Girl's Day's Oh! My God

[koganbot]

Girl's Day came to my attention in 2010 with the passionate, wailing "Nothing Lasts Forever." Sales and streams were less than middling, though, and the sound and image shifted as if the decision had been made to really sell the concept "girl" in "Girl's Day." So you'd get fairy-dust mood pieces or smiley tracks that were simultaneously upbeat and listless, or catchy tracks with chirpingly high singing. Most of this was bearable, and there were interesting curves and bends in "Twinkle Twinkle" and bright Pepsodent beats in "Don't Let Your Eyes Wander." The new one, "Oh! My God," is back to chirpingly cute, but this time the track is forceful and the catchiness really catchy. First release of theirs to hit me in a couple of years.

Watch on YouTube

There's surely something I'm not getting about the video. If I saw those bright colors in America I'd say, "They're going for the kiddie market." But these are women's bodies (oldest member is 26, youngest about to turn 18), and the demeanor and male-female interplay is--I'm not sure what. There's hyperbole in this video. And someone wearing a donkey's head. Trevor says, "Girl's Day take some of the ideals of femininity, such as, for instance, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and turn these ideals into nightmarish extremes, too much for any man to handle." I have no idea if I agree.

Comments

Horns and floppy ears

[koganbot]

Back in the pre-cutesy girl's day of the "Nothing Lasts Forever" video, someone was wearing a goat's head. Now, I realize that goats aren't donkeys (one has horns and the other has floppy ears, right?). Nonetheless, there seems to be a common theme here.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

It's very cartoonish. I think the point of the bright colors is that they are cartoon characters, not real people. Everything is exaggerated because it's a cartoon, the dialog is not real dialog because it's a cartoon, they solve their issues via a breakdancing contest because it's a cartoon, etc.

I think the video is about having fun almost to the point that it's not fun anymore, taking things just that little bit too far. Mentally I guess I put this video in with Twinkle Twinkle or Yayaya - they are almost like parodies or criticisms of the usual girl-group "teehee oppa I've fallen for you" songs (e.g. A Pink "Hush (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7SFr9dJrw4)"). The guy tied to the pole in the Yayaya video doesn't look like he's having fun either.

[trevitron.livejournal.com]

I think this is exactly right, especially the point in the second paragraph. In fact, I think of Girl's Day and T-ara as somewhat similar. For me, the difference is that Girl's Day seem hyper-human, whereas T-ara appear alien. They may not be literal aliens in the "Yayaya" video, but they come across as the same thing. In fact, the way they all work together in that video to tie up and dance around the guy is maybe the most disturbing part. It's like they are acting in unison, controlled by some hive mind. They move as one, and people may take this for granted because they're, you know, a music group, but if you look at 2NE1 videos, by contrast, you see an awful lot of individual singers performing and dancing separate from each other. (Girl's Generation are often seen dancing together, but they do it in a way that's not menacing like "Yayaya." It's sisterly and communal.)

For all the criticism about appropriation in the "Yayaya" video, that exoticism does serve the image I'm talking about. The video is pretty much the perfect encapsulation of one aspect of T-ara's sound, and even before I saw the video, and was simply in love with the song, I felt that intuitively: here are a group of strange, alien creatures who are going to overpower you.

I think this strand appears in their other videos too. "Bo Peep Bo Peep" is obviously slightly animalistic, but then there's that little booty bounce thing that they do, which for me is like what an alien female would try to do to imitate earthling seduction techniques (or something). It's just a little too exaggerated and, well, alien, whereas Girl's Day always seem very much at home in the settings of their videos (it's their world, and men are the alien ones).

And then you have "Roly Poly." I love that their album is entitled John Travolta Wannabe. It makes sense (disco!), but it's kind of an out-of-touch reference, which makes the T-ara-as-aliens analogy work. And in the video, they are all so dorky that I think you could view it in the same way: these aliens come from some other planet and try to fit in at a dance club, so they pretend to be John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

I think it's all helped by the fact that, of all the girl groups, T-ara seem like the one who is most a group and not a collection of individuals. I must admit, I have no idea which member is which, and my sense is that a lot of other fans (maybe not the diehards in Korea, but the Western fans) are the same way (at least, that's the impression I've gotten, though I could be wrong). I mean, just their music alone is somewhat alien-sounding. So I agree that Girl's Day and T-ara are somewhat similar in that regard (i.e. taking things a bit too far), but that's my view of how they differ.

