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

M Countdown stages suffered from too much bactrack but the official BTS video is quality: https://youtu.be/hk-XeYDlcTE?t=3m0s

the obvious young thug-derived "skirt skirt" stuff is so silly, hahaha (wonder if he got it from thug or from keith ape getting it from thug...)

that "loser" stage is especially insane. you know the label has to pay for everything on these shows, too, which makes the one-time-only aspect of all that investment especially nuts.

also, fuckin ridiculous i have to use a VPN to watch k-pop videos in korea : |

the Loser stage at least makes use of the LED columns that were already part of Inkigayo's main set - they just look better because YGE has some of the best lighting designers in the biz. The Bae Bae one seems way more of a hassle - all those flowers scattered on the stage couldn't have been easy to clean up. Plus what else can they do with a set worth of fake flowers afterwards?

soyrev, you should be able to watch them on the artist's official Youtube channel, no?

sometimes! not always cross-posted. easier to just fire up spotflux anyway :)

didnt know inkigayo had those columns already. but i've seen YG build huge elaborate staircases and the like for winner stages, etc

After watching those I

1) need to get a varsity jacket
2) think with a few minor adjustments I almost have seungri's hair, minus the platinum dye

Other groups stood under the columns, only Big Bang built staircases to stand on top.

Last week's (Inkigayo) Loser stage was their live stage transported to SBS. But last week's M Countdown stage was truly nuts, Bae Bae's set was suspended from the ceiling, Loser's had Big Bang moving up and down in tiny elevators. I don't think the fancy sets necessarily improved the performance though... this was kind of my issue when I saw them at the Prudential Center, tooooooo much flash.

Gender-fuckery, c/o Roz:

http://s21.postimg.org/65yur3non/BIGBANG2.png

Generally men wear blue, women wear pink on this talk show:

http://images.hanbeat.com/data/images/full/14663/happy-together-3-ep-366.jpg?w=750

Also here's Taeyang on why he likes wearing women's clothing, and other issues related to fashion, art, and cooking:

http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/15826524.html#comments#comments

it's a little weird how much their personalities have merged over the years - some parts of that interview sound like TOP talking, other parts like GD. and honestly, Taeyang was NOT the bigbang member i expected to talk about wearing women's clothes so extensively, it's pretty great.

also, name-dropping Miriam Schapiro! <3

I was thinking exactly the same, he's become a mashup of GD and TOP lmao but no one else has talked about their love of cooking shows yet!

When you starting getting into cooking, gardening, and home decorating, that's when you know you're getting old.

forapper, do you remember that discussion we had a few years ago where we were trying to figure out whether GD's love of skirts was a genuine form of genderplay, mere fashion-forwardness or just trolling (or a combination of the three?). Taeyang's interview feels a bit like a response to that. I mean, here we have arguably the most masculine (in the traditional sense) member of BB saying that he likes wearing women's clothes because he thinks they neutralise his masculinity, plus buying feminist art, and admitting to loving flowers and cooking - it all adds a few extra layers to the discussion.

there's a part of me that still can't quite believe that all of this is coming from the current biggest Asian boyband in the world who hail from what is still one of the most patriarchal societies in the region. Let's not deny that BB have always been a deeply problematic band, but I love how their fashion-forwardness + penchant for breaking rules have ended up with them actively fighting rigid gender norms in both mainstream pop and Korean society in general.

Maybe... we had a lot of discussions, lol. I don't think you have to classify it, but GD's been sending these messages for literally years so whatever's going on is probably pretty deep-seated.

Taeyang on the other hand is right about neutralizing his masculinity, lmao. It's better for artists to be kind of androgynous, right? Just being manly would be boring.

Speaking of Big Bang merging into one being though, Taeyang seems more open than he used to be while GD seems much MUCH more religious... refer to that MV analysis you sent me.

excellent teaser image for round 2:

http://41.media.tumblr.com/9792ca1af3aa5d99c69e26787c77636c/tumblr_nozgqvkEAO1qzjb8ko1_1280.jpg

: ) : )

Sudden flashbacks to Coup D'Etat

I know you guys are talking about it in the k-pop thread but i'm not caught up yet

did anybody else think they were taking some cues from mad max for the BANG BANG BANG vid? haha

Yes, and the MV was shot like 2 weeks ago so that could totally have happened.

We could even relate it to the title of this thread (if we stretch), since the new Mad Max has all these markers of hyper-masculinity BUT is feminist.

Also, the woman chained to GD in their master-slave scenario is Parris Goebel, the MV choreographer(!!).

Of course, the song still sucks.

This is amazing though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=81&v=i8MSB1KWluc

From the top!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8MSB1KWluc

wouldn't be surprised since mad max totally fits big bang's desert apocalypse aesthetic (love song, fantastic baby, monster, coup d'etat).

patiently waiting for a BB dance cover now that Seungri's tweeted that Kara mashup video (it won't happen but a girl can dream...)

Seungri, alone, can cover it for comedy value during one of their concert interludes.

It can happen!

live stage upping the mad max vibes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itc1IWddUxo

Both songs sound 10x better live but that's almost entirely down to BB clearly having too much fun onstage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ1nX7tt3H4

OMG that cowboy hat hahahahahaha

Iunno I think Bang Bang Bang is still boring and lazy live.

We Like 2 Party is improved though, nice n relaxed, good enough for an album closer or extra.

If they're gonna be uninspired, they might as well go for this kind of drunk-shouty-lazy-relaxed beach vibe, and not force it.

Going for One Direction exactly in the MV (the hotel room scenes are kinda weird with no extras though):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFmfi1vM7co

i dunno, i thought there was something nice about the fact that they left the models behind for once.

sort of the reverse of SHINee's summer fantasy in View.

I don't believe Big Bang hangs out together in hotel rooms :p

Apparently they filmed those scenes in the studio tho, must have been super cheap

the inflatable pool animals remind me of fetish vids haha u_u

Bang3x has totally grown on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d7Oj3PZIco

Also I prob should have checked the lyrics earlier lol but there's actually a line about Valhalla in there, so yeah definitely right about the Mad Max refs haha. makes me wonder how late this song was recorded in order to fit that line in. (of course, they could have known about the concept of Valhalla before MM, but it's too much of a coincidence.)

I get the good part of the song stuck in my head all the time lol

Still hasn't grown on me, I cringe every time the chorus comes on LOL

Of course, there's still time between now and September for them to tweak the instrumental a little bit

This is cute tho:

https://instagram.com/p/3qeu-Nh5TY/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=video

the lead up to the chorus best part of both bbb and party

The reverse of that KARA mashup video is just as entertaining

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVcfmp7h8Vo

There are some girlgroup-looking moves in there LMAO

And 2PM sounding like a mix of themselves and TVXQ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pFB1dCSo4

Whoops, wrong thread.

ahahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f95JFW2eHtM

this makes me sad I'm not going to their KL gig, but the tickets cost 1/8th of my paycheck. u_u

lol

Was going to the NJ leg with a friend, but we got Sunday (a school night) by mistake so I might have to sit it out :/

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