K-pop 2013

Seems like an indie song, but looking into it a bit more Lim Kim is Kim Ye Rim is one half Two Months (also known as two gaewol), third place finalists of the same Superstar K season that gave us Busker Busker and Ulala Session.

Also! This! Is awesome!

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

Beating out MYNAME for the boyband-falsetto-of-emotional-turmoil spot in my heart.

Well indie flavored artists have been dominating the Korean talent shows for a while now. "All Right" has done very well on the charts.

Ha, that's true

Tymee gets down and angry (I definitely recommend the angry, though it's nsfw) (h/t David Frazer, yet again).

so you guys... is it poppin'??

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

Not sure yet if it's poppin'. Don't think so. Is bright and summery, and the beats push but clumsily. That's often my opinion of Brave Brothers, that his tracks are blatant in a way that only sometimes works. Except...

You'll prob'ly be pleased that After School's Brave Brothers-produced "First Love" has been a beautiful grower for me. Is a crème brûlée kinda sound, which I usually pass over, but this one just seeps in (appropriate enough, for crème). Mr. Brothers has had a lot of la-la-la in his mood recently.

Two other tracks on the Maxi Single I like almost as much, "Love Beat" which snatches every hook and technique it can find; remember that Hi Tack remix of "Say Say Say" that builds off of a repeating riff and vocal? This repeats like that but then shifts into surprising chords; adds processed vocals that manage to combine wailing and chirping. Crowded, but I like that crowd. Also like "Dressing Room"; the writing credits include Linda Sundblad, whose "Lose You" made my top ten back in 2007.

"First Love" fanchant code.

I think that I shall never see a poem ugly as a twee, and Togeworl's "Number 1" makes me reach for my hatchet. But Lim Kim's "All Right" is better than all right, is more matter-of-fact, has a steady uninflected "Girl From Ipanema" thing going on.

respect to the guy w the SATAN 13 shirt in that 4minute video

Is It Poppin' has been a big grower for me, at first I thought it was too light and breezy to pop but now I like it a lot.

wow at 'birthday cake' popping up in the middle of dressing room

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEVd9pSG85Q

Minzy <3

Minzy <3 x2

Lovely! Maybe a bit slight for a comeback single, but they look so relaxed and gorgeous that I can't complain. Didn't realise how much I've missed Bom's voice too.

I like it a lot. Nice hot summer night tune.

this song is amazing

incredible beat + white reggae vibes + extremely slight chorus = idk

great video though

minzy <3 x3

would love a solid gold soda fountain cup

BEG meet Primary on new single. Killer! http://youtu.be/oAzppvv6xjw

that's great

awesome song, Primary has been on fire this year.

"There's a new update. It looks like I'll be seeing you all as a solo artist. Don't forget T-ara's Ahreum. Thank you for giving me so much love. I felt so much love at the fan meeting and while promoting with T-ara. In the future, I'll be meeting you all with an image that's a few thousand times better than the Ahreum you saw in 'Countryside Life'. The time I had with the unnis will be a fond memory, but Ahreum will most likely be returning solo. Still, the unnis will continue to be active, so don't forget them and don't forget Ahreum either. Ahreum fighting and T-ara fighting. Thank you so much for loving Ahreum until now. Please don't ever forget the songs or performance I had with T-ara. I miss you. I love you." (allkpop)(h/t David Frazer yet again.)

I'm not even gonna comment, except that I'll mention that - finally - I actually like a rap by Ahreum, on "Target," and I like that her remit now includes wit as well as wails. Oh yeah, and over on my lj I made a callout to Subdee to comment on the blatantly obsessive predatory love-seeking in the lyrics.

(By "wit" I mean the way Ahreum delivered her rap; the farewell statement seems straightforward enough, though not exhaustively informative.)

You mean the predatory love-seeking on Target? There are suddenly a whole bunch of girl-takes-the-lead songs out, but Target does go a step further into being more blatantly about manic love than most. But then T-ara have always come on pretty strong. I like the little dig at Apink's Hush, a song where the lyric about not wanting to approach the guy first has always seemed disingenuous to me, at odds with the full-steam-ahead backing music.

