K-pop (2015)

Song is so much better than Bloom, as much as I loved everything else about Bloom.

holy shit dude

I loved Step 2/4 as an EP, otherwise I've been mostly interested in her as performer of big, k-pop shattering singles, and I think this song fully delivers as that. The bridge is amazing and the rest of the song can't quite live up to that, but the industrial sort of weight of the chorus and that dance routine is more than enough.

just very surprised to find an ilxor k-pop fan who would put this song over something as tight and relentless as "bloom"..."paradise lost" is def strong though, and the video's most inspired moments do help

I thought it was generally agreed Bloom is an IU b side.

Red Velvet working with f(x)'s art director for their comeback

http://i.imgur.com/FTs6ZPB.jpg

Speaking of concepts

Make that SM's art director, since she's not exclusive to f(x)

http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/11846990.html <-- interview re Growl and Pink Tape

Madtown bringing the Kpop ADD in the best way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8BVlWl2VeI

This is what I wanted from Boys Republic and Myname's trap-lite pop songs (that were too Lite and not enough Trap). I hope they murder it live.

It's especially great from 2:30 forward

"bloom" is a great prince or madonna b-side, my man. objectively cuts anything in the IU discog (much as i dig her), except when we get into the gray area of comparing Ga-In's best straight-up pop tune to the perfect weirdo gems IU has ("4AM," "a lost puppy"; shiina ringo at her straightforward best, basically). but weirdo for weirdo, Ga-In wins too, and would over just about anyone in korean music history. fucking nothing touches "tinkerbell." one of the best productions/arrangements i've ever heard.

jay park is such a blemish on "apple." enough to make me prefer the truncated video edit.

pretty sure at 0:30 (in the video) that madtown track uses the same sample (pack?) as f(x)'s "boom bang boom."

speaking of red velvet and f(x), anyone hear their two new (deleted) track preview leaks? totally pink tape-type shit, and the thing for which i'm most excited rn for sure. one is like glitchy pitchshifted 8-bit dubstep pop (kind of like tinie tempah "earthquake" meets first album sleigh bells), and the other is "all night" meets "ballad of dorothy parker." scary to hear SM making f(x) material not for f(x)...but for now, i'll take it.

here's the more conservative of the two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2Q47O0_eE

i'm in a cafe in gangnam and not gonna be that white dude blatantly scoping the new k-pop vid on his laptop, so just audio for now...really wish the vocals were mixed a bit lower to give that gorgeous beat some room to shine. musically so much better than "be natural," but drowned out like this the overall effect is basically identical.

dig it though. like someone said on the youtube, really a smooth janet jackson vibe...would not be surprised if (like "all night") teddy riley's behind this one. judging by "growl," this could be a shin hyuk tune too. those are my two best bets.

scary to hear SM making f(x) material not for f(x)

Yeah.. sure hope we'll be seeing f(x) again this year. Automatic is good though.

It's got a smooth vibe for sure. Music video is rumored to be inspired by 1971 b-movie The Velvet Vampire... a bit sleezy but in an artsy way. I think you're right about the pitch of the vocals though, soyrev.

i'm in a cafe in gangnam and not gonna be that white dude blatantly scoping the new k-pop vid on his laptop
lmao. personally, enjoying the song quite a bit. Be Natural definitely seemed like practice for this or something, or to show the two different (musical) sides of Red Velvet that the company seems comfortable working with at the moment + how well these girls can dance. Even in the context of what was happening in 2000, Be Natural sounds a tiny bit bland so it consequently sounds like that now though to be fair, A Letter from Greenland is the only early kpop girl group album that i care about from front to back. Automatic definitely relies less on the production to drive the song forward (Be Natural sounds so monolithic to me; everything about it blends together and the vocalizing is more used as an accessory tool) so that consequently gives weight to some of the intonations. Video is generally pretty great. Would like to see a dance version/practice vid.

also, gonna chime in say that i'm probably more interested in ga-in as a performer as well. i personally don't like most of her (or BEG's) music. I absolutely love Bloom though; Tinkerbell has amazing production and all but Bloom's chorus is one of my favorite k-pop choruses ever. And I'd rather have straightforward production with a catchy hook over forward-thinking production and a mediocre hook (see: 90% of the american r&b underground). yes the dude who writes IU's stuff wrote it but 1) its video definitely still feels fresh with its portrayal of sexuality in retrospect (since you know, this was 2012 and the surge of overtly sexual mvs has a totally different approach to the topic) and 2) it's one of very very few palpably sensual songs i know that treats sexual discovery as something so precious (off the top of my head another would be bjork's cocoon).

