Happy new year, everyone!
Sorry for the lack of posts last month. To make up for it, here are five posts so you can catch up to my 2013 and to get you going this 2014.
I love when I do long and weird titles. xD
I don’t want to offend anyone — I know I’m doing my generalization, but let’s be honest~ I haven’t been into the American commercial pop scene since… I left Britney, and I left her circa her Toxic days too.
Even though people say I’m a music snob (I don’t know why…), I really like my easy-to-digest commercial pop of pretty idols that I can worship, catchy music, and dance routines. I was big on the dancing, and I’m not talking about jiggly butt dances or Waka Waka stuff — as you know, I prefer my Shakira in her Donde Estan los Ladrones days… — I’m talking about sync dancing that gets you pumped, all the UMPH from the Nsync and Britney days of late 90s and very early 2000s.
I gave a try to the Katy Perrys, the Jonas Bros, the Justin Biebers (yes, yes I did.) — by the time Ke$ha was out, I had already given up. I didn’t even try Miley because her voice exasperates me, so I wouldn’t be able to stand her singing voice.
And then Kpop happened.
Maybe it was because I saw these Asian faces looking back at me — then again, maybe it isn’t — or maybe they put something in my kimchi (though I’m pretty sure I started eating kimchi after my Kpop thing), maybe it’s because they’re just better… who knows, but there’s something so VERY fascinating about the way Kpop is spreading.
We’ve been looking how it’s grown over the past 2 or 3 years into a phenomenon. I wonder how big is going to get, I want to see it get big… but not only Kpop, of course — other types of Asian music. I want to see how Kpopers get famous, Cpopers, — okay, not Jpopers, but definitely Jrockers, and the Taiwan music scene, and the indie Japanese scene~
So obviously, I made a playlist prompted from the Kahi post I did a day or two ago.
These are songs from from the Kpop industry that just stuck out. It’s a bit thin on the earlier years [the playlist is ordered by year], but it begins getting pretty heavy in 2008. I tried picking just songs that are dance pop and not ballads just to keep the list in check — at the moment it has 30 tracks, that I hope will expand into more songs as the months and years go by~
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Here’s the YouTube link.
If you have any suggestions as to what it’s missing, comment away.
*EDIT*
Must include MVs (so songs released as singles), not older than late 90s.
Also… song must work as MV too. So no awesome songs but tacky videos. Sorry.
Now tell me, how did you get into Kpop?
I’m a dork, you can’t deny it.
I’m a dork, and I’m proud of my -mostly- tidied up iTunes library.
As with my CDs, and my DVDs… a little bit of books, and mostly with computer files, I like to know where my things are. Of course, iTunes makes it way easy to keep things organized with their “copy to folder” and “keep things organized” options, but then we’ve got album covers, song names, artists names… and music can get a little messy.
After DBSK pretty rocking dance tune of Keep your Head Down, the guys decided to release — alongside a repackaged version of their album — the single for Before U Go with a music video styled as a slick action crime drama. The regular 5min. version of the video is actually pretty interesting, because it’s packed with some fighting, and some sort of story that we can follow.
It’s like the teaser of a quality Korean drama. LOL
And then… they decided to release the long-form video. I like to talk about it when MVs get turned to short films. So we must talk about it. Yes, the long version is still pretty slick, but there’s one BIG problem.
The remaining DBSK guys Yunho and Changming end up the 16min run of the MV looking like lousy one-dimensional goodies, while the baddie is an anti-hero. I actually felt a lot worse for him than the “good” guys. What’s up with that?
I know a bunch of people were watching the American Music Awards on Sunday – does anyone care about the AMA once we grow older? I actually complained there was no broadcast, when there actually was… I just didn’t know there was, because I guess I didn’t care.
Also I rarely have the TV on in anything other than CNN, NHK, or CCTV LOL
Anyway, the New Kids on the Block and the BackStreet Boys performed together – which they’ve done before, only the video leaked that time was just a bunch of women screaming. So this one is an actual broadcast performance bringing oh so many memories.
They sang a mash-up (Glee fan-mode on) of Hanging Tough with Everybody, which then turned into I Want it that Way, which turned into Step by Step with The Right Stuff, and they finished off with Larger than Life.
Please, I was a teenage girl once – I know every single track name from any pop song of any pop idol prior to 2002. I know the choreography to those music videos. LOL
But now? Now I work on YAM, and I’m all about WORLDWIDE stuff.