Once upon a time, a pretty witch came to the town. One day, she pushed(?) back, to bring out the...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_MeX2_dAu8#at=15

Turan!!!

I also kind of like Rania Up, an advertisement for a water park. But mostly Shinhwa This Love is growing on me, more and more.

One day she put a spell to bring out the...

Double!!

Oh, put a spell. That makes so much more sense...

BESTie, containing three ex-members of EXID, debuts with the most stereotypically Kpop song ever made: http://youtu.be/gtyi5LQdfBE

It's not a bad song, actually it's fairly decent. But next to the dictionary definition of late aughts/early teens Kpop, you will find this song used as an accompanying illustration.

Speaking of songs that play it safe, A Pink's NoNoNo is decent as well!

BESTie are way more interesting in their interview than they are in their song. I especially like Dahye responding to the question about who plays what role in the group with "I'm in charge of waist-hip-pelvis line." Also love their playing with the cute-vs.-sexy concept thing, since obviously they don't buy into the dichotomy. A thought I've been working on: you can't possibly understand K-pop if you actually believe that "cute" and "sexy" are opposite to one another. Sunny* of SNSD would be completely beyond your comprehension, as would E.via/Tymee. As would T-ara, as would the video-to-video image shifts by Girl's Day, as would the Orange Caramel/After School shenanigans. Even HyunA as sex princess / haughty moll / lovable dork / pikachu cutie-cake / bubble-pop pie would be pretty disorienting. Nonetheless, the idea of cute vs. sexy is obviously a common reference, the idea having force even though no one can possibly believe it. And since it has force, performers can play with it.

BESTie are with YNB Entertainment so I'm guessing have no ties left with AB Entertainment or Shinsadong Tiger, the producer/writer whose baby EXID is. YNB also seems to share control of the hip-hop-leaning girl group D-Unit with D-Business Entertainment. Someone'll have to diagram it all for me.

*The cutie-pie hottie who'll show leg on a lark and will pout for fun and make no bones about the fact that she's the smartest person in the room.

*The cutie-pie hottie who'll show leg on a lark and will pout for fun and make no bones about the fact that she's the smartest person in the room.

^^my eyes jumped to this and i thought it was like an engrish press release

Meaning what?

Distressingly, I've been spending a couple hours unable to find any remaining Eng Sub versions on the web of SNSD And The Dangerous Boys Ep 8, for which I apparently wrote the (imo) dead-on accurate press release. The available clips of the leg-showing, jammed together and out of context, come off as just wanton and ridiculous, rather than the short diversions they actually were (but here they are if you want to see), but there is a decent excerpt of the Cross Examination Of Yoona. What strikes me about that second bit of business is how incredibly humane Sunny and Yoona are being to the boys. It's a reality show, and the idea is that the members of SNSD are mentoring some teenage boys who've been in trouble in school. (Pause for a moment to think of the equivalent on American TV: Britney Spears and Rihanna take in hand troubled teenagers, gently demonstrating to them how to negotiate the difficulties of adolescence. Nine episodes. Edifying.) While the boys were trying to sleep, one of them kept getting on the nerves of another, wouldn't let up, so the other threw a small desk lamp at him, hard, but (says the perpetrator) deliberately missing. So SNSD concoct a mock trial, Sunny as Clarence Darrow for the defense. So what Sunny and Yoona are doing, in effect, is coming up with a way to tell the kids, Look, it's human, you get tired, you screw up and you spin out, we're like that too. But my feeling is that if you say that directly to a kid, with warmth, you're actually making him feel weak, as if he needs your reassurance (and who are you, adult superstar, to tell me you understand me and that you're like me?). Whereas if you show it, in a mock trial, with hilarity rather than "sympathy," they maybe are able to receive the (genuinely sympathetic) message.

(Too bad the clip cuts off when it does; right afterwards, Yoona is saying what she'd have done in the boy's situation, rather than what the boy actually did, and Sunny immediately tries to get her ruled out of order for going beyond the scope of the question.)

