K-pop 2013

this is the tracklisting to that elite gymnastics mix I think?

kahi* – 돌아와나쁜너
4MINUTE – 거울아거울아
after school – SHAMPOO
girl's day – 잘해줘봐야
IU – 미리 메리 크리스마스 (Featuring 천둥 Of MBLAQ)

*of after school fame

it's a lot of heavy k-pop hitters, you could probably spend a few hours on each of their wikipedia discographies and find lots of good stuff

yeah for me it's mostly a singles/EP/mini-albums genre

i cut out all the j-pop from the listing btw

currently re-obsessed with this after they included it on their lp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWpl2CaCnVA

@clouds, it's an EPs & mini-albums genre, but there are some strong albums too. It's very visual, so maybe the best place to look is on Youtube.

Some stuff that sounds like the elite gymnastics list:

2NE1 - To Anyone: happy-sad anthemic exercise music. Late-90s stadium rock / will.i.am / Bangladeshi beats (e.g. "Follow Me").
Sistar - So Cool. If you absolutely must have more 2NE1.
Big Bang - Still Alive: like 2NE1 but more clubby, hedonistic, electronic, trend-chasing (LMFAOish), and insane.
4minute - their singles (Hot Issue, HuH, I My Me Mine, Love Tension, Mirror Mirror, Ready Go, Volume Up, Why): Japanese Italodisco / freestyle / poppy pop (but 4minute are style chameleons, really)
B2ST - Fact or Fiction: like 4minute, but more introspective and sad-energized and rock-y
After School - Playgirlz: melodies borrowed from stadium anthems ("Ya'll Ready for This?") and rewritten to sound more indie. They buy a lot of songs off Norwegian producers. This is a Japanese best-of album, so it's not technically K-pop.

Going a bit further afield into Korean folk sounds:
T-ara - Absolute First Album: Britney Spears dirty club pop / trot (Korean traditional music genre that sounds like Eastern European folk music with a disco beat)
T-ara - John Travolta Wannabe : More disco and trot and Max Martin, less Britney.
Super Junior - the singles (Sorry Sorry, Rokkugo, Bonamana, Mr. Simple, Sexy Free & Single, Spy): trot / disco / wacky novelty songs
Lay.T - neo-trot (trot + disco). I'm not seeing their albums on wikipedia but they're a high-quality group.

Going more into Eurobeat/Japanese Italodisco sounds:
SHINee - Lucifer: futuristic RnB with funky polyrhythms and tightly-produced harmonies / boyband concept album about obsession
UKiss - Neverland: Eurotrash gutter-pop with pop-punk vocal harmonies / boyband self-loathing. Basically Emo Club Music, but filtered through Japan. Ukiss are a hit-and-miss but incredibly trashy even when they hit, so YMMV.
Sweetune - a songwriting team, not a band. Sounds like Japanese anime soundtracks from the mid-90s that reflect the excesses of music production of the late-80s. More manic: Kara singles (Wanna, Step Up, Pandora) & Rainbow singles (A, Mach); more cheesy: Infinite singles (Be Mine, BTD, Paradise, The Chaser) & Boyfriend singles (Love Style, I Yah); more grown-up: Nine Muses singles (Figaro, News, Ticket, Dolls)

Going more old-school RnB and rap and soul:
Big Bang - Remember: Justin Timberlake / K-rock / house beats / boyband concept album about group dysfunction
Primary - Primary and the Messengers: throwback to jazzy, funky, early-90s RnB guest-featuring some of SK's most popular rappers.
Lee Hi - First Love: more throwback jazzy RnB. Lee Hi is 16 but has a soulful, Adele-like voice. SK discovers audition shows and neo-soul.
Miss A - their singles (Bad Girl Good Girl, Goodbye Baby, Touch, I Don't Need a Man): old-school soul with modern production touches. Per Frank Kogan, they are not strong singers and this lends vulnerability to what would otherwise be highly-polished and professional music.

And here's some decent EPs and mini-albums, in no particular order:

2NE1 - 2NE1 and 2NE1 2nd mini album. Produced by Teddy who works a lot with Big Bang as well. Teddy leans hard toward electronic, club, stadium anthem sounds. while co-writer Kush injects rock, reggae, and sadness/vulnerabily
Sistar19 - Gone Not Around Any Longer. If you absolutely must have more first-EP-era 2NE1.
OneTwo - Walala lalale: I think this is Brave Brothers' (Sistar, Big Bang) most cohesive single release. Classic Kpop sounds + reggae + disco + aren't these guys too old to be idol singers?
EXID - Hippity Hop, and their singles. Managed by Shinsadong Tiger who also works a lot with 4minute and B2ST
Wonder Girls - Wonder Party. Bratty teen girl pop written by the Soulful JY Park (Miss A, Lee Hi)
SPICA - Painkiller. Strong RnB vocalists with advanced production.
EXO-K - Mama. More futuristic, experimental RnB with a debt to Michael Jackson and Rock from SM Entertainment (Super Junior, SHINee)
BAP - Warrior. These guys are into Linkin Park and Tupac. If that's your thing, this is a pretty strong EP.

Add in Girls Generation and this is close to being a physical-album best-seller list from the last couple years.

damn, that's a great post, thanks

np!

