CrowleyHead

Well-known member
crowl, please could you give us one of your long posts about k-pop.

I don't have the knowledge for that and I don't want it! The people who get the knowledge tend to be obsessive and abrasive about their knowledge. It's better just to gauge things in the dives. Just bear witness to the tunes. The experts will try to tell you some useless group with half a single is cutting the edge of music while they go get drunk with record execs on their personal time while vacationing in Seoul on Daddy's Dime.
 

Trillhouse

Well-known member
Yeah ^that video sums up the underbelly of kpop pretty well. Although it's strange he didn't make more of the soft power thing and that the whole Korean wave thing came from a gov. initiative after the President noticed that the latest US summer blockbuster had grossed more than their major industries that year. Now Korean pop, tv and film dominate in many ways across the Asian market.

The dark side of kpop is very real, of the groups I posted above (6 odd years ago);
Secret have stopped performing because they're in a bitter legal battle with their management over not being paid.
Afterschool's management just stopped promoting or giving them any new music, even though they are all still under contract.
Hello Venus kinda split up, then came back with a new 'sexy' image and are now barely idols, more just girls who dance in skimpy clothing at cheap concerts.
Glam disbanded after one of the members was convicted of trying to extort money from a famous actor.
Sistar broke up, but were a rare success story.
Spica broke up after making no money, most likely leaving the members in debt.
2NE1 eventually disbanded after one of the members was involved in a drugs scandal - she was importing anti anxiety sedatives from the US, for personal use, but they were illegal in Korea. Their label mates at YG, Big Bang have stopped promoting after a key member was caught smoking weed whilst on military duty, which he tried to rectify by od'ing on benzo's, thankfully he recovered, unfortunately a member of Shinny, SM's rival boy band to Big Bang, succeeded in killing himself after battling depression for most of his short adult life.

The Kpop machine keeps on rolling regardless. There's always a fresh new set of identikit trainees to simply take over where the others left off.

Twice. the new 'nations girl group'. They've taken over the mantle from SNSD, although they're from a rival agency JYP - the leader of which was recently accused of being a downlow member of a cult. Korea has a real problem with very powerful, weird, quasi xian cults. The last President (who was herself sung about in a kpop hit 'Female President' paid for in part by gov investment) was brought down by huge scandal involving a cult. Twice are dominating Korean charts and breaking new records for girl group sales with each new release. They sure are smiley.


Mamamoo. You could call them the new Spica, although they're much more successful. They're currently the popular vocal focused female group. A lot of their music is pretty middle of the road but they have quite a positive image. They're not typical starved, identikit, idol types and a lot of their success comes from their personalities and entertaining appearances on variety and reality shows. It's not enough for idols to sing and dance to a ridiculously high level of precision they must be all round entertainers; being funny, charming and producing cringy improv on demand all whilst being permanently and ridiculously positive at all times. They also seem to be strangely fond of a bogel.


Black Pink. After 2NE1 imploded YG simply replaced them with the younger 2.0 version. 2NE1 were the second most popular girl group in Korea for several years and BP seemed to be on course for similar success, but they've been around 2 years and have only released 3 singles. Their management company seems to becoming somewhat of a joke, especially after their fronted 'create a pop group' reality show ended with no music actual being recorded or released; imagine Xfactor but with no cash grab single at the end of it to fill Simon Cowell's pockets. Instead the only result was a lawsuit on behalf of the individuals involved and the public being left wondering why they'd wasted everyone's time.


OhMyGirl. The latest in a long line of cutesy girl groups. Although they may seem super saccharine, they're actually at the more rounded level of cute girl groups. Their image allows them to be slightly sexy and at least display some of the traits you'd expect in strong modern women. All of which probably sounds quaintly odd to western ears, but if you look further down the spectrum of cute kpop groups, epitomized currently by GFriend, you'll find a whole next level. Whilst, for the male gaze at least, OMG are meant to represent an ideal cute/sexy girlfriend material, GFriend are meant to appeal to a male audience for who female sexuality is somehow a little too threatening. It's almost like they just want to stare at the doe eyed pretty girl but they have to stay completely inaccessible to them and anyone else. Their fans will say they support them like a younger sister or young niece, but they'd all totally lose interest if their favourite member was found out to be dating. There's a big infantilizing trend running through a lot of kpop, and wider Korean society to an extent. In the days of hypersexualised pop acts being commonplace, especially in the West, a trend going the other way on paper sounds to be a positive, but the reality of it is too creepy.



(G)I-DLE. AKA 4minute 2.0. 4Minute's management decided it weren't bothered about renewing their contracts and unceremoniously dumped all the members bar Hyuna, who also had a flourishing solo career. Much more profitable for them to simply replace them with an identikit set of younger girls on new contracts with no demands of a fairer deal. Not long after that Hyuna would also end up being forced out of the company after it emerged she was dating a boy from the company's boy group Pentagon. He was kicked out as well, and they're both now living happily ever after on instagram.


IU. A rare positive light. She's been quietly ruling in the solo female pop sphere for several years now and has always been a talented performer / singer but she seems to be growing as a artist with each new album. This is her latest in which she's giving haters a yellow card and cheerily letting the people know they need to back the fuck off. There are others out there doing similar things and having some creative involvement, but few are on the level of IU. Gain seemed to be trying to follow a similar career path, but the last i heard of her was that she was grassing up and friend for offering her weed to cure her depression. She felt in necessary to publicly state she would never touch it cause it's illegal and that she was already receiving legal opioid injections thank you very much. Too much wtf. She ended up being investigated by the police and went into treatment of some kind


Sunmi. Former Wonder Girls member left JYP and proved you can still have a flourishing second fase career, even if you are now a 10 year veteran and over 25. Other former members Yenny & Yubin have also had solo singles (Yubin tried to release a cover of City Pop anthem Plastic Love, until they realised the Future Funk artist they'd contacted to produce it hadn't done anything to actually change the original bar overdub some snares.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_CFBjAyPWE
Red Velvet. As seen a few posts up. Flying the flag for 90s rnb production. SM definitely have the best ear for outside production but their acts are generally drilled to the point of being automatons, so the result can be an odd mix. Several of the members of SNSD have been releasing solo tracks, some of which are musically interesting enough to be posted here, but they just have the feeling that the singer is pretty much interchangeable to the point of being almost irrelevant beyond marketing a name. I know that's what manufactured pop can be, but when it's done at an organisation level to such a regimented, well orchestrated degree, it reaches into some kind of uncanny valley and risks becoming wholly depersonalized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR3DcUMLeN0
 
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luka

Well-known member
fascinating, thank you. this is maybe something for another thread, i dunno, but the continued influence of LaChapelle throughout eastern and western pop music videos is worth noting. http://www.lachapellestudio.com/
there's something very powerful about it. it really conveys the sense of the Spectacle existing on a higher level of Reality to our own. it feels like being trolled by the gods and goddesses who live there. i like it a lot.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
May respond to Trillhouse at some point or even go into furthers but that Twice - TT song has been one of my favorite songs for a few years now, I love it so much.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8PVVRBZNsrE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q45tjBrNYrE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Other recent gems from groups that hadn't been mentioned yet.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
These as well

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ubOKdWQYyls" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WZwr2a_lFWY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KR5CtMLuiqQ" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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