Apple is really great though imo. now that i've watched the video multiple times and the weather's getting nicer it just continues to grow on me. cutting out Jay Park's verse is maybe for the better (I wish pop artists/producers would embrace songs around the 2 min range) but his voice works regardless. Can't think of a Korean rapper who could provide a better fit for such a feel-good song. San-E is a touch too goofy and a lot of other people coming to my mind have voices that are too harsh, serious/formal (think: wheesung), or simply couldn't rap while changing rhythm and tone in such an effortlessly cool manner. Would definitely want to dance to this at a wedding. or anywhere.

The last lines of Jay Park's two verses are both delivered really well and it especially makes the second one believable. Such a flirty song. Gonna go hug someone now.

Forgot to xpost this, but Nu'est have a really nice "for the fans" ballad out at the moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGmvS8SejY

With main vocal Baekho out for vocal surgery, the other four get a chance to show what they can do, which turns out to be a lot.

nice to see some old school k-pop talk on here, but Letter from Greenland is pretty spotty imo. Love is SES' masterpiece -- much bigger hooks, bolder experimentation, smarter arrangements...all broken up by a series of charming spoken word skits over lounge and field recording ambient. i'd say it's one of the best '90s RnB albums period.

"Be Natural sounds so monolithic to me" -- i like that. same is true of the original. too bad the gratuitous manrap breaks the spell in both takes.

re: "apple," i mean sure, jay park's voice fits the beat and is a functional foil for ga-in's. but it pushes the song's feel in the wrong direction and more than anything completely ruins kim eana's smart fall-from-innocence allegory with references to The Hulk and other stupidity. such is what you risk when you invite a rapper to your finished song to add his own words. (granted, it's not jay's fault; just a bad idea to have a rap on this track at all.)

the more i think about it the more this ga-in mini bums me out. back at the drawing board it really had potential to be the greatest k-pop statement to date.

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

as a song, on first two listens: so many great ideas, but a bit of a mess as they're arranged here. a decent editor could've made a big difference. i'm also not so sure about the toplines in this one and "automatic." the beats are incredible and the vocal parts do have their moments, but i'm left feeling there could have been better ideas.

then again, "red light" felt like a mess at first, too, and now it's one of my favorite k-pop songs. so i'll give it a couple days. no chance this wasn't originally written for f(x), by the by -- you can hear whose voice was supposed to be doing what. (red velvet have potential, but at this point i don't see them as f(x)'s equal in any way. vocal differentiation, visual profile, and final product standard for f(x) was always a notch above.)

very secondary concern to me but the video seems kinda unfocused too

Love is my second favorite but oh god i can't think highly of those skits (first off there are way too many on an album i find a bit too long) and idk dude i feel like "field recording ambient" is speaking highly of something that i find is akin to like, really cheesy korean commercials that air all the time (and even more so back then). there's a pleasant gentleness to it that is very much korean but it's neither unique, holds up, or warrants such a large chunk of the album imo. it's an experience i find similar to hearing yiruma for more than like 15 minutes. i think i'd put it and Greenland among my favorite r&b albums of the 90s but I don't think there were a ton of strong ones in the first place (though, it's not like that's a necessarily bad thing; evaluating pop [or hip hop, or all dance music, or all music in 2015 tbh] by the strength of full-length releases is the wrong way to measure how great a certain scene/genre/artist is).

I personally don't think Jay Park ruins the feel of the song and the only line that I think the lyrical incongruity could be applicable to is the hulk line, which is only a fault in my mind because it's a total missed opportunity of mentioning a snake :3 like, that "there won't be any reason to hide" line is clearly a reference to the original story. but whatever, all a matter of personal preference in the end.

oh, was referring to the original song being monolithic when i mentioned it but yeah of course both are. i like it but i think the rap is really what seems off and makes that sort of approach feel wasted. still a great song though of course.

Ok, my first listen of Ice Cream Cake I definitely thought that it was a bunch of great ideas that came together poorly but I'm on my third listen now and I'm already digging it a lot more. Song is actually pretty well mixed imo, really dig what the drums are doing on the song. Pacing is definitely a bit stunted at points but I'm feeling the song overall. Best part of the video is 100% the costuming for me.

yeah didn't mean to make it sound like the skits are high art or anything. and while there are quite a lot of them, and a bit oddly positioned, they're super charming and the abundance of great pop between them is staggering. idk any k-pop album as weird, personable, and consistently great.

also jay park reference to "door" is anachronistic since there was no such thing in the garden. in general ga-in's lyrics walk a nice line where it could either be about tasting the apple or sexin' in public, whereas jay park's are super blunt and off the mark. his voice just makes it sound cheap to boot imo

LOVE ice cream cake on first listen. love love love. Though f(x) would kill it even better.

