K-pop

Welcome!
High High sounds a bit 'Like a G6'-ish, doesn't it? A few listens in and I'm pretty hooked. I'm going to admit I hope the Big Bang album does not sound like this, but it's a great way to launch a side project. Here's the song they did with Park Bom, and she's the best thing about it. Are they shooting an MV for that as well?

The folks at The Singles Jukebox are going through 'lost and found' singles of the year and here's their take on After School's Bang!. A lot of them like it - let's hope they decide to visit this thread.

hah, even the video to how high is kind of simialr to the video to like a g6

bang! sounds underproduced. it needs to sound more massive than it is

Ga-In solo remains one of the best surprises of the k-pop year, now with another single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2cXvd1aDkg

Retracing the k-pop hits of 2010 I've discovered that it has actually been a fantastic year for singles. I think I could've kept going with this list.

Best of 2010

Singles-

1. 2NE1 - Try To Follow Me
2. E.Via - Shake!
3. After School - Bang!
4. IU - Good Day
5. GD&TOP - Knock Out
6. 2NE1 - Clap Your Hands
7. SNSD - Oh!
8. f(x) - NU ABO
9. Girl's Day - Nothing Lasts Forever
10. Hyunah - Change
11. GD&TOP - High High
12. Ga-In - Irreversible
13. SNSD - Run Devil Run
14. SISTAR - Fake Girl
15. Lee Hyori - Swing
16. Infinite - She's Back
17. Taeyang - I Need A Girl
18. 4MINUTE - Huh
19. KARA - Jumping
20. KARA - Lupin

Honorable mentions:

Sung Shi Kyung & IU - It's You
2NE1 - Go Away
Gummy - As a Man
BoA - Woo Weekend
BoA - Possibility
JJ - Come Closer
YDG ft. Fresh Boyz - 탄띠 (Bandolier)
Rainbow - A
SISTAR - How Dare You
Super Junior - Bonamana
Super Junior - No Other
SNSD - Hoot
VNT - Ye Ye Ye
Lady Jane ft Verbal Jint - Love You Everyday
T-ara - YaYaYaA
Secret - Madonna
Nine Muses - No Playboy
Infinite - Come Back Again
Shinee - Lucifer
Seo In Young - Into the Rhythm
Taeyeon - Like a StarA

Albums/EPs -

1. GD&TOP - GD&TOP Vol. 1
1. 2NE1 - To Anyone
3. Taeyang - Solar
4. BoA - Hurricane Venus
5. Ga-In - Step 2/4

for some reason I forgot Miss A, who def had one of my favorite singles

Ok, so the MBC Gayo Daejun (year-end show for MBC) killed most any k-pop spectacle I've previously had the pleasure of watching, in terms of general smoothness of presentation and novelty of performances.

Highlights:

After School introducing a new guitar-wielding (and guitar-majoring, music academy-graduating) member in the oddest, greatest stunt of k-pop 2010. A few questions to ponder: When will expert electric guitar talent ever come in handy as a girl group member? If they do make use of it, how can it not be the greatest thing ever to have her break into ridiculous solos for all future middle eights?

Rainbow with the greatest remix of the night, a new 'A' version. Takes on a bass-heavy, dirtier quality.

Fairly badass BoA tribute.

GD&TOP feat. 2NE1

IU and Luna (of f(x)) (and Onew of Shinee) joining two slightly dull indie rock bands... with a pretty great result?

Run Devil Run really is the best of last year's SNSD singles when it comes to live performances.

INFINITE showing supreme dancing skills. Look at that synch!

Davichi w/ Sunset Glow cover

2PM, Miss A and particularly Fei doing some sweet moves.

for some reason I forgot Miss A, who def had one of my favorite singles

― abcfsk, Sunday, December 26, 2010 11:56 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

I love good girl bad girl, which has such a melancholic feel

Jan. 23
Lee Eun Mi (South Korean pop singer on 3 city US tour, NYC, Orange County & the Wash. DC area) at 7 at George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4400 University Dr. Fairfax, VA

k-pop don't stop etc. first batch of 2011 releases/videos

TVXQ/DBSK, now only 2 members strong after members leaving, forming their own group (JYJ) suing SM Ent etc., finally make a comeback. Recall earlier discussions about 'Cassies', ie the most zealous fanbase in Korea. Keep Your Head Down wants to sound epic and important (horns, always horns in _big_ tunes), but it's a bit "eehh" isn't it?

My favorite among the various GD&TOP lead singles, Knock Out.

