The only other bright spot in an otherwise pretty disappointing July:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-wFp43XOrA
― hurricane weather (forapper), Saturday, 30 July 2016 15:02 (seven years ago) link
Been a pretty good July imo with Wonder Girls surprising total domination.
BLACKPINK is live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dISNgvVpWlo
Boombayah https://youtu.be/bwmSjveL3Lc
― abcfsk, Monday, 8 August 2016 14:35 (seven years ago) link
Nice visuals but a disappointing debut imo, songs are kinda boring and their charisma is totally contrived.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Tuesday, 9 August 2016 02:54 (seven years ago) link
I like Whistle, Red Velvet meets 4Minute
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 9 August 2016 05:15 (seven years ago) link
I do like the prechorus on Whistle quite a bit... a bit of a that fusion country sound Bae Bae had (and awesome production like YG always has too). The verses are a little too sparse for me tho, and I don't like the chorus until the very last go round.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Wednesday, 10 August 2016 23:00 (seven years ago) link
I guess it's a stylistic thing but I'm really not into these super sparse trap tracks.... though the snare drum and high hat hits do add a bit of interest to this one.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Wednesday, 10 August 2016 23:04 (seven years ago) link
I'm into this though, or maybe just happy BAP are being allowed to be weird again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLLBk6fb5Zw
BYG has writing credits on half the songs on the single, which bodes well for them, I hope...
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 11 August 2016 01:20 (seven years ago) link
BLACKPINK going strong in the US charts... first group to top the worldwide Billboard with a debut song.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 18 August 2016 03:07 (seven years ago) link
BTW **both** new album tracks on EXO's obligatory album repackage are killer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN-TNtUNXMA
And She's dreaming + Lotto (single). Baekhyun is so good, especially.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 18 August 2016 03:17 (seven years ago) link
Hmm after a couple playthroughs I think She's Dreaming (the played-straight RnB track with chewy surf guitars keeping the beat) has more staying power.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 18 August 2016 03:26 (seven years ago) link
You guys never told me how good "All Mine" is! Maybe not as ILXy as last year's album but idk I love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0S3knWIdrY
― ǂbait (seandalai), Sunday, 21 August 2016 23:18 (seven years ago) link
yeah, All Night is great. another favourite of mine is Whyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri6wvGjuoOg
― ufo, Monday, 22 August 2016 02:37 (seven years ago) link
Playlist is updated.
― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Wednesday, 24 August 2016 18:50 (seven years ago) link
f(x) is the most overrated K-pop band. Black Pink is no 2NE1, I don't understand what CL is doing at all
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Saturday, 27 August 2016 03:58 (seven years ago) link
was always a Jia guy (rip Miss A) but Fei didn't get a mention?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEF1Ah8QaXw ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Saturday, 27 August 2016 04:18 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSm1eRvS_k0this is great
― ufo, Sunday, 28 August 2016 19:54 (seven years ago) link
Yes please, after IU went full songwriter I've been missing this patented grand mid tempo pop from Lee Min-soo and Kim Eana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-67pGMcgW3k
― abcfsk, Wednesday, 31 August 2016 05:09 (seven years ago) link
Jay Park never trading on subtlety but this sounds pretty lush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?a=&v=-qSNMfm1rlg
― abcfsk, Saturday, 3 September 2016 06:54 (seven years ago) link
The new Red Velvet single - and this is the group that set the golden standard for that brand of upbeat pop with "Happiness", `"Ice Cream Cake" and "Dumb Dumb" - is majory disappointing and just.. bad. I'm not even going to post it unles it grows magically on me.
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 15:45 (seven years ago) link
not getting on too well without me, i see!
"all mine" might be a Station throwaway but lol @ best pop act of the decade being "overrated," and "russian roulette" may not quite make ICC or DD muster but putting "happiness" above it would be mental (it's great (whole EP's easily the best k-pop release since The Red))
― soyrev, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 16:42 (seven years ago) link
Sounds like a middling SNSD song, making it an extra disappointing Red Velvet single. Verses just aren't there. Ok production makes it listenable - barely. Will have to give the EP a bit more time - some of it sounds good, some completely forgettable.
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 20:05 (seven years ago) link
I guess no one posted GFriend's Navillera here - it's not _quite_ as good as their previous singles, but they're still gunning for one of the more consistently good single runs.
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 20:12 (seven years ago) link
I agree with you the Hyuna Ep is great though.
