Frank Kogan

I feel emotionally battered by the election, feeling simultaneously vulnerable and malicious, as if I'll be attacked for anything and nothing and I run constant fantasies of going back and settling old scores.

I've been sitting on most of this list for a month now, wondering what to say. I don't know how this music "plays" among the people most affected by it. I'm also not completely sure whom I should consider the "people most affected by it," anyway: thirteen-year-olds uneasily trying to figure out who they are and what other people think of them, and being subjected to this music, to these vids? Kids who when they listen don't see or hear themselves and wonder what's wrong with themselves for not being like it, kids who do see themselves and don't like what they see, kids who like what they hear, like what they see, don't realize they're being set up, kids who are inspired to change themselves, kids who are just having a good time, um [trying to think of positive impacts], kids who grasp these as vehicles for love, for excitement, for conversation, for adventure? I don't know. Kids who like the way they look when they dance to this? Kids who hate the kids who dance to this?

—Why am I privileging "kids" here? ('Cause they're the ones for whom "who am I?" social choices are still fairly open, and influenced.) Why am I still listening to so much kids' stuff, anyway? (Well, other stuff I listen to isn't likely to produce singles.)

But, age 62, wondering why I'm not finding or particularly searching for good music fronted by people my age, two-thirds my age, three-fifths my age, even half my age; or fronted by male people; or explicitly political from the political Left.

I hardly ever visit the lyrics translation sites,* if the lyrics would provide much of a hint.

So I'm not doing much research, am I? Just sitting around wondering.

Locker room talk: I was molested (in a bullying, taunting way) in an actual locker room when I was a teenager. I recently dashed off a piece for my writers group about how if I imagined myself on the bus with Trump I'd think he was, among other things, challenging and bullying me. It didn't dawn on me to include what was done to me back in my track-and-field locker room. In my junior high bullying piece back in WMS #9 I said something like, "It was all over by ninth grade," but the molesting happened when I was in 9th grade, so clearly it wasn't all over. I don't know if I ever even brought up the locker room with a therapist (until last Wednesday, when I did). Maybe I thought (somewhat correctly) that it was relatively small cheese in comparison to the effect of the verbal teasing of a few years earlier. Anyway, songs in my life then were part of the soundtrack, whatever support or fear they provided.

From approximately 1963 through 1980 people more-or-less "socially" like me made great music that had a strong public presence. Afterwards, they didn't. ("People more-or-less socially like me" is vague enough.)

This is why I never post this. I'm just... not wanting to put thoughts together. Making excuses, it feels like.

Tension two paragraphs back between the phrase "people more-or-less socially like me" and the fact that one way of being "like me" is having a similar visceral response or aesthetic sensibility.

So, if I were to study old Mayan art and somewhat understand its world and be moved by it, does that make me more Mayan (if only marginally so) than I'd been before? (But do I have any idea whether my being "moved by it" is similar to how the Mayan's responded to it or what they did with it? Well, presumably if I'd done some research I'd have some idea about that, too.)

I get the sense that K-pop mostly comes from the mainstream and is geared towards cheerleader types and jocks more than to the freaks and the greasers (to use ancient terminology from a different part of the world). Also, duh, I don't know what I'm talking about it. Cheerleaders and jocks aren't necessarily more conservative than greasers, anyway, and are often less explicitly reactionary. Also, I assume (not necessarily correctly) that those who create K-pop are living in a Seoul version of Hollyweird, hence a bit more liberal than their audience. I think of particular performers, e.g. Brown Eyed Girls, and video director Hwang Soo Ah, as being vaguely on the "left." Whereas T-ara, for instance, traffic less in the need for some kind of breakout. But, e.g., T-ara's videos with director Cha Eun-taek hardly seem authoritarian or particularly traditionalist, and many of them are very good. (Cha Eun-taek is in the news right now in relation to an emerging government influence-peddling scandal, but not only do I truly know little about it, I'm wary even on my Blog That No One Reads of linking someone to the word "scandal" when I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm mindful of how the simple constant repetition of phrases like "T-ara bullying scandal" and "Clinton email scandal" creates the sense in the broad public that certain people MUST be in the wrong, even when most of the public has no idea whether or where there really is a scandal and what the alleged wrong is. Cha to his credit was one of the few industry people to tweet in support of T-ara (and Eunjung in particular) during their duress.)