Production/songwriting duo E-Tribe have started their own girl group, 'Dal Shabet'. In a sort of Xenomania/Girls Aloud / TheDream+Tricky/Electrik Red (not anymore, I guess) way they'll be responsible for their output. Supa Dupa Diva is not for you if you've ever made the argument that k-pop producers stuff too many ideas/songs into one composition.

Re: new DBSK, since this will inevitably be compared to JYJ's American single(s) I might as well do it now and say that I like this a lot better, though I acknowledge that it has something to do with my expectations for K-pop being different from my expectations for North American-oriented pop. The video, though, is on about the same level of embarrassing and overproduced as Ayyy Girl's, so there are no winners there.

I prefer JYJ's song. I don't love that one either, and think they should take some more English classes, but at least it's closer to my sweet spot, ie smooth rnb that goes down easy. The DBSK video is trademark SM Ent on autopilot -- shiny, clean, gray surroundings to dance in front of.

HANTEO physical album sales 2010*

OVERALL
1. SNSD 312,000
2. Super Junior 263,000
3. SHINee 155,000
4. JYJ 128,000
5. B2ST 112,000
6. 2PM 107,000
7. 2AM 96,000
8. 2NE1 64,000
9. BOA 63,000
10. KARA 54,000

*Hanteo is but one chart. Although it's got some credibility to its name they only count select stores. The ranking is probably accurate, the numbers way too low. Note that these are general album sales counting all albums/mini-albums sold by the artist in 2010, including old releases.

Not to mention they don't count December sales (ie IU and GD+TOP)

Another point to consider here is that a group like Super Junior is super strong on physical sales rankings (bc of super devoted fan base?), but non-existant at the top of digital sales rankings. This is not true for SNSD, their presence is strong everywhere and they can be considered more of a mainstream act and less at the mercy of supporter loyalty (that's how I read it anyway). 2NE1 is the #1 ringtone artist of the year, by the way. As far as I know there's nowhere to see digital album sales in Korea, or digital numbers at all. The GAON chart counts both physical and digital, but sales info...? And international sales, like 2NE1 with their US Itunes chart showing, is of course a mystery.

My inclinations proven somewhat right with the first digital album ranking for 2010. It's just for one store, MelOn, and they strangely count 'single albums' as well as actual albums (which means singles from album campaigns are not counted, but singles that were not featured on an album might be).

You can see the list here http://www.allkpop.com/2011/01/melon-releases-results-for-2010-top-100-album-chart - I don't want to post the whole thing just to show that Super Junior is as low as #85 with their album, while SNSD is at #2. Perennial bores 2AM with their mini-album at the top are best left unmentioned.

1. 2AM – “Can’t Send You Away Even If I Die”
2. SNSD – “Oh!”
3. 2NE1 – “To Anyone”
4. DJ DOC – “Taste for the Arts”
5. IU & 2AM’s Seulong – “Nagging”
6. CNBLUE – “Bluelove”
7. “Baker King Kim Tak Gu” OST Part 3
8. Homme by Hitman Bang – “Homme”
9. T-ara – “Braking Heart”
10. CNBLUE – “Bluetory”
11. miss A – “Bad But Good”
12. Blue Brand – “Trauma”
13. Davichi – “Innocence”
14. Hyori – “H Logic”
15. Hot Potato – “Seesaw”

my new kpop fave

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they already won m.countdown with this, congrats

also, so many great songs mentioned in this thread, but not much beast, i'm really surprised.
yg artists are the most popular internationally right now i guess, but beast is gonna take over soon i guess.

fixing the embed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL0sfti1DcA

also, the beat is kind of a straight rip of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UlhLd76IzQ

thanks for fixing my failed embed

yeah it's a possible rip cause diplo already made a few remixes of perculator & knock out is the first kpop produced by diplo.

diplo dıpןo
its true kpop is soo #based right now
10 hours ago

still going through your post abcsfk, but oh my BoA may be my new favorite k-pop artist. it's a lot easier to glom onto a single person rather than an anonymous 5 person front.

also that sistar song in the top 20 is great. also like the gummy track so far

No one does 'casual cool' better than BoA imo

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

She rose to 5th on the list of richest stock investors in the Korean entertainment industry last year, btw. Deserved.

Here's my Korean top twenty for 2010, very similar to Mat's, which is not surprising given that I was basically following his and anhh's recommendations as to what to listen to. You'll notice that I rank the wrong E.via track and the wrong Miss A track higher than the right ones. "Knock Out" is 2011,* and I'm not sure where I'll put it; it's slow and strange at first, then it gets good and strange. TOP's hair is as white as Jim Jarmusch's.

