Frank Kogan

Tracks that stand out as being less like most of the others on this list:

Wa$$up "Wa$$up" and "Jingle Bell": Like a lot of K-pop, this music draws on American hip-hop. But unlike a lot of K-pop this doesn't sound like K-pop, but rather like American jumprope pop.

Tren-D "Candy Boy": Like a lot of K-pop, this music draws on Italodisco. But unlike a lot of K-pop this doesn't sound like K-pop; it sounds like Italodisco.

Qri "Do We Do We," Boram "Maybe Maybe," Lim Kim "All Right": Not that these three are that similar to each other, but each is from an interesting area of smooth, "All Right" more upmarket, "Do We Do We" and "Maybe Maybe" b-side fluff from T-ara's bench warmers.

After School "Heaven": Smoothly sashays atop the nonsmooth.

Stromae "Papaoutai": Belgian Afro-dance (and family drama).

Baauer "Harlem Shake" and Psy "Gentleman": Relentlessly nondevelopmental mindfucks.

Vick Allen "I'm Tired Of Being Grown": Southern soul.

The Civil Wars "The One That Got Away": Dinner-date folkies let loose with tasteful tears.

Within Temptation "Paradise (What About Us?)": Goth metal (if that's what it's called these days).

Tom Keifer "Solid Ground": Hair metal, which isn't considered metal these days, and fuck these days.

Omar Souleyman "Warni Warni": Syrian wedding music on a speed-racer track.

SNSD "I Got A Boy": Shifts forms, won't establish a plot, shoots its self-conscious audaciousness at us with awesome persistence.

Zhanar Dugalova "Kim Ushin?": A Kazakh grabs the rolling happy spirit of "Behind The Groove"–era Teena Marie, successfully disregarding the fact that Teena Marie was a virtuoso and she isn't.

Fidlar "Cheep Beer": Cheap beer.

1. Crayon Pop "Bar Bar Bar"
2. Baauer "Harlem Shake"
3. GLAM "I Like That"
4. will.i.am ft. Britney Spears "Scream & Shout"
5. MBLAQ "Smoky Girl"
6. EvoL "Get Up"
7. Cassie ft. Rick Ross "Numb"
8. Wa$$up "Wa$$up"
9. Tiny-G "Minimanimo"



10. Gaeko & Choiza & Simon D & Primary "난리good!!! (AIR)"
( 2YOON through Kacey Musgraves )
( Psy through Fidlar )
( Girl's Day through T.O.P )
( Ben Pearce through Ray Foxx )

( Flogging a live animal )

I remember in the second half of 2011, while 2NE1 were being my official, conscious favorite band in the world, T-ara were subliminally becoming my actual favorite band. This didn't really pour forth in my writing, though, until the year changed. 2012 started with Jiyeon, Soyeon, and crew dancing in a circle, and shuffling backwards in unison, adorable and indefatigable at the same time, joyeous but so serious, too, working so hard at catching up with the world's dance: the shuffle, which had been a subcult of individual idiosyncrasy and creativity and had been transformed by LMFAO into an international dance of comic compulsion and affliction, was now, for T-ara, simple workaday everyday solidarity, seven unpretentious young women moving in the latest style.

[Oh poo. YouTube killed the embed. Well, here's a version with lots of fan chants:

T-ara "Lovey-Dovey"]

At the end of the year I was going back to the very same clips and it was like watching T-ara suddenly caught in the headlights, the half-second before they register surprise and fear. You wonder what's really there, Hwayoung flinging her leg sideways in the performance's showpiece, dance after dance after dance, four nights a week, Eunjung dropping out 'cause of a broken kneecap, others missing this or that show owing to schedule conflicts or minor injuries, the dance formations being reworked to accommodate.

