BIGBANG: K-pop princes of gender-fuckery and family dysfunction

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

In fan-speak, Big Bang are kings, not princes. I believe there have been female "kings" in Korea in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP3RSQdXVak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxZ_b6ryzfI

yay you're here. ^^Love that performance, one of their best. Also "Cafe" from the same session: http://youtu.be/xQhW_VnNz-c (terrible sub-titling on this vid though lol)

btw re 2NE1: they were originally put together to be a female version of BigBang. Their unofficial debut was a duet with BB in this amazing video, which also happens to be a cellphone ad: http://youtu.be/zIRW_elc-rY

Ya, that was a good show. I think because M-SOUND PLEX is a real music show (for real music artists), and everyone got to do a solo stage, the group was in a good mood that day.

In front of a very unimpressed audience of ministers of arts and culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ1p60eK8F8

ft. a young Park Bom of 2NE1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2okiCu-VU8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGffBqA0T_g

Fangirl favorite, also demonstrates that prior to about 2010 Big Bang songs only really need three people (GD, TOP, Taeyang) for effective performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHL3ZTVj3PM

Rock version of Lee Moon Sae song they adapted for 2008 album Remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VKLKANyRik

Speaking of advertisements, this is an advertisement for FILA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQHTpHjnC4

haha girl, slow down! also maybe we should try to cut down on the youtube embeds before it quickly gets unwieldy - I always have that problem with the rolling threads.

I am going slow! I didn't even bother sharing their other two advertisement songs (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Co3xha-RM";>Lollipop 2</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhWJXIGb8ao";>GMarket Party</a> - which must have been played everywhere because I *still* hear bits of it in other K-rap songs - though I suppose that could just be be me).

That's not even getting into Seungri's tireless efforts to promote Samsung through his own cellphone fancams at their concerts. If you've ever wondered what it might feel like to be on stage with Big Bang, wonder no more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zazs3vpbFDg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RI_edmyNac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWxujFPvKaQ

>_> HTML. Here's the first part again:

I am going slow! I didn't even bother sharing their other two advertisement songs (Lollipop 2 and GMarket Party - which must have been played everywhere because I *still* hear bits of it in other K-rap songs - though I suppose that could just be be me).

I also didn't really those last three fancam links would pop up as embeds, BBcode fail.

lol to make it easier - on the youtube page, click 'share' and just copy the shortcode. ilx doesn't embed them.

:D Thanks for the tip!

I just found this group. Glad to see that they are on the radar. I don't really like the overstated pop grinders but this RnB thing really does if for me. I love this shit

http://youtu.be/2GRP1rkE4O0

Taeyang sounds much like Trey Songz in this song. I really enjoy this one too. Maybe more- it sounds like a Terius Nash tune to a degree.

http://youtu.be/3bRrGsNymUI

Only Look at Me is such a good song.

Taeyang's 2010 RnB album (made it onto the actual Billboard RnB chart, iirc):

Where You At
Wedding Dress
I Need a Girl

And here's an RnB song with the rest of Big Bang, from their 2008 album Remember:

http://youtu.be/1kXzSRevJxE

<3 "Foolish Love". It's all about Taeyang/Daesung/Seungri, for one. also, "I Don't Understand": http://youtu.be/LzHGULf-wiM

Next up, BigBang rock songs?

Kinda hated "Love Song" at first cause it's BigBang doing Coldplay/U2, but really, it's more them beating Coldplay at their own game lol: http://youtu.be/IKZEmLvYVF0

With Korean punk band No Brain: http://youtu.be/iLan2n0Hqrg

"Bingle, Bingle": http://youtu.be/I3DlN0XNxtE

Not particularly fond of this one tbh, even though it's TOP at his most tragic. TOP, "Oh Mom": http://youtu.be/OjJSTATwnkc

G-Dragon, "Obsession/Nightmare": http://youtu.be/1nULVqV87uI

I am against Love Song, but it has an interesting music video. Basically, the second half of the video is flipped so that while the group appears to be travelling forward in a straight line and out of the wreckage, they are in fact walking back the way they came, and as the song ends they are exactly where they started. And then a car drops out of the sky and explodes.

On mobile internet, otherwise I'd link to blog that dissects this video excruciating detail XD. I will say that I liked it when they did it live. There's only one place for this kind of giving myself over to this feeling stadium rock, and that it's in an actual stadium.