1. After School "Bang!"
2. E.via "Pick Up! U!"
3. E.via "Shake!"
4. 2NE1 "Try To Follow Me"
5. DJ DOC "I'm A Guy Like This"
6. GD&TOP "High High"
7. Girl's Day "Nothing Lasts Forever"
8. Miss A "Breathe"
9. Rainbow "A"
10. Lee Hyori "Swing"
11. IU "Good Day"
12. 2NE1 "Can't Nobody"
13. DJ DOC "Together (Remix)"
14. Ga-In "Irreversible"
15. SNSD "Oh!"
16. T-ara "Ya Ya Ya"
17. Kara "Jumping"
18. Miss A "Bad Girl Good Girl"
19. 4minute "I My Me Mine"
20. 4minute "HuH"

I discuss some of these as part of my year-end singles wrap-up over on my lj, if anyone wants to visit. Also on Friday tried to get a discussion going regarding "Ya Ya Ya" to inaugurate Problematic Korean Video Friday but didn't get many takers so far. If you have any candidates for further problematics, let me know.

*Actually, I'd count a lot of these tracks as eligible for 2011, also, anything released in December for sure and maybe some in November.

Possibly problematic video: 2NE1 - Go Away (feat. domestic violence (later, in a live performance of the song, CL convincingly beats down a male dancer)).

I'm surprised at 'pikachu' suddenly at #2. You and the Single Jukebox crew's work on pushing 'Bang!' contributed to me moving it a lot of places upwards.
----

Similarly I've realized that I've underrated SM Entertainment's in-house producer Yoo Young-jin's work last year, partly because of this interview which lead me to put his songs on repeat x 10. Mainly Super Junior's Bonamana and SHINee's Lucifer. I think I was frustrated by the lack of melody when they were released, and how uninterested they were in prettiness. I don't even know how to capture their spirit in words, something about words as bullets and impossibly sharp edges, at least for 'Bonamana', which is the greatest of the two.

He really has found his own sound, and also applied some of it to f(x)'s fantastic NU ABO, which I already had included on my top 10 (and also took a long time to get into), although that song is co-credited to some foreign songwriters.

Not that he's close to being a one-trick pony, as seen on his discography. He's worked with the company from the start and wrote most of their early hits.

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

Interestingly, his only work with SM's big guns Girls' Generation is writing the lyrics for 'Genie'. And this corny little tribute that was shown on their Asian tour concerts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKqhgoKN9g0

Seo In Young - Into the Rhythm

^^ has a 'katy on a mission' vibe to it

Holy shit holy shit

Reports of KARA splitting from their agency, DSP Media Entertainment, has sent shockwaves throughout the music industry. The members of KARA, excluding leader Gyuri, reasoned that they had lost their confidence in their relationship with DSP Media Entertainment, and that it could never be regained again.

Landmark, KARA’s lawyers, reported on January 19th:

“Despite KARA receiving much love from their activities in both Korea and Japan, the members have experienced inexplicable pain that brought them to this decision. They’ve held it in for a long time, but in order to protect their rights and their future, the members have decided to part ways from their company.

KARA has tried their absolute best in compromising with their company prior to their decision, but their agency used their power in forcing the members to fulfill schedules that they did not want, and continuously added activities on top of a loaded schedule without prior consent or discussion. The psychological damages that the members were forced to endure cannot be explained in words, and their efforts have gone to waste. Their misery is severe, and they can no longer remain under such a company, which is why they decided to declare their withdrawal.

Trust is the most important aspect of a relationship between an agency and its artist, but the agency has been using KARA as a way to make money. A variety of issues that have not been stated are still present. The agency has decided the majority of the girls’ celebrity activities without any sort of discussion or meeting, and has rejected requests asking for explanations or for proper documents. Their relationship has been destroyed to the point that it could never be restored again.“

Representatives of DSP Media commented, “This is ridiculous, we are not sure what went wrong. We have yet to understand the situation. We’ll be releasing an official statement soon.”

The final Big Bang side project before their comeback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QZo5Ji43u8

^Has k-pop ever sounded more American?

I was a huge fan of Lee Jung-Hyun back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Mtk9NGpU8

Anyone know if her 2010 album is worth investigating?