But back in late 2011 I was already wondering about T-ara, who are they, why are they so good? 4minute, with engaging and accessible sex-bomb Hyuna at the center and the 2-yoons as vocal powerhouses, and a push-and-pull of appeal and rebellion that is a lot closer than T-ara are to my own sensibility, and who work with some of the same producers and songwriters, reach me in maybe one out of every three songs. Whereas T-ara have no bad songs,* except perhaps a Xmas throwaway here or an OST side project there, and even most of those are good. Even the ballads are good — standard and sentimental and just a day's dip into normal emotion.

I have no explanation, really. I bolded the "T-ara Pure" link below, maybe the most crucial of my attempts to figure it out, though I really just came up with adjectives, and not that many, piggy-backing on my first-quarter roundup. T-ara are kinda normal, I guess — I never made it to watching the variety shows to find hints of who they are as people. There's Hyomin's high pitch and Jiyeon's engaging disengagement, and Soyeon's determination — now a loaded word. Normal singers and dancers, taking what the world throws at them, until the world REALLY began throwing hard, and in response they froze. You can click the T-ara tag for any time T-ara comes up in my posts or in the comments. And here are links to what I consider the more significant of my T-ara and T-ara-related posts on lj, from the beginning to right now. I do, especially, think my Pazz & Jop ballot is a crackerjack bit of writing, my best attempt to sum up the pathology T-ara was subjected to starting mid-year.

Near year's end T-ara issued an apology to their fans, vowing to work harder, "work" being their only solution to the madness, even though it was just that, work, that did nothing for them when the storm hit.

( Here goes )

( Mother Of God, Is This The End Of T-ara? )

34 Pazz & Jop voters listed Korean music on either their singles or albums ballot, as opposed to last year's lonely 18, but if you subtract out those whose only Korean vote was for K-pop's first American hit, the number falls to 10. I won't say that "Gangnam Style" failed to whet anyone's appetite or stoke anyone's curiosity, since I don't know how many people's long lists contained Korean content that didn't make their top tens.* And our sample size is pretty small anyway.

Here's who voted for K-pop that wasn't just "Gangnam Style."** I've put in bold those who didn't vote K-pop in 2011 (though Marsh and Considine included stuff from 2011). "Paparazzi" and "Sherlock" are in Japanese. Luke McCormick is new to me.

Vijith Assar - Ga-in "Bloom"
Justin Chun - Dal★shabet Bang Bang, Dal★shabet "Have, Don't Have," SNSD "Paparazzi"
JD Considine - TaeTiSeo "Twinkle," Psy "Gangnam Style," 2NE1 "I Am The Best," Wonder Girls "Like This"
Chuck Eddy - Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker," Psy "Gangnam Style"
Kevin John - G-Dragon "Crayon"
Calum Marsh - Miss A Touch, SNSD The Boys, Miryo Miryo AKA Johoney
Luke McCormick - G-Dragon "Crayon"
David Cooper Moore - Sistar "Alone," Orange Caramel Lipstick, Orange Caramel "Lipstick," T-ara "Lovey-Dovey."
Brad Shoup - SHINee "Sherlock" (Japanese ver.)

This is assuming I didn't miss anything.



I voted for 14 K-pop tracks and albums, which I admit is an absurd number. Last year I voted for 12 (well, 11 for K-pop and 1 for trot).

Nothing from K-pop other than "Gangnam Style" got more than 2 votes, unlike last year, when GD&TOP's "High High" got 3, HyunA's "Bubble Pop!" got 5, and 2NE1's "I Am The Best" got 7. I'm surprised Sistar's "Alone" didn't get anyone other than Dave and me.

( Affinity list )

( Footnotes )

A track I voted for made the Freaky Trigger Top Forty, Dev's "Take Her From You"! In the 2011 poll a track I voted for made the Top Four, so this should be no big deal — except I'm sure nothing I voted for this time will make the Top Four. In fact, I was surprised anything I voted for made it at all.

But to the point of this post. Is there anyone out there who can parse the lyrics to Dev's "Take Her From You"? Who the "you" is seems to change, therefore confusing me as to who is being taken from whom, and where she's being taken!

Thank you.



