E.via (artist of the year, 2010)

[koganbot]

For the many people* who ask me "Why Korea?" my answer is love. Yes, and there are plenty of other answers too, one being that people who know more than I do come to my lj and talk to me about K-pop, providing sociability and mindwork, and another being that K-pop is creating a hip-hop, r&b, dance-pop amalgam far better than the Billboard Hot 100's, and so on and so forth. But there's always got to be love. With rock there was Jagger**, with glitter the Dolls, with punk the Stooges, with disco Donna, with hip-hop Spoonie Gee, with freestyle Debbie Deb (both the real Debbie Deb and the imposter), with hair-metal Axl, with teenpop Ashlee, etc.***



In this instance****, though, especially given the cultural distance, my not knowing Korea or Korean, I really can't say what's going on; this has inspired me to actually read some books about Korea. Not that what I learn will tell me what I want to know here, which is whether the E.via I've fallen in love with, whom I basically constructed in my mind out of scraps and song bits*****, has anything to do with any kind of reality. Did the Jagger? Pretty much everyone on my love list above has got some Jagger in her or him, or has me projecting the Jagger, anyway, Jagger Jagger burning bright, a combination of Jagger and Miss Lonely, my believing that the world is continually picking up the baton that the Stones and Dylan dropped, and dropping and picking up again.

Watch on YouTube

E.via is from outside the idol factories, a rapper w/ supposedly salacious lyrics (though translations seem pretty tame to me) trying to break out of the underground; she's gonna out-cute the pop cutie-pies while still doing speed-rap and sex; meanwhile, my eyes or ears or my imagination tell me that her attitude towards cute is like Ray Davies' towards sunny afternoons or Mick Jagger's towards hearts of stone: she doesn't believe in it but she'll do it better than you or anybody else, just to show you. That's who I want her to be, though Sabina thinks E.via is just another ambitious pop girl who hasn't yet made it big, equivalent to someone like Christina Milian in the U.S.

In the video for "Hey!," E.via's first single, E.via comes on in schoolgirl dress, running parodies of little idol-girl-pop poses in quick succession; then her homies enter, sneering, and she goes into the tough rap proper, none of this pop nonsense.

Watch on YouTube

But then for her next single, "Shake!" (see up top), here she is again, cute as a button, yelling instructions through a megaphone to gyrating women****** while the camera ogles their rear-ends and a disembodied butt logo bounces upscreen and down like the bouncing ball on "Name That Tune." (Korean TV refused to play the video.) I see this as impishly sarcastic, E.via critiquing her sexiness while having it too. But to put this in perspective, idol group Miss A use a pair of disembodied legs (shape of an A) in hose and heels as their logo, straightforward, no sarcasm or scare quotes that I can detect. And HyunA of 4minute recently did a spread-leg to the floor pµssy-pump dance in introducing "Mirror Mirror" to the viewing public, which caused an Internet uproar since after all children watch TV, and the network told the group don't do that on our show anymore or else we won't let you return. So maybe E.via is just another pop girl vying for attention in the game of shock and withdraw and shock again in a country that's gone from rural to urban and from agricultural to high-tech juggernaut in 10 seconds. But in E.via I'm imagining a critical eye, a Jagger mind, a quick hand to yank the rug and make us unsure of our footing.

Don't know the K-pop relation to J-pop; the two don't sound similar, to my uneducated ears. J-pop is fractured power pop rather than K-pop's athletic r&b. But surely "Pick Up! U!" is meant as a Japan reference and is to be heard also as "Pikachu."

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*Well, no one's actually asked, but if they had, this'd be how I'd have responded.

**So hatred and fear mixed in with the love.

***The love of course is never limited to the performer. It's also about the world, the reflection, the brawl, people grasping the music with minds and hands. One of my great YouTube moments last year was discovering a Chilean teenager teaching herself to rap fast in Korean to the salsa-inflected "Shake!" and then watching her in her next video get with her girlfriends and dance and shake and rap onstage to it, turbocharging her way through.

****As for the year 2010, up there in parentheses, I meant to finish posting my year-end wrap-ups by mid-January, but you know how that goes. My goal now is to finish them by July 1.

*****Counting "Hey!" and "Oppa, Can I Do It" as the same song, she's basically got three significant songs, though with scads of remixes, alternate versions, guest artist A here, B and C there, D, E, F, G etc., instrumental versions, great dreamy little filler bits (like the one at the start of the "Hey!" vid), skits, and the usual second-rate ballad, plus a couple other actual pretty good songs buried in there, 36 tracks in all on four EPs.

