Strategies of incoherence

[koganbot]

On the latest 4minute EP, four* different sets of producers/writers make the same decision (or follow the same instructions), which is to create songs that have lots of empty space, highlighting each singer and song segment without worrying too much about tying sections together musically or emotionally. These tracks belong to a strange and

Comments

[ext_1681371]

re: brave brothers

After School's In The Night Sky is canon

[koganbot]

I like "In The Night Sky," but strangely (for both A.S. Red and A.S. Blue) I prefer B-sides "Hollywood" and "Lady." Don't know who produced either. I'd expect that a lot of people would probably put "Because Of You" in the B. Brothers canon, though there is something neither fish nor fowl about it, lilting ballad or lilting dance. I do like it. In my early K-pop days, "Bang!" was the first After School I heard; I loved it enough to immediately begin After School continuing education, but nothing else had the same bang, and I began to underrate the group. Was the strange Scando-produced pseudo-Native American Japanese-language "Rambling Girls" that brought me back in.

I'm just now listening for the first time to After School debut tracks "Play Girlz" and "Ah," both by our enigmatic Dr. Brave Brothers, and both powerful. Encompass his strengths and weaknesses, throwing a dance style none-too-subtly at us but leaving enough space for the performers to shine or not shine. The live performances are real exciting, even if a lot seems lip

Brave Brothers

[sub_divided]

Son Dam Bi - Saturday Night
Electroboyz - Incoming Call
UKiss - Talk to Me
Teen Top - Be My Girl
One Two - Starry Night

And on a non-major but still quite good level:
Big Bang - Wonderful
One Two - Very Good
ZE:A - Aftermath
UKiss - Man Man Ha Ni
Sistar - So Cool, How Dare You, etc
Electroboyz - Ma Boy 2
HyunA - Ice Cream
Brave Girls - Nowadays You

He worked on Lies and an early version of Day by Day by Big Bang, too.

Re: Brave Brothers

[petronia]

Back here to say that I'm on a Sistar kick right now, am really enjoying all these old singles and album tracks. "Ma Boy" is just as good as "Gone Not Around", though it's a very different song.

Re: Brave Brothers

[sub_divided]

Right?? I remember thinking the group was kind of sub-2NE1 at the time, but now I really like their debut album a lot... I've been using this mix for exercise.

Re: Brave Brothers

[petronia]

I don't have the urge to compare Sistar to 2NE1 -- they're actually quite singular, which I hadn't realized before! Taking their album tracks into account, there's a strong R&B element running through their music (of the sort that you get on Jukebox these days, i.e. 00s producers harking back to what they loved about 90s R&B). Then you have Hyorin the vocal booster rocket. Then you have the studied vulgarity, which plays out in their image and the butt-centric dancing and the music itself (the super-deliberate chintzy piano/sax in "Gone Not Around Any Longer"). I'm not sure I've ever seen a pop group stake out this specific position: knowing where the line of grown-up tastefulness is, then intentionally straying just beyond it. Normally when pop groups are vulgar, it's a teen brat/chav thing (eg. early Spice Girls), or a winking thing (Eurovision), or an outright different set of aesthetics (most Eastern European pop stars).

[sub_divided]

And some more for the bizarre mashup pile:

Tiny G - Minimanimo
SHINee - Clue + Note
SHINee - Why So Serious?
B1A4 - What's Going On?
MFBTY - Sweet Dream (reversed - the chorus is sadder and calmer than the verses)

Also the Jun Areia remix of I Got a Boy, which is better than the original, I think.

Aside from Clue + Note, which is actually a mashup of two different songs, and Minimanimo, which seems to be trend-hopping the different-chorus bandwagon, and 24/7, which I'd say is more of a genre experiment with incorporating dubstep sounds ala Super Junior M - Breakdown, sounding as insane as possible seems to be a major point of these songs. CraYon ended up that way more-or-less by accident (apart from the bonkers coda, but that's a Teddy Park trademark), but for the rest of these songs it's an aesthetic they seem to be consciously aiming for. I have mixed feelings, really.