Where do I start with K-Pop?

Please help! The two K-pop threads on here are daunting and terrifying with people posting lists like "the top 50 k-pop songs from April 2012".
I've heard snatches of a few songs, really dig them, but don't know where to go from there. Couldn't find any good guides around, there is no canon.

Please post the most fun, catchy K-pop you know and I'll go from there. Make it a POX if you can, even. I don't know 2NE1 from Wonder Girls so be obvious.

Cheers!

Some of the obvious places to start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lSP8Vc3o

2NE1 - I Am The Best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFDPZx9u_ns

After School - BANG!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ

Girls Generation - Gee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfmZ74g9CjA

GD & Top - High High

Plus an older classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciuIDV2XeQs

Lee Jung-Hyun - Ba Kkwo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeu_s_RD-Gc

http://pitchfork.com/features/starter/9475-20-essential-k-pop-songs/

;)

whoa

Start old school:

Taiji Boys

like this song (and album its on)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7lH_fg54w

songs not covered in soyrev's really uh interesting primer that i'd probably use to introduce someone to k-pop

2ne1: "i am the best"
wonder girls: "be my baby"
miss a: "bad girl good girl"
brown eyed girls: "abracadabra"
sistar: "alone"
4minute: "volume up"
2pm: "adtoy"

obv my engagement has dropped off in the past year or so

lol stay the heck away from Seo Taiji! he's got some *great* stuff but that's really deep down the k-hole

@bradnelson lol, what's so interesting? :P

This is really something: http://kpoppy.com/music.html

@bradnelson lol, what's so interesting? :P

iirc it's just that of all the 2ne1 songs on earth i would not pick "missing you"

xpost A+ work, whoever compiled that - some of the descriptions are really funny too.

I miss being an H.O.T. stan

Did anyone here stan for Jinusean back in the day?

@brad well of course the songs you mentioned above are super obvious entry level stuff, and have all been on at least a half dozen standard, unconvincing intro lists before. but this is pitchfork, of course, and the only way i could interest them in repping k-poo at all was by framing the argument like i do in the piece preamble (i.e., yes it's assembly line, yes it's dance pop, but the k-machine frequently churns out songs that are exceptionally sophisticated, musical, and strange yet effective). i love them in general but "missing you" is actually one of the very few (off top of head, only?) 2NE1 songs to meet that criteria. it employs a super odd strategy (dramatically building verse w/ very contemporary production, surprise half-time chorus that's all acoustic guitar. piano, belting), completely lacks percussion, goes four-part harmony, and has at least one move i've never heard anywhere else in chart pop – modulating a whole step to introduce a full minute of entirely new material (melody, chord progression, lyrics) without returning to something that's happened previously (let alone, say, the chorus). i know yang hyeonseok was trying to save face by including none of the commercially underwhelming 2013 singles on the album, but closing crush with an acoustic retread of "come back home" instead of "missing you" was such a strange missed opp.

"i am the best" is also a pretty interesting song, structurally speaking, but to a far lesser extent and in ways that take much more than a single paragraph to describe.

I Am The Best is also guaranteed to get a more positive response / any response at all from 9/10 people who don't know 2NE1.

lol so would the vast majority of paint by numbers, 1:1 rip-off k-pop songs? p clear in the article and my words here that the goal was not to make the same 'points' (sleek! catchy! asian!) about the same standard safe k-pop picks these articles always make

(why would a pub like p4k have any interest in publishing a list like that anyway?)

also not sure how true that even is necessarily, for the p4k-prone crowd of friends i used as an early litmus test something like "tinkerbell" always got the biggest response, far greater than something like "bloom" (or "i am the best") does with them

I get your point, not going for the same dull consensus choices, that's great, I think you've probably succeeded as a whole with the list.. but as an introductory list I still disagree that this particular choice shows off the originality or particular quality of k-pop or 2NE1 better. I think I Am The Best more than anything or any other 2NE1 song highlights the explosive power of the girls' performances and personalities and the beautiful, off-kilter braggadocio. It doesn't come off as a rip off to most people, I personally don't know what it 1:1 rips off, but as a unique girl group release, as a release of note in 2011, apparent, for example, by it charting high here on ilxor's year-end list and others like it alone among k-pop songs. And even if you can argue for Missing You's musical qualities it sounds like a wet fart to many of us. Sad-sack posturing. And picking some quotes from the Singles Jukebox blurbs: "simply just fitting in, instead of blowing everything up.", "a shock that “Missing You” is so bland", "lack of personality" and even the positive reviews say they "find strength in a more traditional arrangement of melodrama".