Though it does have Amber-Shake That Brass's problem where the chorus seems a bit stale the third time it comes around. Used to Kpop mixing it up a bit more.

Top 5 of the moment Ice Cream Cake, Wiggle Wiggle, New World, C.R.A.Z.Y., I'm Bad, though that could be the sleep deprivation talking. I guess I like those cheap-sounding, cut-above-average dance single songs.

yep. 'ice cream cake' was clearly made for f(x), and it begs for some of amber and krystal's idiosyncrasies. vocals feel monotonous here. they also haven't really found compelling personas for themselves yet so watching them is a bore too. love how the rap sounds, though, cute but tough as hell somehow :D

and yeah, for this kind of berserker track, you really need fireworks in the final stretch. also, it's partially a problem of vocal differentiation (/lack thereof) and partially mastering, but the beat here is INCREDIBLE and it's such a damn shame that its beautiful details get drowned out 90% of the time. same with "automatic." f(x) always had a way of delivering huge hooks while still giving the track plenty of space to shine.

also that "3, 2, 1," transition into the chorus is great but you can really only use that kinda thing once. second time around it feels like the canned sample it is.

i think the transition into the chorus here is my biggest gripe, "red light" felt deliberate in its discontinuity but this one feels like a weirdo move they're not quite pulling off.

Do you still like the RAINBOW mini, soyrev? Because I kinda dragged it tomorrow's singles jukebox.

The most easily distinguished member of Red Velvet is Joy. I think they're gonna get pulled in her direction (aegyo-ish) if only because she's the most recognizeable one.

Cube's new girlgroup has a debut single out. It sounds like "Hoi Hoi".

Unsure where to put this but B2ST have an *awesome* Japanese song out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzV329JZy1s&t=65

hurricane weather we can't be boys

Kim Eana put out a book about how she writes. I might get it.

http://img.mbn.co.kr/filewww/news/other/2015/03/19/100191111955.JPG

oh damn. are you fluent? i would kill for fluency rn...at least 20% just to read that book.

do you know if she's only a lyric writer, or is she involved in the music as well? most of the ways i've seen it documented online seem to imply the former, but there's not a lot of thought/attention given to these matters in english...

???

You gotta use small words, I haven't slept more than 4 hours a night all week

You mean we can't be friends? 'Cause I was never gonna be a boy to begin with

yeah not literal boys

Crayon Pop did their new song called "FM" at their SXSW appearance tonight. It's insanely catchy.

xp I studied Korean at Yonsei Uni for a year+. Reading that book should be fine, one about politics / the economy, probably not so much.

I've called Kim Eana the creative director at Loen Tree before, and I think that's pretty much true. She doesn't compose music, no, but her powers seem significant. I've been thinking about asking her or her husband on social media for actual position, but I guess they'd try to downplay it. Every time BEG, Ga-In, IU or one of those people are getting ready for a comeback you'll see her discussing the thought process behind their concept, style, music, and we've seen bts photos of her working closely with the artists leading up comebacks. I think there's a core team at Loen Tree and for example she and MV director / photographer Hwang Soo Ah seem to decide on art direction. She's referred to as 작사 / 'writer' in Korean media too, though.

Check out this radio appeareance together with the Brown Eyed Girls a few years ago where they say 'you can almost say that she's our CEO' https://youtu.be/2mHjwpDfX7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu-IXWPPgJI

@abc that's great. i've always wanted to interview her but now i need to. if she's the brains behind ga-in and BEG she's responsible for much of the all-time best pop out of korea. you did the intensive yonsei program for over a year? do you live here or what? that's a big commitment! (how was it?)

so new crayon pop wildcard is basically a robyn song w/ an idol rap bridge. i doubt it'll be the second wind they've been chasing, but i've been surprised before. in a way i hear echoes of korean pop's unfunky disco past in there, which could help it...

their choreography is gonna help them again, that mecha move is great

I lowered my expectations for idol rappers after Zico but Rapmon knows where it's at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XAxf8aFtL4

AND ALSO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgXnz56LwXg

Weirdly reminds me of Amber's song in parts but this is obviously the original

wowwww that rap monster track. i've never heard a beat/song that sounds quite like this before -- am i missing something obvious? something tenably original out of an idol rapper (korean rap in general, really) would really be something!

oh lol, it's off a mixtape and rapmon just used a major lazer instrumental (really weird that they'd make a video for that?). kind of more interesting that way, though, given it's such a substantive meditation on authenticity in korea(n rap). giving them each a couple listens, i honestly think he uses the beat so much better than pharrell/ML do -- that hook is just perfect, and the lyrics are far more interesting than the original's drug wordplay (great as that is here). had this beat come out of korea this song would be a full-blown revolution but even as a mixtape jack it's gonna change things.