"Songs in my life then were part of the soundtrack, whatever support or fear they provided." (Songs Implicated In Bullying Scandal!)

In the old days, when more people read my lj, at least a few people who knew more than I do would come along and help me out.

Here's a YouTube playlist of my Top Singles, 2016; will continue to be updated. Think I'm probably underrating the Mike Larry and overrating the will.i.am:

YouTube playlist: Ongoing Singles 2016


1. HyunA "How's This?"
2. Britney Spears ft. G-Eazy "Make Me..."
3. Crayon Pop "Vroom Vroom"
4. 4minute "Canvas"
5. FAMM'IN "Circle"



6. Tiffany ft. Simon Dominic "Heartbreak Hotel"
7. Era Istrefi "BonBon"
8. Aommy "Shake"
9. Serebro "Slomana"
10. NCT 127 "Fire Truck"
11. Wonder Girls "Why So Lonely"
12. DLOW "Do It Like Me"
13. Oh My Girl "Windy Day"
14. Serebro "Let Me Go"
15. Blackpink "Whistle"



16. Tiggs Da Author ft. Lady Leshurr "Run"
17. Britney Spears "Do You Wanna Come Over?"
18. NCT U "The 7th Sense"
19. Your Old Droog "42 (Forty Deuce)"
20. Serebro "Chocolate"
( 21 through 52 )

*Pop!gasa has a good reputation, though I forget who said so (which makes my use of "reputation" in this sentence a good example of what reputation is).

More wtf from Korea, Sunny Hill's "Darling Of All Hearts," which I described on Rolling Country as "sorta Irish folk-country flight-attendant pop" — though Mat points out on K-pop 2013 that "featuring" star Hareem plays the Swedish nyckelharpa (no doubt worth five times as much as the Irish pennywhistle he also plays*) and that the vocals in the "lalala" part sound very Swedish trad and the dance, too, looks Swedish. The LOEN Entertainment description improves our confusion by saying,

The song has a Bohemian polka-rhythm along with Jungle and Rock feelings with it as well.... the musician 'Hareem' joined as a session to make the music even more fun. The greek bouzouki, nyckelharpa, Drehleier, and the Irish Whistle is personally owned by Hareem himself. These instruments are rarely found in Korea, and in this song they make the polka even much more fun to listen to.

But actually, what makes the song for me isn't the whistle or the drone or the oom-pah but the breezy bright flight-attendant smile of the melody and the desperate cheer of the delivery, the lyrics by Kim Eana** about being the shoulder everyone else cries on while being denied a romance of one's own to cry about, and the video by Hwang Soo Ah turning the breeze and the desperation up yet another notch.



I wish someone would analyze the melody for me. Seems like — I don't know — French musical comedy, or maybe it's Korean or something.

I can't think of any American act of the last fifty years that could pull off something like this, the happy smile that's got strength in it, but not big boisterous American strength, just a hard inner knowingness that doesn't negate the smile or slow the breeze. (Again, is there anyone out there who can describe this in terms of melodies and chords? It does seem countryish.)

*Dumb joke, false cognate, "nyckel" stands for "key," not "nickel."
**I don't actually know that they're her lyrics and not that of cowriter KZ, but Eana does tend to write lyrics.

Writing has its own versions of Auto-tune and plastic surgery: they're called "rewriting" and "editing" (incl. in-the-head and unconscious editing, before your own or another person's hand even starts reworking the prose).

