Call For Papers: Asian Popular Music Conference

[koganbot]

People on my flist ought to consider this, as some of you seem to know what you're talking about.

CALL FOR PAPERS

"In the Mix: Asian Popular Music"
Conference, Princeton University, March 25th-26th, 2011.

A conference organized with support from the Department of East Asian Studies, the Department of Music, the Program in American Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University.

Special Talk and Performance: DJ Krush

Deadline for Submissions: November 30, 2010

We are pleased to invite abstract submissions for the conference, "In the Mix: Asian Popular Music," which will take place on the campus of Princeton University on March 25-26, 2011.

Interest in Asian popular music - by which we are referencing both popular music in Asia itself and popular genres played by Asians outside of Asia - has grown internationally over the past decade, thanks to the global popularity of anime, video games, and other media, increased travel, and easy accessibility through the Internet, among other factors. In a world where global popular musics are decentralized into local scenes that are less influenced by North American trends than they might have been in the past, the study of Asian popular music invites negotiations among a diversity of theoretical viewpoints, methodologies, and disciplines, including globalization, gender, media and/or literary studies, anthropology, and musicology/ethnomusicology.

The conference aims to gather together scholars from a wide range of perspectives. We are also inviting musicians and music industry professionals to contribute their thoughts on their own experiences, thereby adding practical insight into the mix of scholarly discussions. In so doing, we seek to deepen our understanding of artists, musics, and scenes as perceived by fans, promoters, and academics in actual and theoretical contexts.

In addition to paper panels and discussions, the conference will include a special talk by DJ Krush - a pioneer of Japanese hip-hop and internationally known DJ/producer, known for his varied soundscapes of hip-hop beats and Japanese sonic references-followed by a performance by DJ Krush.

We welcome proposals for papers from scholars of all disciplines on any aspect of popular music in Asia or by Asians or Asian-Americans. Some suggested topics include:

-Histories of subcultural music scenes in Asia
-Asian hip-hop
-Questions of authenticity, hybridity, and the boundaries between subcultures
-Aesthetics and music
-Musical analyses
-Nationalism
-Reception of Asian or Asian-American popular music, within or outside of the home country
-Relations between theory and ethnography in the study of Asian popular music
-Interactions between digital culture and popular music

Submissions should comprise a paper title, an abstract of up to 250 words, a short bibliography of no more than a page, and a short biography of about 200 words, all in one .rtf or .doc file with the author's lastname_firstname as the title. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to puasianpopconference@gmail.com by 30 November 2010 and should include the title of the paper, name, affiliation, email address, and mailing address of the applicant. Please address any questions to the organizing committee at puasianpopconference@gmail.com.

Organizing committee:
Richard Okada, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Noriko Manabe, Department of Music, Princeton University
Cameron Moore, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University

Comments

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Would be huge fun to attend, at least. Alas, not only is USA the only non-Asian country where the artists talked about visit to promote, that's where the (academic/media/fan) interest seems to be as well. Europe is missing out.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Not quite so! Swedish songwriting teams have sometimes lead to artists doing a token trip to Stockholm! Where, to be fair, no-one really pays attention...

(And I can only think of one example anyway)

(And it was ridiculous)

Interesting though!

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, you're quite right. Behind the scenes, even Norwegians have been involved*, although I've never heard of artists coming here for that reason.

*Dsign Music, with SNSD and Boa and in Japan, Namie Amuro. And also the dane, Thomas Troelsen, who produced Junior Senior's Move Your Feet. All of Scandinavia. But I've never even seen a newspaper article about this fact.

[koganbot]

Since you posted this there's been K-pop promo stuff in Paris and — I think — London.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Certainly. Several things in London, a CUBE entertainment show there in December. K-pop Fest just now in Sydney. France seemed very receptive.

I don't know that the itunes chart tell us all that much, but generally there seems to be a bit more awareness of k-pop in Sweden than here, and The Boys got to top 15 on their main itunes chart. The other week was the first time I've seen any article in Norwegian media about our production teams making hits for the Asian market, when they wrote about Dsign Music.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Re: "-Aesthetics and music- Musical analyses" I'd like to see someone knowledgable about music theory AND history grapple with the idea of "50s/60s pop and rock as blueprint for modern japanese bubblegum pop".

Sometimes they make an explisit point of it:


..but the thing is, that doesn't sound any more 'retro' than the normal fare:


Wall of Sound

The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

Do you suppose the "Under Girls" sign in the AKB48 vid is a reference to the Wonder Girls and their similar retro vid last year? Do Japanese idol groups pay much attention to their Korean counterparts?

