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Z.Hera "Peacock": Dance-pop from a writer who seems to have studied études and preludes, featuring a rookie singer who puts strain in her upper register in a way that's heart-tuggingly passionate, like the best of the '80s. She's got something, as does whoever wrote and produced the song, even if it's getting nowhere on the charts.



It would help if the visual concept were more than just "I'm young, I'm fresh, and I dance pretty well." In the video she's a caged bird who escapes her garret into a land of balloons and Swiss roofs and soap bubbles. The lyrics (English version here) are about never giving up in the face of adversity or a love object's indifference ("Nobody close, I'm feeling lonely, bitter cold/Only thought it makes me stronger"). Then she steps through her wardrobe into a tinseltown freeze, but she's feeling fire, and her energy never flags.

Live on Mcountdown )

Baek Ji Young "떠올라": Baek Ji Young has been doing well recently with ballads of dripping emotion, no droplet or gusher held back, one of the few ballad singers to reach me consistently. But she has an easy touch on dance tracks, into which she inserts pangs and power, also reaching me.



Back catalog )

BoA: BoA is an astonishingly fluid dancer, my favorite in the world. In comparison, her voice often seems locked-in. But her nasal soundpack is just right for the OST ballad "Between Heaven And Hell": restraint, clear line on the melody, dignified little quavers.

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I thought that listening to huge gobs of Korean music would help me finally come to terms with ballads, since about a third of the music out of South Korea is not just ballads but is specifically in the genre "ballad" (as opposed to e.g. someone in r&b who happens to be doing a ballad). But what happened is that I realized I couldn't listen to everything. And as songs labeled "Ballad" and "OST" (most of the latter being ballads) tended to go in on ear and out the other anyway, those were the ones that got set aside.

About one in twenty ballads I hear I really like, and I wouldn't say I dislike the rest so much as I don't react and I barely differentiate one from the other. I couldn't tell you what's specifically different about the 5 percent I do like. I just get hit by something all of a sudden. So here's one I listened to by mistake and I love it.



Barbara had a so-so album out earlier this year, Neo Beat Generation, which was breathy and stylized, as you'd expect from the title, the "Neo"–ness putting a screen between me and it. Whereas "꿈..그보다 아픈," while being just as musically audacious and self-conscious, rips through emotionally: held slow and impressively controlled but ready to let loose, which of course it does. Yet lots of songs do the same, so I don't know why this one succeeded in being special.

And here's Kim Bo Kyung's "아파," variously translated as "Sick" and "Hurt" and "It Hurts," and it's more familiar, a power ballad, rises and wails, full cataract, all engines running.



From what I can tell, she's a former talent-show contestant who flourished by singing "Because Of You" and "Hotel California," though there seem to be several different Kim Bo Kyungs in Korean entertainment, as well as a footballer.

The quality of her records is scattershot, but "Suddenly" from earlier this year is good, very much along the lines of "아파."

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Frank Kogan

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