TLDR: I applaud original choices, but Missing You just sucks, unfortunately.

Well why would Bloom get a response? It's much worse and less remarkable in every way thank Tinkerbell.

Of course my favorite k-pop songs didn't necessarily get a good reaction on sites like TSJ either, leaving me screaming bloody murder at the injustice of it all. And I def sympathise with loving a ballad or slower song and having issues convincing others it's more interesting than some in your face attention-grabbing thing. Been there done that. But IATB IS something special, something that imo defines 2NE1 and some of k-pop's strengths, and I'll fight you on that next time I get to Seoul.

buncha thoughts,

1) to clarify, "paint by numbers, 1:1 rip-off k-pop songs" was not meant to include "i am the best." i've dedicated 5000 words to analyzing why that song is so good. i'm just saying that for a list like this in 2014, if you're going to make choices in the interest of "positive response from 9/10 people" then your best bet would not just be "best" over "missing you" but a whole lot of crappy music over either of them (and a list like that would have to be published by wordpress)

2) re: "probably succeeded as a whole with the list," yeah, the intent was to weave a cohesive argument out of 20 songs rather than trying to find the 20 loudest most immediately likeable and brazenly "k-pop" things i could find

3) i'm sorry you don't like "missing you" (and i can relate, it took me a long time to get; didn't like it at first either, didn't even consider it for my noisey k-pop list that year), but please please don't mention "farts" esp "wet" ones in a correspondence with me again, that makes me feel like i'm bathing in styrofoam

4) i would personally agree that "tinkerbell" is better than "bloom" as it's better than most things (in my personal g-doc of greatest songs of all time, it charts by far the highest of any upbeat song, or asian song of that matter...will probably change over time but it's in my top 10, i think it's seriously one of the most ingenious pop songs/productions of all time, one of the most impressive recordings i've ever heard, etc), but i would say they are both excel toward different goals. "tinkerbell's" goal is much more admirable, but "bloom" is no slouch, shit could be an '80s prince hit if you replaced ga-in's voice with some purple falsetto and that's no mean feat (also i thought k-pop fans were mostly in agreement that "bloom" is canon, no? it's cool if you dislike it but i'm surprised you find that to be a surprising point of reference)

5) those singles jukebox takes are interesting to me, mostly because they describe how i felt about the song when i first heard it. yawn, boring, why is this not badass 2NE1 etc etc? which motivated me all the moreso to go to the mat for it when i later realized how structurally interesting it is and how its final minute is an extraordinarily uncommon thing, as a songwriting strategy, in the entire history of big budget mainstream pop (i mean there's gotta be shit from the '60s and '70s that does the same general thing, right? knowing how k-pop works i feel like teddy definitely had some precursor in mind that made it okay to end a huge pop song in such a weird way, but i just can't find any true comparisons...). i was happy to use a great opportunity to challenge people's perceptions of that song (again, incl. my own former one) instead of lavishing further praise on the 2NE1 song that probably even many p4k readers who "don't like k-pop" prob already know and like

also i mean objectively speaking, find me a song that does the same things "missing you"does as i described @brad. to really qualify it needs to be a major single by a major international mainstream artist, but i will take literally any counterpoint because i just simply do not know any songs that work like "missing you" does (and it's sad that a ballad chorus is enough to get people to tune out before realizing the most basic fundamentals about the song's composition, including me before i revisited it)

really the only objective strike against "missing you" is that for a masterpiece this good teddy didn't bother to get a real pianist/piano to replace that somewhat tacky midi sound in the chorus

