Archives For hwang soo ah

Recently, I’ve noticed that Kpop YouTube channels have been uploading their content with English subtitles!! That makes them official English subtitles — for some major groups like Brown Eyed Girls’ GaIn’s Bloom [MV] and Miss A’s I Don’t Need a Man [MV] (they’ve even added Simplified Chinese!) are recent examples — rendering in my opinion most (if not all) Kpop fansub groups useless.

There’s now no reason to upload an extra video with subtitles… at least in English [1].

Having said that… the quality of subtitles are very important when choosing your fansub group. It is, of course, the content and subtlety of the translation that matters the most, but in terms of hardsubs- it’s also about type-setting. It needs to be readable, and personal comments kept away out of the subtitles [1]. Matters should be as professional as possible… that also means language should be as neutral as possible.

You know I don’t really mind my songs not being translated… but it’s nice to find your favorite songs done the right way.

So thank you, JyariKpop, for your quality subs.

My favorite is, of course, SunnyHill’s Pray [1].

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Remember the days back back in the day when MTV was about music videos, and they had a show called Making Of the video before premiering a music video? Remember when they used to announce music videos and it was important? I miss those days…

And even though these music video directors talk about the big budgets given to only top artists, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve liked a western mainstream music video. The Rihannas and Britney Spears don’t impress me — though, I gotta admit, I didn’t mind that Katy Perry music video for Wide Awake.

I don’t mind Lady Gaga, but her last couple of MVs have been lost to me.

There are some other music videos that are not so mainstream that have indeed peaked my interest… but I’m taking my eye candy — all of it — from crack Kpop music videos. Because… you know When Kpop Went Beyond American Pop.

The 2NE1s, Big Bangs, and other idol groups with their glossy and marvelous candy music videos infect my eyes and earworm into my brain. It’s hard for Korea to actually put some emphasis into their creatives and they should, so we must work with them on that. Otherwise… how will people know about directors Hwang Soo Ah and Cha Eun Taek?

Your music videos matter, Korea. Pull yourself together!

I think the director of Sixth Sense and Midnight Circus [1] might be my favorite director this year, though I gotta admit that Bounce is giving it a good run for its money with not only The Kingdom of Fools [1] and Hebe Tien’s My Love [1] and Joey Yung’s gorgeous MV hybrid with a perfume CM commercial, LOL – One Flower and a Thousand Tress [1].

But there’s just something really fierce about Sixth Sense spelling sex without being tacky, instead being completely fierce about it. I mean, Narsha did make me uncomfortable as she frolicked as a prisoner… but that was the only thing. The rest of the video/song was hard-hitting pizzazz… especially when we reach Miryo’s rap and she drops her verses adding the “grazie” and “gracias” — by the way, her “gracias” was almost on point perfect. xD

If you don’t know who directed Sixth Sense, why don’t you go to YAM Magazine and search for it.

I’m also considering buying my first ever mini-album… but it’s really costing me to go against my album etiquette. It’s like I’m going against everything I stood for all these years. Can I do it for BEG?

This is my list of Best 2011 MVs at the moment.

I’m not really familiar with SunnyHil, but my curiosity was peaked when I caught a teaser for Midnight Circus that had BEG member Ga-In, just about the time when they released the video for Midnight Circus~

I dug it… kind of a mix of music that wasn’t exactly Kpop… it had something — I was caught inadvertently saying “midnight cir-CUS!” once or twice. And the video is class… really moody… almost a bit cabaret-y punk-y, but not really that… it wasn’t the Dresden Dolls, but it was interesting Kpop. xD

So I was really surprised with their MV for Pray — which once again peaked my curiosity with the teaser. There’s a certain sci-fi horror feel to it… combined with this creature that looked a bit like an orc combined with a little bit of Sloth from The Goonies.

It’s just an outstanding music video overall — such a despicable (yet so familiar) storyline! A ‘monster’ lured in with affection that’s suddenly betrayed by the people that he thought care for him. Amazing.

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~

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLDD96E58EC50B1F36&hl=en_US”]

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?

G asked me about Ga-In — sorry, only in Spanish — and wondered if she was my favorite Brown Eyed Girl member. And yes, yes she is indeed. Though I didn’t love or adored her EP debut, it was very interesting to me in terms of style. It sounded very Argentina. To sum it all up, the music video is also very passionate Tango.

First of all, Ga-In seems to be enjoying all the body groping. I suspect it started with Abracadabra. LOL Plus she goes all “Music-Vid Turned Short Film” on us with a running time of over 10min. that includes tragic love, tears, face-scratching, dramatic walking away while the girl gropes your leg (very Latin passion, btw), suicide attempts, and some pop version of Tango dancing (Tanging?) in the desert.

I’m gonna actually show the video to my mom and dad — who also enjoy Kpop, btw. My mom likes to point out that Korean girl groups have better legs than Japanese girl groups. LOL She’s picky with the Asian chicken legs xD or how my friend calls them – the drumsticks. LOL

Anyway, I’d like to know what they think about this parrilla argentina.

Like I told Julz now, I like BEG. xD Well, I liked GaIn better in the Abracadabra video, which I spent all weekend listening to. However, I also listened to Narsha’s new mini album… which was pretty ok.

This video, however, wow… is this a nominee for Most Use of Hair Styles or what??? xD I’m not gonna say I love it, but I’m probably gonna be caught humming it — just like I say Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Hyori style now.

You know what I like now? I like that the Kpop music scene is keeping the worldwide pop scene in good shape, with loads of style, colors, choreography, well-cut videos and quite danceable pop. Yeah, as much as I could criticize the commercialism, I can sit back and tell all of you, at least I would make an effort to pay for it. The Kpop scene has good quality pop acts… despite the ones whom you could be labeled as “guilty pleasures” *coughGeecough*

Yeah! Take that Miley, Bieber and… are the Jonas still relevant?

*EDIT*

Here’s the English subtitled version.

Can I just say Abracadabra is super hot?

I listened to all of Brown Eyed Girls discography, minus singles… only albums, and maybe I did some minialbums. Can’t really recall, it’s been too much music lately. Anyway, from all the girl groups I’ve listened to lately… I liked them the best… dig their voices, and the raps somehow remind me of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez…

Man, she was the shitz~~

TLC killed it in the VMAs 1999. Man, those were the years…

RIP, Left Eye, RIP.