******Who seem to have been filmed dancing to a different song altogether.

Comments

Banging on a peeve

[koganbot]

The leap: "something clicks." It seems as if it's beyond words, beyond reasons, how we manage to enter something we had no idea could have much to do with us. (Simon Frith, Music For Pleasure, p. 91: "What's 'good' here usually is described by its straight musical elements (a haunting tune, etc.), but what matters is a tone of voice: suddenly there's this stranger, involved in a different conversation altogether, talking about you.") Beyond words or prior to words — except, as writers, our challenge is to find the words, because you don't reach true deep understanding without them. That's another issue, but once you "get" something, it's damned hard to revise how you "got" it, in the event your understanding is wrong or incomplete, unless you've found the words and can retrace the words, replace them. Here's a column from my LVW days that you might get a kick out of, about delving through to reasons, trying to find the words:

"The Boney Joan Rule"

As for the "real"-versus-"fake" thing: real versus fake, just like real versus imaginary, and true versus false, is a crucial judgment that we make every day, and if we make it poorly we end up dead or homeless or in the congress a mental institution, whatever our philosophical questions are about those terms. You're right that we need to unpack "authenticity," wrong that we can possibly shelve it. If you're interested, and have the time (it's thousands of words), here's what I consider my best take on the subject of authenticity, though the word "authenticity" doesn't appear even once. ("Real," meaning "authentic," shows up twice, once in the statement, which I absolutely mean, "if you're a real punk like the Stooges and the Sex Pistols, you want fans to resist, to hit back," and once in scare quotes where I say — incorrectly, by the way, my flimsy excuse being that I was going only on the basis of "My Name Is" — that Eminem's voice is "a slow talk, unlike 'real' rap not heavily into rhythm and rhyme.")

"Death Rock 2000"

My Cliff Notes summary would be that what we do doesn't count as authentic unless it costs us something, so authenticity is tied to defiance of authority. This feeling saturates the culture, and it's not going to go away. It saturates "pop" as much as it saturates "rock" (not to mention "jazz," "hip-hop," and so forth). I don't buy into the pop versus rockism thing (if you're game for one more link, here's a much shorter version of my not buying into the pop versus rockism thing: "it makes a lot of sense that someone who likes Dylan and Tori would like Ashlee"). Basically, I think antirockism has been thirty years of posturing bullshit, which doesn't mean I'm a "rockist" but that I think the whole discussion has gone wrong. Well, it's not bullshit if by "antirockism" one means "not being an asshole when writing about Paris Hilton or Ashlee Simpson," but as social analysis and as an attempt to understand human beings it's bullshit. (Caveat: I've never seen the 1981 NME interview with Pete Wylie where Wylie coined the phrase "the race against rockism"; from what I've heard, I'd probably be pretty sympathetic with what Wylie was getting at, which was that rock had become routine and needed to either shake itself up or die. But this is — legitimately — criticizing rock from a rock point of view, since rock's own ideals oppose being routine. And Wylie, if I've got him right, wasn't opposing "authenticity" but rather making the argument that rock was no longer authentic; you could say rock was no longer really rock. Wylie, by the way, wasn't the first to make that point by a long shot. But the people who were making it in the late '60s and early '70s weren't called "antirockists" or "poptimists," they were called punks. OK, I'm banging on a pet peeve now, so I'll let you go.)

Re: Banging on a peeve

[trevitron.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these links. I've been a little busy lately, but I will definitely check them out.

One thing that the authenticity question reminded me of... When I was doing my undergrad work, my focus was on indigenous religions and culture, and this has really shaped how I think about everything now. One anecdote I remember hearing about had to do with a Native American practice of imitating animals as a kind of performance piece to be judged by audiences. For example, a man would imitate a horse, and although we outsiders probably wouldn't be able to get a grip on the criteria for judging the success of any single imitation, the people who watched and did judge these performances certainly had a working understanding of what a really "authentic" imitation of a horse looked like.

A lot of these questions have been in my mind recently, as I've been thinking of writing a quick piece about some of my thoughts on charisma, which is think is a hugely related issue, and how charisma is so interpersonal that it's hard to say much of anything "objectively" about it (which I think is what I'm getting at here).

In the meantime, have you had a chance to listen to the new single from K-pop group Sunny Hill "The Grasshopper Song"? Here's a version with an English translation of the lyrics (which seem relatively crucial here):



Also, in case you haven't seen it yet, SNSD appeared on the Letterman show and then on the Live with Kelly show. Here are the clips:

Re: Banging on a peeve

[koganbot]

A couple of weeks ago I lobbied the selectors at The Singles Jukebox to run "The Grasshopper Song," so far with no success. Hadn't seen it with subtitles, though, which indeed changes my experience — but not enough to change my mind about what makes the song work, which is the "Ring-a-ring-a-ring" line.