@brad well of course the songs you mentioned above are super obvious entry level stuff, and have all been on at least a half dozen standard, unconvincing intro lists before. but this is pitchfork, of course, and the only way i could interest them in repping k-poo at all was by framing the argument like i do in the piece preamble (i.e., yes it's assembly line, yes it's dance pop, but the k-machine frequently churns out songs that are exceptionally sophisticated, musical, and strange yet effective). i love them in general but "missing you" is actually one of the very few (off top of head, only?) 2NE1 songs to meet that criteria. it employs a super odd strategy (dramatically building verse w/ very contemporary production, surprise half-time chorus that's all acoustic guitar. piano, belting), completely lacks percussion, goes four-part harmony, and has at least one move i've never heard anywhere else in chart pop – modulating a whole step to introduce a full minute of entirely new material (melody, chord progression, lyrics) without returning to something that's happened previously (let alone, say, the chorus). i know yang hyeonseok was trying to save face by including none of the commercially underwhelming 2013 singles on the album, but closing crush with an acoustic retread of "come back home" instead of "missing you" was such a strange missed opp.

"i am the best" is also a pretty interesting song, structurally speaking, but to a far lesser extent and in ways that take much more than a single paragraph to describe.

― soyrev, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 2:06 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

K-pop is not prog

you kidding fam? number one "k-pop" isn't a genre, it's the entire contemporary pop output of a country. it's a record industry. you might as well say "british pop is not bossa nova"

granted, there are certainly some proggy aspects of a ton of k-pop songs (far more than any other country's contemporary pop output), the way songs like "ah yeah," "tinkerbell" and "one minute back" can negotiate hairpin turns in genre/arrangement/mood over and over is kind of like prog except that its compositional ADD is 1) integrated into a recognizably pop template 2) way more seamless and purposeful than the directionless showboating of all but the best prog.

you're wrong either way, though, in that you're being reductive and implying there's nothing compositionally remarkable to appreciate about the single most interesting musical mainstream of the past six years. i know popism is a thing and i love "bubble pop" as much as any of you, but for a k-pop fan to deny the possibility that the entirety of k-pop includes anything beyond simple pleasures is taking things into onehallyu territory. i expect better of ilxor, this is shameful

funny thing is all i did was describe in very basic terms what "missing you" does musically, which again, i challenge either of you to find a comparison for (especially a modern mainstream one). that one lana del rey song that came out half a year later does the half-time chorus thing but the extended don't-look-back harmony outro puts "missing you" into what i'm comfortable calling a company of one until proven otherwise.

Unique != good

Also you've been here for like five minutes

wait sorry, "unique != good" -- so like abcfsk, your posturing here really only concerns the fact that you also have a subjective opinion about "missing you" that's different from mine??

because no, unique isn't good in the same way a blanket is not a quilt: necessarily. a good thing can also be a unique thing. presuming goodness parity, i think a unique good thing beats a good thing every time.

going to have to ask for clarification on that second line as welll. do i misunderstand or are you for real dissing me b/c i've "only" been listening to k-pop for 3 years?

Eh you're the one saying 'i expect better of ilxor' when you've been here for five minutes

Idrc one way or the other about 'missing you' or what your own musicologist opinion about it is, I do agree with abcsfk's larger point that it's not the best song to use as an intro to k-pop, also there's all sorts of unexamined assumptions in your statements (i.e. about machine like assembly line or w/e) that are just kind of nonstarters for me

maybe should have specified that! but that's also a stupid way of thinking?? even if it weren't, i've lurked here on and off going back half a decade+

i will reiterate for a final time that this article is not nor was attempting to be a typical "intro to k-pop," as, once again, the article makes clear in its introduction. also would like to point out i have listened to more k-pop than anyone here (trust), read more about k-pop than anyone here (trust), moved to korea above all to pursue thinking about k-pop at a deeper level, began learning korean for above all the same purpose, and work within the k-pop "machine" on a daily basis w/ a level of access and insight you do not possess unless i deeply misapprehend your own relationship to k-pop. so i feel pretty well vaccinated against your standard issue, faux-thoughtful "how dare you call a record industry a 'machine' or something that was literally designed by a mechanical engineer from the ground up to be an assembly line an 'assembly line'" pap, as though it weren't an unimaginative excuse to vilify someone for extolling a k-pop song you don't like in their k-pop article

the very same pap as your anti-understanding "musicologist" dis, btw. if it makes you feel better i never studied music?

wow sorry to have generated this garbage

well of course the songs you mentioned above are super obvious entry level stuff

your list ends with "gee" bro!

it's nice to have such knowledgeable people around these parts. another good 2ne1 song is "I Love You."