Parts of the AKB48 song remind me of "Let It Be Me." But you're right in thinking that that doesn't make it an actual throwback. (I'd like to see a music-theory analysis of general pop melodies today versus general pop melodies 45 years ago or so to see if there's really all that much difference. There are differences, but I don't know how to talk about them.) This vid (and the Wonder Girls vid) may primarily be ways of presenting a song, and may not be particularly commenting on the song stylistically. There've been plenty of American throwback vids where the music isn't particularly a throwback (e.g., Nirvana "In Bloom").

There's a beautiful chord change at 5:12 in "涙のシーソーゲーム"* that sounds like it came from the Hawaiian Lounge circa 1958.

But in general, Korean pop and Japanese pop (at least the stuff you dudes have been posting for me) seem willing to lift motifs and signifiers from all over the American pop past, far more than American pop does - that is, willing to self-consciously and explicitly lift them, rather than just engaging in the regular old process of rerunning ideas that have worked for decades; in fact, the self-consciousness and explicitness can be a way of highlighting the actual differences from the source material and a way of pretending to a certain detached control over the whole process of drawing on one's antecedents. (Brits will do this too, but often with more apparent reverence towards the times being evoked: for instance Plan B's "Stay Too Long" and Duffy's "Rockferry"; though I wouldn't fall over in shock to learn that there are Japanese and Korean equivalents to Plan B and Duffy; there don't seem to be any Anglo-American equivalents to the Wonder Girls et al. Or anyway, American hip-hop, with its own tradition of pilfering, does it with a very different style sense from K-pop and J-pop.)

*Google translator gives me "Seesaw of Tears" or "The Seesaw Battle Cry." I suspect the former is more accurate, though I prefer the latter.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

The most interesting shifts in melody over the last five decades have shown up in crunk and metal and those styles of music, most of which aren't regarded as "pop melody," though I think they should be.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Japanese industry has paid much attention to Korean (girl) groups until this fall* and I don't think they would be throwing around k-pop references. (*Gee is currently at #2 on the JP Oricon chart).

I find myself enjoying those j-pop* girl group's retro stylings (sound-wise) more than the Wonder Girls attempt to evoke the oldies groups, maybe because there's always been more rock in the Japanese pop, while the Koreans* have found their main source of inspiration in hip hop. Recall the #1 K-pop pioneer, laying down the rules back then, and the first significant k-pop girl group.


*Talking about idol pop. Not that there's not plenty of hip-hop in j-pop. There's so much GUITAR in j-pop, though, like in this personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ-Drv9tVjI#t=2m00s Where is it in k-pop? A divide there.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

Recall the #1 K-pop pioneer, laying down the rules back then, and the first significant k-pop girl group.

Your use of the word "recall" is polite, since I'd never heard of either of these performers.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

And according to Wikip, Seo Taiji's "level of popularity and contribution to Korean pop culture and Korean pop in the 1990s was comparable to that of Michael Jackson's in the United States in the mid-1980s." So much for what I know.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Also I meant it more like, "it's a throwback, but no more than this other stuff which is also very much a throwback".

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

It actually sounds like less of a throwback than the other two songs you embedded. And in my mind none of those songs feel like throwbacks; rather, they're songs that lift the signifiers and sounds of the past just like pulling toys out of a toybox, not truly identifying with the past any more than Momoiro Clover identify with cowboys and Indians.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[(Anonymous)]

About Undergirls, well singles in Japan, usually are CD + DVD (but there are editions without DVD). CD contents are the main song, a B side (maybe more), maybe remixes depending on style and off vocal versions of all tracks (karaoke tracks, which is one of the places where the money really is for music hits). DVD contents can go from the music video alone to all kind of extras. AKB started to use the DVD in a more intensive way since last year or so. They changed if you want it from a single structure to an EP structure, and each song included has also a music video. It started because they made elections, if you bought their last single, you could vote for your favourite member (your oshimen or your oshi) to star in the music video (if she get enough votes). Thought the cut line was around 21 or so, those were senbatsu girls (the elected ones or something like that) and they rewarded the places from 21 to 30 with another music video, and they called that group Undergirls. With “River” they added another group, Theatre Girls. If you want to keep that election mental frame, each group has a function: Senbatsu are the real popular ones, Undergirls are the ones that have a strong following but not as big as the Senbatsu ones and Theatre collected the rest. Because the world is as it is, the name Theatre Girls tends to disappear, because people seem to value a lot hierarchies and tend to make mean comments about other people that are under this or that “class” (if you want to follow the political resonances, is even more funny when in the next election they added SKE girls, girls that come from another group (country), people that are not from “here” to steal their places (works)). So now they usually tend to do all type of things, add special teams, tie-in groups for advertisement campaigns or they do Undergirls A and B. People on them are always changing.

