![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotWas going to use the title "Trap Hegemony And The Italotrot Question" because I knew it would make Chuck Eddy smile; but I decided "Where 'Galaxy,' naturally enough, means 'Italo'"* was funnier, though maybe David Frazer will be the only one to smile. David's the person who came up with the genre title "Italotrot" to describe Hong Jinyoung's "Love Tonight." I wouldn't say that "Love Tonight" poses a deep question, really: But why is it this song, a trot song — as opposed to, for instance, a K-pop song ("trot" being Official Old Person's Dance Music in Korea**) — that's pulling into itself deliriously catchy freestyle and Italodisco riffs, as if to declare that being trot is no barrier to incorporating any coin and color that makes Frank Kogan feel good? I mean, this is something K-pop itself used to be so good at, insinuating disco and freestyle and Italopop into itself without making a fuss over it or sounding the least bit retro. K-pop still pulls in music left-hand, right-hand, and back-hand, but it's more of a drag these days. See quasi essay below the list.
In the video Jinyoung turns into a cat, or a cat turns into her. —Yes, T-ara did that too, and so I'm sure have many others, that's what comment threads are for if you're so inclined. (Inclined to tell us of other performers who've turned into cats, that is; not inclined to turn into a cat yourself.)
From China, meanwhile, Rocket Girls 101 "Galaxy Disco," where "Galaxy," naturally enough, means "Italo":
Sounds just like the music on Italodisco comps out of Singapore and Hong Kong that populated the three-for-a-dollar cassette bins in SF's Chinatown back in the '80s and '90s. I'd assumed then that most of the music was produced originally in Italy or Germany (with input from Miami and Toronto and Montreal: Tapps and Lime were all over those stores, Tapps with not-quite-so-cheap compilations of their own), but there'd be remixes and mashups and stuff — an impressive version of "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" that in a later day would have been screwed and chopped but this used amphetamines rather than cough syrup — and uncredited performers and unknown vocalists, and I was guessing or hoping that some of the talent was Asian. Anyway, "Galaxy Disco" sounds so much like that stuff*** that I wonder if it's actually a cover. It's so familiar. The sound is spot-on, from the reed-thin riffs to the dental-floss vocals.
Of course, most of what's coming is hip-hop, the so-called trap hegemony of my rejected title: though the list itself — here it is! a playlist followed by the list itself, and more commentary below the cut — starts with gqom [UPDATE: now song 3 on the playlist], which is generally considered more a derivative of house.
1. Heavy-K x Moonchild Sanelly "Yebo Mama"
2. Bhad Bhabie ft. Tory Lanez "Babyface Savage"
3. Jvcki Wai, Young B, Osshun Gum, Han Yo Han "Dding"
4. Hong Jinyoung "Love Tonight"
5. Lil Pump "Butterfly Doors"
6. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie "Look Back At It"
7. DALsooobin "Katchup"
8. Gasmilla ft. Mr Eazi "K33SHI"
9. Loopy&nafla "Ice King"
10. Marilina Bertoldi "O No?"
11. Rich The Kid "4 Phones"
12. Gunna "Big Shot"
13. KeshYou "Уят емес"
14. Kim Bo Kyung "It's Not Discarded"
15. Lil Pump ft. Lil Wayne "Be Like Me"
16. Gasmilla ft. Kwamz & Flava "Charle Man"
17. Solange "Binz"
18. Brooks & Dunn ft. Luke Combs "Brand New Man"
19. Kidd Kenn "'Next Song' Freestyle"
[UPDATE: Kidd Kenn's "Next Song freestyle" was deleted from YouTube - fortunately, Marcus Life does a reaction vid where he plays the whole thing starting at about 2:07, pretty good fidelity with only a bit of bkgd sound from Marcus.]
20. Rema "Iron Man"
21. Sofi Tukker "Fantasy"
22. Rocket Girls 101 "Galaxy Disco"
23. Bad Bunny "Solo De Mi"
24. Blueface ft. YG "Thotiana (Remix)"
Trap Hegemony:
Back in March I created my latest Eardrums playlist ("Having A Rave-Up With Arling & Cameron," here). I'd originally intended it as a sort of essay on grooves and rave-ups but it morphed into my making the case that current trap and Soundcloud rap is as good or better than any greats of the past at creating a twisty undertow, and right now this is what I'm grabbed by most in music, and what I once upon a time tried and gave up trying to do as a musician. It's not a hegemony that rules my head, exactly — trap and drill and so forth. Emotionally they're a throwback to my late 1970s/early 1980s. Pulling people into a twisted and twisty undertow kind of isn't what I want to do these days in my life or my art. But this is the music with the greatest musical pull out there.
"Love Tonight," as the world's one and only Italotrot song, having nothing whatsoever to do with trap, maybe represents the normal humming-along workaday happiness of music. Maybe there's a question it poses to trap, and trap poses to it, by the two having nothing to do with each other. (Question: do they say anything to each other?)
In "Babyface Savage" Bhad Bhabie's still-young voice is contending with this massive dissonant bass sound, is a small asteroid shining through a massive shadow, makes me think of Ronnie Spector's naked vocals afloat in Phil's vast orchestrations. Anyway, Bhad Bhabie's patter still contains a kid's charm. This maybe explains why it isn't the usual drag, hearing a babyvoice claiming to be the big boss. "I don't play pattycake." It sounds like you could play pattycake, if you wanted.
Kidd Kenn, 15 or 16, is about the same age she is but seems like a young man on the rise in comparison to her tentative teen, probably because he sounds more sly than tough in the cheerful way he worms and slithers around all those grim beats. (And notice the difference between his "Next Song" and DaBaby's brutal, boring original.)
Jvcki Wai – She's socially and politically on a good side, calling for anarchy and calling out capitalism and religion, trying to be smart while not miring herself in worthiness; a lot of it seems like acting out, which maybe helps it not feel like worthiness, and acting out is what you want artists to do, it's their job, some of 'em, some of the time. "Dding" lyrics are comparatively disappointing, too much trap bullshit, ice on the neck and all that though played for a double metaphor (not just diamonds but keeping her head cool while she makes everyone else crazy).
Loopy&nafla: More ice; the video implying that this could be daydreaming and sarcasm like "Gangnam Style"; but maybe that's my wishful thinking and this is just straight-ahead aspiration.
(I'm assigning this stuff in my head to "hip-hop" rather than "K-pop." It seems pretty far from the latter, despite the latter's being saturated in rap.)
