koganbot | On the lower rungs, Crayon Pop raise the bar

This is begging for a sentai (Power Rangers) set of outfits. If Crayon Pop decide to full-time be the Kpop equivalent of Momoiro Clover Z, I will be PERFECTLY FINE WITH THAT.

Well, Crayon Pop have been into winter athletic wear recently.

Edited 2022-04-02 18:34 (UTC)

User

arbitrary_greay referenced to your post from Crayon Pop Bar Bar Bar (http://snsd-ffa.livejournal.com/131497.html) saying: [...] Frank alerted me to the new Crayon Pop song. [...]

Have some more fancams.

And Saturday Night, with the fanchants turned up to eleven.

If you're wondering what they're chanting in the middle, it's the members' real names, starting with the oldest:

Apologies for the misformatting. It looked fine in the preview.

Baek Bo Ram (Gummi)

Kim Min Young (Ellin)

Heo Min Jin (ChoA)

Heo Min Seon (Way)

Park Hye Kyeong (Soyul)

Looked fine in lj's email notification, too. Maybe lj has some formatting issues.

Their ages (in American reckoning):

Gummi = 25 (in nine days)
Ellin = 23
ChoA = 22 (23 next month)
Way = 22 (23 next month)
Soyul = 22

Has it been confirmed that ChoA came out of the womb before her twin sister Way?

Compare to the Rolling Stones a year after their first single:

Bill = 27
Charlie = 23
Brian = 22
Mick = 21 (month short of 22)
Keith = 21

Recall that in our original discussion of Crayon Pop, I confessed to originally, on the basis of their sound alone, typing them as "indie dance pop, that is, as a detached, knowing version of cute" and said I wouldn't have been surprised to learn they were bohos in their mid twenties. Then I saw them, typed them as genuine teenyboppers. Then you pointed out that they are in fact in their twenties, and that Way went to art school. Wikip says that she was previously in indie band N.Dolphin — though listening to N.Dolphin, I wouldn't be sure that they're not just a (non-idol) retro-pop group without necessarily an indie sensibility. But then, this is where my cross-cultural readings might really be all wrong.

For that matter, I've no articulate explanation for why I initially registered the Crayon Pop version of cute as indie dance pop, whereas, though Girl's Day and Rainbow switched to a "cute concept," and Orange Caramel were a cute-concept spinoff of sexy-adult concept After School and started with a look that seemed deliberately off, leggy models stuck in to kiddie-book outfits, none of those acts seemed (or seem) indie in their knowing cuteness. And none of them, therefore, seemed to be undercutting themselves in the way that I believe indie "detached, knowing version of cute" usually undercuts itself and is an aesthetic weakness. Which isn't to say that, e.g., the new Rainbow don't hinder themselves aesthetically by singing worse songs than they had previously, or that early Orange Caramel didn't have their own aesthetic drawbacks; but they didn't seem — I don't know — at an indie distance, with indie drawbacks. (Btw, I'm not saying that indie is characteristically distant, just that it's at a distance when it tries to go cute or catchy. It's often at other distances too, e.g., from effectiveness, but I'm not writing an essay on indie so I won't pursue that thought here.)

Edited 2013-06-09 13:28 (UTC)

Anyhow, (1) I can't tell you what in the sound made me register Crayon Pop as "indie." (2) Their visuals still feel "genuine" rather than "indie," and it was the visuals that caused me to shift my reading from indie. (3) I definitely underrated "Bing Bing" and "Saturday Night" at first, but I still feel those songs are weak and distanced compared to similar neo-disco from the Nine Muses ("Figaro") and T-ara ("Roly-Poly" and "Lovey-Dovey"). Those two Crayon Pop tracks don't dive into the meat of the music. I can't give a good reason why I think so. And "Figaro" and "Roly-Poly" can hardly be said to be non-calculated in their neo-disco-ness. (4) Tymee/E.via's ambivalent, half-adversarial approach to her own cuteness seems strong, not weak. (5) I think that some idol groups, e.g., T-ara, may be cuter than they realize (that is, they have a gravity about them that seems cute to me but not necessarily to them, which isn't to say that they have no idea they're coming across as cute, and Boram can be irritatingly cutesy). (6) Does social category/social class have anything to do with this? E.g., Tymee/E.via seems to be coming from a sociocultural "left" and if indeed Crayon Pop have an indie sensibility, that's from some sort of "left" too (though not necessarily a politically sophisticated or engaged left). Which is to say that even though, being part of a Seoul music enclave, and therefore perhaps a bit Hollyweird in comparison to South Korea as a whole, the other acts I've mentioned in this post still seem on the preppie side of things, as opposed to being lumpen or freaks or whatever.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts as to what in the sound and look etc. prompts my readings (I make the readings often without being able to pinpoint their causes), not to mention what your own readings would be, please feel free to express them.

