K-pop (2015)

idk, i think IU is basically at taylor swift levels (pre-lol gawker "backlash") of goodwill in korea right now – after recovering from her sex scandal, i think she's back to being pretty much unrivaled in terms of celeb esteem (as reflected by her recently becoming an honorary police officer, and her continued dominance as a soju ad girl; as my korean friend once told me, "whoever's in soju commercials is who's most popular in korea right now"). and then PMS has that more legastic appeal (gotta say i'm shocked he's only in his early 40s though). JYP bounced back from years of insignificance with that body image-desecrating butt song, true, but i would say he's still pretty demode these days...jaesuk is definitely still on fire even after the headscratcher deal he cut with FNC, but he's not a musician and music's got nothing to do with his fame.

not that these factors aren't the only ones in play, i think that IU and PMS' song being pretty much exactly how you would expect it to sound for each of them (albeit sloppier and more slapdash than usual, esp for IU), i.e. being on-brand, helps a lot. "i'm so sexy" being unlistenable cheese doesn't help, nor does it playing to everything people jeer JYP for (narcissism, mostly). re: hwangtaeji, i think the public's kind of burning out on big bang momentum after eight smash singles in the past season alone, especially given this new one is a bad pastiche of them...

speaking of JYP, though, i did appreciate how he didn't even bother to conceal his boredom watching all the other IC songs.

idek about Leon having been a popular film – more brand power!!

don't love mino's songs ("fear" is pretty good) but he was very strong on SMTM, pretty annoyed that basic basick won the whole thing after all his uninspired performances and slip-ups (though happy for him in that he definitely needs the money more at this point, and everyone respects the heck out of him so maybe now he's got the momentum to prove why). still think black nut was the obvious highlight of the show and deserved that dough more than anyone

one thing's for sure, if IC and SMTM coincide again next year nobody else is gonna be releasing songs for at least a week on either side. they're annihilating the charts rn

Would be interesting to see how much the artists who are not from those shows have sold these weeks compared to normal. Although these past two weeks are very quiet release-wise.

yeahhhh it's flop city. FTisland releasing the korean pop rock equivalent of "who let the dogs out" in 2015: http://k2nblog.com/single-ftisland-puppy/

also man what were they thinking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDevPHBHNG0

Is that a promo song? LMAO.

Mino gains more from coming in second, the winner in these shows is usually pre-determined/whoever has the best narrative arc.

Since we're talking about the most loved stars, that's what tvn surveyed people on this week

01. Yoo Jae-suk (MC)
02. Jun Ji-hyun (actress)
03. Kim Soo-hyun (actor)
04. Song Hye Kyo (actress)
05. Jang Dong-gun (actor)
06. Lee Young-ae (actress)
07. G-Dragon (singer)
08. Kim Tae-hee (actress)
09. Ha Jung-woo (actor)
10. Choi Ji Woo (actress)

11. Ha Ji-won (actress)
12. Hwang Jung-min (Actor)
13. Kim Hye-soo (actress)
14. SNSD / Girl Generation (singers)
15. PSY (singer)
16. IU (singer)
17. Suzy (singer/actress)
18. Yoo Ah-in (Actor)
19. Shin Dong-yup (comedian)
20. Park Bo-young (actress)

21. Seo Taiji (singer)
22. Jeon Do-yeon (actress)
23. Kim Hee-ae (actress)
24. Hyun Bin (actor)
25. Cho Yong-pil (singer)
26. Lee Hyori (singer)
27. Cha Seung-won (actor)
28. Kang Ho-dong (MC)
29. Lee Kyung-kyu (actor/MC)
30. Lee Jung-jae (actor)

I like Taeyang's part on "Fear" but not Mino's, though the lyrics aren't bad. Unpretty Rapstar season 2 looks like it's gonna be so bad BTW... nearly all the contestants have that UR "style" you talked about upthread (though KittiB is in it).

About IU, this duet is kinda taking her career full circle, isn't it? She got her start catering to older male fans.