"missing you" for all its weirdness also sounds lazily constructed, like zero people have any investment on making its alienated sections function together, so it's weird yeah but it's also super boring

Jakob you posted on my last fm page looking for an intro to k-pop. Lol

it's all good, i'm just really surprised someone picking "unusual" k-pop songs for a list and explaining those decisions using simple-minded descriptions re: strategy/structure (i mean, aside from pointing out a couple key changes there's zero music theory in my opinions here, it's not like i'm talking chord charts or something) is a thing so worthy of scorn. i guess two or three people here really, really hate "missing you."

and hahaha, i thought that might come up re: "gee"...yes, i thought that concluding with an (explicit!) nod to k-pop's more "bubblegum side" was a necessary acknowledgment to further contextualize the intent of my article (and, yes, simply to acknowledge the greatness of that bubblegum side). in any event, there are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part westerners i interact with always voice their k-skepticism in terms like "why would i listen to k-pop, it's probably derivative of western pop and just in a language i don't get." hence it's my conviction that in order to challenge this stereotype and open k-pop up to a much wider audience, you have to start by emphasizing the eccentric, awesome, *different* stuff that the k-pop ~machine~ churns out on a regular basis ("why would you listen to it in addition to western pop? well, for starters..."). for the most part, i've found this perception has been deeply and regularly confirmed. one example is the existence of the article y'all seem really eager to discredit on terms from which the article distinguishes itself from the go (gonna go ahead and guess p4k's reluctance to cover k-pop in any substantive way prior was not accidental, and gonna go ahead and guess that me cold-pitching them as a new writer in 2014 with links to "adtoy" and "volume up" would've gone nowhere quick)

Also you've been here for like five minutes

XD

way more seamless and purposeful than the directionless showboating of all but the best prog.

a great way to counter a "reductive" description of a non-genre is to get real reductive about a different genre.

i know popism is a thing and i love "bubble pop" as much as any of you, but for a k-pop fan to deny the possibility that the entirety of k-pop includes anything beyond simple pleasures is taking things into onehallyu territory. i expect better of ilxor, this is shameful

also, like, no one is arguing this? ppl are disagreeing with your choices which is not a disagreement with your characterization of distinct k-pop mutations or whether they deserve less coverage than idk, r&b jams. incidentally, you posted a link to your list in an "introduce me to k-pop" thread?

i don't even hate "missing you," it just barely exists

lol omg hanja, are you ALSO the person who took issue with that on onehallyu when the article came out?? would find it hard to believe random ppl on the internet are tracking your lastfm page in case a comment from me comes up...this is hilarious

well even though i now know to reaaaaally not take you seriously, sure, i definitely did ask you that a long-ass time ago b/c it's kinda just my style to be thorough as fuck. ex. i listen to literally virtually everything the k-pop industry releases (have since top of 2013) i.e. all k2nblog (yes even the godawful twenty k-ballads they post a day) and stuff that eludes them too, i plow through entire discogs in one go to fill in the holes in the canon, i own dozens of CDs from pre-1992 korean pop and plan to add hundreds more by the time i'm through (cheap af here, fun cratedigging), etc...so yes maybe once long ago a lastfm rec or two from you would've been nice but i'm good now, wow though

@brad nah, implying k-pop is all simple and it's wrong-headed to try and say otherwise is a factual statement about the composition of a genre; me saying prog is largely masturbatory and directionless is just an opinion (one borne of, at one point, a pretty fair crapton of prog inquiry)

anyway going to start steering clear of this, but thank you all for the 자기소개

Bruh we've hung out together before. Lol.

i also think k-pop songs that absorb and amplify pop traditions i.e. its occasional extremely rich fidelity to r&b and disco are about as interesting as if not moreso than "songs that sound like five songs"

obv i'm not pitching a pfork list

meaning i don't think a unique good thing beats a good thing every time

jeez.