Stuff that sounds like other stuff:
A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie "Look Back At It." There's this kind of 5-tone-scale modal warble**** that trap vocalists have been doing, whereas A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie finds his way to a more conventional melody and chord progression. Anyway, even though I used to play and write songs I never really did master chord progressions, so correct me if what I'm hearing is wrong: but "Look Back At It" is from the same tonal stamp as Judy Torres's "Come Into My Arms" and the Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin," both of which reminded me back in 1987-88 of Cat Stevens's "Wild World." (So here's a coincidental hip-hop connection to freestyle (Torres) and '80s disco dance (Pet Shop Boys), though via melody rather than riffs or beats.)
Up On Cripple Creek:
Sofi Tukker: I'm sort of up on cripple creek with this duo, except in reverse: I can't take the way they talk but I love to hear 'em sing. (Yeah, okay, I sometimes like the talking a lot (e.g. "Johny"), but I won't let that stand in the way of my wisecrack.)
Historical Essay:
In the late '80s, hip-hop and electronic dance each would crash styles and signifiers into each other like crazy, so Seo Taiji was true to the time in 1992 when he did the same in hatching K-pop; meanwhile in America the early '90s new-jack-swing/hip-hop/r&b moment cooled things down a bit and, for instance, steered away from incorporating freestyle's and Italodisco's delirium of wild riffs and sad melodies into its synthesis. Whereas, Seo Taiji threw the pang and beat techniques of freestyle right atop the new-jack-swing rhythms. But I can't speak with any kind of knowledge or authority on 1990s K-pop overall. My vague sense of east Asian dance in the '90s has Japan incorporating Italy's wild riffage (or Italian producers targeting the Japanese market with "Eurobeat"); and I know for a fact that 1980s Italodisco was a living presence in 1990s Chinese-American bargain bins; and in 1993 Chuli and Miae hit in Korea with "Why You," which surreptitiously sampled American freestyle act the Cover Girls; in any event, by the time I heard of K-pop fifteen years later, freestyle and disco were part of its basic day-to-day language without seeming retro or being particularly pointed to.
I wouldn't say this sound is gone in K-pop, but the feeling kind of is. I hope I'm wrong. This summer I plan to trawl through more of the year's releases, come up with a better earscape. K-pop still has a varied and open palette, but the colors are autumny, mature, to the music's detriment. That's a cliché of course. Maybe I'm just overreacting to my disappointment with the new Oh My Girl track. [Spaceholder for why I don't like the new Oh My Girl track. Also for why I'm not quite on board with Momoland, who are all spring and sunshine and playground and stuff.]
Hanging back in boom and doom:
A phrase from my notes: "hanging back in boom and doom." Refers to trap's strength in being admirably not eclectic — though to say so, I have to claim that Soundcloud rap's grunge fascination is an odd, tunneling into-the-muck eclecticism that counts for some reason as anti-eclectic; ditto J.I.D's bug excavations. And anyway Sexyy Red and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Lil Pump are probably conduits to workaday reengaging with everything else and pull-it-all-in humdrum happiness and unhappiness etc., for better or worse (we'll find out).*****
[UPDATE: I'm posting Chuck's Pazz & Jop Product Reports for January through June in the comments. And in the 4th comment down I've linked some classic "freestyle" tracks for those readers who aren't familiar with the genre and are struggling to make sense of what I mean by that term and by the term "Italodisco."]
*And "first third" equals "first five-twelfths," just as it did last year.
**Again, I'm talking through my hat here (a straw fedora) regarding my "knowledge" of who listens to trot and how this is viewed in Korea.
***Other than the words being Chinese rather than English, and a K-poppy rap in the middle. Subject For Further Research: David informs me that Asia in the '80s did indeed create vintage Italodisco; he's found several examples (Jessie from Taiwan, Crapas and Bunny Girls from South Korea) at the ultradiskopanorama YouTube channel. I'd expect a lot more was produced. Japan?
****I don't really know what that phrase means but I hope Dave Moore shows up in the comments to explain it to me.
*****I'm referencing acts on my last year's list (which still hasn't gotten my writeup), and some of their last-year's tracks may get on some people's or even my own this-year's lists as album tracks get their singles and singles get their vids and so forth.
Hong Jinyoung "Love Tonight"
Heavy-K x Moonchild Sanelly "Yebo Mama"
In the video Jinyoung turns into a cat, or a cat turns into her. —Yes, T-ara did that too, and so I'm sure have many others, that's what comment threads are for if you're so inclined. (Inclined to tell us of other performers who've turned into cats, that is; not inclined to turn into a cat yourself.)
From China, meanwhile, Rocket Girls 101 "Galaxy Disco," where "Galaxy," naturally enough, means "Italo":
Sounds just like the music on Italodisco comps out of Singapore and Hong Kong that populated the three-for-a-dollar cassette bins in SF's Chinatown back in the '80s and '90s. I'd assumed then that most of the music was produced originally in Italy or Germany (with input from Miami and Toronto and Montreal: Tapps and Lime were all over those stores, Tapps with not-quite-so-cheap compilations of their own), but there'd be remixes and mashups and stuff — an impressive version of "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" that in a later day would have been screwed and chopped but this used amphetamines rather than cough syrup — and uncredited performers and unknown vocalists, and I was guessing or hoping that some of the talent was Asian. Anyway, "Galaxy Disco" sounds so much like that stuff*** that I wonder if it's actually a cover. It's so familiar. The sound is spot-on, from the reed-thin riffs to the dental-floss vocals.
Of course, most of what's coming is hip-hop, the so-called trap hegemony of my rejected title: though the list itself — here it is! a playlist followed by the list itself, and more commentary below the cut — starts with gqom [UPDATE: now song 3 on the playlist], which is generally considered more a derivative of house.
1. Heavy-K x Moonchild Sanelly "Yebo Mama"
2. Bhad Bhabie ft. Tory Lanez "Babyface Savage"
3. Jvcki Wai, Young B, Osshun Gum, Han Yo Han "Dding"
4. Hong Jinyoung "Love Tonight"
5. Lil Pump "Butterfly Doors"
6. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie "Look Back At It"
7. DALsooobin "Katchup"
8. Gasmilla ft. Mr Eazi "K33SHI"
9. Loopy&nafla "Ice King"
10. Marilina Bertoldi "O No?"
11. Rich The Kid "4 Phones"
12. Gunna "Big Shot"
13. KeshYou "Уят емес"
14. Kim Bo Kyung "It's Not Discarded"
15. Lil Pump ft. Lil Wayne "Be Like Me"
16. Gasmilla ft. Kwamz & Flava "Charle Man"
17. Solange "Binz"
18. Brooks & Dunn ft. Luke Combs "Brand New Man"
19. Kidd Kenn "'Next Song' Freestyle"
[UPDATE: Kidd Kenn's "Next Song freestyle" was deleted from YouTube - fortunately, Marcus Life does a reaction vid where he plays the whole thing starting at about 2:07, pretty good fidelity with only a bit of bkgd sound from Marcus.]
