koganbot

I just discovered My First Love Story, a Tumblr whose author, Maddie, describes the blog's objectives as: "My ideas about/analyses of K-pop in relation to feminism, the music industry (both North American and Korean), and the portrayal of Asian femininity in media (both North American and Korean). Continued exploration of my diminished and/or burgeoning identity as a Korean/Chinese-Canadian woman who has never visited the country my mother came from over 40 years ago. Relations between K-pop and above exploration. Songs that I'm obsessed with. Pictures of idols that I'm obsessed with."

If you're like me (that's about three of you), you have now instantly bookmarked that blog and are this moment reading it, or are about to. For one thing, a lot about the look of the girl teen idols will make most of us immediately go "PROBLEMATIC PROBLEMATIC" but I, for one, feel way too ignorant of Korea or K-pop to think I have anything knowledgeable to say on the subject (which of course doesn't stop me from trying). So someone who knows and loves the music but doesn't duck the problems has my immediate esteem.

On that subject, I recommend that you go read anhh's heartfelt disaffection: "To be honest, lately I can't stand K-pop. I still consume it on the same way: enjoy the music (music videos, albums, etc.) you can enjoy, avoid the rest (fans, media, the propaganda). To be fair, I don't think that you can separate one from the other. Some of the things I like about K-pop (the belief that a song can be an event and/or can change your life, how this treatment applied on the producer side can make a song you don't care about something that you never want to get out of it, etc.) go hand in hand with the propaganda side of it." And on.

I'd say that the K-pop convos are the best to have occurred on my livejournal over the last year, thanks mostly to anhh and Mat, and since the conversations often will extend for days or weeks on a particular thread I urge you to periodically click my K-pop tag and revisit the threads (some of these being commentary on quarterly or year-end lists, with the K-pop content being rudimentary in my original post and only really developing down in the comments).

Back to Maddie's blog, a theme that's developing is that if you're Asian or Asian American in North America, Asianness will become an issue whether you want it to or not, and any attempt to break the Korean groups here will have to take this into account. I'll add a corollary, though, which is that if part of someone's heritage is black, everything changes, and the Asianness may even go unnoticed.

[EDIT: Add "or Latin American" after black in the previous sentence, or you can make it "black or Latin American or even though you've got no Latin American ancestry you played someone with a Latina name in High School Musical."]

Songs from 2006 that people need to nominate for the poptimists Best Of 2000s poll (that I probably won't have the room to nominate myself) - EDIT: But no rush, since you'll have a couple of weeks to contemplate these tracks, as Kat in the meantime has some special fun and games planned. Click on the comments to see.

Taylor Swift - Cold As You
Ashley Monroe - Satisfied
Rock Jack - Toilet Master
Sally Shapiro - I'll Be By Your Side
K-Sis - Beijos, Blues E Poesia
Paris Hilton - I Want You
Lillix - Sweet Temptation
Young Jeezy - Trap Star
Cham - Ghetto Story
Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler
Marit Larsen - Don’t Save Me
Fergie - Fergalicious
Wir Sind Helden - Von Hier An Blind
Snook - Snook Svett Och Tarar
Brooke Hogan - About Us
Eric Church - How ’Bout You
Dierks Bentley - Settle For A Slowdown

( K-Sis )

UPDATE: Here's another link for Beijos, Blues e Poesia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TrRtXIkmC4

Was going to do this October 1st, then November 1st, now here it is.

1. Danity Kane Welcome To The Dollhouse
2. Ashlee Simpson Bittersweet World
3. María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser Juventud En Éxtasis
4. Vanessa Hudgens Identified
5. Buraka Som Sistema Black Diamond
6. Willie Nelson Moment Of Forever
7. Ne-Yo Year Of The Gentleman
8. Santogold Santogold
9. Cansei De Ser Sexy Donkey
10. Marit Larsen The Chase
( 11 through 18 )

( Housefire of the Danitys )

This time she's lush right at the start! However, she goes uncluttered soon enough and into what I'd call a typical Marit Larsen melody - though I can't specify what's typical about it, maybe not the melody but the half-offhand, half-blithe, barely inflected delivery, syllables cutting off quickly, sans melisma.* Of course, lushness returns, this song doing the contrast between her slight voice and the large orchestration even more than usual. Lyrics seem to be about song messages being subject to further review, or their applicability being contingent, or something. The "you" who writes the songs under question probably isn't the same "you" she yearns for.

http://www.myspace.com/maritlarsen

*She tends to save vocal embellishments for the choruses

Starts w/ acoustic strums on a blues riff, and one expects or fears that the inevitable curlicues and orchestrations will come along and envelope it, but no, she's pickin' and strummin' all through with no embellishment. Her melody stays with the basic chord until it rises up on "takes fuel to light the tiniest star," and in the third verse (or is that a "middle eight" that happens to come at the end?) she goes way high and into a new chord, then finishes fast at 2 minutes, airy and quick and out. Credits the person or entity she's addressing as the source of her fuel, though this being Marit, one suspects that hanging around just offstage is her worry that the fuel/person/entity will run out.

http://www.myspace.com/maritlarsen

Still with the plinks, these ones pizzicati from old Hollywood comedy. Again, country touches in the melody, and again the arrangement refuses to emphasize the countryness.* Called "Steal My Heart," but "Steel My Heart" would be just as accurate: "For now the love we made is a razor blade/And I don't want to hurt any longer."

http://www.myspace.com/maritlarsen

*Mandolin used more as waterfall tremelo than as southwestern haze.

She continues to stream them, one per day, on her MySpace:

"Your skin feels like counting the bricks in the city"? She seems to be going for an even lighter touch than in Under The Surface. Meringue upon meringue. But already, on repeat plays, this gains weight. Same set-up as "The Chase": flighty in the early verse, then heavier elements show in the chorus, and strings and weeping steel cling to the later iterations. Despite the basic spriteliness of her voice, there's a risk that as the songs pile up on each other in similarity she'll end up with an emotional hush she mostly avoided on the first alb. But we'll see if the songs do pile up in similarity.

"Our love it is reduced to this is me, this is you." First time through this seems like connection, second time like estrangement: "There's nothing left to lose. Our love it is reduced to this is me, this is you." But I'm not sure. Could mean - third time? - they've found their way to the basics, bricks and cities discarded (sadly lost? or no longer necessary?). Sudden shift to a dark chord at the end, then resolving on one that's not-so-dark.