On the lower rungs, Crayon Pop raise the bar

[koganbot]

Fancam of forthcoming track from Crayon Pop, "Bar Bar Bar." CRAYON POP DO NOT DISAPPOINT. I had to get out of my chair: I was laughing so hard I was afraid I'd hurt myself. I think those are toboggan helmets. Anyway, I can't wait on this. (H/t to David Frazer, as usual, for all things Crayon Pop.)

Watch on YouTube

Subtract the visuals and there's still a great little song, a girl chant that's an earworm with harmonies (or harmonic something, anyway; I would welcome a musical analysis).

Comments

Can someone explain Frank to Frank?

[koganbot]

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.)