Frank Kogan

Lee Hyori: Lee Hyori's Monochrome is the opposite of monochrome, with Hyori applying her gently authoritative style to all sorts of the last century's dance music (incl. country pop and western swing!). Strangely, I'm not hit with a lot of feeling — until the last four songs. That's only on one listen. Maybe the album simply takes a number of tracks before it penetrates, and when I go back to the start, the thing in its entirety will drive through me. In the meantime, "Miss Korea," track two, is an excellent lark (the lyrics as translated over at pop!gasa disputing the larkiness that the sound asserts), and emotion and discontent are at their deepest on track 12, the cheerfully titled "Show Show Show" [UPDATE: which turns out to be a rewrite and rearrangement of (and vast improvement on) Monrose's "No No No," with new lyrics by Hyori (see comments for Monrose embed)].

Watch on YouTube

The lyrics throughout Monochrome convey a consistent uneasiness. A lot is going on, though I don't know how much of it I'll reach.

Girls' Generation: Imagine "Land Of A Thousand Dances" in both its doop-doop and na-na-na-na-na versions done as beach-blanket bubblegum. What you've imagined is probably better than SNSD's new Japanese single, "Love & Girls," and I think arbitrary_greay and acts of verbosity are right to take the single, especially its video, to task for laziness and complacency and general unimpressiveness. But I haven't been all that impressed recently with Girls' Generation when they're being impressive, and I actually find "Love & Girls" viable, hummable, groovable. As actsofverbosity points out, it falls way short of Wonder Girls' similar "Like This." But then, "Like This" was last year's great summer groove,* and a pretty good summer groove like "Love & Girls" is, you know, pretty good. (Here's a link, though I expect Nayutawave will have it killed before you get a chance to click it.)

UPDATE: I've been dropping by every now and then, and switching out the "Love & Girls" video link whenever YouTube takes down the one I've already linked. In the meantime, here's where someone's ripped the song without PV; maybe it'll stay put a little longer. [UPDATING THE UPDATE: Well, this link is down now, but SM Town itself has now put forth the Japanese PV and it's in the link above and will presumably stay awhile.]

*Even if "Gangnam Style" was what hit the super-quadruple-lotto.

Engaging in ever more desperate — but just as futile — attempts to find Canadian popular recording artists who aren't boring, the Singles Jukebox reviews G.NA's "Banana."

Which brings me to the topic: when crows travel from city to city, do they fly in a straight line? Wikipedia has no opinion on this issue.



(Thinking about G.NA, I wanted to know the distance from Denver to Edmonton, and wanted it as the crow flies (as opposed to as the car drives, presumably on roads), but eliciting this information from the Web I made do with as the plane flies.)

In other Jukebox/K-pop news, the Jukebox reviewed X-Cross's much better "Crazy" last week, and many Jukeboxers were just as bored. They've heard it all before.



I assume the song title is a reference to the given name of a member of the family Frog, though I may be mistaken, name order working differently in Korea from how it works here. Perhaps the family name was what was being referenced, and Frog is the given name.

How come shuffle dances are never done to shuffle rhythms?

When the man in red goes "dadda-dadda dat-dat DAT GIRL," he's quoting Nassun in Lee Hyori's "U-Go-Girl" (but that doesn't mean we've heard this before; there's a difference between drawing on traditions and tropes, doing variations on a hot template, etc., as X-Cross are doing, and merely recapitulating it all).

EDIT: Btw, I don't know enough about Canadian music to know how much it is/isn't boring; was just referring back to a convo where Anthony was saying that at the Jukebox we seem to review the worst of Canadian music, and Alex explained that there's plenty of great stuff from Canada but it's not charting and that to weigh our Canadian choices too much away from the charts would be to do things differently for Canada from how we do it for anywhere else. (I didn't actually feel that the song in question, Kay's "My Name Is Kay," was that bad. Might have given it a 6; it tried too hard but I liked what it was trying.)

Prodded by Maddie's preferring Seungri's "What Can I Do?" to Enrique Iglesias's "Tonight I'm Fuckin' You" (wish I could agree with Maddie, but I think "Tonight" kills "What Can I Do?"), and also recalling that I have not yet gotten close to writing and posting all my year-end lists/appraisals, I want to officially dub 2010 as The Year In Which, Among Other Things, I Had Trouble Coming To A Consistent Opinion Regarding Enrique Iglesias (the "among other things" is there so that I can officially call 2010 the year of a whole lot of other things as well, e.g., I officially dub 2010 as The Year In Which Pitbull Was Massive, Though I'm Not Sure Massively What, But Jonathan Bogart Was The Only Person In My Critical Neighborhood To Write More Than A Sentence Or Two About Him). So anyway, let's recall 2010 (w/ links for anyone who wants to see the full text).



( Come on baby, do the vacillation )

That vid makes me wish I were watching Michelangelo Antonioni's brilliant L'Avventura, instead.

People on my flist ought to consider this, as some of you seem to know what you're talking about.

CALL FOR PAPERS

"In the Mix: Asian Popular Music"
Conference, Princeton University, March 25th-26th, 2011.

A conference organized with support from the Department of East Asian Studies, the Department of Music, the Program in American Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University.

Special Talk and Performance: DJ Krush

Deadline for Submissions: November 30, 2010

( We welcome proposals on any aspect of popular music in Asia or by Asians or Asian-Americans )

Mid-Year Lists 2010

Singles First Half 2010: "Blah Blah Blah" is the big hairy dance-mess that's dancing over the world, while Aggro and Dizzee are the only other representatives here of 2010's dance-pop mess. Not enough country on this list, and at this time of year that's usually my fault, but this time I think it's country's. (Probably not enough dancehall or hip-hop or kuduro either, but vuvuzelas are represented.)

( Singles First Half 2010 )

New year's irresolution: I did not begin the year by saying to myself, "2010 will be the year when I actually like a Katie Melua single."

My tracks list (as opposed to this singles list, though with huge overlap) is over on poptimists.

( Country Singles First Half 2010 )

Albums First Half 2010: Hmmm. I think I've listened to a grand total of eleven new albums. Now, hearing a lot by a performer can definitely enrich my understanding of that performer, albums at times can feed and grow wonderfully as tracks interact, etc., but I'm swamped in music coming at me from all directions, and I just don't know where people get the time. Here's my list so far:

( Albums First Half 2010 )

Video: Here's a vid:



h/t Mat