20. Rema "Iron Man"
21. Sofi Tukker "Fantasy"
22. Rocket Girls 101 "Galaxy Disco"
23. Bad Bunny "Solo De Mi"
24. Blueface ft. YG "Thotiana (Remix)"
Trap Hegemony:
Back in March I created my latest Eardrums playlist ("Having A Rave-Up With Arling & Cameron," here). I'd originally intended it as a sort of essay on grooves and rave-ups but it morphed into my making the case that current trap and Soundcloud rap is as good or better than any greats of the past at creating a twisty undertow, and right now this is what I'm grabbed by most in music, and what I once upon a time tried and gave up trying to do as a musician. It's not a hegemony that rules my head, exactly — trap and drill and so forth. Emotionally they're a throwback to my late 1970s/early 1980s. Pulling people into a twisted and twisty undertow kind of isn't what I want to do these days in my life or my art. But this is the music with the greatest musical pull out there.
"Love Tonight," as the world's one and only Italotrot song, having nothing whatsoever to do with trap, maybe represents the normal humming-along workaday happiness of music. Maybe there's a question it poses to trap, and trap poses to it, by the two having nothing to do with each other. (Question: do they say anything to each other?)
In "Babyface Savage" Bhad Bhabie's still-young voice is contending with this massive dissonant bass sound, is a small asteroid shining through a massive shadow, makes me think of Ronnie Spector's naked vocals afloat in Phil's vast orchestrations. Anyway, Bhad Bhabie's patter still contains a kid's charm. This maybe explains why it isn't the usual drag, hearing a babyvoice claiming to be the big boss. "I don't play pattycake." It sounds like you could play pattycake, if you wanted.
Kidd Kenn, 15 or 16, is about the same age she is but seems like a young man on the rise in comparison to her tentative teen, probably because he sounds more sly than tough in the cheerful way he worms and slithers around all those grim beats. (And notice the difference between his "Next Song" and DaBaby's brutal, boring original.)
Jvcki Wai – She's socially and politically on a good side, calling for anarchy and calling out capitalism and religion, trying to be smart while not miring herself in worthiness; a lot of it seems like acting out, which maybe helps it not feel like worthiness, and acting out is what you want artists to do, it's their job, some of 'em, some of the time. "Dding" lyrics are comparatively disappointing, too much trap bullshit, ice on the neck and all that though played for a double metaphor (not just diamonds but keeping her head cool while she makes everyone else crazy).
Loopy&nafla: More ice; the video implying that this could be daydreaming and sarcasm like "Gangnam Style"; but maybe that's my wishful thinking and this is just straight-ahead aspiration.
(I'm assigning this stuff in my head to "hip-hop" rather than "K-pop." It seems pretty far from the latter, despite the latter's being saturated in rap.)
Stuff that sounds like other stuff:
A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie "Look Back At It." There's this kind of 5-tone-scale modal warble**** that trap vocalists have been doing, whereas A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie finds his way to a more conventional melody and chord progression. Anyway, even though I used to play and write songs I never really did master chord progressions, so correct me if what I'm hearing is wrong: but "Look Back At It" is from the same tonal stamp as Judy Torres's "Come Into My Arms" and the Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin," both of which reminded me back in 1987-88 of Cat Stevens's "Wild World." (So here's a coincidental hip-hop connection to freestyle (Torres) and '80s disco dance (Pet Shop Boys), though via melody rather than riffs or beats.)
Up On Cripple Creek:
Sofi Tukker: I'm sort of up on cripple creek with this duo, except in reverse: I can't take the way they talk but I love to hear 'em sing. (Yeah, okay, I sometimes like the talking a lot (e.g. "Johny"), but I won't let that stand in the way of my wisecrack.)
Historical Essay:
In the late '80s, hip-hop and electronic dance each would crash styles and signifiers into each other like crazy, so Seo Taiji was true to the time in 1992 when he did the same in hatching K-pop; meanwhile in America the early '90s new-jack-swing/hip-hop/r&b moment cooled things down a bit and, for instance, steered away from incorporating freestyle's and Italodisco's delirium of wild riffs and sad melodies into its synthesis. Whereas, Seo Taiji threw the pang and beat techniques of freestyle right atop the new-jack-swing rhythms. But I can't speak with any kind of knowledge or authority on 1990s K-pop overall. My vague sense of east Asian dance in the '90s has Japan incorporating Italy's wild riffage (or Italian producers targeting the Japanese market with "Eurobeat"); and I know for a fact that 1980s Italodisco was a living presence in 1990s Chinese-American bargain bins; and in 1993 Chuli and Miae hit in Korea with "Why You," which surreptitiously sampled American freestyle act the Cover Girls; in any event, by the time I heard of K-pop fifteen years later, freestyle and disco were part of its basic day-to-day language without seeming retro or being particularly pointed to.
I wouldn't say this sound is gone in K-pop, but the feeling kind of is. I hope I'm wrong. This summer I plan to trawl through more of the year's releases, come up with a better earscape. K-pop still has a varied and open palette, but the colors are autumny, mature, to the music's detriment. That's a cliché of course. Maybe I'm just overreacting to my disappointment with the new Oh My Girl track. [Spaceholder for why I don't like the new Oh My Girl track. Also for why I'm not quite on board with Momoland, who are all spring and sunshine and playground and stuff.]
Hanging back in boom and doom:
A phrase from my notes: "hanging back in boom and doom." Refers to trap's strength in being admirably not eclectic — though to say so, I have to claim that Soundcloud rap's grunge fascination is an odd, tunneling into-the-muck eclecticism that counts for some reason as anti-eclectic; ditto J.I.D's bug excavations. And anyway Sexyy Red and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Lil Pump are probably conduits to workaday reengaging with everything else and pull-it-all-in humdrum happiness and unhappiness etc., for better or worse (we'll find out).*****
[UPDATE: I'm posting Chuck's Pazz & Jop Product Reports for January through June in the comments. And in the 4th comment down I've linked some classic "freestyle" tracks for those readers who aren't familiar with the genre and are struggling to make sense of what I mean by that term and by the term "Italodisco."]
*And "first third" equals "first five-twelfths," just as it did last year.
**Again, I'm talking through my hat here (a straw fedora) regarding my "knowledge" of who listens to trot and how this is viewed in Korea.
***Other than the words being Chinese rather than English, and a K-poppy rap in the middle. Subject For Further Research: David informs me that Asia in the '80s did indeed create vintage Italodisco; he's found several examples (Jessie from Taiwan, Crapas and Bunny Girls from South Korea) at the ultradiskopanorama YouTube channel. I'd expect a lot more was produced. Japan?
****I don't really know what that phrase means but I hope Dave Moore shows up in the comments to explain it to me.
*****I'm referencing acts on my last year's list (which still hasn't gotten my writeup), and some of their last-year's tracks may get on some people's or even my own this-year's lists as album tracks get their singles and singles get their vids and so forth.