Edited 2013-06-09 13:40 (UTC)

I do think "Bar Bar Bar" gets something right — maybe just by being even catchier than "Saturday Night" and "Bing Bing," but "Bar Bar Bar"'s power pop seems to fit their light voices better than does "Saturday Night"'s and "Bing Bing"'s neo-disco. I could imagine Pete Townshend writing the melody, and the Go-Go's singing it.

A question in my mind as to whether we should transliterate "빠빠빠" as "Bar Bar Bar," "Par Par Par," "Pa Pa Pa," or "Ba Ba Ba." Wikip goes with "Pa Pa Pa." I believe, but don't know since I don't speak Korean, that the double ㅃ is more likely to be "p," in comparison to the single ㅂ, which is more likely to be "b." (And I think ㅍ is "p" with a puff of air.) But that doesn't mean there can't be exceptions anyway (e.g., English is all over the place with how you pronounce its letters, e.g., the "t" and the "d" in the word "stopped"; Hangul was designed to be way more consistent, but that doesn't mean it's always able).

But then, have the Koreans lifted the word "bar" from English and spelled it "빠," in which case transliteration isn't the issue, and "bar" would be right?* The unreliable Google Translate gives us "바" as the translation of "bar," but gives us "bar" as the translation 빠, and gives us "Bar ppappa" as the translation of "빠빠빠."

Whether indie or not, "Bar Bar Bar" is deliberately funny, as is the choreography.

*Except if these are nonsense syllables, in which case we should return to transliteration.

Edited 2013-06-09 14:41 (UTC)

The promotional graphic gives the title as "Bar Bar +Bar", written on the reels of a slot machine.

That's good enough for me!

Well, "ssang consonants" are always challenging for foreigners, either to pronounce or to understand, and I suspect that native speakers also can be confused sometimes during casual conversation (they will never admit it). Ssangbieup (ㅃ) pronunciation is usually described as a strong, tense, unaspirated P sound. So, from a sound point of view, I'd romanize "빠빠빠" as "PpaPpaPpa".
Bing translator, which is usually a bit more accurate for KOR-ENG translations, translates "bar"<->"바" in both directions.
Since ㅂ at the beginning of a single word also sounds as "P", maybe they have chosen this form in order to avoid that the title was pronounced as "PaBaBa" (바바바). I have to say that I can't feel so much the ㅃ emphasis while they are singing, but I'm a total beginner.
Anyway, they seem to be totally on the J-Pop side this time. The song is catchy and they are funny, even if they seem to be still a little uncomfortable with the choreo.

Chrome have released the MV for Bar Bar Bar, or at least a video related to it.

This reddit thread explains some of what's going on.

Setting is very reminiscent of a typical Korean rural area. Remember that the majority of Korea is actually quite rural, so that's a very familiar setting to the Korean audience. These girls are walking to the public bath house (those colorful baskets are where people would normally carry the toiletries, like soaps), and on the way they're disciplining the neighborhood bullies. Then the girls enjoy some bath time. Afterwards, they're playing some pool and eating the korean black noodles (자장면/Jajangmyun, which is similar to burgers in Western culture). This is a very typical thing for Koreans to do when they socialize.

The video caption is the enigmatic: "This video is about 빠빠빠 MV." So presumably the MV proper will be something else, but this is kind of about it (made of outtakes?).

Seems to me the majority of any country is rural, except maybe Vatican City and Monaco. But an increasingly smaller percentage of the world's population is actually living in rural areas. I think maybe the commenter is assuming that (1) rural small towns in South Korea are fairly uniform throughout the country in their characteristics, and (2) the majority of South Koreans are familiar with those typical small-town features. (Of course I haven't had a chance to click the link yet.)