Re the No Brain song, this is the clearest evidence yet that Big Bang are, secretly, an emo band. When I watch this video I am reminded that BB's first, premature, tour of the US supporting Se7en happened in 2006, when Fall Out Boy and MYChem ruled the airwaves. I kind of suspect TOP of being a Fall Out Boy fan. Along with Pharell, during GD&TOP promotions the American artist GDragon most resembled style-wise was Pete Wetnz.

Another interesting thing about that video is that you can see them kind of reprising their roles from it in the Fantastic Baby video, I.e. Gdragon is the crazy one, TOP is the one who looks good in a uniform, Daesung and Taeyang are interested in showing off their muscles, and Seungri is the one at the center of a crowd. Except that he's ditched the innocent clown/entertainer image for one where he's being scratched up by catwomen in latex bodysuits, but anyway.

Bingeul Bingeul is great mainly because Daesung has a totally credible K-Rock voice. Also GDragon and TOP slewing accusations back and forth like child, and the electro-rock build. I really like this track.

Obsession/Nightmare is a mess, but once again has an interesting video. The chorus sounds a bit like it was inspired by Epik High's "Fan" (which is a better song).

I love Oh Mom, actually. The instrumental feels a bit empty, but it's an emotionally affecting song. One of those sad songs that can make you feel sad, too, when you listen to it. Definitely TOP at his most tragic, yeah.

Please forgive typos, I'm on mobile internet at the moment.

Another interesting thing about that video is that you can see them kind of reprising their roles from it in the Fantastic Baby video, I.e. Gdragon is the crazy one, TOP is the one who looks good in a uniform, Daesung and Taeyang are interested in showing off their muscles, and Seungri is the one at the center of a crowd. Except that he's ditched the innocent clown/entertainer image for one where he's being scratched up by catwomen in latex bodysuits, but anyway.

i feel that yg is really conflicted in how to present daesung. i see him playing two roles even on alive: the cheesy balladeer who sings "wings" and the musclebound bad boy from "fantastic baby" and "monster."

i have really enjoyed all the GD stuff from this year, but TOP is probably my fav member of bigbang. i like his voice and icy demeanor. it's a pity! i think he might be dealing with depression again, or something like that, cuz his role has really shrunk it seems. not a big fan of taeyang and it seems like he has assumed TOP's role as GD's sidekick.

feels funky gossiping about the idols like that but i suppose that's what kpop fandom is all about.

monster is my favorite m/v of the year.

correct on all counts, esp the part about the gossiping (but there's always so much going on! :/). but yeah, don't think TOP is dealing with the world tour and constant travelling very well. I think they're all exhausted tbh - Taeyang just had a nosebleed onstage in London.

Monster m/v is a thing of wonder - the hair! the outfits! I just wish I liked the song more.

Roz, weren't you calling Daesung a tragicomic? I think both sides, the cheesy entertainer and the bad boy, exist. But also that he gets slotted into that role (bad boy) on BigBang stuff because he has the voice/looks to carry it off, plus a policy of "just singing the lines no matter what they are." It's Daesung's solo stuff that's more balladeer... perhaps that's his preference. I like Rock God Daesung, myself. Trot God Daesung is good too. In the alternate universe where Daesung is the main star of BigBang... (they would be entertainers who kept their innermost feelings to themselves, not artists who alchemized them into music).

Daesung is my favorite as a person, but TOP is my favorite as an artist. Agreed that Taeyang is back in his original role as GD's sidekick. I think he was booted out in favor of TOP around the time they debuted, which is why it's TOP and not Taeyang on their first two singles ft. Park Bom. I think Daesung was briefly a favorite, too, around the time they hit big with Lies, but that all it amounted to was more karaoke on radio shows. TOP is a better artistic foil than Daesung because he's a fellow artist and rapper. He also keeps his own perspective, unlike Taeyang who is more of a follower.

Actually I think Seungri was in the sidekick role for a while after they moved to Japan, which is why their 2009 Japanese album sounds like oversexed NSync (erm...) Then TOP again for GD&TOP, and then briefly Daesung when they both were pariahs, and also Seungri because he cried when GD became a pariah etc, and now Taeyang again finally. I kind of see Alive, Still Alive as GD&TOP breakup records actually ^^ As well as records renouncing deep, emotionally charged, dysfunctional relationships in favor of a kind of unthinking nihilism.