Ah, found it. Here's Eng Sub of the final two segments (last half) of episode 8. Court starts at 3:43 of the second-to-the-last segment, Sunny's examination of Yoona starts at 4:02 of the final segment. Sunny does leg stuff at 11:25, 11:56, 16:31, and 17:29 of the second-to-the-last segment.

GGDB8 3-4
GGDB8 4-4

Sunny is the best

On a slightly different note, EXO's Let Out the Beast!

Emotional-manly-man/flowery-cutie-boy is the boyband equivalent of the cute/sexy divide, and it doesn't really work either. Though in general boybands have more leeway outside of that binary.

Also, the insistence that girls can either be cute and innocent, or sexual and deviant, makes a bit more sense when you consider how huge the sex trade is in South Korea.

Let Out the Beast, take 2: http://youtu.be/0x51LEcRVT4

Tymee tweeted on June 22nd: "다같이 원! 빠빠 빠~빠~ 빠빠빠빠" (Google Translate gives us "Won together! Bar-Bar-ppappa ppappa ppappa"). Also likes "Dancing Queen."

Infinite Destiny: http://youtu.be/BDbpE6qHDSA

Not sure the huge MV budget improves the final product - why build a huge set if you're just going to dance in it in formation like always? - but am pleasantly surprised by the song. Normally teasers have the best 5 seconds and the full version disappoints, this but this is much better than the "you're my destiny" hook parts. I think the song loses some momentum at the 2:30 mark when they try to shoehorn in more time for Infinite's weaker singers/rapper, though. Should have skipped all of that and kept it under 3:30.

Get hyped, my favorite k-pop group f(x) is coming back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4u3BzM0rqo

I am hype! They're rockin the indie aesthetic, too.

I love that they're sticking with that approach, no doubt the single will sound like f(x) and only f(x) again as well.

Omonatheydidnt demographics 2013 http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/11467637.html

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/turdferguson/9674166/38618/38618_original.png

http://25.media.tumblr.com/cd76bd7c123c2dc79b519db618d50c0c/tumblr_mpxhbd9yZJ1rb6p8oo1_1280.png

Bar Bar Bar is having a bit of a second life on the charts

http://i.imgur.com/cXlwlav.gif

The Loof Loof is on fire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfOtieDrDkA

OMG that song is terribad, I'm tempted to put it on the "worst pop songs of 2013" thread. On the plus side, it's a better big-budget video than Infinite's.

And there's no way that "the loof is on fire" is NOT an intentional mispronunciation - especially on a song that uses "we are hurricane" as the hook. I enjoy bad English as much as anyone but this just fees like pandering.

OK OK, so the song is not really that bad. Except for the chorus coming out of the dance break, that part is inexcusable. The rest is bombastic and oversung, but produced at a high level.

Nah the song is pretty terrible except for the post-chorus bits. How sloppy is that bridge :(

What's the best K-Pop song of 2013 so far?

I don't actually think of songs that way, but

I Like That (GLAM)
I Got a Boy (SNSD)
On and On (VIXX)
Get Up (EvoL)
Sweet Dream (MFBTY)
Rhythm is Life (Gaeko)
This Love (Shinhwa)
Lie (NSONIC)
Mama Beat (Lc9)

are all pretty high up there for me right now. Also really like both 4minute summer jams, and 2NE1 Falling in Love, Psy's Gentleman (which is also a summer jam, tragically released too early the year), and VIXX's hyde, and Shinee's Dream Girl/Why So Serious, and Jay Park's Joah, and G.NA ft Illhoon's Oops, and MBLAQ's Smokey Girl, and 2pm's ADTOY, and B1A4's What's Going On, and Lim Kim's All Right, and Sistar19's Gone Not Around Any Longer, and Teen Top Miss Right, and Tara N4 Jeon Won Diary, and Delight MegaYak, and C-Clown Shaking Heart, and Lee Hi Special/Turn it Up, and Zion.T Babbay, and MIB Money in the Building, and AA Come Back, and Kim Sori Dual Life, and Chocolat Black Tinkerbell, and Crayon Pop Bar Bar Bar.

This is also an awesome song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G52NcdrLO_A#at=51