OK, so many details are silly. But the main thing is that their singles are formats that give you much more content for your money than almost anybody else, that there are always new formations and sometimes also styles, and I don’t know to look at how it works, if what you value is intimacy in your exchanges with your artist/group, this ones are more intense, if what you are looking into is a storytelling to lose yourself into, this is more dense and detailed, or if you think that all of this end in it being a process, a feedback one from singer to fan, from fan to singer, all those details, modes of acting, elections and the rest are practice.

About the influence of K-Pop in J-Pop or vice versa, I don’t think that there is “influence”, but there are exchange dynamics, usually quite twisted and a bit fucked to be honest. Kayo Noro, SDN48’s captain, to promote their first single said something along this lines: KARA have their butt dance, SNSD have their legs but we have our elbows. First of all: KARA, SNSD and SDN48 are all under the same label, Universal Music, and the surrounding discourse about girlgroups in one or other country actually promoted is their marketing strategy. So if they are asked if KARA or SNSD are like AKB48 (the biggest selling girlgroup) they differentiate themselves saying that they are more like ‘real’ artists. Or SNSD did their promotion in morning or evening TV magazines but never went to a music show. As if they are on another level or something like that (something that only reflects how many fans seem to think about K-Pop). But when they are going to release SDN48, they decided to use the opposite strategy: they are the J-Pop response to K-Pop. To return to that comment, you get that opposition: they (K-Pop girls) are so beautiful, tall, have long legs, and the rest so we can use only what we (ugly girls) have. To give you an idea, many of the girls you see on the AKB music videos are under 1’60 m. But there are more things, I say dynamics but maybe is discourse: it all depends of what they really mean when each “side” defines themselves. Somebody on YouTube said that K-Pop girlgroups are the anti-J-Pop, they are defined against them:

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[(Anonymous)]

if those ones sing with nasal voices, they use other registers, if those other girls doesn’t need to sing so much, they stress how well they sing, how much, how good, how long, if those ones tend to have a childish image, they define themselves with a more mature image, if those ones tend to do silly dances, with an amateur look, they stress how great/inventive/strong their dance routines are, how professionals they are. And just to leave it here, that responds to some historical process: Japan invaded Korea for decades (and they did quite bad shit there). Japan after the Second World War became the main producer of media content on that geo-political zone (manga, anime, movies (from dramas to porn), etc.). But in South Korea, Japanese music was banned until the beginning of this (00’s) decade. Of course you could hear it and all that, but you couldn’t import it or sell it. And what South Korea did was to promote their media industries: the hallyu wave (movies, dramas, music). There was a comment on one forum talking about that, a Mexican user telling how TV channels over there were broadcasting Korean dramas because they were cheaper to buy than theirs to being produced. So is kind of no surprise when K-Pop girls are asked about which songs they like and instead of saying what should be closer to them (other girlgroups, on their blogs girls from Momoiro Clover or AKB they are always saying that they are listening to these or that girl group, including KARA) they answer things like Mika Nakashima (more ‘serious’ artists, more ‘real’, even when you can really value their careers as being a joke). So you see those girlgroups doesn’t exist. When they release in Japan, you can see how they present themselves on their visual grammar: a mix between Japanese boybands (Arashi or Kat-Tun) and singers like Amuro Namie (if you want, a dance shoot that includes the group dynamic in an expressive way and style/emotion close up shoots). This SDN48 video would be how Japanese people imagine “Korean” MVs are in response at how Korean people imagine “Japanese” MVs are. 4Minute released the same MV for Japan and Korea if you want to check the differences with the same visual materials. And last, I want to write something about this in another place and this is already what I have thought and maybe it could look less biased and show how both “sides” do their work on this, are what people think they are stressing with their choices.



If you see the SDN48 video, they are trying to look “sexy”. It looks a bit lame, or porny rather than classy compared to, but is just stupid. If what is interesting about being “sexy” is how risky is it, how not “conservative” they are (and here you could substitute conservative for self-referential or already known, that is what mainly pass for entertainment in Japan and risky for exotic or otherness) SDN48 already have songs that any K-Pop girlgroup couldn’t sing on their country without being slashed alive by netizens. Is just that what it means is not what it really means.



How long that was… About the other thing mainly I agree with Frank but my explanation is quite diffuse, long, inconclusive and boring. Mainly is a spatial one: you do poses that represent something. Momoiro Clover is just that: the speed and frenzy in how they go from pose to pose, place to place, signifier to signifier, layer to layer, cliché to cliché, main text to footnotes and return.

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, the new SKE single:

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[koganbot]

The SKE48 song has a Latin tinge to it!