Hong Jinyoung "Love Tonight"
Heavy-K x Moonchild Sanelly "Yebo Mama"
Chuck Eddy's Pazz & Jop Product Reports Jan.-Feb. 2019
Date: 2019-06-03 04:44 pm (UTC)Chuck Eddy's Pazz & Jop Product Reports Mar.-Apr. 2019
Date: 2019-06-03 04:47 pm (UTC)Chuck Eddy's Pazz & Jop Product Report May 2019
Date: 2019-06-03 04:50 pm (UTC)Freestyle and Italodisco
Date: 2019-06-03 09:11 pm (UTC)New York:
Cover Girls "Inside Outside"
Judy Torres "Come Into My Arms"
Cynthia "Change On Me"
Lisette Melendez "A Day In My Life (Without You)"
Miami
Debbie Deb "When I Hear Music"
Sequal "It's Not Too Late"
Company B "Fascinated"
For more on Italodisco here's the Wikipedia link.
*The genre "freestyle" is not to be confused with "freestyle" in hip-hop, which refers to live, improvised or at least off-the-cuff raps.
UPDATE: Here's how I described "freestyle" back when Glam sampled Chuli & Miae sampling the Cover Girls:
no subject
Date: 2019-06-03 10:10 pm (UTC)I wouldn't say this sound is gone in K-pop, but the feeling kind of is.
"The feeling" being that K-pop was flexible enough in its willingness to sample other genres, any other genres, to make it really fun to listen to? I'm guessing, based on the entry you linked to. (Cause "the feeling is gone" in regards to K-pop in particular means something different over here and I'm having a very hard time getting out of my own head and trying not to focus on my feelings. If that makes sense.)
(This is part of why I was/am so cranky about the dismantling of Pristin; "Wee Woo" and "We Like" were very much not everyone's cup of tea but at least they felt like different cups of tea! I still get surprised now and then--"Love Bomb" and "Mook Jji Bba" last year and ”Eung Eung” this year -- but it feels like sounds have solidified and the surprises are the exception rather than the rule.)
(Like even Ladies’ Code played it safe? sigh.)
Kinda curious what you think of Juzim.
ETA: In case you're not familiar with "A Bullshitter's Guide to Italo Disco".
no subject
Date: 2019-06-06 12:10 pm (UTC)Excuse me if my responses end up being piecemeal and sporadic. This seems like your most crucial sentence: “‘the feeling is gone’ in regards to K-pop in particular means something different over here and I'm having a very hard time getting out of my own head and trying not to focus on my feelings.”
I’m guessing from what you’ve posted elsewhere that “over here” means your psyche and that “the feeling is gone” is because of Seungri. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to find time to share my thoughts, not about Seungri in particular but about how strange and inconsistent my feelings are in regard to getting bummed out by performers’ awful behavior, whether or how it shapes or blocks my listening. For instance, I’m steering clear of Grimes’ new tracks simply because she’s dating a guy who keeps acting like a jerk, whereas the increasingly bad revelations about Tekashi 6ix9ine (e.g. conspiracy to commit murder) are having no effect on my tendency to listen to him. Maybe it’s because with 6ix9ine I’d already factored in the possibility of that kind of stuff (ditto long thinking that Michael Jackson could well have violated those kids, that Phil Spector had a history of menace and abuse, etc., though with the latter it helps that he was rarely the face or the voice of the music he worked on). In any event, I’d never taken in Big Bang as personalities, so Seungri’s apparent crimes aren’t shaking my view of anything. They do seem pretty vile: offering prostitutes to clients, sharing videos of women having sex that were taken without their knowledge. The latter seems really hurtful, and it’s not as if he were still a teenager trying to impress other boys. But anyway, apologies if this wasn’t what was on your mind this time. It is something I’ve wanted your help in thinking about.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-06 07:21 pm (UTC)“Just Seungri” is inaccurate--I’m not nickpicking here, that’s the actual problem. I went ahead and reread the timeline thread on the kpop subreddit, following all of the rumors, etc., from the very beginning, and in addition to Seungri, people who have actually been arrested / indicted in relation are Jung Joon-young (soloist / Drug Restaurant; group was under C9 and CJ E&M, and Jung was also signed to MakeUs); Choi Jong-hoon (F.T. Island, which is under FNC), Lee Jong-hyun (CN Blue, also FNC), and Yoochun (JYJ, so he under CJ E&M). (Note that Yoochun’s arrest was for using / dealing drugs, not for sexual assault or prostitution, but given that there were also multiple allegations of police corruption and/or previous crimes covered up--in particular I think Choi Jong-hoon got out of a DUI in 2016--I am personally inclined to not give Yoochun the benefit of the doubt on his past sexual-assault charges.) I think also Roy Kim’s been charged at this point as well? Not sure.
A few people have been implicated but not charged: most recently PSY, who stands accused of bringing YG together with Jho Low (of the 1MDB scandal), and there was some early talk about Block B’s Zico (who bragged in television shows about checking out Jung Joon-young’s “golden phone”). Also Yong Joon-hyung of Highlight was in the chatrooms that shared molka and sexual assault stories but apparently managed to join the army in time before he could be charged (??? my understanding of how the Korean criminal-justice system works is still pretty fuzzy) and Kangin (Super Junior, so SM) has been strongly implicated to be in a chatroom, as well as (IIRC) one member of 2AM.
And that’s just the idol side; that’s not even counting various police officers, a former high-ranking official in the Park Geun-hye administration who’s been arrested for bribery and accused of rape, and YG, who currently is under investigation for tax evasion and embezzlement and there are lots of claims of his providing prostitutes as well, though I don’t know how much of those are serious and how much are people jumping to understandable conclusions. So far none of the other members of Big Bang have been implicated save people finding an old interview where G-Dragon goes on record marvelling at all the hot women at Seungri’s parties.
Meanwhile apparently (a) a Chosun Ilbo reporter has been indicted for sexually assaulting Jang Ja-yeon, and various reps of the newspaper/media company “put pressure” on police following Jang Ja-yeon’s death (I’m not sure what that means; I’m quoting Asian Junkie); and (b) there were also reports that journalists following the case were also sharing molka themselves.
I provide this infodump to explain how I got the impression that mistreatment of women and general corruption are so deeply embedded in the K-pop industry as to render any and all demonstrations of “personality” suspect in the absence of better evidence, at least on the male side. It’s like Mark Granovetter’s “threshold approach” to riots: presumably it’s much easier to share molka, use/solicit prostitutes, etc., if everyone around you is doing the same. And given that a huge chunk of my enjoyment of the industry has been rooted in enjoying the personalities (my 2014-2016 can basically be summarized as “Infinite: come for ‘The Chaser,’ stay for all the footage of them yelling at each other during variety shows”)... I mean, I get that it’s all fantasy, but “dude entertains himself and his friends by passing around upskirt photos or videos of sexual assault” shouldn’t have to be just fantasy, y’know?
