The Austral-Romanian Empire

Oct 07, 2012 10:10

Something amazing has happened this year with Orange Caramel's singing, though I can't put my finger specifically on what. All I've got is adjectives. Last year Orange Caramel had two terrific songs ("Bangkok City" and "Shanghai Romance"), each dragged down a little by vocals that I'd describe as "adequate": going for cuteness but sounding blah, ( Read more... )

orange caramel, tymee, e.via, after school, austral-romanian empire, t-ara, trot

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Comments 15

sub_divided October 7 2012, 18:51:09 UTC
I was just thinking about the influence of Mr Saxobeat in Kpop! Mr. Saxobeat on the one hand, and LMFAO on the other, haha.

The very beginning of "Lipstick" sounds just like that children's song. You know the one. "And the girls in France/They aren't wearing underpants/There's a hole in the wall/where the men can see it all" or something like that.

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sub_divided October 7 2012, 18:58:36 UTC
Also, even though I love the video and have no issues with it on its own, I wonder if it's a thing that Korean girls can only beat up on darker-skinned foreign guys (see also Tiny-G's last single).

Also also, the connection between Eastern Europe and Korea is "major drinking culture"? Like trot music is drinking music, right - that giddy spinning feeling you get at the end of the night when you've had too much to drink. In a gypsy movie, it's the scene in the bar just before someone smashes a glass on the floor, and maybe depending on the movie cuts open their hand, because there can be no pleasure without pain, or pain enhances pleasure, or life consists of both please and pain, etc.

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koganbot October 27 2012, 20:18:03 UTC
When I was growing up - twas before the moon and the sun broke off their wedding engagement, that's how long ago it was - the lyrics went, "There's a place in France, where the girls wear paper pants/But the boys don't care, 'cause they're guaranteed to tear." But Little Egypt predated even that, and yet still wasn't the beginning.

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sub_divided October 29 2012, 18:23:18 UTC
Ha, thanks for this. Of course you guys are way ahead of me.

For your Austral-Romanian consideration, I submit Milan Stankovic at the Eurovision Finals in 2010, stumping for the Balkans. Op, op, op! Ovo je Balkans!

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azacab October 7 2012, 23:16:31 UTC
I love Orange Caramel, but can't stand After School. Orange Caramel are quite funny and fun, whereas After School is too serious and wannabe sexy for me. I think that OC are knowingly cute and coy in a way that seems to subvert the usual kawaii kind of pandering. To me it seems like they're having a hell of a time playing with K-pop tropes and stereotypes and making kind of a joke of them; there's that trot influence and the campiness of "Bangkok City" and "Shanghai Romance" or the unabashed "asianness" of "A~ing" and "Magic Girl". It's something in K-pop that I feel like only T-ara before them have seemed to approximate in their music ( ... )

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koganbot October 20 2012, 06:10:19 UTC
Despite my liking After School a whole lot, I love your comment. I'm definitely feeling the "too serious and wannabe sexy," which could describe 75% of the world's pop music right now. See what I said to Dave the other week about Dawn Richard, hard-style r&b toughies, and their grimly "sexual" dancing.

I would argue that by now After School's music has pretty much escaped whatever their concept was once supposed to be. I'm not sure what "the Korean Pussycat Dolls" even was meant to mean anyway (nor the actual Pussycat Dolls, for that matter*). The concept of "Bang!" - to me - was basically just plain bang! Never knew if it came out right before or right after 2NE1's "Try To Follow Me," but in my mind it managed to scale 2NE1's mountain and leap above it from there, "Top this!," braggadocio brought in from the days of the mid-'80s Roxannes. (And of course "I Am The Best" did top it ( ... )

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koganbot October 20 2012, 06:20:18 UTC
it's a totally slippery and wild arrangement that lets them cram in all their weird vocal ticks and hooks. Kind of feels like the aural equivalent of them making little heart symbols with their hands or winking in schoolgirl outfits and stuff.

This is a tremendous description; "Lipstick" really does feel unfettered and even a little unhinged, yet with no strain. Has somersaulted right into my top ten.

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davidfrazer October 10 2012, 21:36:52 UTC
... if you listen to "Bangkok City" and "Shanghai Romance," you'll hear what I'm getting at: those two tracks sound like what an Italodisco producer would have created had he wanted to signify "East Asia."

Have you heard Funny Hunny? It's a collaboration between Orange Caramel and a songwriter called Cho Young-Soo, and like you said about those songs it has a trot-ish rhythm. The blurb on the MV describes it as a "funky retro song of the 80s euro disco".

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koganbot October 26 2012, 06:48:09 UTC
Final track on the new Miss A EP goes for a bit of trot too.

Being fairly new to K-pop, I don't really know if this is a trend, K-pop pulling trot into the mix. Did Super Junior-T have an impact? They seem more defined as a trottish novelty than do Orange Caramel and the like, who seem to be treating trot as a potential ongoing element that could be belong to K-pop just as much as any other element does. Super Junior-T's version of "The First Train" is limpid and dull compared to LPG's, though I get a kick out of Super Junior T's "Rokkugo."

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davidfrazer November 1 2012, 22:29:33 UTC
It's belatedly occurred to me that "Japanese Boy" by Aneka is probably the prime example of the kind of musical Orientalism you were talking about.

(Further examples: just about anything by Shanadoo.)

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koganbot January 3 2013, 18:18:27 UTC
I like these. I definitely need to learn more, especially about Shanadoo.

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One More Time koganbot June 4 2024, 04:59:35 UTC
Since Dave has linked this, I want to expand on the fact that I start the Austral "No Speak Americano" end of the supposed continuum not with "We No Speak Americano" but with In-Grid's "Tu Es Foutu" from Italy (and therefore in French and set on the French Riviera) from back in 2001, which askbask had clued me into as an early progenitor of the no-speak-americano rhythm. It was a big hit in a bunch of European countries (incl. Romania) in 2002 and 2003, and in Australia and New Zealand in a cleaner English-language version "You Promised Me" in 2003, also making the U.S. dance chart. I mention this in passing, too quickly, in the above write-up, via only a couple of links, but (and I'm sure this was askbask cluing me in again) In-Grid had done a variant of "Tu Es Foutu" in 2005, calling the new song "One More Time" - which K-pop group Jewelry covered in 2008, Jewelry's version hitting number one on a couple of the Korean TV performance shows (I don't think there was a Gaon chart yet), this version produced by none other than Shinsadong Tiger!

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