Ice Cream and the Ice Creams ft. Ice Cream "Ice Cream" (Singles First Quarter 2015)

[koganbot]

Missed most of February (and most of everything else). Ash-B is the great discovery here, a strong and throaty rapper like Choi Sam but with a tone that's more supple and subtle. Will say more when I post my 2014 albums list. "The Song Of Love" is a low-rent slow dance from Core Contents Media (yeah, it's not Core Contents Media anymore, but in my dark heart it always will be). "Yumeno Ukiyoni Saitemina" scrunches together two acts I never really got and it's catchy. Azin's the sort of respectable-type well-controlled quality singer I always intend to be indifferent towards except every year there's another one who gets to me. I can't tell if Rihanna's goofing. I'd have called it "Bitch Betta Have My Ice Cream." Red Velvet take the cake. Christine and the Queens sing "Christine." ZZBEst kinda go soul horny in the early evening. Lizzy trots. GFriend are trying to sound like early SNSD and kinda do. They don't dance remotely as well, unfortunately. Jason Aldean does rote party roteness with good guitars. J'sais pas, I dunno.

Looking forward to Crayon Pop, Miss A, Blady, Exo. What'd I miss?

1. Ash-B "매일"
2. The Seeya "The Song Of Love"
3. Momoiro Clover Z vs KISS "Yumeno Ukiyoni Saitemina"
4. Azin "Delete"
5. Rihanna "Bitch Better Have My Money"
6. Red Velvet "Ice Cream Cake"
7. Christine and the Queens "Christine"
8. ZZBEst "랄랄라"
9. Lizzy "Not An Easy Girl"
10. GFriend "Glass Bead"
11. Jason Aldean "Just Gettin' Started"
12. Brigitte "J'sais pas"

[EDIT: Video not available; Ash-B's "매일" seems to no longer exist on the Internet.]

Comments

[koganbot]

In its manifestation in the broader culture, PBSification is a movement outward, which is both good for you (socially progressive if you're on the left, radically preservative and even apocalyptic if you're on the right) and bad for you (so touts bad girls and wildness and recalcitrance), and being bad is good for you because it challenges the mainstream's idea of goodness, even if it's the mainstream that generates this challenge to its goodness. And my complaint is that once we know or think we know this significance of the good-bad stuff [i.e., the "bad" stuff that we've decided is therefore good], once we realize that it actually does have cultural value and impact, we let the symbol, capital-S Significance, stand in for actual significance — but prior to our really comprehending the significance, the good-bad stuff was walled-off into entertainment, so was like Elsa isolated with her "power." So I'm sorta saying that Angry Bird Toons, prior to being lionized and crowned king or queen by PBS/MMI types like me, is like Elsa on her mountain, where it's safe from our really understanding its cultural value and we're safe from understanding its potency. So there, I've conflated Elsa and Angry Bird Toons, which is both a strength and weakness of my PBS metaphor, that I seem to be able to make it absorb anything. But remember that, though I wasn't using the term "PBS" entirely as a pejorative, it still primarily is pejorative, and as such it's not a criticism of understanding but of a type of neutralization that follows and perhaps undoes understanding.

In saying in 1987 that the supposed punk supposed alternative supposed indie supposed underground had become our own little "PBS," I was saying that in effect it had become a cultural niche, one that let the symbol of its own challenge to the culture substitute for any actual challenge, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge that it — the subculture, the MMI — was generated by the overall culture and was part of the overall culture.

(And this claim of mine is ridiculously overbroad, but still somewhat right, and still necessary in its overbroadness.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I have seen Frozen (so spoilers ahead) -- twice now, plus lots of 5-20-minute snatches overseen/heard when nephews and nieces are watching -- and what I like and dislike about it are pretty much the same thing, and something that I was surprised, in retrospect (well, maybe not surprised, but pleased?) that kids picked up on, which is that it really is Elsa's story even though Elsa barely features in huge hunks of the movie, much to its detriment.