There’s also the element of not wanting to be complicit in an industry that seems (again) pretty steeped in exploitation and corruption (*separate* from all this, both SM and Melon have been accused of shady financial practices recently--I know, it’s the music business, that’s par for the course, but still). I was thinking about this a lot at the beginning of the year, when the R. Kelly case seemed to have prompted a lot of essays about Not Supporting Problematic Artists, and my initial reaction was that the logic was skewed: fans couldn’t simultaneously have too little power (streaming, which pays artists so little, etc.) and too much (the idea that a fan liking a particular celebrity -> endorsing of celebrity’s bad behavior -> re-victimizing existing victims). And I still think that, to some degree, but the overidentification that K-pop encourages (and that I 100% will say I’ve taken part in) makes the separation harder.
To be clear: I don't really think there should be a relationship between 6ix9ine's crimes and your supposed complicity in listening to his music. (I would go easier on Grimes, though. Or whatever she's calling herself now. Reportedly she and Elon Musk broke up and then got back together? I don't know. I didn't love "We Appreciate Power" but I still overidentify with "Realiti.") One difference is that you never felt particularly called upon to demonstrate affection for 6ix9ine, or "boost" him in any way that K-pop fans (and not just K-pop fans) are called upon to do -- like / stream / declare yourself a member of the fanbase / go to concerts / buy merch / vote in random polls / et cetera.
I have this theory, which I haven't worked on much yet, that as AI takes over jobs and/if we move closer to a UBI model, people will move away from expressing their values or defining themselves through their work and concentrate more intensely on expressing their values or defining themselves through their leisure/consumption activities. You could argue it's happening already with conscientious consumption, people vowing publicly to refrain from reading white men for a year, etc.; I just suspect it will intensify. And if I’m right the criticism about stanning problematic artists becomes more potent: if I’m saying something about myself and my moral character by publicly supporting X, and X turns out to be a rapist or a pimp or just a jerk, then I can’t retreat and say, “Well, I wanted my support of X to say something about me, but not that.” (Or can I?)
ugh, I feel like I’ve written a lot and not said much. I will say I’ve been surprised, and also dismayed, by how little the scandals seem to have affected K-pop so far. I presume Big Hit told all media interviewing BTS on their US/Europe tour not to even try to bring it up, even though as far as I’m concerned it would’ve been fair game. I don’t know why people are so certain, given the sheer spread of the problems, that their faves are innocent. I’m not.
(last point: I can’t say that the Q-pop industry, such as it is, isn’t similarly exploitative; it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other examples in the history of women and performance, and Kazakhstan isn’t exactly a bastion of fair treatment of women. I can make a vague case that the information I have suggests it’s maybe-not-as-bad, but I feel like even that I should say with caution.)
no subject
Date: 2019-06-09 01:01 pm (UTC)1) Part of my reaction to the Burning Molka scandal at this point is a reaction to the reaction: which is to say, I was expecting a lot more people to have their K-pop enjoyment interrupted than has seemed to be the case. An example: this Seoulbeats roundtable in which participants (who care enough about the industry to write about it for free) say things like, "I'm disgusted, but not surprised" one after the other, and I'm like--wait, you're not surprised that there were multiple chatrooms devoted to unconscious women and sexual assault? You were somewhat expecting this and you're still publicly writing about this industry for free?
2) I may be overestimating how much identification plays into fandom, i.e. "I have acted or felt similarly to how this person is acting or seeming to feel, therefore I feel a connection with them." And underestimating how well people can compartmentalize.
3) There's a difference between presuming guilt for any one idol and presuming guilt (as it were) for the entire industry; but it's very hard to talk about any one idol, or set of idols, without seemingly communicating some level of accommodation of the industry. (See above re Seoulbeats.) But I don't know what the alternative is. I know I've heard/read discussions along the lines of "Well, this group/company is different/more trustworthy/more progressive in its treatment of idols because [fill in the blank]." But I wouldn't claim to be witnessing a long-term trend towards less exploitation. (The best case I can make is that there seems to be an uptick in female idols switching agencies after their original post-debut contract expires, but even then I'd be giving you anecdotes, not data.) One could say, "Well then, just support indie groups," but there exists the risk of applying a purity test that's not even realistic. (Although I did just find on Melissa Johnson's blog a story about a rookie girl group who say they handle for themselves everything an agency / production company usually would.)
no subject
Date: 2019-07-01 06:56 pm (UTC)I wouldn't say the development with Seungri was not surprising at all... personally speaking, I was surprised both that Seungri was being charged with actual crimes as part of a criminal network and not just individual assault or dubious consent (like for example SHINee's Onew); and also that said criminal network was actually being investigated and exposed by the police. However, after the initial shock wears off the mind goes into overdrive to provide context and there are lots of (publicly available) clues that the industry has always been like this.
For example, Seungri's been known for his "party lifestyle" for a while, it's been shown on TV in a sanitized way; other Big Bang members frequently comment on it in interviews and specifically mention how they expect it to one day be the end of Big Bang. Seungri always seems displeased to have to defend himself on TV and promises to be "careful" which obviously just means being discrete and hiding the evidence. He was previously involved in another scandal about teachers "dating" students at the idol school with his name on it, but was able to distance himself by playing the absent owner card and continue as usual after shutting down the school.
Big Bang in particular has a reputation for living a more wild lifestyle than other idols, and getting away with more because of their fans "shielding" them (because of course the stalker fans have probably known about this for years). Many years ago when GD and TOP were still clubbing with Seungri this might have affected them too, they have been more private and less in the public eye for a while now though. As for the "shielding" culture, mostly these secrets stay within the Korean fandom but every now and then they get out. For example, the (now shut down) website Big Bang Updates would periodically post a screenshot from some Big Bang groupchat that seemed to show evidence of the Big Bang members bullying (or maybe just ragging on - depending on your perspective) each other, but these screenshots would generally be deleted fairly quickly if they got any negative attention.
I'm not at all equating Seungri's criminal actions with these individual morality transgressions BTW, this is why I said I was pretty surprised by the extent of his actual crimes.
Moving beyond Seungri, however, you always hear rumors about a network of older male idols who take advantage of young female idols and the "sponsor" system. Certain older male idols (like Seungri, and also a few Super Junior members) have a bad reputation for serial "dating" of younger idols over whom they are in a position of power. Girls Day Hyeri "dating" Tony An (of Gen One idol group H.O.T.) is one example. Especially that the "dating" rumors became public just after she became of legal age and at around the same time Girls Day started getting popular and Hyeri in particular started getting a lot of exposure, raised a lot of eyebrows. Lots of Girls Gen members have sponsorship rumors, though with rich businessmen, not fellow entertainers; I'd have to go specifically looking for details if you want them because it's been a while since I've actively followed the rumors.
