Last year a cute, goofy fifteen-year-old walked onto the Kpopstar audition floor, introduced herself, went into an adorably clumsy dance, and continued on (the judges grinning) with an unintentionally comic sexual strut. Then she opened her mouth to sing, and a million years of experience and pain came pouring out.

Her segment starts at 2:50. [ ( Read more... )

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Woo Hye Mi, on The Voice, well-trained blues, soul, and jazz singer (etc.), sartorially restless, not just putting on different styles on different days (which it seems almost all Korean singers do), but seemingly inhabiting genuinely different cultural categories with each, from post-punk shape-shifter to tough pop waif to after-dinner elegance ( Read more... )