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Korean Pop

My take and commentary on popular (& good) music from South Korea

BIGBANG – ‘Beautiful Hangover’. Nice!

The song is in Japanese, but I’m still going to call it K-pop.
Bigbang korean boy band black & white

BIGBANG is a Korean boy band who apparently has been around since 2006. Hugely successful, “Beautiful Hangover” is the group’s latest venture into the Japanese market.

Love…

  • the song!
  • the video — very stylish and great angles

Hate…

  • the Ja-Rule sounding dude (I believe his name is T.O.P)

Would have been better…

  • if the song was in Korean (they use a lot of English Engrish to make up for their Japanese)
  • if it didn’t have the Ja Rule-sounding dude’s parts. Sorry, but Ja Rule is so 2001.

Overall, of the two new singles, I like “Beautiful Hangover” more than the over-autotuned “Somebody to Luv”:

I hope they release Korean versions of both songs.

I must say, 2010 so far has produced a fair share of great k-pop. Korean idol groups are getting a heck lot more popular and expanding into other markets outside of Korea.

(Sigh. Waits for the day SNSD come to India… )

Rainbow – ‘A’: Great K-pop song ruined by a terrible video

Last week, while reading allkpop.com, I was introduced to another K-pop girl group hitting the scene called Rainbow.

Korean pop girl group Rainbow A single cover promo white

The girls were making their comeback with a single called ‘A’. Their first release was a track released in 2009 called “Gossip Girl“…. which was “meh”. But ‘A’…

… I LOVE IT!

Very Girls Aloud and Sugarbabes-like. And after hearing it like a hundred times in the past few days, I was waiting to see what the video was going to be like, the dance choreography, the visuals etc. I expected it to be retro, swank and mature, especially after the teaser images of the girls were published online.

Rainbow A single cover promo red

But when the full video was eventually unveiled…

… I HATE IT!

The dance choreography is unnecessarily sexy, the outfits suck and the camera cuts are irritating. Funny how such a good song can be ruined by such a poor video. I’m sure the track will do well on it’s own, just that I was expecting a classier video from the group’s record company.

Korean pop or not, some people just need to learn, sex isn’t always necessary to sell something — especially when that something is good enough.

SHINee – “Lucifer”… goddammit, I LOVE this song!

I discovered a lot of K-pop the last few months. From 13-member boy bands to 9-member *adorable* girl-groups, I’ve been to hooked to some of their catchy tunes, well-produced videos with often great choreography.

And now, this track, SHINee’s latest single from their new album is no. 1 in my mp3 playlist. And no. 2, and no. 3….

…. actually I haven’t listened to anything else since I saw this video day before yesterday. Since then it’s already cracked a million views and continues to rack up thousands of views by the minute. It’s a thumpin’ track!

I have no idea why the song is named after Thor‘s evil brother and yes, when I saw the fashion and the WTF hairstyles… I did go “wuuuhhh?”. But who cares, none of that would matter when the music and choreography is just pure awesome!

The last song I liked from SHINee was “Replay“. I absolutely hated “Ring Ding Dong“… ‘cos it just sounds stupid. (If you want a female group equivalent of stupid, listen to  T-ara’s “Bo Peep Bo Peep“)

Anyway, it would be so cool to hear “Lucifer” in some club but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon in India.

P.S: What I thought was “roboholic” and “robotronic” is actually their attempt to say “love-aholic” and  “lovatronic”… not that I have any clue what either mean! Oh Engrish…

EDIT: I watch this more now than the actual music video

Love the choreography by Jaewon of Blackbeat and the awesome Rino Nakasone (now with PCD)!

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