More K-pop and J-pop

[koganbot]

Some excellent, excellent commentary on K-pop and J-pop (and a bit of Chinese pop) by Anonymous down in the comment thread to my mid-year lists, along with over a dozen video embeds.* Anyway, I'd like to stir up the local hivemind on what you think is going on in these three videos (and K-pop and J-pop in general, if you have any ideas; you're

Comments

[petronia]

The first one is great (...for something that appears to be a beer commercial...) - it kinda reminds me of the ending of Grease? What is up with the hairstyles though!? And the Adam Lambert makeup?! /dying

[petronia]

"Like Beyonce," says E.Via - this is pretty risque for Korea, although the superflat presentation and the squeaky-clean cuteness of the girl(s?) remind me of Youtube memes like Caramelldansen, or Kim Ok-Bin (geez I just realized she is the same person as the lead actress in Thirst! It's like Nicole Scherzinger winning a prize at Cannes). Timeline-wise perhaps Kim Ok-Bin was the domesticization of Beyonce-style booty-shaking, and from thereon to the mainstream? Despite E.Via making fun of Asian Poses(tm) in the other vid this is much cuter/friendlier/less threatening than Ok-Bin Herself, whose (massive) sex appeal is grounded in to-hell-with-game-face sullenness. (This worked really well for her in the movie, too.)

[petronia]

AKB48: ...erm wow this is idoru group pop, definitely, but instead of incorporating pop-punk (which we've seen) it's got bleed-through from International Emo** instead, which in the Japanese context comes across as a bit visual-kei...? The haircuts and the hint of 19th century in the uniforms, mostly. Them's some hard-hitting lyrics, too (the first translation is very accurate). Meanwhile vid-wise I'm reading a tATu-esque tale of TEEN LESBIANISM AND OSTRACIZATION - long-haired girl A and short-haired girl B are good friends, A expresses romantic interest in B and is shunned for it (or is shunned anyway and B betrays her), A commits suicide, B feels guilty (per lyrics, sin of omission - she didn't do anything to help A). What matters is the universe of the kids themselves, adults are neither wanted nor able to help/understand.

** International Emo: contrast and compare Jena Lee - Je Me Perds (I Lose Myself), which is also about texting and teen suicide from school rooftops, only IN FRENCH FROM FRANCE. Interestingly I'd very much

[koganbot]

Kim Ok-bin (born in 1986) named the Korean Beyonce due to her dance skills is an actress and model who was voted Hottie of the year 2006 by M-net. When she won the honor of being the co-host for the annual M-net music festival, as a Lady, she was supposed to do something that is intended to warm up the audience. While supporting her, M-net put some of her moves on the air to help promote the festival.

omg... she was naturally shy and a quiet girl actually. so no one expected that she could dance like this, jesus in lingerie thing

[koganbot]

[koganbot]

Nothing else I'm finding online by AKB48 seems remotely like "Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou," either in music or look.

(Also is amazing to me that groups with so many members can connect to an audience. I'm sure there are a whole lot of subtleties in how this happens.)

[askbask]

Browsing through a few AKB48 videos the darkest and most in-your-face controversial tune seemed to me to be "Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru". I thought The Crystals' "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" was the most shocking girl group tune, but the translation to this one genuinely made me rub my eyes.

I don't know too much about j-pop, k-pop is my bag, so I don't know who has written this. I assume it's an adult.

[petronia]

The guy behind AKB48 is Akimoto Yasushi and he is a lyricist, so that is the nexus between all songs (hundreds of them). There are happy songs, sexually camp songs, sad songs, romantic songs, rock songs, etc. Should check but probably there is no other with such negativity or social intentions, but there are other songs that touch things with rawness (like “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru”, probably with more meaning if you know that the main singers are 14-15-16 years old girls, what “enjo kosai” means, or another hit Akimoto had with his former mega girl band, Onyanko Club) or strange emotions (one that I remember, girl that is travelling on the train with her family and thinks that the guy she is in love with never will correspond her, so instead of letting all of this get lost, she will give it to old guy that is on front of her on the train, because she really don’t care). But most of the songs are about interpersonal relationships, fears, anxiety, loneliness, searching for love, sex instead of it, etc

[petronia]

(only found it here without going to Chinese stream sites: http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/music/watch/v20031807gTyCDmgj)

One of the b-sides of the last single, “Boku no Yell” picture some of the girls as soccer team, and even if they try their best, they loose the match.

On “Choose Me”, that ends this way “Please choose your love/ from among your classmates/ Only one person/ Yes, your lover/Please choose your love/Everyone is cute/Everyone also has a good personality/For sure, I am out of range/ Just one thing that I can win in/I like you more than anyone”, there are stairs that you can never reach the top, watching beautiful landscapes (through the window), the sea, open, immense at their backs but they never look at it, playing DS while you are almost crying, etc. But maybe that is one of the subtleties that make me connect with the group…

Mexicans do car crashes better

[koganbot]

Jena Lee seems to call her style emo R&B!

But Mexicans do car crashes better:

[koganbot]

Don't know if E.via's "Can I Do It?" is considered threatening or cute (or both), but as askbask says below, she seems to be baiting controversy (rather than merely trying to sell herself as a sex queen like early Donna Summer; she seems more hip-hop or even alternative than that, though I may be way off with that latter designation; but just as I read mid-'00s Robyn as coming from a semi-feminist dance-pop left while turning the sexiness up to 10, I'm thinking [or hoping] that E.via's from somewhere similar, critiquing her cuteness while having it too).

[petronia]

[koganbot]

I imagined, when I heard this, that at 1:12 the statement "I can't fuck you here" was piped-in in the background, in English. But that's probably only my invention, and what was being said was probably actually in Korean. [UPDATE: I have no ideas what I'm referring to. Had to re-embed, 'cause other version was snuffed by YouTube; maybe my fantasy voice shows up at 2:05 in this one.]