No dig on her, I also like "Leon"

Catering to and working with ahjussis is a tad different though. Melon has a neat feature which lets you see who listens to the top tracks and for Leon that's 52,7% female listeners.

Ok I just now made the connection that Basic was in Jiggy Fellaz with LE back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCcoQw3hbFs

Interesting list of top Kpop prechoruses: https://youtu.be/ynB88wbob-w

maybe a 5% overlap w/ what my picks would be, but gotta love how many of em sound like full-fledged choruses

yes, this list is missing about 4-5 BEAST songs :p

'good luck' at the v least

And YeY... Midnight... Fiction...

songs whose prechoruses are much better than their actual choruses: Nine Muses - Hurt Locker, BTOB - Wow, 100% - Bad boy, Big Star - Hot Boy

???

Bang Bang Bang?

LMAO, accurate

I like the snappy little kick drum on this Woolim (of Playback) ft. Eric Nam song: https://youtu.be/xzlMsvF73tE

yessss agree 100 about hurt locker

oh and true, forgot for a second that pre-chorus of bang3 is def the best part

speaking of "hurt locker," new fun live band version that's much more successful than i would have guessed. really brings out the "get lucky" reference in the chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpYkIeVQGqw&feature=youtu.be

also that crowd did an admirable job but you gotta get like six times the bodies out there to make that kinda thing look hype ㅠ

I remember we once discussed western songs with k-pop attributes and that dire new macklemore definitely qualifies. said in the NJ thread:

wow. the shifts in genre and tone from section to section are like shitty k-pop (and the amount of time it takes to get to the chorus is absurd even by those standards). can't imagine why anyone involved thought it would work in the western market in 2015...

that nine muses live is great! i came here to post it, lol.

the small number of people in the audience is baffling... i kinda suspect they're all staff :p

fuckin FEELING these red velvet teasers y'all

shades of Pippi in their styling, which by the way still I don't understand how they have been able to promote all this time without major heat from the astrid lindgren estate. at least red velvet are smart enough to go generic.

Some relaxing 90s RnB style vocal harmonization for yer labor day weekend:

https://youtu.be/B_s81YkMlUU

^^ not current but I just found this... it's a pre-debut original(?) song by Seventeen, easily missed as it was only promoted on their ytube channel & website.

https://youtu.be/aLvNgZvIV4Q

^^ I don't think we talked about Amazing Baby in this thread yet... it's not clear that they have idol personalities but this is a solid throwback song.

Giriboy's title track for Monsta X is a hot mess, but the album track that follows it is pretty good:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGdbaEDVWp0

really solid. the 'baby baby baby baby baby' bit sounds just like ariana grande. video is incredible.

nearly every single aspect of this is incredible

uhhhhh this album...might...be better than pink tape??

my initial impression is that it is, oh my god

i feel so confused ;_; but good ;_;

i think the argument against is that pink tape's best songs are probably just a little bit more distinct and compelling, and that album has such a clear and well-balanced color palette...but it also loses a lot of momentum fast in the last two or three songs, and it's hard to say an album is great when it fizzles. the red, meanwhile, is all killer, and with a consistency that's a nice change of pace in k-pop (even through some very dramatic stylistic shifts). but i need to give it more time to settle.

a crazy nice surprise, in any event

For how good the silly rap parts have been in previous RV singles they're oddly awkward here. But the rest of the song is really great, and it's their best MV yet obviously.

Crazy how good SM is at creating unique-sounding, uniquely k-pop, coherent albums when the group has a real musical identity to work with. That's when their obsessive SM ways really pay off - you feel their talented creative team is really aiming for something original and their special collab culture getting them there. When they lack that identity, that blueprint to work with... we get the SNSD albums.

