Wow! There's A Cell Phone You Can Eat!
Feb. 17th, 2012 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotWow! I'd never heard this before! Writer Kenzie* and producers Bloodshy & Avant take a dramatic "Reach Out I'll Be There"–type melody, throw it into waltz time, and make it a funny, bumpy promenade. [EDIT: I meant to say they throw it into SWING time. My brain went herky-jerky there for a second. In any event, this most certainly isn't a waltz; it's 4/4, but each of those beats then subdivides further into triplets.]
The dance is terrific too, each of SNSD coming in from the side or down the aisle and then out onto the runway.
So Lazy Reblog Week continues here on Koganbot, hat-tip this time to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
just_keep_on. "Chocolate Love" was part of the promo campaign for LG Electronics' Cyon division's Chocolate BL-40 phone, back in '09. Also in on the campaign, the group f(x) did an even dancier, bumpier version; not quite as good, though, owing to their singing not being as warm as SNSD's. Also, being the Electronic Pop version, it lacks SNSD's tubas and honky-tonk.
(Phone commercials seem to have an important role in K-pop: especially there's the epic Lee Hyori video for Samsung's Anystar, the third of three major video productions she did for Samsung. This video also served as trainee Park Bom's debut, Bom going on to fame in 2NE1. And according to Wikip, Miss A's early public performances pre-Min, in China, included appearances on behalf of Samsung China's Anycall campaign.)
*EDIT: See comment thread. Checking the Korean Copyright Association writers' credits, Kenzie isn't listed at all for this song, whereas Bloodshy & Avant (Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg) are, as well as Henrik Jonback, so that's three of the four writers of "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex." But when we get to the fourth credit, Cathy Dennis is missing and Karen Poole is in her place. Checking Wikip's page for Karen Poole, though, and it doesn't include "L.A. Ex" among her compositions, so I don't know, except I think I've done all the research I want to do for today.
The dance is terrific too, each of SNSD coming in from the side or down the aisle and then out onto the runway.
So Lazy Reblog Week continues here on Koganbot, hat-tip this time to
just_keep_on. "Chocolate Love" was part of the promo campaign for LG Electronics' Cyon division's Chocolate BL-40 phone, back in '09. Also in on the campaign, the group f(x) did an even dancier, bumpier version; not quite as good, though, owing to their singing not being as warm as SNSD's. Also, being the Electronic Pop version, it lacks SNSD's tubas and honky-tonk.(Phone commercials seem to have an important role in K-pop: especially there's the epic Lee Hyori video for Samsung's Anystar, the third of three major video productions she did for Samsung. This video also served as trainee Park Bom's debut, Bom going on to fame in 2NE1. And according to Wikip, Miss A's early public performances pre-Min, in China, included appearances on behalf of Samsung China's Anycall campaign.)
*EDIT: See comment thread. Checking the Korean Copyright Association writers' credits, Kenzie isn't listed at all for this song, whereas Bloodshy & Avant (Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg) are, as well as Henrik Jonback, so that's three of the four writers of "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex." But when we get to the fourth credit, Cathy Dennis is missing and Karen Poole is in her place. Checking Wikip's page for Karen Poole, though, and it doesn't include "L.A. Ex" among her compositions, so I don't know, except I think I've done all the research I want to do for today.
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Link dump
Date: 2012-02-18 06:46 am (UTC)So, of course, mashups were made. This one has cleaner mixing (with f(x) and Rachel's arrangement mixed with SNSD's vocals), but I rather like this one for featuring some Rachel vocals,(it also includes Amber's "rap") especially because it plays the last choruses of the two songs over each other, and I'm a a sucker for that kind of thing.
The Anycall CF seems to be a long tradition.
Anyband with BoA, DBSK's Junsu, Epik High's Tablo and Jin Bora.
4Tomorrow composed of Brown Eyed Girl's GaIn, Kara's Seungyeon, Hyuna, and After School's UEE.
