K-pop (2014)

I think we talked about her in the Bigbang thread a little bit.

I loved SHINee's various Misconception LP's last year. A special favorite was "Music Box," though its being an ambitious ballad, I don't know what line of descent to put it in (other than "Ambitious Ballad").

(Sorry for mistyping your name, Roz.)

Just listened to WINNER and wow @ Empty, Team A fans who complained about YG playing favorites must be SO mad (Team B's B.I. wrote the song). For that matter, Team B fans can't be too happy at YG taking a very Team-B-ish songs and giving it to the rival group either.

"Color Ring" is a lot more WINNER-like and showcases their strengths as vocalists better, I hope it stomps all over Empty on the charts.

*at YG taking a very Team-B-ish song away from Team B and giving it to the "rival" group to promote as their single, that is.

Just on principle that is, neither song is my thing. "Color Ring" kind of reminds me of Eric Nam's Heaven's Door from last year.

Actually... Empty is the one that sounds like Heaven's Door. They kind of blurred together in my mind due to the similar MVs.

To bring the conversation back to SHINee... I'm kind of looking forward to Taemin's solo debut o_0

They have him going for max visual impact like (say) HyunA or Hyomin, but Taemin also has technical chops as a singer

Empty is kind of a stronger song than Color Ring tho *grudging*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt_caHc08GM

the three members of orange caramel can be IDed by their hairstyles and the fact that they are NOT wearing the same orange shirts as everyone else

re Winner: only managed to listen to the album once through but not really feeling it, or either of the title tracks tbh. Kind of a savvy move starting out with the slow jams though - Korea already loves ballads but it feels like they've been especially popular this year post-Sewol.

Main point of interest for me with this group is that they have three active songwriters who lean towards different styles (Mino: hiphop, Taehyun: ballads/EDM/pop, Seungyoon: sad rock/acoustic) but it seems like their individual quirks got watered down on the album as they tried to accommodate each other as well as produce songs with broad appeal.

am also looking forward to Taemin and Orange Caramel!

Yeah, Empty is okay (I can I admit it) but WINNER aren't winning with this.

(Except on the digital singles charts where I believe they are #1 and #2 at the moment.)

Shinsadong Tiger wrote Fiestar's One More! Which is a apparently, and I only know this because Loen put it in the video description box, about wanting a threesome. The song is awesome but Fiestar look sluggish and faint with hunger in their live performances, it makes me sad.

i really dig "Empty." you can definitely hear the Team B in it, but Taehyun and Jinwoo's melodies take it somewhere else. i'll agree with y'all it's not the album i wanted from Winner, but it's nice and a very solid album 1 foundation for their discography.

yeah, their potential is 100% in their three in-band songwriters/producers, plus LSH is a good lyricist/prodigy choreographer, and even Jinwoo is said to have creatively contributed to the new album. i understand that YG wanted to keep them under close watch for their crucial debut, but hopefully as they grow and hone their (already ace) instincts, they'll be able to take greater control of their albums. i generally appreciate k-pop's authenticity-agonistic worldview, but i think it'd be really cool to have a group that really does virtually everything themselves (which would be unique for idol pop around the globe, too).

Highlights from KCON 2014:

B1A4 - What's Going On + Solo Day
CN BLUE - Can't Stop
GDragon - Crooked
Girls Generation - MR MR + Mr. Taxi + Gee
Teen Top - Miss Right

There *must* be another idol group who handle their own songwriting and so on... aren't SPEED pretty much a self-managed group these days, from songwriting to stage image to choreo? And there's also AA (Double A) who you know are going it alone because everyone else in their company is an actor, and Block B.

WINNER having so much of a hang in their product is interesting because the "image" they've decided on (or their label decided on) is this male-model thing and models are the last people you think about when you think about agency.

Cute song from Shorry of Mighty Mouth (ft. K Will) http://youtu.be/lp1Yh2Qtr7c

Great performance of my other favorite B1A4 album track http://youtu.be/GtAr_F56g2Q

i think the thing that marks Winner out from the rest is that their music seems to be genuinely collaborative - whereas e.g. with BigBang, even when TOP or someone else is credited for lyrics, you know that the one calling the shots is ultimately G-Dragon. Same with Block B/Zico and SPEED/Taewoon.

Otherwise yeah, I dunno much about AA but SPEED does their own choreo and Block B have a lot of control over their image and presentation (otoh they're a group who haven't done well with rigid concepts, so it's much better for them to just be their goofy and nutty selves all the time lol).

AA's music is 100% Aora & choreo is 100% Woosang and they have - had? - a shared <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4JmhB65O2I";>Pride parade</a> aesthetic. I dunno if they're still an active group though, they've been MIA since June last year. But that's the thing, there must be other self-made idols groups out there, especially in Japan where there's more of an indie-idol culture.

I think Big Bang are pretty collaborative, but GD ultimate gets the credit for their group efforts. But hard to prove that, lol.

HTML.... >__> Pride parade video is http://youtu.be/J4JmhB65O2I

Taemin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8m2JIDjKU#t=70

Closer to TVXQ than SHINee. He sounds like Yoo Youngjin here, on the pre-release track he sounded like SHINee's Jonghyun, I wonder what he himself actually sounds like.