4minute - top 9 Japanese singles
Super Junior - top 10 songs as voted by fans
UKiss - top 10 songs. Sonically, they are more like a girl-group (dance music + vocals processed in service of the song)
Sweetune - introduction mix

And listening again, I think I'd rate After School Playgirlz, T-ara Absolute First Album, SHINee Lucifer, Sistar So Cool, Big Bang Still Alive, 2NE1 To Anyone, in that order, just in terms of album cohesiveness and flow.

Also Z:EA - Spectacular is an underrated but surprisingly strong album! (Here.)

yes! omg thank you!!

forapper and abcfsk, do you find there're any significant differences between what labels will release in japan as opposed to what they'll release in korea

A+ posts forapper, as always <3 <3

I think I like Sweetune the cheesier they get lol, hadn't realized they did "Ticket" and "Dolls" too though! amazing songs.

i'd say miss a's a class is a great album but it's mostly their first two years of singles anyway

Yeah, the Japanese releases tend to be either full albums or collaborations with Japanese/European producers.

New Infinite is a big ball of fun http://youtu.be/2C-dsCaFJzE

^ Speaking of Infinite and cheese-leaning songs

Speaking of SWEETUNE, sorry

haha yeah, that's super corny but so very Infinite/Sweetune.

As always, love the way they launch into the choruses - I can't always identify them as individual singers, but their vocals work incredibly well as a unit. kinda think it's why Sweetune saves the cheesiest songs for them too - they're the only group that wouldn't otherwise be overwhelmed by the opulent production.

:D

So BoA's great <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w7RJRMwN2E";>I Did For Love</a> was written by and featured Sean Garrett, who is now producing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w7RJRMwN2E";>his very own boyband</a>. Heh.

I did NOT mean to hit submit on that, sorry everyone ;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFny8iYc9L8

have seen some good press on the mindless behavior album

That's the one! Thanks 乒乓.

http://i.imgur.com/oHXGG9J.jpg

:D

The other good song on Infinite's EP is about not wanting your gf to wear short skirts: eng sub.

Oh but about Grimes, are there pictures of her with 2NE1 and SNSD too???

(http://actuallygrimes.tumblr.com/post/45979235032/i-was-about-to-cry-from-exhaustion-and-then-i)

love that pic so much. wish I liked Grimes' music more, she's basically my imaginary best friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKjjXCqVK5s

feels like an H.O.T. throwback ^_^

OFFROAD - 'head banging' much more anemic than the title would suggest

Oh god, we're officially in Spring. The pastel-colored flower boy stuff is going to continue for another three months.

;____;

(Said as someone who quite likes ZE:A)

The ZE:A5 mini EP is really solid. Or maybe I just think so because I'm an easy sell on all things Brave Brothers.

lol @ hyuna schilling for toyota

i'm gonna ask this from a position of ignorance, so please forgive me, but is there any ... consternation at all for hyuna repping for a japanese automaker?

No idea about Hyuna, but wasn't 4minute's last Japanese single used in an Audi commercial?

Lee Hi's best performance yet:

http://soundcloud.com/ipaaaul4s/04-1

Rose is just embarrassing though, I hope she promotes something else.

F(X) doing Funny or Die with Anna Kendrick - http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/78b1d27dab/anna-kendrick-goes-k-pop-with-f-x

It's more awkward than funny but they did manage to fit an impressive number of cliches into 4.5 minutes, haha.

But also is this supposed to be parodying the colonial "go abroad and acceptance will be handed to you if you only make a token effort" fantasy, or not?

lol @ cloud atlas joke

A round up of recent stuff:

EvoL - Get Up is still excellent</a>

Heo Young Saeng - The Art of Seduction is simultaneously a business-as-usual Kpop song commodifying mental illness for the entertainment of the audience (now the moonlight is hitting just right and I'm crazy in love with you, etc etc) and a song about himself, from the perspective of his stalker fan. So now Heo Young Saeng is riling up the fanbase and showing the terrifying obsessiveness that results from that at the same time. Poor guy.

GDragon is making trap music now, and we are waiting for the video before we decide whether we like it or not. Will it be as good as Leif? The video previews do look incredibly campy.

Also, here's an indie release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT80FwW9XiE

This retro-80s sounds really is bubbling up from the bottom and SKorea shows no signs of tiring of it.

Whoops, messed up the link on the GDragon track. It's here.

??? Can I not link to Soundcloud?

https://soundcloud.com/reefanee/g-dragon-michigo-go

lol glad to know I'm not the only person reserving full judgement on "MichiGO" until the video comes out.

sounds more dubstep than trap to me idk

I was thinking about second definition of "trap" on urban dictionary, and about the transgender rap scene in NYC, when I wrote that, haha. It sounds like he's been listening to Le1f - Wut a lot. Also Roz can back me up that GD's a confirmed Le1f and Zebra Katz fan. So maybe not "trap music" but kind of coming from that place...

Oh, and here's the high-fashion connection: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/fashion/zebra-katz-you-have-to-know-the-context.html

I saw Zebra Katz and Njena Redd Foxx at SXSW and it was an amazing show. :D

oh okay you mean from the edm context - like this? http://www.edmsauce.com/trap-triphop/

i guess gdragon is trying to cash in on the harlem shake

Yup, exactly like that. And probably...