Frank Kogan

I'm sure I first heard *about* K-pop here, though I'm not sure when I heard my first K-pop song. In fact, as I recall there was discussion of Korean rap at the end of "Real Punks," though I don't think I listened to it at the time.

"Love it" -- not sure I do love it yet, actually, but it seems to be a catalyst for good conversations, and for whatever reason it's more capable of ambushing me with emotion than other music right now. I've listened to Track 05 on a K-pop comp Frank put together on repeat, no idea why it keeps hitting me the way it does. Part of it might be the flashes of English, part of it might just be that K-pop feels very adventurous and unpredictable.

Ethnicity/nationality: Not sure. I usually just describe myself as "white" and "American."

Favorite groups/favorite songs. I'm not sure that I've ever disliked a "group," because most groups have too much going on to dislike everything. They remind me of Celine Dion, distinctive but chameleonic. Most consistently seem to like 2NE1, T-ara, SNSD. Subjects for future research/more listening: everyone else, probably.

Songs that have ambushed me with emotion: IU's "You & I" (emotion: happysadness); CL's individual contributions to a buncha 2NE1 songs (esp. "I Am the Best") and that one where she raps with someone else on that K-pop comp and the solo thing where she changes the words to "Did It On Em" (emotion: badasseriness), e.Via (pretty much the whole 2011 EP) (emotion: eyeball-exploding), That Song Whose Name and Performer I Don't Remember (Traack 05 on K-pop comp 2) (gobsmacking inexplicable wistful something-or-other).

I really like that the boybands hit me with the binary safe/sexy flip-flopping that I still get from early BSB and NSync, who were the only two boybands I still like from the era (can't stand the second-rates, O-Town, 98 Degrees, etc.).

One thing I'm starting to wonder is if K-pop tends to operate (for me) on the Rachel Stevens principle, which is that there are no unifying features or particular talents that I can point to that *should* make the music any better than any other music. But then cumulatively it's not only better, but *much* better, leaps and bounds above the competition, and sometimes useful in presenting styles that I don't think I like in a way, esp. in context with other songs, that I love. "Come and Get It" is a perplexing album, in part because it just shouldn't be as GOOD as it is. But it is. And so is a lot of K-pop, though not always in album format (that is, I haven't heard a "Come and Get It" of K-pop, but the cumulative output is greater than the sum of its parts. Often in American pop I sense that somehow the parts are the story, and the sum leaves me somewhat cold.)