street teams, so really, is just people repeating as if there is no future the same bits over and over as if they were their opinions or absolute facts, I can go on with that but whatever…).

I don’t really have any problems with propaganda. I understand it in the same way as some people understand the legend or the cult of some group or artist, something that if it is enough alluring can act as an intensifier of the music. It can be David Bowie or Erykah Badu, it doesn’t matter that much on that level. What I have never liked is the use of I don’t know how to call them, “empty signifiers” (“a princess”, “flawless”, “perfect”, “creative”, “new”, “fierce”, “classy”, “pure”, “talent”, etc.) to be used as absolute truths from their fans and make every conversation a matter of either/or.

There have been before some Korean waves hitting Japan, but right now they are trying with the girlbands. 4Minute released two singles and I think, both stayed outside the top20. KARA released “Mr.” and was top5, and they have sold more than 40.000 units, so less or more, without AKB48, SKE48 and Perfume, they would be right now the most successful girlband on that country. SNSD are going to release “Genie” on September. They released a DVD with all their music videos and shipped more than 23.000 units (but the initial release was of 40.000) so people really is expecting the group to be a hit.

The part that I don’t like: the promotion they are using to sell the groups in Japan. Idol groups in Japan are based on a “perfect imperfection”, how somebody without being the best dancer, singer or the looks for the work can be so, let’s call it cute, moe or kawaii, as to make your entire life to turn around them for years. It is all about the interplay between fans and idol. Korean groups are being sold as “perfect” (they are “real” singers, they can dance, they look like models, they can act, etc.), so the first thing you find is that for SNSD fans, the girls in AKB are “whores” (I’m fan of them). OK, is not so much that. I really think that is stupid because the relations between Korea and Japan, for historical reasons, for the way their nationalisms and rightwing factions construct their arguments and their own legitimacy, is something where you wouldn’t want to begin with (I tried to write about it reading all sort of texts and ended depressed and almost puking with both sides), and using a single with military paraphernalia or saying that SNSD is “invading” Japan, or that somehow Koreans are morally over Japanese people, surely is going to backfire and generate hate for the group. So…

The part that I don’t really like: the funny thing is that having to deal with this sort of arguments from K-pop fans, liking the groups and watching them outside of their comfort zone (working with the way Japanese music is presented on TV) has made me aware of something that I would prefer to ignore (that what I enjoy in those songs as “event” work exactly the same way than the rest of events, believing the hype and that without it, they “look” more boring). I can’t identify myself with those “empty signifiers”. If “perfection” comes using those labour methods (sleeping four hours a day, not having a single vacation day on three years), if to look “flawless” dancing you have to be on painkillers, if to look so “good” you have to have surgery or spend two hours applying make-up to seem as if you care for your work, if to follow your dreams ends on suicide, if to be “pure” you have to sleep with entertainment executives or you as a fan need to ignore a video like this to say that they don't use sex to sell records,

if to be free is being a consumer… I pass. But those arguments, they just ruin whatever you could enjoy in the music.

How can you enjoy KARA when you see that their voices are weak on a live show, or they just do routinely and without care the dance, or their mistakes or that part on the music video when one girl is jumping on one leg to put the trouser where it should be, while they are filming it.

Or to see the “Genie” MV. I love the song and I hate it. Emptiness disguised as something bigger than life. Imperfect perfection.

I want to say again how thankful I am that you're posting on these threads. This is incredibly interesting and thoughtful stuff.

Propaganda aside, it is funny that the fanbase for SNSD in Korea has had, at least what is painted as, a male majority, while on yesterday's three Japanese showcase concerts (~20 000 people attending) the female/male ratio was reported to be 80/20.

By "Japanese showcase concerts" do you mean showcase for SNSD in Japan, or just plain showcasing Japanese talent?

My guess is that if SNSD were to hit in America, their audience would overwhelmingly be early teen and pre-teen girls, without much of a shot at the r&b or rhythmic pop audiences where you could get somewhat older guys and gals.

Muddy Waters shifted in a different direction: In clubs in Chicago he was playing to adult black women, who found him massively sexy. Then in the early '60s he began to attract young white men (esp. British young white men), presumably identifying with Muddy, the artist. I know that's a simplistic dichotomy, and I'm sure many of the adult women identified with the artist too, with the content of songs like "I Can't Be Satisfied." As well as finding him massively sexy. (Not even bringing in the issue of sexual orientation.)