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 20:14 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXHJQ7CYqQM
― abcfsk, Friday, 9 September 2016 17:53 (seven years ago) link
She has so much charisma
― hurricane weather (forapper), Saturday, 17 September 2016 19:19 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNc6kDLUiV4
Really takes off after the 3 min mark
― hurricane weather (forapper), Saturday, 17 September 2016 19:20 (seven years ago) link
Everyone's favorite underrated boyband (High4) are back with a rapper subunit named... wait for it... High4:20. The song is pretty good!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwp7Kfenbyo
― hurricane weather (forapper), Monday, 3 October 2016 02:20 (seven years ago) link
I mean it's taking a lot of pages from GDYB's "Good Boy" but that's a good song too so...
― hurricane weather (forapper), Monday, 3 October 2016 02:21 (seven years ago) link
Wait why didn't anyone mention to me that SHINee had gone ahead and recorded a goddamn 2-step song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BSDV9uKEIo
― Roz, Friday, 14 October 2016 04:00 (seven years ago) link
<333 I really like '1 of 1' too!
― hurricane weather (forapper), Saturday, 15 October 2016 13:52 (seven years ago) link
I.O.I going out on a high note:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1hxg1rY17I
Also another nicely jazzy downtempo song from Ladies Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsx9f8tdifw
― hurricane weather (forapper), Monday, 17 October 2016 02:26 (seven years ago) link
It took me a while to warm up to Cheer Up (TWICE) but I eventually got there... Very Very Very has a similar tempo and vocal style but it sounds good right away. Though I wish they'd thought of way to end the track and not resorted to the fade out...
― hurricane weather (forapper), Monday, 17 October 2016 02:32 (seven years ago) link
I really like the direction Ladies Code have gone in since their reboot, they really suit the chic jazzy songs... especially Sojung with her kinda smoky vocal tone...
― hurricane weather (forapper), Monday, 17 October 2016 02:50 (seven years ago) link
Ladies Code fill a niche in the k girl group landscape, just hope they do well enough to keep doing their thing with expensive looking classy videos.
― abcfsk, Monday, 17 October 2016 06:12 (seven years ago) link
Very Very Very is def in the Gee school of earworms. And directly lifts 2 seconds of melody from Gee. I like it.
― abcfsk, Thursday, 20 October 2016 17:07 (seven years ago) link
Playlist is updated; we got 90 songs and about 5 1/2 hours of music.
ILM's Rolling K-Pop Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist
Like the new Hyuna!
― the notes the loon doesn't play (ulysses), Monday, 24 October 2016 22:23 (seven years ago) link
New group with a solid debut song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOnK_GOR3W8
TWICE TT grew on me a lot (still don't like the MV tho):
Happy to see IMFACT again considering the financial woes of their company:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOXVTjlF2pk
And of course there's EXO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOzVyVv1HtQ
The IMFACT song is a different from what they were doing before but they kept the bratty rapping I enjoyed in Topp Dogg also. As far as EXO goes, the video is enjoyable, but the live performances are terrible as always... you'd think that with 2/3 of the vocalists in the group they'd be allowed to sing live for once...
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 10 November 2016 15:42 (seven years ago) link
Whoops, messed up the TWICE link... you know what, have a selfie version...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_wyXaRK8Q0
― hurricane weather (forapper), Thursday, 10 November 2016 15:45 (seven years ago) link
GUYS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nchkAmc49p4
Pretty song, pretty video, pretty vocals, and pretty perfectly on-trend single from SHINEE.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Sunday, 20 November 2016 20:48 (seven years ago) link
Plus more easy-listening rnb:
Nu'est - Look https://youtu.be/rKNL7eME7JYJunggigo - Nocture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVNfYP-3eA
― hurricane weather (forapper), Sunday, 20 November 2016 21:29 (seven years ago) link
Sistar on that tatu - all about us game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4TygUpWUTQ
― abcfsk, Monday, 21 November 2016 15:55 (seven years ago) link
Lmao it really does sound like tatu!
― hurricane weather (forapper), Wednesday, 23 November 2016 00:15 (seven years ago) link
It's the processing on the vocals and the 90s anime italodisco backtrack making it sound like that, right?
― hurricane weather (forapper), Wednesday, 23 November 2016 00:18 (seven years ago) link
So far, the only K-pop-related performer that I can find speaking out or demonstrating against Park Geun-hye is Lee Joon, ex of MBLAQ. Are there any more? I'm not shocked there aren't a lot - likely many have contracts that limit such things - but I'd still expect more than there are. She's down to a 5% favorability rating, so I wouldn't think there'd be a lot of risk here. I know that in South Korea the government can boost or limit artists, more so than in the U.S. or Western Europe. This would seem to provide plenty of motivation to work against her, to try to change the system or at least to keep friends of Park's from being the ones who wield the hammer. That's what the scandal is basically about, extortion and influence-peddling, right? Anyway, I'd think that you'd find anti-Park feeling among the Brown Eyed Girls and Hwang Soo Ah and thereabouts.