For how good the silly rap parts have been in previous RV singles they're oddly awkward here

well they do have to fit multiple mj singles into the meter

meanwhile count me in among the O_O reactions to this single/video

@abcsfk bigtime co-sign on both of those

also just by being here a little bit i've gotten some insights into what those "obsessive ways" and "special collab culture" are like, and it really goes so much deeper and more beautifully than i could've imagined. i hope there's some way for me to help get some of that intel out there more because what's happening at this company is basically the innovation of a new kind of 'auteur' in music and the fact that they've arrived at that (and continue to refine it) so deliberately is one for the history books (and, like you said, it's uniquely k-pop – uniquely korean, even).

and brad your thread about daniel johns' new album is what got me into that, +1 to you (or anyone!) if you can find the one little snatch of vocal melody on the red that makes it sound like someone at SM likes one of the earlier tracks on that album (prob coincidence though knowing who wrote the song maaaaybe not...i will find out)

What's Red Velvet's unique identity? That they're a blank slate for tasteful eccentricity?

This is great BTW

their sound is definitely more r&b-focused than any SM group before them, probably largely because (especially for such a "small" unit) with SM's method of specialization most of the times there'd only be one powerhouse vocalist, whereas RV have three.

in terms of a more lyrical/imagistic "identity," SNSD were designed to be the model citizen/woman/wife (at least in terms of asian patriarchy of the past decade...), f(x) answered that by being smart and sassy aesthetes, and as SM said, RV are meant to split the difference between those two.that ties into their musical concept with being both red (fierce barnburners) and velvet (smooth janets). i thought that would be a middling disaster but this album actually delivers on the concept and proves its versatility. granted, SM plays with these boundary lines at times, but usually they're pretty consistent (i.e., even when SNSD gets weird with "i got a boy" it's about valorizing 'nice guys' and talking about how they want to look good for them; it's really only now that they're all aging out of their idol years anyway that they're allowed to sing a song like "you think;" meanwhile, when they were young, even f(x) did stuff like "chu" alongside brattier proclamations like "nu ABO"). i think RV will probably get more Red over the next few years then enter their autumn (i.e. where SNSD's been for the past year or two) by getting progressively more Velvet, and that their lyrics for at least the Red vibe will be more f(x)-style than, say, "dumb dumb" or "ice cream cake," which are much more submissive/SNSD than the arrangements would suggest.

granted, i don't mean to answer for abcfsk, i'm curious what he/she has to say about it

I think SNSD have been locked to the kpopian trend of concepts and never really got a permanent character, not even a waifu-esque one - and so they could be completely dumb and passive one single (Oh!) and fierce the next (Run Devil Run) and then all over the place the last few years. Their debut single more than anything signalled a serious performance group with hard synchronized dancing, and then they got really sickly cute for a couple of follow-ups.

Anyway, I think f(x) has a sort of punk kidz aesthetic, rebelling youth, standing up to societal conventions, kicking waste bins, sticking your tongue out at adults, finding support in your tough 'unnie' instead. Red Velvet is a brighter mash up of pop culture colors, a rush of surface emotions. Musically I think that's been a part of them from the start, even as people thought they were aping f(x) early on. Ok so we have to work a bit harder to make 'Automatic' fit in, but I guess they also need their down time. Both f(x) and Red Velvet have their own signature vocal styling, but where f(x) get that bratty schoolyard rhyme thing going Red Velvet play with cheerleader chants.

i think SNSD have some superficially "fierce" stuff, but even "run devil run" is about being cheated on and still from a subordinate perspective (this is her telling him off after catching him and trying to reason him out of this "habit" multiple times; also, "i'll get my revenge when i become a great person someday," i.e. even in this moment the notion of payback is aspirational and deferred). and stuff like "the boys" seems like girl power encouragement a la f(x)'s standards only until you notice that all this chest-puffing is just to get the boys' attention. even when they were "a serious performance group w/ hard synchronized dancing" (not like that indicates anything either way), they were announcing themselves with and named after a song wherein a "selfish grabber"/older man corners her and brings her into virginal hysterics with a sudden kiss.

plus this "ideal wife" thing isn't an inference, that's been the marketing gameplan for them from day one (and also of all the girl groups whose clear debt to them is mentioned by the public at their every turn: girlfriend, lovelyz, now april too, apink though maybe they've been doing it for so long it's started to seem like their own...)