Though speaking of WINNER's model image, http://koreabizwire.com/yg-entertainment-stock-hits-15-daily-limit-on-news-of-louis-vuitton-investment/16620

Orange Caramel!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqSF_9Zf0n4

A++ MV. Where's Waldo?, spot-the-difference, and mesmerizing choreography = maximum replay value

I kinda like the repeating sax bit but there's too much manic production on this, it's like too heavy or something

Duble Sidekick coming for all the Sweetune groups: here's their new single for Kara, http://youtu.be/6tK0XUQQ3wA

I can't take "Mama Mia" seriously as a hook but this is pretty good!

Busker Busker's Jang Beom June returns: http://youtu.be/hKFtA1g1CAU really unique vocals, this guy

Both OC and Kara SOUND good but I'm not sure if the songs back the production up. Fun stuff from OC as usual though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sos6Dr3SU24

nice!

BTS are describing their new single as "Boy in Love, grown up" and it's true in the worst possible way: http://youtu.be/43r6lXilbcQ

like YIKES

Yo! It's Brave Double Tiger...
The title of this song is STRESS

Whoops, wrong link. The right one is here http://youtu.be/MHc7goRozlM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmWf1pFjodY

Sunny Hill being the girlgroup for adults they always were

Their mini is also out and it's pretty unadventurous, basic acoustic guitar stuff + more of the retro stuff other girlgroups are doing. I dunno if they're ever gonna go back to the experimental style they had for Midnight Circus/The Grasshopper Song/Is the White Horse Coming.

I like the single though... Office Ladies of the world unite!

Also new this week:

Stellar - Mask http://youtu.be/UGOO2FO9Ipo good in a low-key way, video still has some questionable scenes like Marionette did but overall I'm feeling sorry for going off on centurionprix about that

Lip Service - Too Fancy http://youtu.be/0K_891MD-kU between the chorus lifted from Macklemore, sax solo lifted from Ariana Grande and title, you get the impression they weren't 100% prepared for the success of Yum Yum Yum

Finally made my way to the GP Basic track forapper linked upthread, which I think may be getting a second push. Strong, punchy track that's still got a lilt and a spark. I actually like the track it's paired with even more, "Black Bounce" - a throat grabber with real beauty amidst the grabbing. Youngest member, Janey, was a guest with D-Unit on the latter's excellent work last year. Four years ago, when she was 13, she was actually barred from performing onstage with GP Basic, the govt deciding that for her to perform on TV amounted to her being exploited. For all the emphasis on the group members' youthfulness, there's nothing in their sound that comes across as kids' stuff, except their voices formerly sounding like young people's.

Kudos to soyrev. I especially like (1) the emphasis on musical form and the disruption of same, and (2) that the list is relatively idiosyncratic based on what you find interesting rather than on your trying to cover all the bases that everyone else thinks needs to be covered. Idiosyncratically enough, the two picks that I might have included (given my own different, idiosyncratic taste) are Ga-In's "Tinkerbell" and Girl's Days' "Nothing Lasts Forever." The latter hits my Yardbirds-Dylan-James Brown craving, i.e., their taking a bit of a song and instead of getting on with or going back to the song, working and stretching that bit until it becomes the bulk of the song itself.

I'm not sure the relatively modest social media attention Yum Yum Yum got was all that hard to handle for Lip Service - Too Fancy's stuck on my brain since MV release anyway. don bissa bissa bissa.

Sunny Hill's single is a step in the right direction, absolutely, but yes, the worry is that they'll go back to being bland and shitty like the tepid pre-release ballad. You used to trust that, successful or not, they'd try to push boundaries sonically and lyrically - and that's why their fanbase and sales steadily grew. For inexplicable reasons they dropped that image and I'm not sure they have confidence enough in the group to not jump from style to style.

Lip Service got some good press overseas... like on reddit... I like that they're sticking with trap and I like their rapping-chanting, it's just hard to get over the Thrift Shop lift.

Black Bounce is great!

Actually it (Black Bounce) kinda reminds me of this MIB song from last year: black suit, black shoes, black tie, black watch, black sunglass, black car... turn up the music bounce

Great interview with YG music video director Dee Shin (she directed Akdong Musician's "Melted" and 2NE1's "Come Back Home"): http://ygfamilyy.tumblr.com/post/95503601079/yg-mv-director-dee-shin-beyondhallyu-interview

At first, we actually shot [2NE1's Come Back Home] to be two videos – one for the original version and another for the acoustic version... They were supposed to each have their own full story lines that followed on from each other. But when YG saw the two videos he felt that they weren’t tight enough to be two full music videos. So we re-edited and mixed the two stories together and made this rather avant-garde video with puzzles to be solved.

Explains a lot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y32eBvUeDus

This was an album track on their last mini but someone at SM or Woolim had the bright idea of digging it up and re-recording it in Mandarin now that Kpop is taking off in China. I think it sounds better in Chinese!

Speaking of great songs getting rescued from the bin, here's GOT7 doing JJProject's Bounce: http://youtu.be/Mz8fld71CH0

<333

New Sistar single http://youtu.be/8PrNPhVexE4

looks like it had a much bigger budget than these "thank you for supporting us" follow-up filler songs usually have

also woah, manic cheesecake