At the risk of arguing with someone who has presumably actually been to Korea, I think he's got it a bit wrong. The location is an old-fashioned neighbourhood in Seoul with traditional hanok houses and small apartment blocks (which are an endangered species in Seoul). But perhaps Chrome's budget just didn't stretch to a location shoot in a real country village.

Yeah, I wouldn't have thought "rural" when I saw Crayon Pop confronting bullies in the back alley.

Right. We saw those places so many times in korean dramas.

From the YouTube thread:

Honestly, its so difficult to even dislike this group. I've loved them since Bing Bing <3 They are just cute, and dorky, and perfect

Recall the convo

arbitrary_greay and some more of us had about fans considering dorkiness a praiseworthy attribute in an idol (at least when combined with some other, contrary attribute). I'm the one who brought up Crayon Pop in that context.

Edited 2013-06-14 03:16 (UTC)

They seem to have gotten rid of the video caption that said this was about the MV, so maybe this is the video. Or maybe I just can't remember where I saw the caption. (But other commenters saw it too.)

크레용팝 4번째 싱글 앨범 '빠빠빠' 뮤직비디오 / Story Ver. MV

정식음원 공개 : 6월 20일

Google translate gives us:

Pop Crayon 4th Single Album 'Bar ppappa' Music Video / Story Ver. MV

Official source revealed: June 20

This implies that something might happen on June 20th. As far as I can tell, the song itself hasn't yet been made available for sale.

Edited 2013-06-15 12:21 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't like this drama version, waiting for the dance version. I think they will debut on Mnet MCountdown on the 20th.

Edited 2013-06-18 10:44 (UTC)

Yes, the dance routine is far more engaging.

The song has been released, but the TV comeback has been scheduled for saturday. They are listed in the performers list of MBC Music Core (last entry in the "About" section). Good luck, girls!

http://www.youtube.com/user/MBCkpop?v=oWtrTh3uoio

Done. They performed a shorter version of the new choreo.

Et voilà!

Edited 2013-06-22 10:09 (UTC)

Lotsa YouTube comments, but mostly in Korean, and Google Translate is hopeless (e.g., "What woman dancing since I feel sorry for my" and "Full gwiyeom rate Potentiometer pop curse. Why").

The Korean comments might be about the Ilbe scandal.

By the way, the company says they only looked at Ilbe to see what users were saying about girl groups.

Do YouTube commenters even know about the controversy? From the little I got out of Google Translate, I wasn't seeing that as an issue being raised (as opposed to on Reddit). But the translation bot is so bad that I don't really know.

The article that actually quotes Agency is in Korean, so I can't read it.

Reddit comments aren't giving me a good idea what's going on — and seem par for the course for the Internet, i.e., fairly thoughtless, though here's someone who had an idea that I had:

Kinky_ass • 7 hours ago
So basically if anyone even sees that site they are ilbe users? O.O

How do K-netizens know those words then? Does this mean they are ilbe users too? I know those words too now, does that mean I am an ilbe user too and I even clicked on that site, although I do not know korean/hangul whatsoever.

OMIGAWD. WE ARE ALL SCREWED.

And here's a comment that's so extreme that even I think it's unfair to Netizens (and I'm assuming it's deliberate hyperbole), but it made me smile nonetheless:

Boo • 4 hours ago
so talking trash about people like insulting them saying they are ugly/fat/sluts/ deserve to die, creating anti-forums, posting mysoginous/perverted/racist/anti-homosexual comments, is being an ilbe ?
so what about most of k-netizens ? o.O
except for the thing with animals, i don't really see the difference...

Btw David, do you think there's anything there in all this. I guess I mean that question in two ways: (1) Do you yourself consider this as something that deserves to be an issue, that the CEO and one group member are familiar with a forum (as opposed to their putting right-wing content in their music and in their public statements and symbolism)? (2) Whatever your answer to number one, do you think this actually will be a scandal, will have much of an impact? (E.g., the supposed "bullying" thing had a big impact on the public perception of T-ara, though if Hwayoung hadn't been canned I doubt it would have; but even with all that still in memory, Netizen attempts* to raise a scandal about T-ara N4 having a disco poster that supposedly looked like a Rising Sun flag in the background of the "Countryside Diary" video didn't have legs, from what I can tell.)