I have a sense, not based on any research but just on the sound and presentation, that Sunny Hill didn't come up through the usual idol process. Checking Wikip, I see that they were sponsored or something by Narsha of Brown Eyed Girls. I don't know much about LOEN Entertainment either; I gather that so far it's fundamentally a distributor, not a talent agency; I'm not sure what the story is with an act signing directly with LOEN rather than coming through a label/agency. Wikip only lists five, with IU the massive success.

Fascinated by the fact that Tiffany seemed to be exaggerating a Korean accent at the start of the interview with Kelly — though maybe I'm wrong about that. From the little I've heard her speaking English on YouTube, her regular accent in English does seem a bit Asian. I hadn't thought of Asian Americans born and raised in North America as likely to have any Asian in their English, any more than my Dad had any Yiddish or Russian in his; but looking up Diamond Bar, California in Wikip, I see that its demographics are 50 percent Asian and 20 percent Hispanic. Maybe there's a Diamond Bar accent, just as there probably used to be a West Chicago accent. So maybe it's just that Tiffany's American accent differs from my American accent more than, say, Jesssica's does. Cheech Marin was born in Los Angeles but he nonetheless has a Mexican American accent (which he plays up as part of his act). Of course, "accent" is a loaded term.

Tiffany's vastly more comfortable talking to the camera than Jessica is.

Re: Banging on a peeve

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the name-drop, Frank, although my own livejournal is more of a place for me to express my frustrations about the undervaluing Jpop vs. Kpop.(Although the opposite definitely happens, too. But Jpop was my second love after Golden Age of Film idols, so undervaluing Kpop vs. Jpop doesn't irritate me as much)

And it works in another way that's interpersonal too:
iacus at snsd_ffa linked me to this.
I wonder if the crowdsourcing trend that the Rock Critic Roundtable talked about is more effective in terms of numbers (more people have listened to/recommended this) or from that interpersonal angle.(this person I trust has recommended this) Because I do have friends where I know that we have different tastes, so that when they like something it may sometimes have the opposite effect on my anticipation. Then again, just recommendations are different from exposure.

Regarding aegyo: there is indeed something more going on. Perhaps it's just my love of semantics, but I associate "aegyo" with the Japanese term "burikko", that is, unnatural cutesiness. I also find a difference between cuteness and cutesiness, in that the former is not necessarily intentional and the latter is.
Whenever someone is asked to do aegyo on TV shows, the majority of the scenarios performed involve the girl attempting to get the guy to do/buy something for her by acting more cutesy than normal.
I was only able to enjoy the overwhelming because 1) enough genuine cuteness was mixed in to endear me to them,(like Hyuna screaming at chickens) and 2) because I became a smark, and some girls play up to that. I love the aegyo when it's clear that the girl doing it herself is kind of treating it like a satire on aegyo. SNSD's Sooyoung was notorious for this, and Sunny went from doing regular aegyo displays(but still always always the manipulation of guys) to "aegyo that calls for a punch", taking the gimmick from Sooyoung's example. No coincidence that these two are my favorites.

But yes, in general cuteness is seen as something to be outgrown in America. However, artists like Nicki and Katy, who have acknowldged the asian influence, are starting to phase cuteness back in as a source of quirky humor, and is it any wonder that my generation, bombarded with anime during our childhood years, has also been the one to embrace the newest "My Little Pony" series and shake off that "cute is childish!" stigma?

Authenticity with regards to Jpop, although I feel like cuteness culture does apply to the whole of contemporary urban East Asia.
In some ways this article is the ideal answer to those complaints about pop manufacturing, and somewhat goes back to that matter of being a smark: we can have our "fake" and eat "real" too, because in Apop they're all just facets in the Apop idol's image, and not really in conflict.

Re: Banging on a peeve

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

I don't have a tumblr account to comment with, so forgive me is I discuss that manifesto here.

This article also works well with the pleasure portions.

Would you mind expanding on your definition of "admittedly despicable “famous for being famous” types?" It seems odd that America's celebrity culture has more of these compared to the celebrity-based television of old, still largely in place in Asia, where there is a "geinou"(talent) celebrity description wherein their job is to appear on talk shows and such and be amusing, not technically being a singer or actor or even comedian in official capacity, although with enough popularity they may branch out into those areas of pop culture.(Japanese game shows are often crazy not for the sake of being crazy, but because said geinou know how to make the best reactions to such craziness, which is what the audience is really looking for. Prizes are inconsequential in such game shows, and are more like over-the-top improvised comedy skits.) Those people are technically "famous for being famous" as well. Or did you more mean "famous for being infamous?"

