Am expecting to link my original June 2011 LJ writeup on Miss A's "Breathe" in a couple of days; in the meantime I'm reposting here its original comment thread. This particular thread became very important to me because in it askbask gave me the beginning of a primer on dancers and choreography in K-pop, and he embedded some terrific dance performances - ( Read more... )

Wrote about "Harlem Shake" at the Jukebox, but I chose writing my own dance over writing about the viral dance meme. So here are some undeveloped thoughts about the latter:

The original Australian dorm-room version: Starts with people in their individual, isolated activities. Then the bass drops, and now they're in wiggly motion. Cuts off after 15 ( Read more... )

Okay, three data points constituting a trend, Miss A, putting "Time's Up" on their new Independent Women Pt. III EP, become the latest K-pop group to mix trot beats and Austral-Romanian int'l rhythm moves.*

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(Also, unrelated to trot or to Romance Australianisms, the lead track and single is "I Don't Need A Man," and the second or third track ( ( Read more... )

Never got around to answering arbitrary_greay's comment over on the snsd_ffa Gangkiz thread regarding the T-ara concept and high production values. "T-ara concept" is the subject of one of my 500 future T-ara posts that are in the planning stage. But in brief, the T-ara concept can be summarized, "Words that rhyme, words that repeat, raps that fit sing-song, any rapper ( Read more... )

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Trevor's got an in-depth analysis of the "Gee" video and the male gaze or absence thereof. If I'm interpreting his basic point right, it's that the video is about girls having fun with girls, not about how they appear to some guy - or maybe more emphatically, it's about the girls having fun with girls while abandoning the gaze of some guy. As far ( Read more... )

2NE1 in ilX 'n' P&J

"I Am The Best" ranks only 38th in the ilX poll but receives wild gushes from those who'd not previously heard it: "there is something beyond just the synth timbre that is really evoking early 90s hoover rave bumping up against acid and pop music that is essentially aural catnip to me, only with a stronger editor behind the ( Read more... )

Wonder Girls were rollin' and rockin' the Jukebox last Friday. I'm in the comments with a minor dissent, my main problem being that I keep hearing a motif from Miss A's "Bad Girl Good Girl" in "Be My Baby" (both songs are by JYP), which makes me want the latter to be "Bad Girl Good Girl." But it doesn't get there. "Bad Girl Good Girl" sticks, hurts ( Read more... )

New Miss A vid, with song and album attached. Miss A are natural dancers, while their singing often feels like a struggle. This struggle imparts charm, puts me on their side. I hope there's a true payoff, an evolution into total awesomeness before they're eased out of the pop world as happens to all idol groups.

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[If there are no English subtitles ( Read more... )

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Inspired to post this not just because I adore it, but also 'cause 67seven52 called "athletic R&B" his new favorite phrase. On this track, Miss A obviously put a lot of work into something that you'd think would feel light as a feather. Maybe if they'd put even more work into it, it would have actually seemed as light as that, and the effort ( Read more... )

For the many people* who ask me "Why Korea?" my answer is love. Yes, and there are plenty of other answers too, one being that people who know more than I do come to my lj and talk to me about K-pop, providing sociability and mindwork, and another being that K-pop is creating a hip-hop, r&b, dance-pop amalgam far better than the Billboard Hot 100's ( Read more... )