Of three recent albums by K-pop big shots (SNSD, 2NE1, and After School, w/ 4minute and Super Junior-M in my to-do pile), After School's is head and shoulders above the rest, once again. I still have no sense of the members' individual musical personalities, if they have any, and not much sense of a collective personality either, sonically. "Smooth ( Read more... )

I'm sure there are many more, as well. I'm not claiming these tracks are heavily Afro-Cuban. But they do use one of the clave rhythms:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
X . . X . . X . . . X . X . . .

Turan "Bang Bang Bang"

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TINY-G "Minimanimo"

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2NE1 "Falling In Love"

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And I'm always looking for an excuse to repost this - Bo wasn't Cuban either ( Read more... )

[For some reason, when I was adding tags, livejournal deleted this entire entry, along with its comments [EDIT: Likely I hit a wrong button]. So I'm reposting this list. It originally went up January 1st, 2012, 23:54.]

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1. T-ara "Lovey-Dovey"
2. Orange Caramel "Lipstick"
3. Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker"


( Read more... )

Excellent commentary by arbitrary_greay on "Gangnam Style" and related matters over at the SNSD Free For All. Includes this mashup of "Gangnam Style," "I Am The Best," and "Fantastic Baby," which shouldn't work as well as it does, given how crowded it gets, with all three of them trying to find room on the divan:

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Writeup includes comparisons to "Sexy And I Know ( Read more... )

The performer speaks easily, giving interviews in English, but careful, too. Not spilling her guts, or spilling the beans, either, should she have any in her big backpocket. She watches a dance rehearsal clip, along with the interviewer, confesses that she hates that it shows her without makeup. She continues speaking, a level tone, describes the ( Read more... )

Not at all clear yet as to what I'm hearing when I listen to the new 2NE1 single. I express my confusion over at the Jukebox. Can't say I'm able to pick out the non-Western sounds the band are talking about in interviews* (trot, enka). Sounds like R&B-based dance-pop to me, but pushed into interestingly disparate melodic sections. But then, I'm not ( Read more... )

In a music world shocker, a hidden video camera shows the rapper CL, of well-regarded K-pop group 2NE1, being fed lines by a parrot:

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Here's a list that isn't much different from the previous one, or the one before that, and so on. I don't believe my tastes are narrowing, so I think this says something about the world, too. But it is true, for instance, that I haven't been diving into the tributaries and sidestreams and backwaters of country these days, being so disappointed with ( Read more... )

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Last year I started a tradition of giving myself until the end of June to post my Artist Of The Year for the previous calendar year. Now I've got only 45 minutes to make good on this. Not that there's been any question for the past 11-and-a-half months whom I'd pick. In "I Am The Best" CL was commanding yet also adorable. And the live version on a ( Read more... )

While searching "Oscar song meanings," I incidentally found this thread where non-Koreans talk about how they discovered K-pop and why they love it ( Read more... )