Other prominent music performers in the demonstrations are Jeon In-kwon and Lee Seung-hwan, neither of whom I previously knew anything about (but both got started prior to K-pop, right?) and rock group Crying Nut.
(I'm wondering if anyone's talked to Shin Jung-hyeun, who was imprisoned and tortured by Park Geun-hye's dad. He's 78 now. I gather that in his heyday he was something like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Berry Gordy.)
Also, has anybody here been following the scandal well enough to know what's going on with Cha Eun-taek and whether he was genuinely part of Choi Soon-sil's circle? He's been arrested, and an AP story says prosecutors are seeking to indict him. But I feel that even on a board as obscure as ilX I shouldn't be glib about whom I'm connecting to scandals and such: I'm thinking of how the constant repetition of phrases like "T-ara bullying scandal" and "Clinton email scandal" had such a destructive effect, convincing members of the public who actually knew nothing about it that T-ara and Clinton must have done something deeply wrong, even though there was no actual evidence. In any event, I know almost nothing about the current scandal. Fyi, Cha directed the video for my favorite K-pop song (T-ara's "I Go Crazy Because Of You"); he directed perhaps my favorite K-pop video ever, at least one of my top five, T-ara's "Roly-Poly"; also "Cry Cry"; also the Japanese version of "Bo Peep Bo Peep"; also Lee Hyori's "U Go Girl"; also 2NE1's "Go Away." I wouldn't say, from my distance, the attitudes in these vids are socially challenging. But they do seem vaguely feminist, and there is nothing remotely reactionary or traditionalist about them. And they are good. (And Cha took the risk of speaking up for T-ara when they were under attack.) He's accused (by whom? on the basis of what evidence? not that there probably isn't a lot, just expressing my ignorance here) of wielding power in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.
By the way, I miss abcfsk and hurricane weather over on my lj, if you or anyone else would like to drop by.
― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 26 November 2016 19:50 (seven years ago) link
I haven't been quality-commenting on anyone's LJ recently but I'm listening to your top 2016 singles now, Frank.
― hurricane weather (forapper), Sunday, 27 November 2016 03:30 (seven years ago) link
Frank, I don't have a stream for livejournal so have to rely on suddenly getting the idea to visit the place. I missed out on you posting some solid kpop content this month so I'll get to that now.
I think there are a few who have spoken out against the scandal. I remember thinking "wow, this is a special case" when I saw a girl group member posting an instagram photo of the downtown demonstrations - but a quick look now didn't jog my memory on who it was. In any case, when active idols feel safe with a political statement like that it's something. I also feel like I've read a few stories about angry tweets but can't remember who now.
Lee Hyori and a few friends put out a protest song (ballad) https://youtu.be/hXEjZTdCr4w
About BEG and Hwang Soo AH, both Kim Eana and her husband Loen's Cho Young-cheol have been at the demonstrations.
None of this would've come to light now, btw, if it wasn't for the awesome students at Ewha Women's University who tirelessly protested for weeks earlier this fall after suspecting rotten play at the top - leading to the discovery of secret players.
― abcfsk, Sunday, 27 November 2016 10:10 (seven years ago) link
Lee Hyori's a big deal. The protest ballad - "Abandoned By The Side Of A Street," by Lee Seung-hwan ft. Lee Hyori and Jeon In-kwon, produced by Lee Kyo-ho - now has a part two featuring a cast of over a hundred. Soompi reports the performers include Lyn, Sweet Sorrow, Ha Dong Kyun, Rooftop Moonlight, and Shin Dae Chul of Sinawe. Of these, I'd only heard of Lyn and Sinawe, though that doesn't tell you anything about how prominent they might be. Still, not much idol participation. And except for metal guy Shin Dae Chul, the new listed performers seem to be from the ballad/legit singer or respectable indie wing of showbiz.
― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 27 November 2016 15:11 (seven years ago) link
2016's most unlikely feud: Wiz Khalifa vs Taeyeon
― abcfsk, Saturday, 3 December 2016 16:40 (seven years ago) link
https://twitter.com/hyk0505/status/805063085950169089
― hurricane weather (forapper), Sunday, 4 December 2016 15:52 (seven years ago) link