K-pop (2015)

also, i think you're right hurricane, but i like that minute and a half. slow builds are always a nice change of pace in k-pop. that was the first song i liked this year – i feel like HIGH4 are a little bit underrated.

It's at least different, I guess. But I like the in res starts.

GFRIEND's White is good too!! It's a solid Jpop mini:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKtfosL8Xh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt3D4H93hNs

^^JYP's 15-year trainnee

That's his Eyes Nose Lips single... JYP talking about putting G.Soul on a sub-label "not concerned with mainstream sounds" but it's not like the mainstream hates this sound, ya know?

Track #2 on the mini, Superstar, is excellent though: http://youtu.be/AA-bvV184sw

do not need this song personally, but i hope he kills it. would make a potentially sad story a happy one.

waiting for k2n to upload his whole mini, i imagine there's something there i'll dig...

ahhhh you weren't kidding about "superstar," especially those fkn verses. choruses somewhat a letdown but if guy can actually sing this way live he should have a nice career ahead of him in korea.

"excuses" is best imo, took a dang while for a legit weeknd impression to wind up on a proper k-pop release, but it works much better than it should. great details in the bg vocals, guitar, bass fills – sophisticated and natural. could sit very easily on either the first or third weeknd mixtapes (i.e. the only worthwhile weeknd, really).

I guessed you'd like excuses... it's the fortune cookie of this mini lol

Very confused about the GFriend love but I need to spend more time with it. I definitely had a stronger affinity for Lovelyz' album and music video.

The G.Love mini is pretty great overall. A bit innocuous but he has a great voice and the mixing's actually /really/ on point on here. Dig the single a lot, actually. And First Love is really cozy. I'm naturally gonna dig Excuses too and was definitely thinking The Weeknd as well (i mean, that electric guitar). Was never into The Weeknd's stuff after HoB, and even then the best four tracks on it were released prior to the mixtape dropping.

hahahah "the G.Love mini!!"

GFriend is nothing crazy, but it's nice. Lovelyz definitely better.

Infinite H sound like they might live up to their material this time around: http://youtu.be/SWM7S_pjI8s

Their first album was too good for them - features stole the show - hopefully they grew into this one??? I think it's sounding promising so far...

Yeah I'm looking forward to that, the previews sound great.

that H spoiler sounds way more promising than i'd expect.

lmao didn't even realize that I wrote G.Love

Infinite H's last mini was so good and Special Girl was one of my favorite songs of that year so I'm very excited for this one. I'm a huge sucker for those really cheesy feel-good hip hop songs in K-Pop.

couldn't sing you a bar of previous Infinite H to save my life but this new stuff really has me curious. anyone know the release date offhand? super weird that it's not anywhere in the teaser upload on youtube...

showcase and album release this Monday the 26th

Nine Muses - Drama http://youtu.be/b4HIIbKZZm8
Lizzy goes trot* http://youtu.be/zjHnzv917iQ

* a very natural move and one I was looking forward to, but I wish they had cranked up the trot cheeriness to 11. This song is good but I wanted balls out. Visuals are on point, though.

Lizzy's a credible trot singer and yeah A+ on visuals
Drama is a big step down from Gun and Glue

thanks shirt! excited for monday.

the lizzy tune is very enjoyable, but yeah, it could've gone harder as either total cheese or some kind of modern subversion of the trot form (like trot a la "catallena"). still very into it, though.

never been a crazy 9m fan but yeah pretty dull, and the fact that they're an eight-piece now is raking me over OCD coals.

http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/0XRCyNxG4rB2Tox9ZILPhl

i could use some help maintaining this as i cannot read the language

wow not feeling the new infinite h mini at the moment :/ the music video is cool though

i am loooving this infinite h mini. super rap-heavy, which is usually not my thing in k-pop, but the beats are all so detailed and well considered. definitely my favorite mini of the year so far. tons of variety and all virtuosic from a production standpoint//the raps are focused and charismatic.

oh, and 4minute's new ballad is awesome, strange passing tones make it feel nicely uncentered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT9zbZGB2gE

yea i'd say it's the best k-pop ballad i've heard in a long while. and yep, it's definitely the passing tones in the verse that provide propulsion in both rhythm and tone. and then it being resolved via a continuous straight rhythm scale exercise is the right move. all the members look killer too, everything they're wearing is so on point.