Hyori again, with Anyclub, featuring Teddy, and Anymotion.
Rain's Anydream
But yeah, Kpop groups doing endorsement MVs seems pretty common. We all had a laugh when we realized this is the American equivalent commercial to "Chocolate Love." I think conversation devolved after that from imagining if SNSD did a similar style CF until "SNSD pole-dancing in a subway train." Yeah.
2NE1's debut was actually a phone CF MV:(with possibly the best song) CYON's Lollipop, with Big Bang. Big Bang released a sequel, but f(x) did the Chinese version, (which both Shinee and f(x) then released a Korean version of on their actual albums, without the CF connection. Oh, SMEnt, so cheap.)
IU for Samsung Galaxy.
I see fancams for several different Anycall concerts, for pete's sake.
SNSD's spiritual successor to "Chocolate Love" is Visual Dreams for Intel. Dara's solo song KISS is an alcohol CF, and 2NE1's Don't Stop The Music is a scooter CF. A near obscene number of groups and actors for...I don't even know the product. Most Kpop CF songs resemble that last one in style and quality, judging from a quick "CF MV" search on Youtube.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-18 10:55 pm (UTC)Not really apropos of Rachel Stevens, or of much of anything except that, because of the way my mind free associates, I never fail to think of this when I hear "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex": there was a Mya record I quite liked back in 2000, a mesh of barbed-wire synths, the radio DJ's identifying the track as "K City X," or so it seemed, anyway. I liked the title for (I assumed) Kansas City's casual nickname and for the intrigue of simply referring to a mystery paramour as "X": "the K City X." (I suppose I could have listened to the lyrics more carefully.)
Where I hear "Reach Out I'll Be There" in "Chocolate Love" is the vocal descent on "neol gamchugo isseo" and "nan ppajyeo beoryeotjyo," the melody reminding me of Levi Stubbs and crew singing "With a love that will shelter you" and "With a love that will see you through," etc., as do "I call it chocolate love" and "ajil chocolate love."
"Kiss" was one of the first K-pop videos I saw, and it totally impressed me, how it quickly and dramatically told a story in three short scenes, and the poignant story itself, neither of the protagonists quite knowing how to express that they'd touched each other, but Dara not abandoning that knowledge, of being touched, despite walking away from the bullshit that surrounded the boy's arrogant posture. It's like an illustration of Marit's genuinely wise verse at the start of M2M's "Give A Little Love."
(OK, now I'll click on more of your links. My favorite track on the first 2NE1 EP is "Let's Go Party," which has a quiet pang embedded in its melody, seeming to express all the fear and uncertainty regarding the party that the words themselves only hint at.)
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-24 05:27 pm (UTC)The storyline for "Kiss" resonated with me in thinking about how there are different types of fans, and how two of the same fandom may not even be able to connect because being different types reflects on their respective personalities. Hence why although there was that initial connection at the concert, as concert energy tends to sweep differences away, they wouldn't necessarily carry that connection over to the rest of their lives, possibly even within fandom.
Of course, the epilogue thoroughly debunks this and makes it clear that the boy being arrogant was his own false front that he needed to outgrow, rather than his problem being that he assumed Dara to be a fashion kind of girl despite her attitudes being made clear at the club, but without dubious intent.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-24 07:58 pm (UTC)Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-25 02:29 pm (UTC)Approximately, though, I thought the arrangement for "Negotiate With Love" was great, and noted that it's also a Norwegian-written song. Then I asked for the mental association between "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" and "K City X."
Frank's response:
In any event, the association between "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" and "K City X" ("Case Of The Ex") is merely that they're each about an ex.
I had no name recognition prior today for the Nervo Twins. I'd seen their credits on Ke$ha's excellent "Boots & Boys" and had no idea who they were, and subsequently forgot.
I'm disappointed they never wrote for or with the Veronicas.
I see that our Swedish Negotiators also wrote "Chu," for f(x).