Current Kpop is musically based on European music trends, although "black forms of music and rhythms" are usually found in the album tracks and are making their way into the promoted singles of some groups with that image. askbask and I have this running joke that the Kpop revolution is actually a Norwegian one, given that many companies buy their songs from Norweigan songwriters. I don't know if that has any influence on your rhythm theories.

One note about the praise of fandom you have in your manifesto: the threat fandom does pose to pop music is in that fandom for much of Apop is not tied to the music, but the idol, which has allowed music quality to become a lower priority for those with enough popularity.(Especially when music pays the least dividends compared to, say, endorsements) The same can be said for production quality in general, as fanclubs will do everything to keep their biases on top, regardless of the products being pushed on them by the management. Thus some lament the state of their music markets as being idol saturated, without variety, and other artists not having a chance at the spotlight because the idols so expertly feed our pleasure drives. There is that element of "Sure, [[artist]] has better music, but I gotta support [[idol]] so I'll buy [[idol]]'s CD instead!" Luckily, the competition between pop music and itself is usually enough to produce great music on its own.
How would you compare Gaga, Bieber, and tween market(Disney and Nickelodeon stars) fandoms to Apop fandom. Or when you speak of the American mocking of fandom, do you refer to how the aforementioned Little Monsters/Beliebers/tweens are looked down on as mindless fangirls?

Re: Banging on a peeve

[koganbot]

Sooyoung can be cute as she wants 'cause she looks as if at a moment's notice she could toss you over a railing or use her legs to wrap you in a vise and squeeze out your innards.

Re: Banging on a peeve

[koganbot]

Read that "Why Jpop? Part Five: The Cult of Authenticity" article you linked, and I think its analysis of the "Cult Of Authenticity" is way too shallow. E.g., "In most cases, [the cult of authenticity] is a person's desire to exoticize a cultural experience based on how accurately it reflects a 'real' or 'actual' source - that source being a different culture far removed from the daily experience of the person, which the person considers a more spiritual or more humane or more enlightened culture than his own." Now, this is an unbelievably bad explanation of why beats liked bebop in the '40s and '50s or of why Brits played rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll in the early '60s or of why the Eminem types were inspired by NWA and so forth. It leaves out the content of the music that's being used and the behavior (and art) of the people who are using it. Now Ray Mescallado, the author of the article, could say, "Wait, I said 'in most cases,' not 'in all cases,'" but he cited two of those three in his post, and I don't see how you can avoid taking those three cases as among the most potent. He's not wrong in saying that people like this — like me! — want to get beyond themselves, but that's hardly the entire story. They are, after all, living their lives, not living in the pure and far away, and the stances and actions they take put them in direct relation with the people directly around them. Not to say I don't like some of Ray's own stances — he's wise enough to see that he's not against authenticity per se; he's actually in effect saying that the authenticity people are inauthentic and that this is a flaw — but there are some easy dots to connect that he somehow misses: "[J-pop] is about larger than life figures, of idols. There's a standard they live up to, of how they should look and perform and of the personality they're supposed to project." Well, when a white suburban kid — or a white urban kid, or a black urban kid, for that matter — decides to go gangsta, how is that not about standards they live up to, of how they should look and perform and of the personality they're supposed to project? Of course, one can argue that the gangstas, or punks, or beats, in keeping it real, are/were actually settling for too little (I think that's the argument Ray ought to be making), but that's not at all an argument against keeping it real. It's an argument against settling for too little.

So far I don't get J-pop much at all; but I'm presuming that it's not able to avoid the necessity of keeping it real — a precondition of keeping it real is that you're not born into a role but have to find one, i.e., that you are born into the modern world, a world of choices — but that where it chases real may be somewhat different from where gangsta does.

Re: Banging on a peeve

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

Of course, one can argue that the gangstas, or punks, or beats, in keeping it real, are/were actually settling for too little
Can you please elaborate? Are they settling for too lax an adherence/rejection of their standards?

There's also, of course, the nit-picky response about the difference between "real" authenticity and "the cult" of it, and possibly Ray only criticizing the latter, but splitting hairs about what's "real" and what's not usually goes wrong, as the line between two such abstract things isn't usually so much a line as a gradient, as the debate about pop music itself goes.

Re: Banging on a peeve

[koganbot]

Can you please elaborate? Are they settling for too lax an adherence/rejection of their standards?

Yeah, either that or they're making lazy or bad choices as to what standards to adhere to in the first place.

As for what Ray's criticizing, you're not making a nitpicky response, that's exactly the distinction Ray is trying to draw. He's not opposed to authenticity per se. But he actually doesn't know what he means by "cult," or "authenticity," really. Whether or not I thought the hardcore punks were real punks (I didn't, and don't) had to do with my standards for punk, not my standards for "authenticity."

[More anon.]