K-pop (2015)

Not sure if this is the best place for it, but here's ex-EXO-M member Tao refusing to be silenced:

http://ztaohs.tumblr.com/post/124767755853/t-a-o-by-huang-zitao-lyrics-i-believe-in-my

yeah – that ballad stuff being cube's best guess for how to capitalize in on sungjae's variety fame.

the tao drama is incredible to watch play out. also vocally he has a long way to go, but the beat for that song is nuts – the chorus is basically rustie?? and the stuff before and after is pretty out there, too

Tao is the main reason I was even following EXO, there's never a dull moment. And now he's got the twins in Tasty following his lead (leave Korea first, settle contract disputes later, release music if that's what you wanna & contract disputes be damned). I mean you can *buy* Tao's music on Chinese portal sites right now, that's crazy. I'm glad though because I've always liked his style as a singer - he's not the best technically but he always sounds sincere. I like his (Chinese) rapping too, though not so much in these songs.

BTOB's ballad song is actually in the Gaon top 20 - it was #19 last week https://youtu.be/12HRUQPsHj4

that must be thanks to their international fanbase buying physical copies. it's nowhere on ichart, and that's a *low* bar to clear (tracks in the 30s right now have literally 1 point).

as for tao's legal situation, :X

Gfriend https://youtu.be/YYHyAIFG3iI

Kisum https://youtu.be/qhDO3CoAZks

Oh that Kisum song is good. Though the guest singer sounds like Chris Brown doing With U for a minute there.

Stellar doing their thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOmTdFpIDX8

"Our company forced us to do this degrading sexy concept" is their concept now, huh.

there's always been sort of self-aware/meta stuff going on with their lyrics since marionette

eh still not convinced by anything gfriend has done musically. choreo is always on point though.

the kisum song is good; loved like it so i naturally dig this. just continues to confirm for me that korea has something really going for it with these feel-good poppy hip-hop singles. they're not jaw-droppingly good by any means but they really stand out when you consider what's big right now in the west (dj mustard/rnbass stuff, darker r&b crossover things, atl producers, silento and trap queen [both on the hot 100 for 20+ weeks]).

vibrato is nice, one of the better girl group singles of the summer. it being a mere 3 minutes works in its favor.

new primary song with choa and iron is fun. love the video (perhaps presented the way it is because of hyukoh's success?)

gfriend 1 >> gfriend 2

not hearing what y'all are hearing with kisum, but yeah the new primary is nice. vibrato is solid (ha), really curious if they'll be able to claw their way to legitimacy after the past couple years of desperate sleaze

desperate sleaze is their thing now - remember how the ryanair CEO used to release stories about how the airline would be getting rid of chairs and customers would pay for toilets, etc, as a publicity stunt? The article about Stellar refusing to dance in thongs reminded me of that, with maybe a side of T-ara -style upper management dysfunction.

not posting the video 'cause it's lol, but i actually like how messy the chorus sounds in b2st's "yey." it's almost violent, but once you get used to it it's pretty straightforward. there's just a weird (cool) aggression to the way it's mixed

"gotta go to work" is hitting me way better now w/o the video, too

The B2ST mini is solid, I'm liking 가져가 a lot right now. The chorus to YeY is the only aggressive thing on it though which makes it even odder.

https://soundcloud.com/user754783736/sets/beast-ordinary-2015

it g ma remix with asap ferg, waka flocka, and father man that's unexpected (dumbfoundead too but that's not that weird)
and tablo is gonna have a track with joey badass in august ?!

I mean I guess it is weird that dumbfoundead is here considering everyone involved. it's kind of surprising even seeing flocka, ferg, and father on the same track too

my prior exposure to DFD has been pretty underwhelming but i think he's good here

and i think b2st just realized they couldn't keep coming back to the charts with ballads, and went for some variety. smart move on paper, but i'm sad to see the song underperforming by their standards. so far, at least – hope it picks up! i love how b2st's sound and creative control has evolved in the past year or two, would hate for that to be jeopardized...

yea DFD is talented but i'm not too big on his stuff either. he shines as a freestyler/battle rapper and it's precisely because his beats and delivery aren't particularly unique (being a talented rapper can only get you so far nowadays y'know?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w62JoFqsdhM

oh my god

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkpZ05Vkvqk

so promising

and i like me some wonder girls, but i've never been a huge fan. this totally could change that

crying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcu7yZBeSKw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QXQz6uE0M

http://i.imgur.com/b34NdJ3.jpg

not sold on everything at the moment but the album is solid.
one black night really hitting the spot for me atm. the rapping in the album doesn't work for me most of the time, though i think i'm happy a track like 'back' exists here?