Monster is like Haru Haru Pt. 2. I like that the beat has more piano than Haru Haru. It was great the couple times they did it live, real musical theater stuff. I think the look of the MV might have been inspired by Tarsem Singh's 2006 movie The Fall. TOP's look is also a Chanel look for 2013 (and he's been wearing a lot of Chanel lately).

Artistically, though, I think GD's main squeeze at the moment is actually Tablo (of Epik High). He's stepping up his game as a rapper and wearing more baseball caps and graphic tees. The way he mugs for the camera in CraYon is classic Tablo. GD is all over Epik High's album <i>99</i> as well.

bad boy might be my favorite song of the year

Bad Boy acapella: sounds like church music.

Roz, weren't you calling Daesung a tragicomic?

yep. He's got that whole sad clown thing going, you know? outside of Bigbang, he's a throwback to the classic Korean entertainer before the idol machinery was created. (There's that joke that BigBang have managed to conquer all demographics, including senior citizens, because of Daesung and his love of trot and musical theatre.) And it's taking really long for him to release a full solo album because I think YG's trying hard to reconcile those two extremes.

And really, it's a crime that he doesn't have one yet, because zomg his voice. When I saw them live, I was just awestruck by how much control he had over it - powerful but never overpowering.

TOP and Dae are my ws/wkiw respectively, but G-Dragon's definitely the one I'm most fascinated by. mainly because he seems the most messed up. Also I want to raid his wardrobe (he looks about my size).

re Monster: GD's said before that it was a conscious attempt on his part to recreate the mood of Haru Haru and Lies. I dunno, it doesn't have the same dramatic effect for me as either of those - the piano is pretty, but it just feels a little overstuffed.

yeah I definitely find g-dragon the most interesting

have been tempted at several points this year to get my hair dyed platinum blonde though like TOP

Only if you wear it with your princess tiara. XD

Okay that Bad Boy acapella is really tripping me out! I never noticed those harmonies in the final choruses before.

It's really something, isn't it? This is another trippy one: http://youtu.be/bjLPR4LQE5k

GDragon reminds me of my ex.

That was maybe a bit dramatic. My ex has a number of mannerisms that are similar GDragon's, probably because she's a fan. She was also the ego-prop of a narcissistic parent, like GD was (still is?).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/16/big-bang-review

It's so lazy and condescending that find myself tempted to be one of those righteously aggrieved fans who write long forum screeds about how the reviewer is wrong wrong wrong wrong because the group is so so so so much more. Sheesh.

oh boy...

actually, hearing that Taeyang performed a CB song did piss me off. seungri though... smh

as for the review, well, it seems as if VIPs have already taken care of that in the comment box.

There's a kind of condescension, or at least ethnocentrism, to that Guardian review: their stage is "world class" because Laurienne Gibson is involved, one wonders whether Seungri even knows what he's saying about Chris Brown and Rihanna, the most notable thing about them is that they are indistinguishable from other teenybopper pop acts (not foreign at all!), etc.

The comparison to a Bieber or a One Direction concert is fair, and appears to have been meant as a compliment. It is misleading, though. The core difference between those acts and BigBang isn't polish, spectacle, passion, or style of music - that's the difference between One Direction and most K-idol acts. What sets BigBang apart is that while they technically occupy the "safe boyfriend" space discussed in e.g. this WSJ article, they are, in fact, not safe at all.

I forgive Taeyang covering Chris Brown because it's a good and appropriate song. Also because he and Seungri appear to have switched places on GDragon's naughty/nice list and I just feel bad for the dude. Seungri's joke, on the other hand, was in poor taste - but then that's Seungri all over.

http://vimeo.com/57595669#

Have been expecting this moment (when GD finally declares himself G-O-D) forever. Thought he'd done it at the Mnet Asian Music Awards, but that turned out to be a mishearing(?) of TOP declaring himself T-O-P. But here it is finally.

this is one of those moments where I just find him too embarrassing to look at. the edginesssss... it hurts. thank you based GD.

lol

http://25.media.tumblr.com/ede8292c06dc725df7ca3444ab2a190b/tumblr_mh3qyvcTxe1qzjb8ko1_1280.png

man why aren't these songs in my life right now?

Damn.

:O

Yeah, and what ever happened to the tracks Ludacris and Travie McCoy were supposed to have collaborated on???

Not to mention Skrillex/TOP (just kidding).