Between 2NE1's To Anyone, the GD&TOP album, and now Seungri's album, I see YGE's production heading in a direction much more in tune with current trends in American pop music. This song even has a "My Love"-style part in which the rapper tells the girl to go for the singer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnDNbztO1K8

It makes me curious as to what Big Bang's upcoming album (if it ever materializes...) is going to sound like, because I think Big Bang's output has been steadily heading away from directly American-inspired hip hop to the typical synthy K-/J-Pop sound. Are these solo projects just so Big Bang can keep doing what it's doing without stifling its members?

Mr YG himself said that groups break up because the individual members don't get to display their individual creative ambitions. Or something like that. I hope that doesn't mean they'll abandon the rnb sound for Big Bang. They can still do synths, but in a 'Sunset Glow' kind of way. I heard talks about a rock sound, though? Hmm.

You're right, but is To Anyone that Americanized? Some of the songs probably are, but 'Follow Me' and 'Clap Your Hands' is like a step away from the familiar sounds they did I Don't Care and into a more unique, crazy place.

Hafta say the DBSK tune has grown on me watching ridiculous live performances such as this http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQwMzIyNDY4.html -- all that POWER.

SNSD on the same (Japanese) show. Run Devil Run works so well live http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQwMjk3NDY4.html

The awesome Japanese-turned-American SM Ent. choreographer Rino Nakasone doing her latest piece for DBSK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98_BT22uCY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzv7aHKbz_U

Slant Magazine try their hand at k-pop http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2011/01/house-playlist-girls-generation-purity-ring-and-rainbow-arabia/

Girls' Generation, "Hoot." This one may be a few months old in its native South Korea, but that doesn't keep "Hoot" from being one of the best discoveries of 2011 on this side of the Pacific. The best K-Pop singles take a truly fearless approach to appropriating different genres for fun and profit, and "Hoot" starts off as a bit of jagged guitar pop as forceful and catchy as any of Max Martin's productions for Kelly Clarkson. But the song shifts its focus to the dance floor once the multi-tracked percussion loops kick in. The layered rhythm arrangement works with the song's overall conceit, which finds the girls giving an overdue brushoff to an acid-tongued boyfriend. His poison-tipped arrows are the "trouble, trouble, trouble" of the simple-is-better hook, and the group's cheerleading-squad-as-girl-group structure gives their off-you-go message its own built-in support group. The choice of violent imagery belies the apparent sweetness of the group's nine members and the single's simply massive hooks, but it's a perfect fit with the James Bond guitar figure that runs throughout. As far as 007 motifs doubling as pop songs go, "Hoot" fully holds its own alongside Britney Spears's "Toxic." Jonathan Keefe

Surprised Hoot is the one they go with, but..

Well I guess they actually named 'Gee' the 10th best single of 2009.

Never paid much attention to Slant, so I don't know what this is indicative of.

Sorry I don't post on this thread more often. My browser is Google Chrome, which has some weird issues with Shockwave Flash, so when I get a thread with a lot of video embeds my computer often freezes and I have to hit ctrl-alt-delete and turn off Shockwave Flash (which turns off the vids). May also be due to a relatively weak CPU.

Weird that Keefe compares "Gee" to Taylor Swift's "Love Story," since the two have little in common, other than both being pop songs about love. Taylor's singing is personal self-expression, with drama in the way the voice goes from wavers to emphasis, all about Taylor's story, no one else's. "Gee" is a girl group dance track, voices scooting in and around each other and chasing evanescent "yeah yeah yeahs" and "oh oh ohs" and "gee gee gees."

The guy writes up a lot of country, too. Wonder if he posts on ilX under some other moniker, since his tastes seem to run close to some of ours (Miranda Lambert, Laura Bell Bundy).

He might be. I know there are k-pop fans here who've never posted in this thread!

Anyone watched the magazine Monocle's new TV show on Bloomberg TV? They spent a good 15 minutes on k-pop, talking about how the Korean pop industry is using the web to make a global push, which WSJ and others have written about as well. Some interviews with both labels and stars, though, and a little talk session at the end. Worth a watch. Video here: http://www.allkpop.com/2011/02/kpop-covered-by-monocle-on-bloomberg

A few odd things are said, like Korea not being culturally protectionist, as opposed to Japan.. um, I'm not so sure about that, even though you can find k-pop on youtube.

Oh, the places my name turns up...

I've only posted in the Rolling Country thread prior to finding my "Hoot" write-up in here today, but yes. Hi. I've bee around for a bit.

I chose "Hoot" simply because, of "Hoot," "Oh!," and "Genie," it's the SNSD single that I've listened to the most frequently so far this year, and it's the one that I think has the most interesting production.