In response to the "Reach Out I'll Be There" connection, I think I wrote a long tangent about the different kinds of triplet songs: the sexy swing beat dance track a la "Right Round" and "Womanizer," and the reggaeton?-ish beat found here, questioned the difference between the two, (tempo, the latter is more juxtaposing triplet quarter notes and regular quarter notes, in a cut-time manner) and then wondered about why the former form of triplets is more popular. This section was wiped before I had a chance to post it, I think.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 03:53 am (UTC)Swedish, actually.
I'm not sure where you're hearing triplets in "Cinderella/Complex"; the quarter notes are definitely, you know, quarter notes, and if you break them down further, you get eight or sixteen beats to the measure, not the twelve beats you get in "Womanizer" and "L.A. Ex." But I guess you're saying there's some sort of triple/triplet emphasis? As I said, I'm not able to put my finger on that one. Not sure what I'm hearing in the rhythm in "C/C," actually, but it's great.
Not sure how I'd categorize the beat of "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" anyway. It seems pretty rock 'n' roll, to tell you the truth, more pushed than the boogies and swings of the late '40s, but still with a looseness that hard rock etc. tends to lack. What's grabbing me most, though, is the melody, which, while not sounding retro, is totally steeped in the between-wars American Deep South. I'd call it a "blues" melody except to do so would confuse people. In any event, it's neither major nor minor but uses the tones of old African American music (more accurately, the African American Scots Irish rural English whateverishness that came together in the rural American Southeast). Has a feel somewhat like "St. James Infirmary," though "Sweet Dreams" of course is both more casual and more feisty. (But what Louis is doing rhythmically is way beyond what Rachel is doing, and beyond my powers of analysis: there's the basic substrate of quarter notes that are each individually subdivided further into threes, while his singing/soloing will sometimes reach to alternate rhythms, his timing not off-rhythm but differently rhythmic, having moments where it feints and floats.)
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 03:40 pm (UTC)The rhythm of the arrangement in "Cinderella\Complex" is quarter-notes and sixteenths/eighths,(the reggaton rhythm is, using the one-e-and-a sixteenths speaking notation, "one-a-two-and") but the vocal melody is almost entirely triplets.
The exceptions are the "nanananana" hook, which using the one-la-li triplet speaking notation, is "one-and-two-la-li-three," and various parts where if the melody is crossing between beats using pick-up notes, or using only the first two notes of the triplet, (or both, as in the last pre-chorus line) sometimes the rhythm is crushed from triplets to sixteenths.
I've never heard this songwriter do a fully-triplets song. He always ends up juxtaposing them against sixteenths or eighths,(especially in the arrangement) using the triplets as a source of syncopation, where the likes of "Womanizer" are fully committed to only triplets.
"Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" is fully triplets, but isn't as tied to the down beat as "Chocolate Love." "Chocolate Love" also has some pick-up notes, but has more emphasis on the long notes starting on the down beat.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 04:03 pm (UTC)[...] long notes starting on the down beat. "Run Devil Run" is the same way. Even for the "li-one-la-li-two-la-li-three-li-four-li" runs there's a sense of resolution on the down beats. "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" has lots of long notes starting on the up beat or pick up note. That initial "Heeeeey" is actually starting on an eighth note up beat. The song also prominently makes use of quarter note triplets (which are actually "one-li-la-three-li-la") surrounded by regular quarter notes, the half time equivalent of juxtaposing eighth notes and triplets. The swing time rhythm is a two-beat measure, and "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" and "St. James Infirmary" are treating that pattern like it's one beat. Almost cut time style? (Hence juxtaposing triplet quarters-quarters-eighth notes like triplets-eighths
-sixteenths)
Can't speak for the melody/progression, haven't studied it enough, although that blues pattern you mentioned jumped out at me once I played "St. James Infirmary." I think the pre-chorus might be doing a relative key change to the progession's key, though. Both things are absent from "Chocolate Love," as well, but they wouldn't necessarily fit the sultry theme "Chocolate Love" was going for, anyways. Don't want syncopation or deviance from the progression distracting from the seduction, after all.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 04:59 pm (UTC)As for the impact this has on the sound, I don't have a good idea. SNSD's "Bad Girl" doesn't feel particularly K-pop to me, but "Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)" does, though both have Scandinavian input, the latter actually being Norwegian. (The same crew, Dsign Music, had a hand in ChoColat's "I Like It," the best of ChoColat's three singles.)