On the website Ask A Korean, it's been mentioned a few times that being an idol has not been seen as a "legit" career until very very recently since historically, the entertainment scene is associated with gangsters (for men) and prostitutes (for women). This is just something you'd expect if you were an older Korean following the industry. On a related note, there is a high rate of prostitution and sexual assault against women in S. Korea in general, related to their history as a colonized state and the large American army base in Seoul.
So yeah in general, this is a case where the details are surprising but it's something you can fit into a general framework you've been hearing about for years, in the form of rumors and innuendo.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-02 12:18 pm (UTC)Girls Day Hyeri "dating" Tony An (of Gen One idol group H.O.T.) is one example. Especially that the "dating" rumors became public just after she became of legal age and at around the same time Girls Day started getting popular and Hyeri in particular started getting a lot of exposure, raised a lot of eyebrows.
This is the wrong thing to start with, but I was like, oooooh is that what happened? I had been skeptical about it in a different direction -- I'd figured it was basically media play for Tony Ahn to get some glow from a hot brand and also distract people from his gambling issues. Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and Hyeri was born in June 1994, making her 19 (Western age) / 21? (Korean age) in April 2013, which is when Soompi carried the news reports of them dating. So your memory is spot-on. (But her Real Men appearance wasn't for a year after that.)
anyway. yeah, I think it was the scale of Seungri's crimes that prompted my surprise; "low-level scumbag" was much more guessable than "multinational pimp." The other day I looked back through my fandom journal, and found the conversations with close Inspirit friends in which we force-ranked Infinite members by likelihood that they would willingly participate in sexual exploitation (I'm making it sound more light-hearted than it was). I think personally I was keeping for myself the fantasy (??) that while idols might not do much to resist the exploitation that was thrown at them -- for example, male idols being fine with it if the company provides them with prostitutes -- they wouldn't go above and beyond non-resistance, as it were. Or at least the ones I cared about wouldn't.
For example, Seungri's been known for his "party lifestyle" for a while, it's been shown on TV in a sanitized way...
ugh you hit the nail on the head right here, something I've been struggling with for ages. There's this whole "what you see on TV / variety shows / VLives is all sanitized and manufactured" line of argument, and I get it, and on the other hand idols are simply on TV / YouTube / VLive / etc. too often, and usually aren't good enough actors, for some truth to leak through. I spent a chunk of time I don't care to quantify close-watching Infinite's Showtime and arguing with a friend over how much we could actually say the guys were being "themselves," given variety show, etc., etc. So I guess the question would be: if you're a fan who wants to avoid giving affection to idols who turn out to be criminal misogynist shits, is reading the variety / VLive tea leaves even possible? And I don't know. (One Inspirit friend of mine has now pretty much given up on following male performers altogether.)
btw I know John Lie wrote about prostitution in 20th-century Korea before he wrote about K-pop, though I haven't gone over his papers yet.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-02 06:30 pm (UTC)If it was media play for Tony it was really weird media play... you can't trust netizenbuzz because they cherry-pick comments to translate in order to portray netizens a certain way but I remember the reaction being almost uniformly negative. There's a 16 year age gap between Tony and Hyeri. As far as the sponsorship rumors go, Girls' Day was almost a dead group before they had that unexpected string of hits with Expectation-Female President-Something (and you bet those songs capitalized on the fact that all members of the group were now legal). I don't know, it's circumstantial but suspicious all the same. Again I don't really have receipts for a lot of this, just years of rumors and innuendo.
Wow, I don't know if I could make a list like that for a group I liked... that would be so depressing. The interesting thing about Seungri is that he was very skilled at making himself out to be the victim... like the other members of Big Bang would mention on some TV show that he'd been called before the CEO again to apologize for yet another transgression with women and Seungri would make the whole thing into a joke about how he got yelled at again, while totally sidestepping the issue of what his transgressions were in the first place.
Pretty much with this group, I'd always assumed they told the truth, but not the whole truth; but I don't really know anymore. When you have a whole group of former child stars that's what happens, everyone has an almost instinctive feel for how to give just enough away for it to feel real but nothing that would actually get them in trouble. Seungri in particular was always accused of making up stories for TV. All this time it kinda looked like he was being bullied by the others, now the bullying rumors actually make the rest of them look better.
BUT, lest you think I am saying they are off the hook bc they called Seungri out on TV, I also remember Taeyang (for one) mentioning in at least one interview that Seungri was the guy you went to when you wanted to arrange a hook up. He did it with a smarmy look and GD and maybe TOP... I can't really remember, agreed. I guess it seemed implied that Seungri would just go up to whatever starstruck girl at the party and arrange something for you using fame as a hook but of course it's a lot more sinister now.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-01 07:26 pm (UTC)This is really good, mind if I link to it from tumblr?
To specifically speak to the question of "why are folks OK with this" I have a few theories or at least related thoughts...
The first thing that comes to mind is the reason why we consume "personality" content in the first place. It's an antidote to what we're otherwise asked to do as idol fans, which
is to consume the product as if it were made by machines, not people. I remember when I was first getting into Kpop, after having been a fan of more "rockist" groups where the illusion of authenticity was a little more central to the narrative, being really turned off the disposable product vibe of Kpop. It seemed actively cruel to treat these human beings, who were pouring their blood sweat and tears visibly into the medium, like just another entertainment option, to be discarded once the novelty had worn off.
Lots of idol music is specifically about this even... about the cruelty of being thrown away by fans once you've outlived your usefulness. Like the sad ikea lamp commercial, the product looks back at you and asks, how could you? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU) Except of course, idols are actually human beings and do actually have feelings, which is exactly what those "personality" shows aim to showcase.
(Some songs that are specifically coming to mind as being about need to hold on to the fans who are already moving on, or about turning yourself into a product to sell more, are 4minute-Volume Up, Infinite-The Chaser, TVXQ-Humanoids, BoyFriend-Love Style, Tara-Sexy Love, SHINEE-Breaking News, LEDApple-Let the Wind Blow, Girls Day-Don't Forget Me, Big Bang-Monster (video more than song), and a certain style of SM song the latest example of which is NCT 127-Superhuman.)
Anyway I'm not saying anything unique here about idol-as-product but I bring this up to point out that every single one of us is living in a world where we have to compartmentalize our consumption every single day. Think about the last product you bought, odds are it was produced in an unethical way and that a human being or multiple human beings had to suffer to deliver it to you at that price point. Tons of consumer goods are made by prison labor in China; generic drugs are dumped into the water supply in India; everywhere in the developing world workers and the community are suffering because of environmentally and socially exploitative factories; we all know it, but what in the world is the alternative to buying and consuming these things? You can't even know where your products are coming from - even the companies that sell the products don't know where they come from - due to how the supply chain works. In this kind of environment, learning how to ignore the provenance of the product and just enjoy the use you get out of it is almost second nature to us.