The other point of this post is that I love everything about Dev's demeanor. She's absolutely her own strange-shaped self! She's absolutely confident! She's absolutely self-aware!

Also, she's got the sexiest singing in music. Tied with Cassie, anyway.

Frank Kogan's Pazz & Jop Ballot 2012

SINGLES:
1. T-ara "Lovey-Dovey" (Core Contents Media)
2. Orange Caramel "Lipstick" (Pledis Entertainment)
3. Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker" (Cube Entertainment)
4. ChoColat "I Like It" (Paramount)
5. Dev "Take Her From You" (Universal)
6. Dev "In My Trunk" (Universal)
7. Cassie "King Of Hearts" (Bad Boy/Interscope)
8. Wonder Girls "Like This" (JYP Entertainment)
9. Sistar "Alone" (Starship Entertainment)
10. T-ara "Day By Day" (Core Contents Media)

ALBUMS:
1. T-ara Funky Town EP (Core Contents Media) 13 points
2. T-ara Mirage EP (Core Contents Media) 13 points
3. ChoColat I Like It, The First Mini Album EP (Paramount) 12 points
4. Neil Young Americana (Reprise) 10 points
5. Miss $ Miss Us? EP (Brand New Music/Windmill Media) 10 points
6. Serebro Mama Lover (Columbia Europe) 10 points
7. E.via E.viagradation Part 1. (Black & Red) EP (Dline Art Media) 8 points
8. DJ Bedbugs Teenpop Lock And Drop Volume 2 [self-released] 8 points
9. Miss A Touch EP (JYP Entertainment) 8 points
10. Orange Caramel Lipstick (Pledis Entertainment) 8 points

COMMENTS: Interesting the different ways the public reacts to mass shootings, depending on the setting, or on what story just happens to catch hold. Now, after those little kids were killed at Sandy Hook, it's about gun control and mental health. But back in 1999, with the Columbine shootings, the story was about teens bullying teens, the killers having responded to years of torment, the public decided. The psychology of the killers may have been no different from that of the man a few months earlier up in Greeley who'd walked into a disciplinary hearing and let blast rounds of fire, or the guy in L.A. a few months later who shot seventy bullets into a Jewish Community Center. But for Columbine, teens shooting teens, people decided to imagine where the rage comes from – one of the few instances where the public wondered what it felt like to be the shooters. One of the many notes put next to the crosses at Clement Park said to the two dead killers, "If only you could have held on for a couple of more months," the time till graduation.

When the Voice ran my Columbine piece, Doug Simmons forwarded me a bunch of emails they'd gotten in response to the shootings. I recall one of them being truly chilling: "After 50 years of oppression, this is payback." Mostly what I was reading, though, was the pain, everyone a former student, everyone seeming to have lived a perpetual gauntlet. Or that's how I remember them, maybe my own memory telling me stories.

Which I'll admit is an overdramatic intro to something that lacked violence, much less murder. But here goes:

( Make the other members suffer as well )

My Pitchfork Vertebrates' List, Top Albums 1996–2011*



Saw Will Adams' email about his posting his Pitchfork list at the last second, was inspired to check on how last that second really was, began typing at 10:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time (deadline was midnight, some indeterminate time zone), and they cut me off at 10:15, when I'd gotten to exactly twenty but right before Aly & AJ Insomniatic, Arling & Cameron All-In, Marit Larsen Under The Surface, and Miranda Lambert Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Also missing was whatever I hadn't gotten around to exhuming from 1996 through 1998 (Bring It On soundtrack? [EDIT: Which was like 2000, actually]), plus whatever else I'd forgotten.

The order is somewhat accidental.

Funky Town was released January 3, 2012, now that I check.

*They're calling it "The People's List," but since that title is pretentious and juvenile, I came up with one that was just as juvenile but more novel; was originally going to call it "The Bipeds' List" but decided to show some backbone.

Cleaning out the garage.