It may take a few days before I can concentrate on the music theory stuff.
Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: Link dump
Date: 2012-02-26 05:15 pm (UTC)And I really have no idea what it is that makes something "sound K-pop" to me. I made a K-pop mix, and Jewelry's "One More Time" fit right in, despite its arrangement having been lifted substantially from the Italian Eurodance original (the Jewelry version does flow better rhythmically, and the accordion hook takes an upturn that the it doesn't in In-Grid's; but I'm not really hearing the rhythm containing different beats so much as using different timbre; however, I haven't sat down to do an in-depth comparison yet).
Sweet Dreams My SNSD f(x)
Date: 2012-02-19 05:53 am (UTC)I would give a slight edge to "Chocolate Love," that melody descent carrying great beauty, as do the group vocals. But "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" is more insistent, a feistier song. There could be a dub version that also mashes 'em, stripping down to the guitar strum at the start of "Sweet Dreams" and then inserting bits of the three tracks.
Speaking of accents, as I was back when I wasn't born in East L.A., I wouldn't have pegged Amber as American on the basis of her rap in the f(x) version. I guess L.A. County accents throw me, unless Amber's rapping has fallen into Korean cadences (which it might well have; in music, people are less locked into their accent of origin than when they talk; and I'm aware she's Chinese American, not Korean American, but again, that wouldn't stop her adopting Korean cadences).
Without love, it pop! pop!
Date: 2012-02-19 07:11 am (UTC)Re: Without love, it pop! pop!
Date: 2012-02-24 07:50 pm (UTC)I agree that "Chocolate Love" has the more beautiful melody, but in some ways "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" is a more interesting one, as you said, feistier than "Chocolate Love's" pure sultry. Makes sense, considering the lyrical content. (Of course, I like playing both over one another best, best of both worlds and simultaneous counterpoint weak spot and all that)
There were a few more mashups out there, including one without the f(x) bits, but they've been taken down since and I can't find alternative uploads.
Are you listening to sound intonations or rhythms when you mean cadences? To me, she's still sounding the syllables in a very American fashion, (even Tiffany still has some American "roundness" to some of her speaking, and it definitely is more prominent in her Japanese singing) and as the songs I've heard her rap in are mostly Norwegian-written...*shrugs*
hitchhiker seems to have a better grasp on arrangement than songwriting. His best song is probably BEG's "Abracadabra," where he collaborated with others on the music. I tend to enjoy but also feel slightly dissatisfied with his composed-and-produced works, but I can't tell if that's just me superimposing expectations onto the progression instead of enjoying his style for what it is, or if there's justified disappointment to be had.(especially this little puzzler) For me, he tends to be a little too static, but some songs, like "Visual Dreams" and "GAME," become immensely fun to pay attention from the bridge onwards. On the other hand, "Telepathy," his most recent SNSD offering, shares its progression with "Teenage Dream"/"California Gurls" and, to my neverending amusement, progression(I think) and hook with EW&F's "September," but I still couldn't pay attention to the length of it if I tried.
Re: Without love, it pop! pop!
Date: 2012-02-24 08:17 pm (UTC)I've been whistling "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" for two days now, so I withdraw anything derogatory I said about the melody. In fact I may even prefer its melody to "Chocolate Love"'s. But I still prefer "Chocolate Love" overall, and I probably can't figure out why. Warmer overall with the group vocals, perhaps.