soyrev, i like you but you're doing yourself no favours by waving around your k-pop bonafides like this. everyone around here knows who you are and what you do, and though you might have immersed your whole life in korean culture in recent years, my go-to person on ILM is still abcfsk who was here long before you and whose tireless campaigning got most of us all listening in the first place. there's really no point playing musical upmanship on a place like ILM anyway - no matter how much korean music you listen to or how well you speak the language it's not going to change anyone's opinion or how they feel about "Missing You".

not sure why you're so defensive anyway, all most of us are saying is that for a newcomer to the music, "Missing You" isn't the best representative of 2NE1 OR k-pop OR "weird k-pop". like there are a million structurally weird k-pop songs that are arguably way more effective ("I Got A Boy", for one) and 2NE1 has so many other songs other than IATB that are also interesting and belongs on a K-pop primer e.g "Fire", which is imo the greatest debut of any K-pop group ever, and also unique within k-pop with its dancehall and bhangra influences (2NE1's genuine love for dub/reggae/dancehall and their ability to incorporate those sounds into their music mark them as unique among k-pop groups in general too).

my personal beef w Missing You as an intro song is that it showcases nothing of 2NE1's varied personalities which most of their other hits do, or why they're a group that's worthy of further listening. i also agree with brad that as weird as the song is, it also sounds somewhat unfinished. (personally think the Winner cover is superior - by tweaking the arrangement, they at least managed to make the song and its various parts a lot more coherent both structurally and emotionally, while still keeping its weirdness intact. their version also works because Winner is a) not-so-secretly a ballad group, whereas 2NE1 is not and b) are better at harmonising.)

waving around bona fides when someone personally calls you out on basis of how long you've been on a message board and how long you've been listening to a "genre" of music...irrational for sure (still laughing that i called 龜's condescension definitively onehallyu...and turns out s/he is literally _the_ onehallyu goon who had a witchburning campaign for me on those forums XD)

i also appreciate that you mention "i got a boy" as something better to have put on the list...when "i got a boy" is also on the list. this entire back and forth was fueled by people shading my shit apparently without having read it, so not a surprise (i also link to the winner cover in the article, gratuitous rap verses really weigh it down but it's an excellent version to have)

Missing You is different in an amateurish way, slapped together to form a lesser thing, and also, as Roz says, doesn't really sell us on anything of what's special about the 2NE1 girls themselves. Which might be its worst sin.

Slightly off-topic, a release I think isn't held up as a landmark k-pop song often enough is U-Go-Girl. Maybe because it stands in isolation among Hyori's releases.

Lol dude. As someone who knows you irl and has hung out with you before, I'm telling you to slow yr roll. It's nagl dude.

i'm just gonna let the creepiness of that sit and not ruin its mystery

speaking of creepiness I think I was spotted looking at a k-pop website at my office job the other day. I wanted to hear a song, and the site loaded with a picture of some girls in skirts looking, like, much younger than they probably were -_-

Going to start here:

So I have just been catching up on the day’s discourse, and good GOD, Weetman v K-pop is *special*: pic.twitter.com/aiHcAi7NEQ

— William Kedjanyi (@KeejayOV2) September 24, 2020

lol what exactly prompted this?

An utter garbage Weetman post but I don't know how the K-pop army got involved

it turns out the legions of K-Pop fans are much more adept at ripping the shit of fools than the shitposting UK twitter left!

Time to give to listen to some K-pop

I am sorry she is not dealing with K-Pop stan. She is dealing with ARMY. We are a socially conscious diverse group, not a political group. But we condemn racism. We are adults with every single skillset available. She should have stayed out of our way. https://t.co/YhjRQ9zMYz

— ˗ˏˋTia∞⁷ˎˊ˗ (Stream BB #1ˣ² ☝️ #BTS_Dynamite) 💥💜 (@MrsTOH2O) September 24, 2020

Thus has now been written up:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2020/09/25/btss-achievements-and-massive-global-fan-base-speak-much-louder-than-their-racist-critics/amp/?