Top Nonsingles, 2011:

1. DJ Bedbugs "Young Money Cash Minogue"
2. Chucha Santamaria Y Usted "Miami Lakes"
3. LeAnn Rimes "The Bottle Let Me Down"
4. HyunA ft. Zico "Just Follow" (live on Music Bank) [webrip]
5. Dev "Take Her From You"
6. Mr. Collipark ft. Ying Yang Twins & DJ Kool "Let The Beat Hit"



7. SOOLj ft. Tarae of Smash Bounce "앞 뒤 생각하지 말고"
8. Miranda Lambert "Fastest Girl In Town"
9. Miranda Lambert "Fine Tune"
10. Block B "Halo"
11. LPG "찔레꽃"*
12. Teddybears "Cisum Slived"
13. Kelly Clarkson "Einstein"
14. Clinah "So What If (똑같으면 뭐 어때)"



15. Kelly Clarkson "Honestly"
16. LPG "내 눈에 안경"
17. Dev "Kiss My Lips"
18. Wonder Girls "Stop!"
19. SNSD "I'm In Love With The Hero"
20. Dev "In My Trunk"
21. SOOLj with DJ Tiz "Because I Am A Man (Inst.)"
22. Dev "Lightspeed"
23. CB1 ft. B-Free "We Roll"
24. Teddybears "Glow In The Dark"
25. Crucial Star "잘 찾아봐"

( Freaky Trigger Songs Of 2011 ballot )

2NE1 in ilX 'n' P&J

"I Am The Best" ranks only 38th in the ilX poll but receives wild gushes from those who'd not previously heard it: "there is something beyond just the synth timbre that is really evoking early 90s hoover rave bumping up against acid and pop music that is essentially aural catnip to me, only with a stronger editor behind the song to avoid Lady Gaga's songs' unfortunate tendency to become scattershot and unfocused."

Here is a list of everyone I could find who isn't me who voted Korean in Pazz & Jop 2011. Let me know if I missed somebody. Those in bold are voters I don't remember previously hearing of:

Vijith Assar - HyunA "Bubble Pop!"
Brent Baldwin - Shin Joong Hyun Beautiful Rivers & Mountains
Justin Chun - 4minute "Mirror Mirror," After School "Shampoo"
Michaela Drapes - 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Chuck Eddy - GD&TOP "High High," 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Phil Freeman - Wonder Girls "Be My Baby," 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Richard Gehr - Shin Joong Hyun Beautiful Rivers & Mountains
Steve Holtje - A Pink "My My," BoA "Milestone"*
Andy Hutchins - 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Kyle Kramer - HyunA "Bubble Pop!"
Todd Kristel - 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Josh Langhoff - X-Cross "Crazy"
David Cooper Moore - HyunA "Bubble Pop!"
Brad Nelson - Wonder Girls "Be My Baby," Miss A "Good-bye Baby," 2NE1 "Ugly"
Chris Randle - HyunA "Bubble Pop!" 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
Tal Rosenberg - GD&TOP "High High"
Chris Weingarten - HyunA "Bubble Pop!"

I, by the way, voted for 11 or 12, depending on whether Galaxy Dream are Korean or not. Also, I worry that the inordinate time I spend trawling the Web for K-pop means that I'm overlooking a lot of great Rumanian dance pop and South African house (like this).

I'm not doing an affinity list this year, since I'm pretty sure Chuck and Dave are the only ones who voted for three songs or albums that I voted for (Chuck was three songs and Dave was three albums).

[Video no longer available]

*"Milestone" is as far as I know a Japan-only release so probably should count more as J-pop; actually, other than the Japanese pronunciation/timbre, the song could be American, even country pop.

( How to get Maura Johnston interested in K-pop )

( Britney )


IU, "The Story Only I Didn't Know." I don't have a good explanation for why a particular ballad hits me, since most go in one ear and out the other, leaving only torpor to mark their passage. Here, IU creates a space of intense agony, the music standing stark still. Her small voice sounds almost matter-of-fact. Like adding up deadly accounts. (So, torpor bad but stillness good?) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAQ0d3LAtZ0 [click CC if you're not seeing English captions])

Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic, "Ready 4 Romance." Take any room, from shack to bar to ballroom, dim the lights, add breaths and echo effects, and voila! A dark, erotic, cavernous space. The cavemen figured this out early, using shadows and torches.

