The end of today all over the sky

[koganbot]

Trying to start a conversation over on poptimists about the new IU video ("Good Day"):

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/793519.html

By the way, what would you say are the best IU tracks? I've heard very few of them. I like the one variously translated as "MIA," "Missing Child," and "Lost Child"; and I totally love her live version of "Gee"/"Sorry, Sorry."

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I should've said "the fans commenting on such things in places I frequent" and I should note that these fans may go "I like her, but this song..." or "I liked MIA, but not Marshmallow" and it's not necessarily that they hated her cutesy songs, but always followed it up with "she can do better" or "she can be different". And I suspect that Anon may read the same kinds of things as I do, at least that was my assumption when replying to his characterization of her fans.

I could've agreed with him more if he said that people are projecting their hopes of what she's going to become onto her, and using that as an argument for her qualities as much as what she actually is releasing. How their hopes of seeing something akin to a 'self-made' k-pop star going big makes them criticize any deviation from that path. And that I may find myself in that group, just because I've ended up watching her re-arrange SNSD and SuperJunior ten times more than music videos of her singles, and dreaming of seeing that on Music Bank or Inkigayo but with her own words. (But also because she's said it herself)

If you take the silliest kind of youtube comment into consideration it's easier to understand why someone could get tired of some of her fans:

"Gawd, what did they turn this acoustic loving teen into?! THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHITT! THEIR CONFORMING HER INTO THE WHOLE 'ADORABLE,CUTEINOCCENT' KOREAN STARS! Shit makes me angry. She sounded better with her own kind of music. Just my opinions"

What most people are more likely to say is "this performance of someone else's song is frikkin great, I wish her singles were more like it." And they don't need to fantasize to hear that her voice is great and her guitar plucking is more than pleasant, and they express a wish to see this displayed as part of a promotional campaign instead. Although proficency with an instrument doesn't really seperate her from idols, she has done much more herself to show off her creative side than, say, Seohyun. And that may just be because she's a solo artist, or that her label is more lenient in letting her play around and do what she wants to do, but it certainly nurtures a special kind of interest in fans who take that as the real her.

And certainly there are those who liked her cutesy songs better, and I will admit I have no clue what fans in Korea are saying, but sales-wise she hasn't taken off until this year (total sales numbers aren't that easy to come by, but she hasn't received any awards on music shows before).


Reception to 'Good Day' and the album has been positive indeed.

Just yesterday we reported that Sistar had taken over all of the music charts. However, their reign was short lived, as IU has just taken over all of Melon, Dosirak, Soribada, Mnet.com and Bugs music charts. Not only is "Good Day" first on all charts, but the rest of the songs in her album are amongst top ten in the charts.

[(Anonymous)]

On my first comment I was only signalling how people tend to think that “melancholic” music is deeper (meaning that is closer to authentic art) that other music that don’t use those stylistic devices. You only need to check almost any end of year list from music magazines to see that: endless "masterworks" from indie bands singing about how their cats turn to the left instead of the right or how the water boils in heartfelt voices and ad hoc arrangements (using glockenspiel if possible). And that deepness, etc. is what people want to project about themselves. So what I was saying is that I don’t think that this song about getting lost on your own dreams and that song about getting lost on your own dreams is better for using those devices, only for how they make me lost myself on them.