Frank Kogan

Stunning "Crayon" remix, by someone calling herself/himself Tzechar. Takes an already twisted track and darkens it.



Video here. "Featuring Jenova" does not refer to a guest vocalist but to a riff from the Jenova theme in Final Fantasy (I know this not from my nonexistent familiarity with Final Fantasy riffs, but from a YouTube comment thread).

h/t snowconess

Chuck Eddy on K-pop:

http://www.spin.com/articles/k-pop

Chuck wrote this over a year ago, told me he didn't think Spin had made it available online so I didn't look, but it turns out they had. Excerpts:

"horse-whinnying Cypress Hill–style nasal frat-hop" (Seo Taiji & Boys)

"hiring hotties as much for dancing as singing" (H.O.T.)

"tunes about shy boys, kissing, and snow" (S.E.S.)

"threw samples hard and soft — notably, traditional Asian gorgeousness — into the pot" (Drunken Tiger)

"unprecedented combination of talent, looks, ambition, healthy living, and multilingual studiousness" (BoA)

"Maybe somebody somewhere raps faster than E.via on 'Shake!' but no way as adorably." (E.via)

"G-Dragon and T.O.P. from long-standing boy bunch Big Bang begin by banging big" (GD&TOP)

"mega-delectable mega-hit 'Gee'" (SNSD)

Hyori trades banter with Big Bang on her variety show:

Part 1: http://youtu.be/AyZhMV6nJsY

Part 2: http://youtu.be/FH2lz4MoAjQ

She, co-host Jung Jae-hyung, and the boys are all quite personable, though even with subtitles I'm not understanding whole gobs of the interchange, due some to my not knowing the history, some to my not knowing the culture. But I do get that a hunk of what they're doing at the end is How To Pick Up Girls. 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. (Or if one or more isn't/aren't fundamentally mainstream he/they are going along with it.*) I'm not averse to getting to know attractive women who happen to be passing by, including attractive mainstream women, and letting them know I'm potentially interested; but still, even though I can't totally put my finger on why, the how-to-pick-up-girls mentality epitomizes exactly what's mainstream about this clip and what's not mainstream about me. Maybe it's the assumption that this is our common ground. Or the assumption that we assume a common ground rather than discovering and creating it.



Of course, when various counterculture groups fundamentally go dead for me, and they all pretty much do, sooner or later — freak, punk, postpunk, indie-alternative, "poptimists," [your group name here] — it's exactly because they've gotten into a rut of assuming assumptions, e.g., assuming I'm like them more than I'm like Hyori. (See "The Death Of The Cool.") I don't assume that Hyori and I, for instance, or G-Dragon and I, etc., don't know how to find common ground. One common ground would be if they like to think about such things, about assumptions and how to test them. In 2006 Samsung was willing to postulate that Hyori seeks to see through a multiplicity of eyes.

( How did he get )

h/t Mat

While searching YouTube fruitlessly for some 2NE1/Big Bang couples action, I came across this live sitting-on-the-floor knockoff of the inferior reggae version of "I Don't Care," with G-Dragon writing, on the spot, a brilliantly half-assed, hilariously ineffective self-justification of the male attitude.

[video no longer available]

Unfortunately the dude who uploaded that vid compressed its width. Here's the same segment, with the correct ratio but without the Eng Sub:

Watch on YouTube

Read a lyrics translation of "Tonight" that made fear and misogyny seem casually rampant in it, in an interestingly conflicted way — the lyrics don't want to commit to the romance that suffuses the sound, with pain equally suffusing the sound — and I've been afraid to look further, at alternate translations, to confirm my theory that when T.O.P. romantically says "Good night" at the end he's really kicking her out of bed.

Essay question regarding Occupy Denver (200 words or less): If Occupy Denver were a success, what would this look like?

Answer (my vision of immediate utopia): We'd have an informed and engaged citizenry, rather than the ignorant, alienated voters we have now. People would want to understand concepts such as "cumulative advantage," "liquidity trap," "IS-LM curves," and the like (not all of which I understand, btw). Economic and social structure would be a matter of experiment and at least partial choice rather than "this is the way things are" (and no, I don't know what this looks like). The power of Big Money could be checked and countered from within and without government (I don't know what this looks like either, but I doubt that "No More Bailouts" and "End The Fed" are wise or get us there, though I don't know, being ignorant and alienated myself). People's ideas wouldn't always match their hairstyle. Everyone who wants one gets a puppy, but you have to take care of it. People who sing "We Shall Overcome" would develop better rhythm, or would respond to police action with a livelier song, such as "Hold It Against Me." Not only would HyunA have raps and dubstep breaks, which she already has, but dubstep producers would also sample HyunA.



[Someone at the Tuesday 7 PM GA asked us to answer this question (though I don't remember his exact wording) and to bring him the answers at the next GA, which I had to miss. He said something about providing a place to answer on the Facebook page as well, or the Webpage, though I haven't seen it at either site. So I'm posting it here.]

Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic, "Ready 4 Romance"

Pretty much missed three out of the four months, but was still able to get a solid 20, thanks to ringers from late last year, Korean b-sides, Korean instrumentals, a Far East Movement bonus track that's currently number 5 on the Gaon Overseas Chart, and a joke that my mom (b. 1923) says is far older than she is, much less the Bellamy Brothers. So predates World War I, at least. Might even predate the French And Indian War.

In regards to said joke, while even my Britney-loving friends consider "Hold It Against Me" the bottom poop of Britney's year, I'm completely taken by it, as it rumbles and rocks, glides and pummels, soars and attacks; maybe it's a bit too comfortable in its trashiness, compared to the unsettlingly squirmy trashiness of Blackout, but basically I think this and "3" are genius and if only she 'n' Max 'n' crew had put together an album's worth of such gorgeous sexslime, Femme Fatale'd be in my decade's top ten for sure. Will likely make my year's ten, anyway, though as you'll see below, not a lot of albums have been knocking the door of the koganbot pleasure center.

SINGLES:
1. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"
2. Jeremih "Down On Me"
3. GD&TOP "High High"
4. Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic "Ready 4 Romance"
5. IU "The Story Only I Didn't Know"
6. GD&TOP "Knock Out"
7. Far East Movement ft. Lil Jon & Colette Carr "Go Ape"
8. Big Bang "Tonight"
9. Rihanna "S&M"
10. Reba McEntire "If I Were A Boy"
( 11 through 20 )

( Albums )

Wild rose

LPG are listed as "trot," which is a Korean descendant of foxtrot, so I expect it's what everybody danced to prior to the young people's wave of hip-hop and r&b; in feel it makes me think of Italodisco, actually. LPG seem to be young people themselves, their name originally standing for "Long Pretty Girls" owing to the singers all winning beauty contests. Possibly an unpromising premise for a girl group, but art can come from anywhere, even the heights. Now, foreshortened by a few defections and replacements, LPG are merely "Lovely Pretty Girls" and perhaps need a successful album so as not to end up lonely pretty girls. They did a recent terribly blah cover of "We No Speak Americano," their voices being the total wrong style for a poke-you-in-the-ribs novelty. There's something clear and matter of fact about their singing, reminding me of Boney M.*

( Kogan links )

( IU, Far East Movement, Big Bang, Camo and Krooked, Girl2School, Kara, Rainbow, Crookers, Jamey Johnson, T-ara )

( Albums Longlist 2010 )

( Country Singles Longlist 2010 )

( Martin Ramey vid )

So far. And three of them are holdovers from last year, which I justify down in the wonky notes. I've already posted about Jeremih, the gorgeous tenuousness of the sounds seeming to have nothing to do with the booty-gazing lyrics. You likely already know about the Britney, and if you haven't heard "High High" yet, that's hardly my fault. "Knock Out" is a bouncing bit of spare and twisting bubble bubble gum-smacking Korean hip-hop that doesn't match up with anything else anywhere that I can think of and will get a post of its own someday soon.



Meanwhile, "Ready 4 Romance" is roll-along-the-floor techno-dance that could play in any disco anywhere, atmospherics echoing through the atmosphere and a breathy girl occasionally showing up to say she needs me. "S&M" sounds bright and silly where you'd expect it to be dark and domineering, and is better for it. "No 1," the instrumental version of a B-side of an aggressively chirpy Korean girl-group single, is a bit of throwaway dance funk with a snaking synth line. "Good Day" is a diva showcase that morphs into a disco showbiz hussy and is a brilliant song, even if warm and appealing IU is neither diva nor hussy and doesn't blaze across the track the way it needs her to. And finally "Mocha Java" is a cooing little come-on, the basic background sound from backwater Russian dance clubs to international airport bars, though this happens to be Taiwanese.

1. Jeremih "Down On Me"
2. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"
3. GD&TOP "High High"
4. GD&TOP "Knock Out"
5. Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic "Ready 4 Romance"
6. Rihanna "S&M"
7. Secret "No. 1 (Inst.)"
8. IU "Good Day"
9. Xoxo "Mocha Java"

I have no number ten, so you need to tell me what it should be.

( Wonky Notes )

Scruples force me to note that I have never actually been in a backwater Russian dance club. I admit it.

New GD&TOP single "High High," vocals and beats twisted as electronically tight as they can be, club music contorted into pretzels, and GD & TOP finally breaking into song* at 2:20. I think even the Brits in my readership - if any Brits are still reading - will be won over by this one.



*EDIT: When they do this they spell out G-H-E-T-T-O E-L-E-C-T-R-O, and googling the term I got a St. Louis Record Company (their Website streaming what I'd ignorantly or archaically call "industrial dance rock"); DJ Godfather, a ghettotech guy from Detroit; Egyptian Lover, an electro hop DJ from L.A.; and this very strange entry at Urban Dictionary: Generating money for your home via money saving methods. Origin: Originating for Korea, it was first heard in the mythological pairing of a dragon and a white haired extremely good looking man. "The hamster is not running fast enough to generate enough ghetto electro to heat my shower." That's tongue-in-cheek, presumably. Right?