HyunA, the Bubble Pop! EP: on reality TV HyunA plays herself as a goofball and brat (search YouTube for "HyunA screams at chicken"), yet this does nothing to undo her sexual aura. On live performances of "Just Follow" she moves slow, her face expressionless, the expressionlessness expressing force and haughtiness, and an inner stillness — the stillness totally sexualized. I wonder what she thinks of it. Does the force field of sexiness that emanates from her have anything to do with her, or is it just a thing that she ("she") can use? Is it just her gorgeous, slightly blank face and her way of barely moving, restraint in her gestures, onto which we project the force field? She and Zico had performed "Just Follow" seven consecutive times [EDIT: over ten days, that is]; at the end of the eighth they deliberately break character and smile, "See, we're normal warm people after all"; and HyunA winks. But this is a controlled warmth, "See, I've been here all along," her revealing herself in her own time, doling out the warmth but only when she wants to. So besides warmth what's revealed is mastery, the ability to control the revelation, the smile demonstrating more control since it says "I can turn my roles on and off." The fear and hysteria she puts on when she wants to go girlie-girlie is a role too — even if the various roles all happen to be the truth. [EDIT: This P&J para, written Dec. 22, 2011 or thereabouts, was my first attempt to get at the awe-and-aura-not-requiring-distance point I next made a week later on my lj and a few days after that on Tumblr.]

( Singles ballot )

( Albums ballot )

( Why I don't capitalize the m in 4minute )

1. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"
2. 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
3. Fat Cat "My Love Bad Boy"
4. GD&TOP "High High"
5. Jeremih "Down On Me"
6. IU "The Story Only I Didn't Know"
7. Bobby Brackins ft. Dev "A1"
8. Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic "Ready 4 Romance"
9. Big Bang "Tonight"
10. Dia Frampton "Heartless" (live on The Voice) [webrip]
11. SNSD "Bad Girl"
12. Britney Spears "Criminal"
13. Rihanna "S&M"
14. 4minute "Mirror Mirror"
15. Far East Movement ft. Lil Jon & Colette Carr "Go Ape." Dance phenoms add caterwauling and hollabacking to the palette. Jon's had his entrepreneurial eye on Korea for a while; U.S. West Coast is the closest he's gotten so far.



16. Nine Muses "Figaro"
17. GD&TOP "Knock Out"
18. MBLAQ "I Don’t Know"
19. New Boyz ft. Dev & The Cataracs "Backseat." Got a blank response on the Jukebox despite being to my ears far catchier and clearer than the mass of floundering fish that joined it in this year's dance-r&b-hip-hop-amalgam mess. Dev walks in and walks away with the song, of course, friendly, scrappy little clubrat casually exuding oceans of sexiness while just zipping through.



20. Rihanna "Man Down"
( Nicola Roberts through Miss A )
( Florence + The Machine through Blady )
( Orange Caramel through Nero )
( Feist through Eric Church )

My rankings were by sound and feeling and how good I thought something was, so proximity and juxtapositions are accidental, e.g. 50 and 51, and 89 and 90. But I like Rittz rubbing up against Eric Church at the end. Rittz is from the outer suburbs of Atlanta, but it's fun to think of him as the kid brother Church is singing to, the wigga who left the farm for hip-hop's dirty streets. The whomp of pain and incomprehension in "Homeboy" is Church's as much as the narrator's, Eric and cowriter Casey Beathard never giving voice to why a little brother might feel no home for himself in the place he grew up. The words are mostly about what the little brother supposedly lost. But the loss in the song is much deeper, the last verse giving us a view that the writers don't necessarily have themselves, the sense of something vital having left when the kid brother did and the abandoned relatives wishing it back rather than developing it in themselves.