I want to write something about this in another place and this is already what I have thought and maybe it could look less biased and show how both "sides" do their work on this, are what people think they are stressing with their choices.

When you do write it, send me the link (my email address is edcasual at earthlink dot net) so that I can post the link. Even if the piece isn't in English, there may be some reader here who knows the language.

From your description, I think of the idol groups being almost like sports teams, where you may have your favorite players but you're usually a fan of the team, no matter who is playing for them. And I get the feeling that the singers are trained from too young an age, again like athletes, being directed towards a stardom that few of them will ever actually achieve.

From the videos it seems as if SDN48 are using "sexiness" as a substitute for maturity. (The same is often true in America, where music for "adults" often has less emotional complexity and intellectual nuance than the teenpop does.)

[For those of you who don't know anything about SDN48 - and I didn't until an hour ago when I read aanh's post - here is the Wikip page. "In 2008, AKB48 producer Yasushi Akimoto decided to create a 'Saturday Night 48' show, based on the concept of an 'adult idol' and would perform every Saturday at 10 pm. The shows are restricted fans age 18 and older. He also wanted to differentiate from AKB48's usual uniforms with more sexy attire. In July 2009, Two AKB48 members, Megumi Ohori and Kayo Noro, were chosen as the first two members of the group."]

Re: The Seesaw Battle Cry

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I didn't know SDN48 were ACTUally going enter Korea with that tune!

"Japanese idol group SDN48 will have their major debut next month on the 24th with their song “GAGAGA”. The song will be released simultaneously in Japan as well as Korea. Their producer Akimoto Yasushi announced it on the 23rd at a hotel in Seoul where the “Asia Music Industry Leaders Forum” was being held.

SDN48 is a sister unit to AKB48 which Akimoto also created. Their debut song was done by a Korean composer and there is a Korean rap also included in the song. Akimoto says it has a strong beat like SNSD, KARA, 4minute and other Korean girl groups. He says it also has a melody that will be stuck in your head. He introduces the concept of the song as, “J-POP that aims to be K-POP”."

So they're explicitly trying to make "Japanese k-pop". Odd! Funny that they include a rap part for that purpose.

I didn't think there was enough money in it for Japanese groups promoting in Korea either. The problem here is that the song isn't very strong, and also sounds pretty similar to this T-Ara tune:

[koganbot]

You've seen these vids before (in fact you introduced me to one of them), and I keep posting them, but for the benefit of someone who googles his or her way here someday, there are a couple of superb Korean tracks this year that scream LATIN MUSIC at us in large lights (along with all the other stuff they're screaming). Is this a trend, a tip of an iceberg, or just a couple of tracks? I really don't know.

E.via's "Shake"


Lee Hyori ft. Garry "Swing"


"Swing" was plagiarized (unknown to Lee Hyori, who didn't write the song) from "We'll Never Know" by Canadian singer Georgia Murray. Hyori's performance is better, but that doesn't give us any information as to whether the Latin sound - which was written into the original - is a trend in Korean music.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Can this be counted as part of that trend?

[koganbot]

I don't know if it is a trend or just several tracks that I happen to like, but I like this track too. [He'd posted DJ DOC "I'm A Guy Like This."]

[koganbot]

(And what I'm hearing as Latin in "Swing" maybe should be considered Greek, since the signature riff from the Murray track (new link) copies Mikis Theodorakis's "To Treno Fevgi Stis Okto," which is also sampled, though using the horns on the riff seems to be her addition, and it's the horns that made me think "Latin.")

[askbask.livejournal.com]

AKB48's new single, "Beginner" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W8z4yaKsFg) sells 568,095 copies in the first day. Enough to top the Global Track Chart for the whole of last week. Could reach one million in a week...

We can be reborn all the time

[(Anonymous)]

(The closer you'll get to see the)Uncensored MV:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfer82_18_sport

Partial and unofficial lyrics translation:

"Your experiences and knowledge from yesterday are just bagage
The wind is always blowing through, it doesn't leave anything behind
Search for a new road; Which map will you unfurl?
Once you open your downcast eyes, it's right there

Are we dreaming? Do we believe in the future?
We don't know fear or our place
We're reckless
Are we dreaming now? Like a child, we tear off
the newly distributed chains

change your life change your mind
You don't need to know anything　beginner

You make a mistake, get embarrassed, and the wounds become a psychological trauma
Adults who got smart and decided they didn't want to feel that way again
decided that challenges were stupid and protect themselves
by making cowardly calculations to avoid taking risks

Are we alive? Do we want to live in tomorrow?
We act like we understand everything, and we haven't dreamed in a long time
That's right, are we alive? Are we wasting our lives?
Now, feel the beat that's pulsing"