*In shifting to their new format, Allkpop seems to have deleted all the old comments. I remember over a thousand comments to this article, many making fun of k-netizens for raising this issue.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Korean netizen culture or Korean anything to know how much of a scandal this will be, or whether simply reading Ilbe for opinions on K-Pop (if that's what they were doing) "deserves" to be an issue. Certainly, thanking Ilbe members for supporting you (as the CEO allegedly did in another tweet) will prompt netizens to think that you might share their political views.

The song has been released and the MV was supposed to appear by now, but while we wait here's a dance practice.

There's a scandal brewing over a tweet by Chrome's CEO which implies that he and at least one of the members read Ilbe, the far-right web forum.

The MV has at last arrived.

Top comment right now: "What's this?! Idols that are fully dressed! Amazing!"

[Netizens]: "What's this?! Idols that are fully dressed! Amazing!"
Even if I think that pushing sexiness or cuteness too much can easily turn out to be ridicolous, those fake puritans are the most annoying. There are so many tv channels selling god at every hour, why don't they watch those and avoid pop MVs with undressed idols? It's that easy.
The controversy seem cooling off quite rapidly, but I had no idea that everything started because of a change of vocal (ㅗ instead of ㅓ) in the phrase "너무 너무" on the usual infamous Twitter. A bit weak to ignite big sparks.
In the meantime, I saw Ellin in some past episodes of "All the K-Pop" and she's quite something. Witty, strong, cute and sexy. Nicely impressive.

Edited 2013-06-25 14:13 (UTC)

Haven't had the chance to watch a full episode, but if prudishness is — somehow — supposed to be part of Crayon Pop's concept, Ellin seems to have misplaced her copy of the instructions:

Edited 2013-06-26 04:36 (UTC)

A great self confidence is needed to be an entertainer, but it's atypical for a korean female idol to be so outgoing when it comes to man/woman relationships. She's in total control over men in all the "kissing" games that MC Boom sets up. Another surprising one in this serie is Tahiti's Jisoo, which was also great in "Let's go Dream Team 2".

"Bar Bar Bar" jumps 53 places to 90 on this week's Gaon Chart — which still isn't very high; they're at a measly 2,360,827 points, though I have no idea how those points are compiled. Lee Seung Chul's "My Love," at number one, has well over 10 times as many: 27,781,126 (and that's a pretty low number for a number one; T-ara's "Roly-Poly" hit over 60,000,000 on its second week back in summer 2011). Meanwhile, three weeks in, Chocolat's "Black Tinkerbell" has disappeared from the chart altogether.

Down to 116 for week three.

And then up to 54 for week four, even though — as far as I know — they've rarely been on the big four TV performance shows (Music Core three weeks ago, M! Countdown last week). Been on some of the minor ones, and they're plugging away. 3,014,790 points, which means they've risen from almost nothing to slightly more than almost nothing. But this maybe is a wee bit o' slightly significant, as — maybe — are the twenty-three people who rated it on the Jukebox reader meter (which excludes people who officially write for the site). Yes, I know 23 isn't a significant number, but I do think Crayon Pop are getting a bit more attention in our world than are the other obscure idol acts I've been plumping for this year: Tiny G, D-Unit, GLAM, ChoColat, Evol, Z.Hera.

"Bar Bar Bar" enters the Gaon Chart at 143, three lower than Chocolat's "Black Tinkerbell" on its second week, which had debuted a week earlier at 81.

Fingers crossed that "Bar Bar Bar" is only just now getting known and will do better next week. I wouldn't bet on it, though.

On the lower rungs, Crayon Pop raise the bar

no subject

no subject

Crayon Pop Bar Bar Bar

no subject

no subject

Can someone explain Frank to Frank?

Can someone continue to explain Frank to Frank?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

It's time to read the caption if you dare

Re: It's time to read the caption if you dare

Re: It's time to read the caption if you dare

Re: It's time to read the caption if you dare

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject