T-ara Pure

[koganbot]

I remember Gene Wilder in a TV interview putting forth an insight that went something like this: He recalled an old Charlie Chaplin clip where the tramp, famished, was standing behind a burly man holding a baby. The baby was eating a partially peeled banana. Whenever the burly man looked away, Charlie would bob his head forward and take a bite,

Comments

[skyecaptain]

Was thinking about this in relation to Britney the other day -- I heard "Baby One More Time" not-on-the-internet for the first time in forever (I think it was playing at the mechanic I go to) and started thinking about how strange Britney's timbre was when that song was released. Because of the overwhelming visual nature of her ascent to stardom, often what I'm tempted to call her "trademark gurgles" were coded as a kind of baby-doll affectation. But listening somewhat removed from thinking directly about it, I realize or maybe just remembered that actually Britney has what you're calling "pure," I think. There's a distinctive grain of the voice -- it's not "workmanlike" in the way that I've always felt Christina Aguilera fundamentally is -- but it's not pulling faces. It just has a strong character, one that only codes as "baby-doll" if you pay attention to the accompanying imagery

[koganbot]

"Power-stained in" was you, though I can't find the original quote. Here's you quoting you and me quoting you:

"Whereas before Britney was kind of a rubber stamp on top of the production, now she's everywhere in the tracks, like power-stained in to them."

One of the weird things is when I hear people describe her music as "robotic." I've never heard Britney's music as robotic. I may have at some point called her singing "clipped-off." Don't remember if I ever called her voice "child-like," back in the old days, but it's surely possible. For what it's worth, I didn't come to "...Baby One More Time" through the video (in which she plays a teenager, by the way, leading the breakaway from the classroom), I never had a strong sense of Britney's look until the last five years, and I don't particularly associate that look with her sound. I think if I'd seen her on the street prior to 2007 I'd not have recognized her.

Intend to post someday on how K-pop has finally forced me to really pay attention to visuals, rather than just giving lip

[skyecaptain]

Agreed on Madonna's visuals, and I think Lady Gaga played right into the Madonna playbook with her own visuals, which rarely match the adventurousness or lack thereof in her music. For one thing, Madonna was all about breaking down loaded imagery, or presenting it in a new way, whereas it seemed like Michael was creating a genuinely new iconography. Madonna spoke a pre-existing language in intentionally provocative ways, Michael spoke in tongues (and then we all learned the tongue). I think that one thing that puts me off about Lady Gaga is the way that she uses existing visual language and then tries to appear to be speaking in tongues. (Self-conscious "speaking in tongues" probably isn't effective as natural/visceral speaking in tongues -- there's something about genuineness there, but maybe not "purity." So something like, visually speaking, Madonna was in conversation with the avant-garde, Michael WAS avant-garde, Lady Gaga is playing at avant-garde. And maybe I'm overestimating how much Madonna was "playing at," and it's merely

[koganbot]

Madonna's always seemed less relevant

Er, no, I remember writing early on that without the visuals, Madonna's persona scatters. But I was wrong.

As I did with Britney, I came to Madonna initially through sound not sight: the song "Everybody" was all over NY dance radio, more or less at the same time as C-Bank's "One More Shot" and similar stuff, early Baker-Robie. As such, her music wasn't the soundtrack to Madonna videos, but to people's lives.* Saw a bodybuilding competition where one of the women did her routine to "Everybody," centering around the part that goes "dance and sing, get up and do your thing."

*Not that that has to be mutually exclusive.

[sub_divided]

I was mentioned! \o/

I'm working on a "Kpop Hearts the 80s" mix right now, and I ran into this, which is relevant to your interests:

[koganbot]

Yeah. Further bolsters the argument that women are singing better than men these days. Love the start of this, with the house bass and dissonant orchestra. Felt they were potentially embarking on something new. But this crumbled when they started singing.

I'd assumed it was Hwayoung in the video; but Mat informs me it's her twin sister Hyoyoung, of 5dolls.

[sub_divided]

I dunno why, except that SPEED is the male half of Co-Ed School (5dolls is the female half). Maybe none of them are great singers because the women do most of the vocal heavy lifting in the combined group?

You really think there's a gender difference? I can think of a bunch of strong male kpop vocalists... the RnB belting thing and the ethereal floating thing does seem to be mostly women, but there's a lot of guys singing in this super emotional ballad style which is pretty difficult to do.

[koganbot]

It isn't that I think female singers are inherently more talented or better-trained than male singers, or able to master more difficult material, but rather that their results - these days - are better.

[trevitron]

Been really busy lately, so I'm still digesting your thoughts here, but I wanted to make sure you saw this:

[koganbot]

Yeah, the JoJo version! I've seen it, but this is timely because I want to write about CL soon. I also have some - mostly ignorant - thoughts about Korean hip-hop I want to share with you soon.

[trevitron]

I was quite amused to see this headline on Allkpop.com a few days ago: "T-ara’s Hyomin and Jiyeon are aliens?"

[koganbot]

Hyomin and Jiyeon did this specifically to support your interpretation of the "Roly-Poly" video.

[koganbot]

This might be the Chaplin scene, though if it is, it's somewhat different from how I remember Wilder describing it - though I'm sure I remember the basic point correctly, what Wilder was saying about the purity of the motion. Chaplin does mug a little bit, but not for us, not for the camera, but to put the baby at ease.

http://youtu.be/QNAjMc02UlU?t=0m54s