It's interesting and reminds me of BAP's Rain Sound (which I like a lot more now than I did at the time).

Though it's prettier and more sophisticated in instrumentation than Rain Sound, of course.

Also Gayoon has a ballad voice and HyunA's good at this kind of sad rapping - "A Bitter Day" is still one of my favorite performances from her.

The hook's a little weak and annoyingly over-processed in Infinite H "Pretty" but the rapping and instrumental are spot-on I think. I haven't listened to the other tracks on the album yet.

Me not enjoying the Infinite H release is almost surely a matter of preference with hip hop. hip hop is the most exciting, forward-thinking, and subversive thing happening in western pop right now and it's so crazy to me that certain songs get so popular (Like, Sh!t is undeniably experimental). So with K-rappers I tend to be very focused on how the rapping helps the song rhythmically and serves a pop-related function. Like, this recent song just seemed like a less interesting take on OG Maco and other stuff going on in Atlanta right now. I still liked Loco's Thinking About You but it's ultimately just a lesser Loyal. And that's why I loved Infinite H's Special Girl so much since that stuff doesn't really exist in the west (though, Chicago's Bop scene has almost completely replaced it for me at this point). Zhoumi's Rewind was interesting though since it used RnBass sounds in its own K-pop context.

So re: the new Infinite H release, Pretty just seems like a lesser Special Girl mainly because the hook isn't as strong (largely due in part to there not being enough of a tonal/dynamic shift). Track 5 is exactly what i don't want from K-pop (but idk, there were people who got excited about Korean rappers spitting over the Control beat so it definitely has an audience). Track 6 feels like people rapping over a beat instead of with it. I've grown to like tracks 3, 4, and 7 though but I don't think any of them have particularly strong choruses. Moods are sustained throughout each of em, thankfully.

"pretty" is my least favorite thing on it for what it's worth

Ha sorry if that came off really dickish, wasn't really responding to you as much as I was just trying to assess what I think about rapping in Korean music in general. It sounds like I'm just hating in Korean rappers but I still like a lot it, I swear :3 I think I see rapping primarily as a rhythmic tool, and it's up to the artist to know how to use it for what they're trying to accomplish. Which I guess is why I think something like Eminem's Rap God is a snore while something like Nicki Minaj's The Boys, everything Young Thug does, or stuff from Chicago's drill scene is incredible. So like when idol groups have rap verses, I generally don't mind since it usually helps with the pacing. And as I said in my previous post, I'm a huge sucker for really happy k-rap stuff like that UglyPumpkin song I believe forapper posted in the 2014 thread.

anyways back to k-pop, an acoustic version of G.Soul's You popped up: http://youtu.be/Lkedk7fedpw

kind of just further proves that he's such a great singer

oh and since it hasn't been mentioned yet I might as well do it now -- Gaeko had a new track a few days ago with Yankie, Beenzino, and Babylon: http://youtu.be/VUqE9Nv4WZk

i dig it but man the beginning of that chorus kills my vibe. the Hey Ma and Tuesday interpolations are awesome and make the song's feel-good atmosphere all the more transferable. same thing happened with the I Don't Like interpolation on Troy's Green Light. i've realized that i also really like how Beenzino's voice sounds. And especially in contrast with the other rappers on the track.

nah not dickish at all, just wanted to clarify.

if that g.soul vocal is untreated, he really is the best singer in k-pop. he should be hitting the music shows w/ this shit because you really do need that platform in korea...

Seems to me the regular weekly kpop shows (Music Bank, Music Core, Inkigayo) have limited use as promotional platform, owing to their low ratings and niche audience, recently shown so clearly by the example of EXID, who had been through a full regular k-pop promotional period and shelved 'Up & Down' before a viral fancam turned people's head and suddenly they realized that hey, here's a catchy song I should download. The message that this song exists and is an earworm had clearly not got through to the mainstream through k-pop shows, which I think more of as fan service to the existing fanbase.

