One day she put a spell to bring out the... CLAVE (K-pop in clave, 2013)

[koganbot]

I'm sure there are many more, as well. I'm not claiming these tracks are heavily Afro-Cuban. But they do use one of the clave rhythms:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
X . . X . . X . . . X . X . . .

Turan "Bang Bang Bang"

Watch on YouTube

TINY-G "Minimanimo"

Watch on YouTube

2NE1 "Falling In Love"

Watch on YouTube

And I'm always looking for an excuse to repost this — Bo wasn't Cuban either, but he ran endlessly inventive variants on the beat:

Bo Diddley "Hey! Bo Diddley" (live 1973)

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, Yang Hyun Suk, Papa YG himself, says that Falling in Love is a reggae song. Someone who actually knows something about reggae will be able to judge where it falls on the spectrum between reggae and sort-of-reggae-ish.

Somewhere on the internets I saw a comment calling Bang Bang Bang the first Korean Reggaeton song...

[koganbot]

I have no trouble thinking of "Falling In Love" as a reggae song, quite blatantly so, full-scale, nothing sorta-ish about it, though with great harmonic and Autotune touches atop the basic reggae. I might have trouble specifying the exact details that make something reggae, and of course reggae covers a range of styles so not all reggae songs share the same reggae markers; but among other things reggae/dancehall have frequently been the sound of electronic innovation so electro-manipulation atop "Falling In Love" doesn't run at odds with the genre.

Btw, I find "Falling In Love" delicious, though it does get more diffuse than it should, the non-bass-heavy parts being the parts that drift away. So it suffers from summer-song syndrome. But delicious nonetheless.

But the only reason "Falling In Love" snuck into this livejounal post is that, like some but not all reggae and dancehall, it uses clave, e.g., and quite specifically, CL's "touch t-touch touch, yeah yeah," part at 0:24 (the second "touch" the only note in that line that isn't a direct matchup to the beats I diagrammed up top).

I'm not on firm ground when it comes to reggaeton, and it may have widened and changed its palette considerably from when Denver briefly had its own Hurban station back in 2004-05. But I recall that "Gasolina" and a hundred other songs all used a particular cousin of the clave, sorta the first measure of the clave but with that same extra note that's in the "touch t-touch touch" rhythm we just noticed from 2NE1; but since there's no second measure we get measures of "touch t-touch touch" played one atop the other relentlessly.

Anyway, in "Bang Bang Bang" the actual bang-bang-bang part has a sorta reggaeton feel, but overall the rhythm is the more relaxed full clave. The hornish bits e.g. at 0:48 sound like Latin bigband. And interestingly, the melodic material sounds very orientalistically Arab or South Asian (yes, I'm being broad enough in my geography specificity, aren't I?). It's a very interesting track, and an interesting year for K-pop (though distressingly no K-pop boyband or girl group that's debuted in the last two-and-a-half years has hit big, so a lot of the interestingness isn't gaining a hearing).

I don't know what a music theorist would say of my use of the word "clave." But my diagram is an accurate depiction of the most commonly cited rhythm. I'm sure there's more subtlety involved in determining that a track is in clave, no instrument necessarily needing to state the clave beat for it to nonetheless dominate the rhythmic structure.

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

I noticed the Middle Eastern vibe in Bang Bang Bang too. The melody under the opening speech sounds (to me, at least) like traditional Japanese music.

[koganbot]

If that's correct, and it is a traditional Japanese or Korean or East Asian melody (or the style is traditional Japanese or co.), it nonetheless is what sets up the "Middle Eastern" stuff that is to come, some of the "Middle Eastern" being layered right on top of the "Japanese" instrumentation. E.g., notice what's happening at 1:20. Except I think it might be the instrument at the start but not the melody that the instrument is playing that's East Asian, the melody being — perhaps — West Asian/North African (or South Asian or Eastern European or I don't know the fuck what).

IS THERE AN ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST IN THE HOUSE?

[koganbot]

New link for the combination trad "Japanese" instrumentation and quasi-"Arab" melody at 1:20, since YouTube killed the old one.

I also like the voluptuously friendly but provocative HyunA voice the first of the rappers puts on at 2:05.

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

Is f(x)'s new song Rum Pum Pum Pum in clave?

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[koganbot]

It sure feels like it, doesn't it?

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

It's also got some Middle Eastern style curlicues and percussion going on. Perhaps this will be the next big thing in K-Pop, now that brostep is getting passé.

(I should have seen this coming, but Wikipedia informs me that many freestyle songs have clave rhythms. Perhaps if Chocolat's producers jump on the clave bandwagon you'll get the Korean freestyle you've been hoping for...)

[koganbot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnku4o3tRB4

One day she put a spell...

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

...to get TURAN on Music Bank.

(And another spell to stop embedded videos appearing.)