K-pop (2015)

All the way down at fourth is pretty good many days later. Not like they've ever been Big Bang levels unstoppable on the digital charts. This should be a satisfying performance for the first of three promoted singles after a few years of more middling interest.

Big Bang members, Zico and IU on Infinity Challenge music festival is just showing off.. this thing usually produces brutally dominating chart hits anyway, and now with possibly the top three hottest chart toppers in Korea. JYP (with Yoo Jae Suk) too. Hyukoh soon on that level it seems. IU writing for EDM-obsessed Park Myung Soo (aka 'DJ Great Park') should be an interesting challenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOw3blz4kWk

man. i just watched the "just right" video after listening to the track these past couple days, and it's just beautiful. had no idea the lyrics' sentiment was so lovely, and the video conveys it perfectly (with plenty of self-awareness re: the inherent goofiness of boy bandhood, golfwang sweaters or not). when the video started i could see the glam makeover for the girl coming from a mile away, but it never happened, and it was good.

the choreo adds to the sweetness and humor, too. this might be my favorite k-pop package this year.

I didn't realize before now that Got7/갓세븐's debut perfectly aligned with boom of teen web slang trend of adding 갓 before fave names.

thanks for that long reply soyrev, don't really have much to add/respond with though.

just right is definitely solidified as one of my fav singles of the year.

hara's new single is innocuous but kind of benefits from that i think, especially with all the other girl group songs that have come out.
not an amazing song by any means but i wouldn't mind more low-key summer songs. all the songs on the mini feel a bit tepid/soulless/devoid of personality though.

which is a shame because songs like 어때? and 하라구 are kind of interesting
big fan of hara having a song named after herself though ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3z_ZhJAk1w

interviewed the girl Suran from Primary's awesome "Mannequin" (she co-wrote it, in addition to co-writing "Awoo" for Lim Kim). apparently she had this solo song in december, pretty unreal great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akoSG0kRcXw

it's a way weirder song than i'd expect from a pink, a group that has little to gain from eccentricity (and that was cool by me; i grew to love "luv"). gonna give it a few days and spins to mull

meanwhile, suju's new one is super safe and easily my favorite single from them

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

dang that suran song is great. and i'm legit shocked by devil, been a while since i've liked a suju song this much.
a bit unsure about remember... definitely one of the more interesting apink songs (albeit a lot of the same tropes as before too) but the fact the chorus is dependent on the key change for momentum sort of highlights how weak it is melodically. and the way they handle it in the final minute even more so.

Hmm, I think it mostly sounds like A Pink by the numbers. But I like it. A Pink's output to me is the k-pop answer to your average AKB48 single - pushing the right buttons, even if they're the same ones each time and always labeled '1-2-3-4-..'

I mean, it's no My My My, but it's certainly pleasant enough.

Kenzie Watch: 'Devil' first S.M. lead single she's done this year, unless I've missed something. Bonamana is obv SuJu's greatest single and a k-pop GOAT candidate.

Pink Memory is pretty well-produced, the first half being particularly great. Perfume stands out: https://youtu.be/JHBhCokb86g
Definitely think A Pink peaked in their debut year but yeah like what abcfsk said, it's always been nice.

I didn't miss this earlier in the thread, did I?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1oTSAhdzNQ

Not the best example of trend-jumping out there. It's funny how it still sounds like an Infinite song though.

Jay Park and friends entering the summer fray looking like members of a boyband:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ9poBAcJUU

Also really like Suju's Devil... it's the like S. Korean answer to "Happy"

man i'm a huge sucker for jay park's happy/summer stuff. the dispatch line is cute
and the vid is great. i think i mentioned it here once but jay park's one of the few korean rappers who actually have personality and it just really just shows here

i'm assuming soyrev was talking about jay park when he mentioned korea's own big sean ONLY because someone initially said drake (since people often complain about jay park switching between his tough and soft side). if he didn't mention the drake thing then i would've thought san.e

It's a great video, dude is looking good with that haircut and whatever dermatological laser treatment he got that makes him magically look 5 years younger

Actually now I really want a point-by-point comparison of "Devil" and "Happy" because they really are very alike

full disclosure: i am *never* talking about jay park

will say, before returning to that vow of silence, that he is super consistent as a running gag. i think he peaked in this regard (and musically) earlier this year, with this adlib from one negligible all-english track or another:

i feature on my own motherfucking songs

i mean yeah! that's totally reminiscent of "drake featuring drake" :3

true! not the "korean drake" i keep hearing about here, but definitely a more substantial claim to be made for jay (partially through his willing it, i guess)

a pink topping the ichart with the first 300+ score i've seen since the first couple days of big bang's double-drop this month. regardless of where my opinion on it winds up falling, i'll always love how a song that modulates mid-chorus (and has a bridge that leads oddly into a second bridge that leads oddly into an instrumental of the chorus) is the type of thing that can be a sensation in korea.

meanwhile, "party" way down, getting beat out by "heart attack" at this point which came out two weeks prior. i guess the real verdict, though, will be their physical sales, which has always been SNSD's strong suit.

"perfume" gets pretty interesting from the bridge on, and after a little calibration i love the genre juxtaposition and modulations in "i do." probably the most eccentric thing they've ever done, while still maintaining that saccharine a pink sheen throughout.

very odd that the instrumental of "remember" is sequenced not as a bonus but as the penultimate track, preceding "새끼손가락." reminds me a lil of the way STJ sequenced the english redo of "nan arayo" on his debut album.

http://netizenbuzz.blogspot.kr/2015/07/cl-shows-off-bold-new-look-in-latest.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

no matter which side you believe, it does look like she's going for a very different look...

Music show wins

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKHUIX2UsAA6aVr.jpg

pretty nuts. good to keep in mind that YG's music show philosophy is very different, they often do just one or two appearances a week whereas SM is all go go go (though i'm not sure when YG's conservatism began)

Speaking of YG... Big Bang Sober is stupid fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoies3-r1HM

Reconsidering my decision to not see them live in October.

"If You" tho is the laziest most underwritten ballad ever, put it back on the shelf.

ehh so far "bae bae" is the only one of their new songs that sounds finished

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZuv_woHhb8

have watched 7 or 8 times in the past hour and am still in trembling disbelief

oh my god :o

she's so good x_x

I'm looking forward to Hello Venus, actually...

And speaking of nugu girl groups, I hadn't heard of Wanna.B before but "Attention" is surprisingly fun and the bob-haired blonde has an interesting delivery:

https://youtu.be/8fcEkxFLHmQ

that sunmi jam is gonna be on my top 20 list ;'D

hyukoh and zion.t still dominating the top three slots on ichart, while a pink, sistar, b2st, AOA, SNSD and BB falter far below. pretty interesting.

also, b2st's pre-release tracks for their past three or four records have been smashes, but this new one is barely putting a dent in. weak showing for a pink, too. meanwhile CLC had two full mini albums (and a digital single) this year, BTOB just dropped their 7th or 8th mini, and both of them remain stubbornly anonymous in korea, cube really is having a troubled 2015 (4minute in jan being the one exception), while JYP, whom cube had been said to have surpassed, has been rallying like heck since miss a's comeback became a sensation in april. guess the traditional Big Three might be secure after all.

Sungjae (out of BTOB) is trending, but that doesn't seem to have affected them as a group yet. But then their latest release is low-key rnb ballad stuff.

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.