Archives For sunnyhill

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 haven’t done one in a very long while, huh?

Since the demise of the LivingSocial application on Facebook — TuneSocial — and my shift from downloads to streaming… it’s been hard to keep track of the music I listen to and rate. I tried Discogs.com, but I’m thinking of dropping it because they’re such an uptight community. Every time you add an album that doesn’t adhere to their guidelines of barcodes, catalog numbers, and milimetric genres, you get voted down.

I don’t buy or sell anything there, and I find myself adding more than I’m actually just searching for… and still there’s people who vote me down and are bitchy about it, instead of helping out and finding the lacking info themselves.

I rather keep my own database without hassle. I’ve added about 350 albums tonight… in the time it took me to add just a few albums at Discogs.

These are the albums I’ve heard this year. There aren’t TOO MANY amazing ones yet, but there are a few very good singles that shall be contenders for the Top50 list this year~

This year I’m doing better with my music than with my movies. LOL I’ve only seen like new movies this year, hahaha. If I don’t work harder on that, I’m not going to be able to pick my Best Movies this year.

Light blue highlight only points out a “special edition” xD

2011 Tops and Bottoms~

April 15, 2012 — 1 Comment

I put together my lists of Top15 Movies, Bottom15 Movies, as well as my Top15 Albums from 2011.

Continue Reading…

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?