Frank, I didn't actually compare "Gee" specifically to "Love Story," and I agree that it wouldn't make sense to do so. I just quoted the little spoken-word, "Listen boy/It's my first love story" line that Tiffany says at the beginning of "Gee."

The comparison I was making is between what I love about K-Pop and what I love about Taylor Swift's best singles: The deliberate, all-hooks-all-the-time production choices that are far more sophisticated than many listeners might give them credit for. "Gee" also covers much of the same thematic territory as Swift's <em>Fearless</em> era singles, and does so with a similar plain-spokenness that works in context.

Hey Jonathan, hope you drop in more. Convo needs more voices. I didn't even know K-pop existed until a year and a half ago. (I've tried to get K-pop convos going on poptimists, to no avail. But I've enticed Mat and annh and Sabina and Tari to help learn me the subject over on my lj, if you want to join.

Sorry I didn't read your "Gee" blurb more insightfully.

"Hoot" is definitely growing on me, thanks to Sooyoung's screaming fangirl. Plan to do a post when I get the chance regarding my dreams of how it should be looped and remixed.

So, Big Bang's new mini-album. Quoth descriptivist above, "Are these solo projects just so Big Bang can keep doing what it's doing without stifling its members?" It seems like that is the plan: Solo / side-projects: Let them do what they want, experiment according to taste and curiosity, get Diplo to do a single, whatever--- Big Bang as a group: Play it safe, give the fans what they expect. Lead single "Tonight" is a bit disappointing -- pretty, but not huge and meaty like, say, 'Sunset Glow', and it sounds much like their recent Japanese output.

But it's popular. It's currently at #12 on the American main iTunes album chart. A new high for an all-Korean album, surely?

Disappointing is the word. It's "Lies" + Seungri's "What Can I Do" + echoes of "Mazeltov" aka the WORST K-pop boy band song!!! And I thought we weren't doing Autotune any more. (I do like that in the MV they let the least sexy member have the (implied) sex scene.) But I missed Daesung's voice so I'm hoping the rest of the songs are a bit more listenable.

Have Korean albums always been available through iTunes or is this a new thing? Because given the recent increase of articles on the rise of K-pop overseas via the internet, I think appearances by Korean albums on the American digital sales charts can only increase.

I have to say that I've been hoping some more stranger elements of kpop gain traction overseas, maybe provoking something maybe not so much as embarrassment, but an internal re-evaluation of what is culturally valuable. this might be a false hope because in the other direction, glenn branca isn't as much a household name in SK as yngvie malmsteen.

I think in order for that to happen, at least from my North American frame of reference, K-pop would have to jump, if not knock down, the "other countries are so weird and different" hurdle that's been set up here - otherwise, audiences and critics are more likely to perceive the differences ("haha, we're not that weird") than the similarities ("oh, that's what our popular music sounds like to other cultures...hmm"). For some reason the only example that comes to mind is Dragostea Din Tei, which became known here not because it held up a mirror to the North American boy-band craze, but because its hook sounded so hilarious.

I wonder if the Korean diaspora and the huge online communities would make a difference on the mainstream perception of a weird k-pop tune making waves. Pushed from the inside. The k-artists who have tried have more or less attempted to be an exact mirror image of American pop, or just quite bland (Wonder Girls).

'Tonight' ended up peaking at #6 on itunes, but has fallen a lot since, and I don't know how many albums are sold on itunes. Anyone know any figures for a typical weekly #1? Impressive, anyway. I think some companies, like SM Ent, were quick to offer their music internationally on iTunes, with others coming along. I even find some stuff on Spotify, now.

@descriptivist loads of kpop stuff is available via itunes, but they've never been actually promoted or even mentioned. i usually search for artists by searching for one of their tracks that had an english title in korea... kpop artists' data in itunes is not very clean, so searching for the band doesn't always gets you results.

anyway, i checked in after i found this
japanese version of beast's shock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDKjdBus4xs

Just for laughs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpXJJ71OxAA

^The tables have turned.

This one isn't plagiarism - LPG got the rights to do a remake of 'We No Speak Americano'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofAaHwrN5A&feature=player_embedded

and I confess a weakness for the sunny sounds of Infinite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpT4EkgSIQg

New Girl's Day song, "Twinkle Twinkle". It's certainly no "Nothing Lasts Forever", but it's kind of nice, in the same vein as "Rock U"/"Honey"-era KARA. Orange Caramel proves there's a market for this stuff, but I'm not sure how, well, relevant it is right now. (Someone want to jump in with a counterexample?) At least we find out that previously mute member Yura (the blonde one) is actually the rapper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEEIN-mtN6c