This sounds pretty great on first listen - a real shame Sohee couldn't be here though for this as I feel she would be a perfect fit. But Sunmi has a presence unlike most in kpop.

nice screencap, joshua -- that's my favorite moment.

was a little underwhelmed by "i feel you" on first listen but two later and i love it. need some more time with the album but my sense of it is that all of it is pretty great, except tracks 8-9 and the closer. def one of the most cohesive k-pop albums to date, which is nice

the 4 shinee repackage tunes are all in the pretty good to pretty great range ("chocolate" being my favorite). makes the full album painfully overlong and unfocused, but if you were to replace the 4 weakest songs on odd with the new ones it'd have been pretty much perfect

(even if still not everything a shinee album called odd could have been)

granted, "married" seems to be falling down the charts after barely a day out ("i feel you" hasn't gone off with a bang, but just hopped into a low third on instiz with little competition). got me thinking – has SM had a legit domestic hit at any point this whole year? even "call me baby," the main thrust behind exo's physical million-seller (mostly international fans, of course), was nothing compared to miss a or big bang's showings (or even jyp's own), and "party" attracted huge interest as soshi's first summer single in 3 or 4 years but that died quick. am i forgetting something?

[watches "i feel you"] [permanently transfigures into the hearts in eyes emoji]

okay! close 1.5 million views in 24 hours, and *finally* someone has knocked hyukoh off the top spot of instiz (with a decent score of 210...for perspective, miss a at their best this year were mid 300s, "loser" peaked out at around 410 i think). they're robbing an empty house for sure, though, and sadly when big bang/GD&TOP drop again in around 10 hours WG will be chased off immediately.

meanwhile "married to the music" is barely clinging to the top 10. at least "view" hung around quietly for a couple weeks.

love basically every song on the wonder girls record except "back." "oppa" seems suspect but then the chorus is totally killer

The WG band showcase http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/16317755.html

they've got a long way to go before they've got any kind of stage presence (hitting all the notes right would be step one), but honestly, they're a lot better than i thought they would be. yubin was one of the less impressive ones in the teasers but i'm shocked how well she's generally keeping a beat, owning fills, and rapping/singing while playing. the nature of the instrument helps her to be the only one with real charisma so far, too.

if w/ the exception of yenny they actually only started learning instruments halfway into their album sessions, though (which, knowing how k-pop works, prob wouldn't have been much more than half a year ago), this is beyond impressive. if they actually keep shedding they could be a pretty compelling band in a year or two.

Read something somewhere which suggested they wouldn't just ditch the band concept moving forward. Would've been a shame to waste all that effort.

they sound real shaky in a few of those but "i feel you" sounds great

"Married to the Music" is great and reminds me of fx "Shadow" (the main melody).

oh interesting, can't compare right now but the main melodies from both? which sections? SM's reuse of lyrical themes and melodies has got my interest lately – a good example being how exo's "you're a, you're a / you're a transformer" reconstitutes f(x)'s "joha, joha / NU A-B-O"

i like the gd&top track, prob the best of m-a-d-e after "bae bae"

Set your instiz chart watch - Infinity Challenge song fest tunes will be released on the 12th

wow. i am shocked! by the time i woke up here (8am), "i feel you" was back at #1, while the new BB fell to *3rd,* behind hyukoh's song (still!). the gd&top track is all the way down at 7th! perhaps YG really misread what the korean public wants this month...

go wonder girls!!

eh bigbang fatigue was bound to set in eventually. that said, I'm glad gd&top continue to bring the best out in each other, regardless of whatever personal issues they've had between them. the video is entertainingly juvenile :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8t8A8E_Tqc

"i feel you" grows

it does. vaguely wondering if AOA will revive their band sub-unit if WG keeps doing well. They were good, plus I don't hate Jimin's rapping so much in this context. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz3mYbFtC0w