[koganbot]

Yes about the cartoonishness! The way the faces scrunch when they get hit are like the way a cartoon cat's face distorts when it runs into a frying pan.

Don't know enough to know if I agree or disagree with the "having fun almost to the point it's not fun anymore." Even if that's how we take it, I wouldn't assume that that's what's meant or how other people take it (though, of course, even if they don't mean it or take it like that, it still can be about that for us).

But I'm also not yet getting a good line on the plot of the video — what the (cartoonish) conflicts are.

[koganbot]

Am planning a T-ara/Girl's Day comparison post shortly, though about sound not visuals, so this comment is a good counterpoint. Will wait till then to respond to this. I can tell the T-arans apart, but I think they adjust their styles and personae to the songs rather than vice versa.

The questions that puzzle me most about the Girl's Day video are whom is it for, and how does the image play?

The women in Girl's Day don't just have mature bodies (so did Ashley and Vanessa in High School Musical but the two still were convincing as high school students). The demeanor strikes me as at least sometimes womanly. Can't put my finger on it. In the U.S., I doubt that a boy over 8 or a girl over 14 would even look at a video like this. But my guess is that in Korea, plenty of young adults are in the audience, male and female. But I don't know. If Girl's Day were to dress like the Pussycat Dolls for their next vid, allkpop.com would predictably speak of their new sexy and mature image. But does that mean the audience demographics would change? Or would it be the same people, not needing to adjust their view to the change in clothing?

[koganbot]

If you haven't seen it, here's a discussion we had about the "Yayaya" video:

Problematic Korean Video Friday over at Poptimists: T-ara YA YA YA

Re: Horns and floppy ears

[koganbot]

I see now that there are two different animal heads in "Oh! My God." There's the gray donkey (first appearance at 1:35) and then the brown-headed bartender (2:45), not sure what it is: mule? cow?

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

You might be right about "having fun to point it's not fun anymore". Maybe Girls' Day are just showing that when they party, they party hard. Everything is overboard and exaggerated, which is why the cartoon image is a good fit for them (even if I also prefer the "adult women playing air guitar" image of Nothing Lasts Forever).

But I'll stick with my assertion that T-ara are in this category of girl-groups who are playing with the Kpop cliche of women who are "crazy for you" - only shifting the emphasis away from "for you" and closer toward "crazy" as if to say are you sure you can handle this? Maybe the audience is guys who like a challenge.

Here's another crazy-for-you song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctj2EONoi5k

Also, here's another female performer who emphasizes her power (like Sistar in Push Push or 2NE1 in I Am the Best or BoA in I'll Eat You Up); unlike T-ara and Girls' Day who are still dependent on guys for rides or attention, e.via takes the lead and even directs some other girls to shake their butts etc. She's totally in control at all times, including over the pace of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Ce8miQZpU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wmJ5DD9W2s

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Oops beaten to it (http://occupiedterritories.tumblr.com/). Well, in case you were wondering, I wrote that stuff about e.via before seeing this (also "Shake" lifts from a Pitbull song).

[koganbot]

And here's what I had to say about E.via:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/266444.html

And here's the tag, though sometimes the references are only glancing; but sometimes there's discussion, ideas from Mat and anhh and Sabina as well as me:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/tag/e.via

(Which Pitbull song? I hadn't known that about "Shake.")

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Of course you've talked about her, I should have checked.

Hotel Room:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3-CmXt0LgQ

[koganbot]

Not the same riff, though if you transpose them to the same key they do start and end on the same note as each other, and they each start with a double note. Similar in feel but it's not a lift.

For a reason that's not just the song title, the riff in "Hotel Room Service" reminds me of N2Deep's "Back To The Hotel," though the two riffs aren't close to the same.

[koganbot]

I'm surprised the bird was so complacent during KARA's home invasion.

Has there ever been a Korean Miranda Lambert (I suppose KARA are crazy future girlfriends)?

Re: Horns and floppy ears

[moadeep.livejournal.com]

I swear I saw a giraffe head.

[koganbot]

I think now is perhaps a good time to reiterate that I most certainly do know which member of T-ara is which!