Not to mention, that with social media being what it is we are increasingly turning ourselves into products to be consumed by an uncaring world. How bad can the exploitation really be, if we are willingly exploiting ourselves? https://thenewinquiry.com/social-media-social-factory/
Now the thing with Seungri is uniquely horrifying because it concerns sexual exploitation, which is something very taboo and that really gets people who might be numb to exploitation in general. But this is the world we live in, you know?
no subject
Date: 2019-07-02 12:30 pm (UTC)Feel free! Although I will add that one reason why I say it's undercooked is that I haven't yet gotten my hands on the Bullshit Jobs book, which I think also goes into this.
Some songs that are specifically coming to mind as being about need to hold on to the fans who are already moving on...
stg Infinite's entire last album was about this, especially the opening ("Tell Me") and closing ("Begin Again") songs. (Also I'm not sure if you're tracking BTS but their songs-as-commentary are interesting, especially as they diverge from this as they get more famous; i.e. "Boy With Luv" made more sense once I read a bit about it and got the impression that it was basically the members talking themselves into enthusiasm for this love affair, i.e. with the fans.)
...every single one of us is living in a world where we have to compartmentalize our consumption every single day.
true, which accounts for "being able to track the supply chain of the item you're consuming" a luxury good. i.e. farm-to-table restaurants (which is bullshit, but it's expensive bullshit), $5.99-a-dozen eggs with QR codes where you can see video from the farms, the idea of shopping local / artisan / hand-made. and also I think #ownvoices ties into this: people wanting not only the "good" of books with minority / "diverse" characters but reassurance that the good is "authentic," i.e. produced by a writer of similar background / experience.
And I do think there are cases of fans wanting to be reassured that their idols aren't being mistreated -- MooMoos asking Mamamoo's agency to cancel concerts, that kind of thing. I remember being told early on that B1A4 got actual vacations (I'm not sure that's actually true, or that WM is that much more humane than any other K-pop agency) and that JYP didn't force Miss A to dorm together. But how much of that is grasping at straws, is part of the problem.
(edited to remove stuff I'd forgotten I'd already linked upthread. also I wrote "overcooked" when I meant to say "undercooked.")
no subject
Date: 2019-07-02 06:54 pm (UTC)That's a good point about the supply chain being a luxury good, and I hadn't thought to link "own voices" to it, thank you. Are we doing all this activism around consumption because we feel powerless to affect the actual political process in this country? Probably, right? All that political energy has to go somewhere, folks are ready to be radical but there are limited outlets.
BTS are really good at producing both commercial hits, and writing a meta-narrative about their own fame. They totally deserve it. I've heard that popular groups actually don't have it as bad, it's the struggling groups that get exploited the most.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-17 02:39 pm (UTC)But the notoriety of an R. Kelly or a Seungri distorts the discussion somewhat, in effect puts what they now represent in place of what the music had previously represented and what the social styles surrounding the music represent. That is, in the normal course, people almost never base their liking of a song, or whether they think the song is good or not,* on "What sort of person does this make me, that I like this song?" They might ask that question of themselves once they've figured out that they do like the song, but the liking itself is already in place, comes prior to the question, not after it.** But nonetheless, the songs they like and dislike form the kind of personal and social footprint that would have arisen if they had based their likes and dislikes on "What tastes would be appropriate to the sort of person I am?" And this becomes even more pronounced once we start adding up the various tastes of the people and social groupings an individual hangs out with or near.
It's as if our ideas and perceptions and feelings regarding music do a kind of psychosocial sorting for us (and against us, too, if it keeps sticking us in the same old milieus and reinforces the same old class hierarchies), despite this sorting having nothing to do one way or another with our intentions. And believe me I'm not being crude here. "The sort of person I am," or you are, or anyone is, has a lot of facets: temperament, personality, style, and where one locates oneself — or gets located — on various social maps. Social location is underrated as a factor precisely because, while we may notice when our tastes match or put us at odds with the people around us, we're not liking or disliking something in order to match or oppose them, nor to make sure we identify with one group of them and not another. And anyway it's not as if what you praise and deride in music ever exactly matches what your buddies praise and deride. What a group of people argue about is as defining as what they think they hold in common: one thing they hold in common is what they think is worth arguing about, as opposed to what they let slide or ignore; another is that, in Western culture, anyway, we wouldn't trust anyone who lacked idiosyncrasies.
Even in the case of a Seungri*** — and let's say he weren't a musician, that you're talking about a neighbor or something — your opinion of who he is and what he did isn't based on how that opinion will rearrange your sense of self (which it won't) or your sense of how others will see you (which it also probably won't, but you never know). Not that you can't or shouldn't rethink your opinions and change how you hear the music in response to blowback from others or your own self-questioning. That's what a lot of thinking is: responding to dissonance. But what's changed here isn't you, it's just your perception of Seungri and ilk, and with it your perception of K-pop. And maybe that'll change how you hear K-pop, even down to the level of beats and melodies.
*These are two different things, how much you like something and how good you think it is, though they often run close to one another and I'm not bothering to separate them out in this comment.
**The public display of the liking can be a different story, but let's put that aside for the time being. And once you learn what others think, how you hear the music can change, but again the change won't be in order to align yourselves with others — but that's often the result.
***As you say, it's not just Seungri; but I'm using him as a metonym or synecdoche (not sure of the right term) for all the related and similar scandals.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-17 02:41 pm (UTC)Lots of our listening, reading, watching of art and entertainment isn't just our wanting to be entertained or enlightened but also is a kind of reaching out, it sometimes being especially exciting when we reach to something that doesn't seem to fit us. See the Elvis / Scarface para that starts my Corina review. (Btw, such reaching doesn't take you out of your social class, even if what you've reached to is outside of it: a particular style or flavor of reaching is a characteristic of the music crit social class or category you and I are part of, what back in 1987 I called the "music marginal intelligentsia.") But of course that reaching towards difference sometimes puts us in face with actual difference, and that difference sometimes is wrongness.
As it happens, I once wrote about this in relation to Big Bang — basically the feeling that I'd be an alien if you were to plop me down in the world of Big Bang. I saw a clip of them on Lee Hyori's talk show, it was basically a routine on the subject of "How To Pick Up Girls." When I posted about it I said, "And yeah, they're doing it for fun, and it's funny; but still, it's reminding me that these people are fundamentally mainstream and I'm not." But this didn't hurt or change my relationship to K-pop. And it's not as if a thousand other things in K-pop don't also throw me face-to-face with such differences. (But check out Mat and Sonya in the comments.)
