Cross-posting from Tumblr, where cureforbedbugs wrote:

Were you mildly disappointed in the new M.I.A. album even though you kind of liked it, and decided to listen to M.I.A. knock-offs instead and were then disappointed in them, too ( Read more... )

Am more ambivalent about "Chick Chick" than the high ranking indicates, given the social inequity underlying the song: the vocals are utterly pedestrian during the cutesy "mǔ jī mǔ jī mǔ jī mǔ jī" stuff and during the rap; the track only starts to cook when the screaming and the chicken clucking and the cackling let loose. It's then that it goes to ( Read more... )

Crayon Pop seem to be occupying a social space that doesn't exist in America: not of the mainstream but with no apparent estrangement from the mainstream either, not even to the extent that the mainstream itself is estranged from the mainstream (being estranged from the mainstream is a mainstream attitude). And while Crayon Pop gathered a fanatic ( Read more... )

Pasting in the Facebook convo (through early in the day, May 13) that Chuck began in regard to my q about Richard Rodgers and Dave's about whether there's any statistical support for the common assertion that the majority audience for hip-hop is white. You'll see a link to a WSJ report of an actual study, which produces an actual number (audience ( Read more... )

Quick opinions:

SNSD Love & Peace. Japanese, Scandinavian, consistently tuneful, not trying to overpower us with muscle and rhythm.

[EDIT: Video no longer available and I don't remember what it was that I embedded. Might have been "Love&Girls" but it could've been any of the others from Love & Peace. Sorry.]Tymee "On The River." Strong, harsh, ( Read more... )

We've broken 500!

500 what?

Well, whenever someone posts a comment in koganbot, the comment is sent to my lj inbox. If I think the comment needs me to think about it further and/or a reply from me, I save it. Once I reply or think I'm more-or-less finished with it, I delete it. So, there are now 519 comments in my lj inbox that merit further ( Read more... )

If you were to ask me do I think T-ara are sexy or, instead, do I think they're cute, you've asked me an insane question, since their cuteness makes them sexy and their sexiness makes them cute. Not that there's a complete overlap: cuteness is only a part of their repertoire of sexiness and sexiness is only part of their repertoire of cuteness. And ( Read more... )

As you see, Crayon Pop have my top song. But for the long run I'd lay my bets on ChoColat. Crayon Pop have to rely on being insanely catchy every time out, while ChoColat only need reasonably good tunesmanship and dramatic timing and Melanie's passionate wail - all of which ChoColat can rely on.

[Video no longer available]

1. Crayon Pop "Bar Bar ( Read more... )

More wtf from Korea, Sunny Hill's "Darling Of All Hearts," which I described on Rolling Country as "sorta Irish folk-country flight-attendant pop" - though Mat points out on K-pop 2013 that "featuring" star Hareem plays the Swedish nyckelharpa (no doubt worth five times as much as the Irish pennywhistle he also plays*) and that the vocals in the " ( Read more... )

Made a YouTube playlist of my favorite tracks from K-pop's lower commercial tiers.

Click to view

In ascending order. As you can see, I like both it and that:

Leader'S "Hope" (2011). The song is called "Hope" but the sound is heartache 24/7. I left NYC several years before Hot 97 or whatever it was came in with a Latin freestyle format, but I can imagine this ( Read more... )