Okay, those aren't great analogies and I'm not going to push them. Just, I have a gut-level aversion to the idea of someone undergoing plastic surgery (not counting to repair injuries and to compensate for gross disfigurement), but "gut-level aversion" is not the same thing as an idea or an argument. And, you know, we do alter ourselves in the way we face the world — words and demeanor. So why especially recoil when the altering is done by knife? Anyway, I'm not of the age or gender or profession to suffer negative consequences from refusing plastic surgery. Whereas I've read (though what I read was unsourced) that some K-pop contracts give agencies the right to force female trainees to "alter [their] look or image if necessary," presumably with a scalpel.

Here're Brown Eyed Girls, pushing back at the antis:



I'm not dead sure how to interpret this. Plastic surgery is here, it's real, we've probably done it ourselves, deal with it. There's aggression in the skit, but not necessarily a clear target, or a clear reason for the laughter. The issue causes discomfort; you milk the discomfort for comedy. This YouTube comment probably comes close:

This is just awesome and right on the spot. I can't [get] with men (society in general) who hate 'ugly' girls but criticize those who do plastic surgery or even put on make up! Not everybody naturally fits beauty standards, so fuck you.

( Grimes' Vanessa )

( Brown Eyed Girls' Abracadabra )

h/t Mat

When last I embedded Brown Eyed Girls' "Abracadabra" I asked for theories regarding the dog in the video, but got no response. I would like to ask again, not just regarding this video, but dogs in general in Korean music vids.



My own commentary in full, regarding the dog in "Abracadabra," was: "The dog? Someone walks a dog down the hallway." What I might have added, had a conversation developed, is, "Cool people who have adventurous sex (or whatever) walk haughty dogs down hallways." But I'd overlooked a crucial piece of the video, the dog playing an actual role in the plot. Right after Jea* and dog traverse hallway for the second time, ( SPOILER )

( Dottie West Image Shift Award for 2009 )

*I suspect it's not really Jea but rather a professional dog walker, since we only view the walker from the neck down.

Kara's "Step," Brown Eyed Girls' "Sixth Sense," and Jay Park's "Demon" were all reviewed recently on the Jukebox (here, here, and here). The big "Step" issue for Jukeboxers was how crowded the sound was, some liking it, some not. I'm definitely in the liking-it category, think producers SweeTune make it feel effortless, a full-throttle but easy flow. My only reservation is that the tune isn't up there with SweeTune's best. I don't have much to say about "Demon": a functional Teddy Riley track, an OK melody, needs a snap that it once could have gotten from a Bobby Brown or a Ralph Tresvant, not to mention a Michael Jackson, but isn't getting from Jay Park.

Got home too late to do a Jukebox writeup on "Sixth Sense," but the Jukebox crew did great without me. The song is ambitious and baffling and the reviewers didn't pretend that they had a bead on it. Still don't know what I think of the music. Jer's pan and Iain-Anthony-Doug's praise all make equally good sense. There are so many shifts that the groove doesn't take hold, and no melody soars. But I'm stirred by the massiveness and experimentation. If I give it a chance, maybe it will take hold.

Am just as ambivalent about the video: provocative images thrown in our face, an attempt to connect democracy and sexual liberation, seems facile but that doesn't make the images less arresting. The three oldest Brown Eyed Girls were already in elementary school before South Korea had its first genuinely free election. So riot shields and cults of personality and the state closing in wouldn't pertain only to some countries to the north and to the east.

The teaser single "Hot Shot" that came out a week before this is just as ambitious and swings better for me, big-band Latin ramping into soundtrack funk and the Brown Eyed Girls doing the girls-will-be-boys thing on TV.

Was disappointed that the "Sixth Sense" video contains no murders, suicides, or murder-suicides. Along those lines - along any lines - Brown Eyed Girls' "Abracadabra" and BEG Ga-In's "Irreversible" are two of the best music videos I've seen in the last several years. Mysterious but decipherable plots that netizens spend months on YouTube figuring out. [Click CC if you're not getting English subtitles for "Irreversible."] Also, great accordion. Last February I tried not very successfully to start a conversation about "Abracadabra." I'll make the effort for "Irreversible" sometime in the future (tried once on poptimists, but of course that failed too, an experiment the purpose of which was to confirm that Mat and I are alone in the world).