I suspect that with teen fans, however they listen to the music, it's going to be about them.

They held three showcase shows in Japan to officially open the doors to their Japanese promotion. http://www.allkpop.com/2010/08/snsd%E2%80%99s-japan-debut-performance-is-a-success 'Genie' JP version is released September 8. Kara's somewhat unexpected success, which Anonymous mentioned, tells us the Japanese market is ready for these Korean girl groups, and hype/media presence in JP + the fact that 'Genie' is #1 on HMV Japan before release suggests that SNSD will be a Japanese success. Because the Korean market is smaller than the Japanese their commercially-minded industry has been "forced" to seek global and particularly pan-Asian success (and they have dominated in the Phillipines, Thailand, Taiwan). It's a little ironic that while Japan has had so much soft power and influence on pop culture worldwide and _especially_ Korea, there's now a one-way conveyor belt of K-pop artists being launched in Japan with no one going the other way. Because there hasn't been any economic incentive for the Japanese, where album sales are stronger than in Korea, also relatively speaking. Additionally they would have to make an extra effort recording in/learning a second language for potentially very few albums sold. In Japan AKB48 are in a category of their own at the moment with stratospheric single sales, but it's fully possible that SNSD will out-sell all their other groups.

There'll be a new test for how Korean girl groups appeal to American teens in general. If you haven't heard yet, 2NE1 is going to have a go at the Billboard chart, with help from Will.i.Am who's produced some tracks. http://globalsoulmedia.com/music/2010/08/2ne1-working-with-will-i-am-for-their-american-debut/ They should appeal to girls, as per their line in 'I Don't Care': "I'll become a bad girl who makes boys cry".

I can imagine 2NE1 having a better shot than SNSD at crossing to r&b and rhythmic pop, simply because they come on a bit tougher. But I think it's a mistake to try and make the sound less Korean, which is one reason I'm leery about their working with Will.i.am. We've already got plenty of acts doing R&B and the new dance-r&b-club amalgam. I still think SM Entertainment ought to try and release "Gee" here. The glossy girlishness might be a hard sell, but if it does hit, suddenly you've got a whole new commercial sound that you're good at and Americans aren't. (But they might have to do a new video, to make the girls less cute. I don't think the name "Girls Generation" will fly here. SNSD is fine.)(Like, I would know.)

1: I agree with Gee. It would be a riskier experiment with greater potential.

2: One the one hand, yes, buton the other hand 2NE1 sound pretty damn American already on 'I Don't Care'. Who knows what sound they will go for. I'm hoping will.i.am won't just put down some tracks, but help them in promotion and get them a few deals. If they are put out there, and if they do get a nice sounding tune, they've got a bit of a unique look to them and some attitude, so nothing is impossible. It's a slightly better prospect than others who have tried.
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So 2NE1 released three videos and singles in a day and it's apparently the most expensive album PR campaign in k-pop ever.

'Clap Your Hands'. Attitudes soaked in autotune, and the attitudes come out on top. Sort of like 'Try to Follow Me'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTw-UM5Jy4E

'Can't Nobody'. More set changes than you can count. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihi_kJJj_8A

'Go Away'. There's a lot of discussion about what actually happens in the last part of this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yW13T2sfKg

First listen (so my opinion may change twenty times): "Clap Your Hands" and "Can't Nobody" have a sound that's not quite anything I've ever heard: the K-pop shininess embedded into super-hard beats and vocals that are almost as hard as the beats, but yet still retain the trebly brightness of Korean sugar pop. But I'm disappointed with these in comparison with the tremendous "Try To Follow Me," which seized me by the throat and danced me around. These seem a bit too tough in comparison (the first two, anyway), and despite the amazing production, don't quite have the hooks and melodies to hook me. "Kiss" and "Try To Follow Me" set such a high standard...

But "Can't Nobody" might stick; I'm going to sleep now. Will post about Far East Movement tomorrow.

Did it stick?

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When are you going to start writing about K-pop?

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You don't know me, shut up, boy

Re: You don't know me, shut up, boy

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New Embed for IU Gee & Sorry, Sorry

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Producers? Writers?

Re: Producers? Writers?

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