Frank Kogan

"What are your favorite groups and why? What are your favorite songs and why?"

2NE1, Big Bang - it's rewarding to be a fan of these groups. The more you pay attention, the more you get out of the music because it is written as *if* you have been following their careers closely from the beginning. Everyone in these groups has musical talent, and Teddy Park is a great producer. The music videos are visually interesting (2NE1) or symbolically rich (Big Bang). Production is close to US pop production - I have started to appreciate US pop music more in a kind of reverse-discovery process.

Brown Eyed Girls - I like the individual members. This group has a lot of stature and they work with great people on their solo stuff. Also, girl-on-girl fanservice!

Infinite - I like the 80s synth + electric guitars + emotional singing + obsessive lyrics thing they have going on. Their songs are consistently good and their music videos are intriguing, in that "what's going on here?" kind of way. Someone at that company is putting a lot of thought and craft into every aspect of this.

T-ara & 4minute - There's a clearly "most charismatic" member of each of these groups but instead of overshadowing the other members, the charisma seems to rub off on them/to be contagious. I admire both groups' willingness to push boundaries.

B1A4 - Good lyrics by a good-looking-but-very-introspective songwriter who is also in the band. Kind of like B2ST, but I like B1A4's style/message a little more. Group members seem to be pretty smart too.

Tablo - Fever's End is a good, cohesive album with a story behind it.

B.A.P. - I like their identification with the oppressed. So far none of their music has "stuck" on me, maybe because I'm not a fan of Linkin Park style rock-rap. But I have high hopes for this group. They are very interesting people and I like... okay, this is getting into unsupported theorizing territory, but sometimes I wonder whether Kpop is the domain of young + old female fans, and older male fans, because most of the young Korean guys are more into video games. I like that BAP has a kind of gamer sensibility - instead of playing themselves on TV, they play characters, and are promoting themselves between albums with a comic about their alien bunny avatars.

I guess what all of these groups have in common is "stories". They are interesting people and that interestingess is reflected in their music or music videos.

"Do you prefer boy groups over girl groups or both?"

I like girl-group singles more, but I follow more boy groups.

I think girls are freer in some ways: to express superiority or to physically threaten their partner, for instance. I think this is because it's "cute" when girls do this - or at least not as threatening - because of the assumed power difference between men and women. (Personally I find something something like "Heart to Heart" to be terrifying - but terror also increases adrenaline which can be fun in a way, since the violence is a fantasy. But a video where the guy was manipulating his girlfriend into staying with him would be awful, because he already has the overt power in the relationship, and now he has the covert power too... in other words he's a controlling douchebag... double standards etc etc)

On the other hand, unless it's a ballad, I don't think women are as free to tell personal stories of pain and growth as men are. I like stories, so I'm more drawn to the boy groups in this respect.