A few more notes: most of my K-pop fandom, such as it is, and yours too, I'm guessing, plays out in my music crit world, and it identifies people like you and me with the David Cooper Moores and Jonathan Bogarts and Tom Ewings of the world (to pick three who aren't particularly into K-pop) rather than with the mass of, say, BTS fans out there. Whereas Sabina Tang had a K-pop fandom before she discovered our corner of the music crit world and before our world discovered K-pop. But I'm wondering what other milieus and social landscapes your K-pop listening hooks you into. As I recall, your big interest in K-pop didn't start with us but with something between you and your daughter, the two of you enjoying HyunA in the "Gangnam Style" remix. (Or was that just where your interest in 4Minute started?)
Anyway, obviously I think you're right about the connection between music (etc.) and people expressing themselves and their values through the stuff they consume (and play with and dress in and talk about etc.). I'd even add the phrase "and sometimes creating" after the word "expressing." But I'm not at all sure this is on the increase. It's already been huge at least since the end of World War II, and maybe long before that. The term "conspicuous consumption" was coined in 1899. I think it'd be hard to claim that BTS is more important socially to its fans than Marlon Brando was to Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan in the early '50s, or that the cultural shake-up in the U.S. and Britain from 1964 to 1968 was smaller than current shake-ups, a lot of that shake-up being marked by music. But then, I wouldn't know how to comparatively measure such things anyway. Culture is a big part of class identity (and of gender and race and so on) — above and beyond one's role on the job, and not just cementing where the job places one as to class and culture but augmenting or counteracting it. Among other reasons, "culture" and "taste" and "consumption" are big deals because "employment" and "income" aren't the whole of social identity. Job never was the sole determinant. And if employment is somewhat less of a creator of personal identity than it once was — this may be true but again I have no idea how to measure this — this has nothing to do with unemployment (otherwise 2008-2014 would have been a cultural renaissance) but rather with the move to outsourcing and temp employment on the part of businesses and the related tendency among workers to switch careers and to move to metropolitan areas.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-17 02:43 pm (UTC)But anyway, there are other reasons for UBI than the ones Yang gives (not that I know much about it), and none of this has any bearing on your strong point, which I take to be about people expressing or defining themselves (and getting defined) by the music etc. they consume.
Here are some links if you're curious; I especially recommend the first:
Mike Konczal and Larry Summers:
The One Where Larry Summers Demolished the Robots and Skills Arguments
Dean Baker:
The Future Of Work: Don't Blame The Robots
Paul Krugman:
Don't Blame Robots for Low Wages
Sex and exploitation scandals don't pause for a little ol' pandemic
Date: 2020-03-25 01:47 pm (UTC)Moon urges thorough probe into Telegram sex slave video case
Prosecution launches special team to investigate Telegram sex crime case
South Korea identifies suspected leader of sexual blackmail ring after uproar
no subject
Date: 2019-06-06 06:50 pm (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=499YUeNoYVE
(You'd accidentally linked Ladies Code twice.)
As for what I meant by "I wouldn't say this sound is gone in K-pop, but the feeling kind of is," what I wrote was vague enough to avoid any specific meaning, but it's not as extreme as I may have been implying: the "feeling is gone" isn't meant to signal an overall disenchantment with K-pop (K-pop doesn't enchant me as much as it once did, but I've not crossed over yet to disenchantment), just to say that whatever spark and lilt I've associated with K-pop's use of freestyle and Italodisco doesn't sparkle as much for me anymore, even if freestyle and Italodisco riffs and such do sometimes still show up. But of course a lot that I've loved in K-pop made little or nothing of freestyle and Italodisco — 2NE1, E.via/Tymee — and I'm not getting as much sparkle from their descendants either. I wouldn't say K-pop's openness has gone away, just that it's opening to things I don't like as much. (That's vague enough too: I either will or won't elaborate later.)
David Frazer alerts us to fromis-9 new Italodisco-ish B-side
Date: 2019-06-04 01:27 pm (UTC)Re: David Frazer alerts us to fromis-9 new Italodisco-ish B-side
Date: 2019-06-05 02:28 am (UTC)Way seems to be trying to make a living through her YouTube channel
Date: 2019-07-02 07:54 am (UTC)I wish the interviewer had been interested in asking how the group's artistry came about.
In the meantime Way seems to be going full guns over the last month on her YouTube channel, averaging a new video every other day. I haven't had a chance to look; perhaps she provides info about where the artistry came from and gives us more detail about life at Chrome Entertainment.
When I get my wits together I'll try to weave some thoughts about Crayon Pop into a discussion with
*Whatever agency bosses and group members may believe, you don't sing and dance and promote better by over-rehearsing and sleeping only four hours than you do with a normal amount of rest. The long hours and the financial shenanigans are about keeping things — people — predictable and under control, and I wonder how much the performers buy into this.
Re: Way seems to be trying to make a living through her YouTube channel
Date: 2019-07-02 11:43 am (UTC)Specific to this point: there's a sequence in Infinite's Showtime (so, variety show, grain of salt, etc.), where the guys end up joking around about who got threatened with expulsion from the group at what point. So maybe that's another industry trope? I know of very few cases where it's credibly said that an idol actually got expelled from a group -- GLAM lost a member early on, reportedly because she'd stalked other idols, and supposedly (G)I-dle's Miyeon was supposed to debut with Blackpink but got cut. So my guess is the ratio of expulsion-threat to actual expulsion is very high (but the idols themselves can't take the risk of calling their managers' bluff, at least not the first time).
Re: Way seems to be trying to make a living through her YouTube channel
Date: 2019-07-02 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: David Frazer alerts us to fromis-9 new Italodisco-ish B-side
Date: 2019-07-13 05:46 am (UTC)Re: David Frazer alerts us to fromis-9 new Italodisco-ish B-side
Date: 2019-07-22 05:34 am (UTC)Party like it's 1987
Date: 2019-06-04 01:36 pm (UTC)Chuck Eddy's Pazz & Jop Product Report June 2019
Date: 2019-06-04 09:54 pm (UTC)Look Back At It/ Modal Music
Date: 2019-06-11 10:35 pm (UTC)Re: Look Back At It/ Modal Music
Date: 2019-06-11 10:37 pm (UTC)Duckwrth
Date: 2019-06-11 10:40 pm (UTC)Party like a rock star
Date: 2019-06-20 12:07 pm (UTC)skyecaptain's playlists
Date: 2019-06-21 07:43 am (UTC)skyecaptain's tinyletter:
["Freestyle Solo" is here.][That link isn't working anymore, but here it is at the Wayback Machine.] [And now Dave's added it to his Substack: go here and search "Freestyle Solo."]