The formation (and eventual abandonment) of the ice castle is so the heart of the movie that it's hard to care about much else going on. A few folks had mentioned how disturbing it was for their kids to see the "prince charming" scenario turn sour for Anna, but for me the real disturbing stuff -- the stuff that disturbed ME, that is, not sure how it would affect kids -- was just how *violent* Elsa became in her quest for a quiet, private place of her own. (Mick Jagger thought two's a crowd, but I don't think he flung literal ice daggers at anyone who got near him, aiming to murder them effortlessly and indiscriminately, even if that was what he was feeling.)

But like I said, kids clearly picked up on the fact that Elsa is the star and the heart and soul of the movie. "Let It Go" is the right song for the right moment there, and it reminds me that when I was a kid I often fantasized that I had a special power to stay young and invincible, and sharp claws might have been part of the deal too -- destined to brood and roam the earth quietly with the ability to beat up bad guys if absolutely necessary, which it would be, I imagined. But mostly I would just kind of *be there*, hanging around everyone, and they wouldn't notice me, would float in and out and around and I would be totally unremarked on. That this thought -- of being alone in a crowd (h/t Hilary Duff) -- became a source of constant anxiety in early adulthood is maybe ironic or else just the flipside of the same coin, I guess.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm really struggling to actually remember how "Frozen" ends! If I recall it correctly, which I may not, Elsa learns how to use her powers in moderation, but...

[checks]

OK, right (spoilers!) Elsa is *kidnapped* from her castle -- this is after her attempted icicle murder -- and imprisoned in her frozen hometown, but she breaks free and hoofs it back to the castle, leading to a series of things I don't remember well even reading the Wiki description, yada yada, Anna expresses true love by offering herself in sacrifice, love is the key to controlling her powers.

I remember the ending (the "solution") being nearly as interesting or convincing as the set-up (the "problem").

[koganbot]

As interesting or not as interesting? Not that I myself have an opinion one way or another, since I haven't seen, as opposed to read a synopsis of, the ending. Just that the way you worded the sentence seemed like it might want a "not."

Btw, I gather that from the producer's and writer's(s') p.o.v., with Anna still in their mind as protagonist, the deliberate double misdirection and switchup as to what constitutes the act of true love that will save Anna was what they were fundamentally working towards, and was what motivated Del Vecho to make the movie in the first place: there's a kind of meta going on where the characters are searching (twice) for the man who will provide the act of true love that saves Anna — as the genre might make us expect — whereas what the story actually gives us is Anna sacrificing herself to save Elsa, this being the unexpected act of true love that ends up saving Anna as well as Elsa.

(If you haven't yet read the Jennifer Lee interview, I reiterate my recommendation.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Woops, NOT as interesting.

Yes need to check out the interview. I get the switchup, and I *like* the switchup, both on paper and to a lesser extent on the screen, especially if the alternative is romantic love of the perfect guy. (I really like that we get to iterations of imperfection -- one the seemingly perfect guy who has sinister ulterior motives and the other the bumbling friend she grows to love even though it's not "save the kingdom" love).

But I guess what it doesn't answer for me is how Anna's action actually solves Elsa's alienation problem. We know that the sisters love each other and would do anything for the other (that isn't in doubt for a second) and Anna's display is touching in its own way, but Elsa has a lot of power and it seems a bit like the "solution" is very much outside of Elsa, who by the end just kind of has cool ice powers (no pun intended) that she can turn on and off like a faucet rather than being blessed/cursed with an all-powerful firehose. I'd be interested in a sequel where she has to come to grips with the fact that she can *still* kill a man with an icicle dagger if she wants to.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Now I'm disagreeing with myself -- of course the thing that's supposed to be at the heart of the movie is how Elsa slowly but completely shuts herself away from her sister, and the idea is that the sister's love melts her heart. I mean, I get it!

I'm just addicted to the ice castle impulse, which to me isn't necessarily yoked to the sibling love. I just feel at the end like there's no reason Elsa shouldn't feel, in some way, like she wants to go back to her castle, maybe. That the castle is always there, even if you have lots of love to keep you away from it. Maybe not very Disney...

Brand new post

[koganbot]

Decided to give this whole PBS-Elsa convo its own post, so I'm continuing the conversation here:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/354108.html

Ctrl-f to "Isn't the fundamental reason Elsa isolated herself..." to pick up my response to your most recent comment, plus further PBSification thoughts.