Maybe the Missy Elliot track, the Ludacris track, and the Travie track will be on GDragon's solo CD (take 2), due out later this year. I mean, we can only hope.

i'm kind of worried that the reason the track's been held back is that maybe it's... not very good?

that's one possibility.

actually, I think it might be Teddy. There's been rumours that he's suffering from an extended creative block or something - he's also apparently the reason 2NE1 hasn't had anything new released in over a year, apart from "I Love You". :/ as good as GD is with melodies and lyrics, he can't handle the actual production side on his own.

both of the new songs are bad

i like 'sober' as much as any of the others excepting 'bae bae'

it seems weird that they're simultaneously trying to go for this wild heterogeneity of style and sticking with one producer, and i don't know how i feel about it

This is in the other thread, but here's Sober with subtitles so we can think about how any other idol group would be pilloried for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0eT9omRQS0

Damn youtube's autoplay, the ballad is criminally underwritten... Here's Sober (also underwritten but hey, I still like those MGMT synths):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvJ40aW0-zM

And I think I'm over my embed allowance but Daesung's drumming is really quite good, on par with Sunmi's guitar skills:

https://youtu.be/qoies3-r1HM

if that WG teaser is a straight take (and it very well might not be) then sunmi's better at bass than daesung is at drumming, but this is a pleasant surprise. he sounds very likely better than Yubin, though i guess he's doing a much slower/simpler solo here than the one she tries in her teaser

It sounded more complicated to me, or at least flashier, but I only know Rockband drumming.

At least it explains the hair - dude clearly taking a page from the Muppets

Well not only is Zutter a certified jam, the live version of "Let's Not Fall In Love" sounds like it could have been on one of their earlier albums:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?nNoS2TstqVk

I liked "Lonely" and "Bae Bae" but this release is a very close second... throw the middle ones away, or better yet recruit the live band to re-record them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNoS2TstqVk

still regretting not going to see them in KL last month :/

really not sure why YG blocks their own stuff in Korea. what's wrong with Koreans seeing "let's not fall in love" live in Shenzhen?

I agree it's better live, but still, I'd say two keepers from this lot (so far?) and really only "bae bae" is more or less otm for where I think they should be at this point

Supposedly the album will just be the 8 singles they've already released repackaged together... but that doesn't make much sense so hopefully at least one more track.

https://twitter.com/theseoulstory/status/633527715140730880

yesssss.

though three weeks really isn't much time for producing new stuff - and they're still performing during those three weeks IIRC, just boycotting the music shows - but probably they have some songs kicking around to work on or can buy them, and and I believe Seungri's *entire* last EP was produced in three weeks LMAO.

what this really shows is that Inkigayo needs Big Bang more than Big Bang needs Inkigayo

GD tried harder to write an OTT dance hit for Infinity Challenge than he did for Big Bang, y/y:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=k5ey4mRP4G0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ey4mRP4G0

I should say "produce" actually, since no actual writing was in evidence LMAO

You can even hear where TOP's part would go (Kwanghee is taking Seungri's part, of course).

Another one for the lives folder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=48&v=zuW08zyYcAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=48&v=zuW08zyYcAM

Grr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=zuW08zyYcAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuW08zyYcAM

success!

Bauer x GD x MIA

https://soundcloud.com/julie-zerbo/temple-full-mia-g-dragon-baauer

MIA is much more in her element here, but it's pretty cool that GD raps a lot of this in Korean

MORE rappers freestyling over Big Bang karaoke beats, please:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0MWCxgFW9w

He's a legit fan too, takes it all the way back to La La La.

nooooooo :(:(

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/lifestyle/bigbang-s-t-o-p-hospitalised-for-suspected-drug-overdose-report-8922202

If any of them were going to end up (publicly) in the ICU, it was going to be TOP :(

Only three months into his service though, that's rough. I wonder if he'll wind up with a medical exemption like Swings.

Anyway I'm just glad TOP is still with us, for now.

RIP Big Bang / OT5.

Seungri sacrificing himself for the sake of the group as a result of his own bad behaviour seems extremely... in character.

https://www.soompi.com/article/1309402wpp/breaking-seungri-announces-retirement-from-the-entertainment-industry

And I thought it was just about being caught smoking a joint again or something:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/entertainment/jung-filming-sex-kpop-scandal-intl/index.html

Yeah. Seungri has always been a douche-y frat boy so the chatroom stuff, while gross, was not particularly surprising. It's likely not even the only one among Korean celebrity circles.

The pimping/sex trafficking allegations though... ugh.