Thought my Kim Nana post was one of my most thoughtful and impassioned of 2013. Ended with the great line, "If I'm fourteen years old I know who I'm in love with ( 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... )

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... )

The ever-literal and doltish allkpop.com sees the teaser photos for the GLAM comeback and opines:

The hip-hop group seems to have taken a radical image change for this comeback, choosing girly and innocent over sexy and fierce. Instead of the all-black clothes they had for "I Like That" they've opted for white, lacy clothes instead.
I'm not sure in ( Read more... )

Visited the pop!gasa K-pop translation site and unearthed these gems:

SeeU the Vocaloid, in "I=Fantasy," speaking on behalf of centaurs, unicorns, animated characters, Elizabeth Bennets, Te'o girlfriends, Margaret Berger robots, and holograms the world round:

Those idiots don't know anything ( Read more... )

During last year's T-ara War I was often wondering who all these people were, the commenters, the battlers. I made guesses (that most were in their teens or twenties, most were female) that I can't confirm; also wondered what countries they were posting from. I was watching the ones who posted in English, which I knew was an international language ( Read more... )

Here's a slight rewrite of my Pazz & Jop comments. I'd whipped the comments out in three hours right at deadline, and I liked the result: power and emotion maybe because of the rush. But owing to the speed, some ambiguities were left in, and some useful details were left out. So I've tweaked the sentences a little, and expanded a few.

( Budokan )

GLAM's "I Like That," over on The Singles Jukebox: Jukebox reviewers are always pretty good at K-pop, since they're coming in without preconceptions, or the preconceptions are wrong enough that there will always be angles I'd not thought of and attention to what's actually happening in the song. I like Ian's sense of the sun coming out in the ( Read more... )

GLAM's "I Like That" entered the Gaon Chart this week at 57. This was way lower than I'd anticipated, my expectation being based on an Allkpop story saying "I Like That" had finished number 3 on January 2 on the Bugs Chart. I don't know what the Bugs Chart does, actually (the chart is in Korean, not surprisingly). I assume it records daily numbers ( Read more... )