"Today my body is acting strange, as if it doesn't belong to me." Returning to the locked ward, we present IU's new video, "The Story Only I Didn't Know":



The major aesthetic question is can even a singer as sensitive as IU get me to like ballads, the answer here being, "Well, she did this time, but she doesn't always."

The lyrics are basically, You were leaving for good, you never actually felt love, but I was the last to know. Or as the Zombies might have said, Well, no one told me about him, the way he lied. The video, however, surrounds the track in a whole psych-ward story, bathed in numbed-out, walking-dead white. So the shattering of what was probably a brief affair is a mental shattering as well, love leading to pathology, or love itself a form of insanity - 'cept just because they're in an asylum doesn't mean the video is presenting this extreme breakdown as anything but the way things are, a hyperbolic expression of how it feels, and no sense that love shouldn't be this devastating thing, or that maybe such devastation isn't love.

Dialogue at the end:

"Your father passed away, right?" "He will come back. Everyone thinks he is my dad. But that person... is not my dad," leading some YouTube commenters to think the video's adding an incest and abuse theme, or a stepdad theme, or both. But a simpler interpretation would just be that the doctor is trying to link up the young woman's trauma with the recent loss of her dad, whereas the woman's got a different man on her mind, loss piling upon loss.

Conveniently, today in America this vid is introduced by an ad for Source Code, a flick about a military man whose mind crosses over into another man's body.

Beautiful song.

( You must look like someone I once knew )

As usual, I'm cross-posting this over on Poptimists.

[UPDATE:As Mat informs me over on the "Plastic Face" thread, many LOEN Entertainment and Nega Network videos, including this one, are directed by Hwang Su-a (황수아; which also gets transliterated Hwang Soo Ah); she also did "Good Day" and "You And I" and Infinite's "Before The Dawn" and "Be Mine" and Brown Eyed Girls' "Abracadabra" and Ga-In's "Irreversible," among others. An impressive track record.]

As usual, I'm double posting this video here and at poptimists, on the off-chance that someone there will have something to say. The track is stomping r&b that's intensified rather than compromised by the four-four and the Autotune, and has strong singing. Main issue I raised at poptimists is that, if the point is that fat can be sexy, then the singers should be allowed to really shake their stuff and show some skin.



At the pizza chompin' start, the vid's trying to have its cake etc. and eat it too, uplift the Dolls and make fun of them at the same time. That's what I feel about the name "Piggy Dolls" as well. Maybe it's an attempt to turn the word "piggy" around, seize it and transform it into pride. But I think it's (also) going for snickers. Not that I want to prejudge how audiences will take this. I think it's good these women are out there. The YouTube commenters are trying to position the Piggies as "real" in comparison to other idols, which is problematic in its own way. I guess I think this is too much on the defensive, but we'll see.

Also, though the beat's powerful and the singing's solid, the song itself needs something extra, something to hook us or grab us or mesmerize us. As it is, it's too anonymous.

EDIT: Here's the video with English subtitles (click "CC" for the subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brbTFVaWxUU (new link 2015, translated differently from below)

Excerpt (assuming these are accurate):

Ain't nobody, follow (do it)
One more
Ain't nobody, crazy now
Be crazy with us
My body? So what?
My face is unique
Check it out onstage
Look at me, we are trend
I'm sexy
Lookin' good
Check it out on stage
Look at me, we are trend
You follow me when I move
Now you (look at me), this is trend

The Some Videos thread is developing into an interesting discussion of Korean pop (and a little bit of Japanese pop), featuring a couple of people - petronia and askbask - who know more than I do. (Also, we ref back to this thread a little.)

Does anyone recall if conversations about Korean pop ever occurred on ilX?