Other music shows have been known to make hits ofc, like vocal performance ones (Immortal Song etc) and K-pop Star.

hahahah, welllllll the EXID thing is a bit more complicated than that. it cut out the BS of "safe-for-broadcast" choreo revisions and PG-minded camera focus to laser in on the sexiest member doing the unaltered dance, which had a level of mainstream appeal that no TV show does. it spread like wildfire to millions (many of whom watched it ad nauseum), and repeated exposure w/ the right context is usually enough to make a conversion in pop. plus korea is a market where people might buy a song to support an artist because their most beloved celebrity is in it, moreso/more consciously than in america for example. so we're comparing apples and oranges at best here.

music shows' ratings are nothing special, but the youtube viewership can be pretty significant in and of itself. and in any event, the audience watching it is highly engaged like you say, and they're where the buzz typically begins. celebs on the order of DBSK and G-Dragon wouldn't still bother doing it if it didn't matter.

and yes, music survival shows make hits, but only of songs that get performed (by contestants, typically not debuted artists). but yeah, if g.soul could make it onto one of those shows as a 'vocal master' who gets his own backstory segment/performance, that'd do the trick.

i should also say that i think EXID always had a great song, it just didn't win the music show lotto and was hampered a bit online by its ratchet video. it just needed a new context to shine. (still one of my absolute favorite k-pop songs of late, so dang good)

I got really interested in EXID when I Feel Good came out, thought that song was so dang catchy + the vid was really amusing (LE at the car is legit funny). And then when they redid Telephone (best song on their mini, and one LE helped write both the music and lyrics for) as Every Night I was sold. A shame they didn't do anything in 2013 aside from that forgettable Dasoni subgroup but they got huge with UP&DOWN so I guess it was worth it. Have really high hopes for them this year.

fortunately the song that blew them up is awesome, so hopefully their team tries to explore that direction a bit more.

G-Dragon/other YG artists typically only do <i>one</i> of those shows (Inkigayo), sometimes two (Music Core), not the whole gamut. But EXID's music video for Up&Down *was* ratchet, and moreover they'd (imo) lost too much weight ahead of their comeback and lacked energy. In later, less hungry performances their skills were more obvious.

But I think abcfsk is right about the music shows. Veteran non-idol singers like PSY, Choi Pil Kang, and Seo Taiji don't bother showing up even when they're nominated for a win; Crayon Pop got their break with a viral video and street performances after getting locked out of the shows. Groups like GOT7, TOPP DOGG, Fiestar and SPEED have international fans but aren't popular domestically. And so on.

YG limits that shit b/c of affiliations they have w/ certain programs and supposed bad blood they have with others. i.e., they don't perform at things where they know they'll have a disadvantage anyway (same with the year-end shows).

and nah, PSY and choi are just old, and Seo Taiji is an actual musician with a real band, for which these shows are completely ill-equipped (busker busker also didn't bother w/ that shit). crayon pop def promotes on the shows now that they have a way in, and although all those groups don't have domestic fanbases they still perform on the shows. in korea, it's a platform you should absolutely use if you fit the mold, at the very least strategically in the way YG does.

but yeah maybe g.soul refuses to learn choreography and knows he'd be at a disadvantage without one. still think it could only help him though, and i want to see him do well...15 years...;_;

also groups like GOT7 would kill for more domestic exposure and the CF money that entails...even groups made for the chinese market like UNIQ release korean versions first and hit the shows, korea's all about exposure and TV is the only reliable medium. (no one listens to radio)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lse2Lix6j3k

he's back

I wouldn't say no one. For one I listened to a lot of radio in Korea and radio appearances are also a mandatory part of idol promotion rounds (and something the good talkers hot from time to time).

Could be the sleep deprivation but I'm really feeling A.KOR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K56AL8xnOqI

It's mixed like one of those sad 90s alternative anthems, but with a ghostly 80s synths countermelody thrown in to keep it interesting, and a key change at the end just because.

Or something...

There's also Yongwha's multilingual (Korean-Chinese) duet with JJLin, which I'm liking for similar nostalgic reasons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyq02k6-sE

Hitchhiker: the return everyone (no-one) was waiting for. But that video is pretty great.

In more indie news, trad hip hop: http://youtu.be/n-vteByk3jo

Looks like Shinsadong Tiger wrote the A.KOR track... which explains why it's so much better than their last one

I really like 4Minute. Most of their songs have something. Is It Poppin? was underrated. Hyuna sounds nice there. It's different http://youtu.be/DRSRpXPZVdM

Jiyoon has produced (and composed) a song on their upcoming mini. We saw her in her own little studio playing with sounds years ago - I really hope this marks the arrival of an interesting new creative force in the group.

yeah i love "is it poppin." it was on my top 20 k-pop list of 2013 for vice.