I think that’s pretty much my 2010 album collection. And I’ve kept it 2010 to be fair. Today I bought a bunch of albums from Latin American artists that I found cheap and wanted to add to my collection – one was even released in 2000 LOL – and then I thought “Well, this is a poor CD insert.”
From left to right, top to bottom – the contestants are:
And LOL it made me do.
I’m not the biggest Meisa Kuroki… enthusiast. Never seen her on a drama, and she was okay in a rather okay-ish Mamoru Oshii Assault Girls with Rinko Kikuchi (does Rinko Kikuchi EVER speak???). Anyway, I digress. Kuroki, however, seems to populate my entertainment news reading, and well… I won’t complain about her. She won me over when she told actor Koji Yakusho (54) that she’d rather play his daughter than his lover. Snap! All the respect to Yakusho-san and his acting talent, but that was creepy. Dude. DUDE! Get a grip.
So… as a result, I was mildly interested in LOL! – First, OMG? Isn’t that Miley Cyrus’ movie or something? And… WTF is up with LOL! as a song title. xD The song sounds different to general commercial Jpop, and I daresay seems more influenced by commercial Kpop instead — is this the work of DBSK, Big Bang and all the other K-stars crossing over? — and I even dare to say that it gave me a lot of Lee Hyori vibes, which isn’t bad. Japan needs a little love for the bubbly personality that is Hyori. Ooh! Can there be a collaboration? xD Imagine all the sex appeal in that video~
Anyway, off topic once again! While listening to the song, I couldn’t help but laugh at it… when she autotune-sings “laughing out loud, out loud, out loud” I would burst out laughing because it’s so silly. Right? And the song… and the look on the video, they don’t match, right?
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I know someone who likes her *coughJulzcough* and someone who will find her hot *coughErickcough*. So you guys, better brush off on your Spanish. Turns out Okinawan Meisa Kuroki’s dad is half Panamanian. Try to say that fast Panamanian. Again, Panamanian. xD
Oh, Julz. Now that Kuroki has a Twitter account, you can hit on her in Spanish. LOL
How old is Se7en supposed to be? I feel like he should be contemporary of Bi Rain, but he looks as young as the “younger” DBSK, Big Bang, 2PM, 2AM and every other goddamn K-pop boy band released in the past 3 or 4 years.
Okay, having said that… did anyone else thought of Europop when listening to the song? I mean, the song it’s okay – but okay only. It’s too much autotune from the beginning, and the choreography is okay. I dunno if I’m being too “gay” now, but the women in K-pop are kicking k-pop “boys” butt lately. Hyori and Narsha alone look so much cooler than Bi and Se7en.
To keep things interesting, I’ve decided to switch to the newest songs that made the best 100 songs of the decade. Just the heads up, it turned out to be very Asian. Is it trying to tell you something?
One of those examples was the Welcome to Beijing song, which had a HUGE bunch of Asian (mostly Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong) stars. The scale of the project is probably similar to (or even bigger than) Michael Jackson’s We Are the World song… which in its time was epic. To me, and to many Asian (and non-Asian) people who keep track of the Asian music industry it marked an important time. Not only did the Olympics opened China to the world… and the world to China, but it also felt like a huge switch on everything from basic economics, industry… and entertainment.
It’s as if Chinese musicians had been enclosed all those years while the economy started to pick up, and have exploded with a huge fireball of creativity. It’s amazing at the amount of talent coming out from there, especially now that they can upload their music through the many Chinese music websites like douban.com and haoting.com, and the amount of blogs and communities that are reporting on them.
Some really awesome music, which I have already blog in this place. This is the reason, I want to get over these ones first, before I post many other songs from 2002-2006 when I didn’t blog that much (or at all).
LOL
Cheap Mambo #5 mention xD
Anyway~~ Here it is!!!
After much liver disease~~~
YAM005
with Yu on the cover!
Happy early Bday, Yu~
Omedetou!!
In it, you’ll read more about Harry Potter 6 (against much of anyone’s Harmonian hearts, lol), Transformers 2, Moon (yeah, that last line kills me), and Public Enemies~ Snap! There’s also DBSK concert review, SNSD (which I always get a typo), Bibi, Seo Taiji, Clazziquai, Popular and more~~~
Head over here to download~~~
