nanoomi

In response to this question, Stephen Epstein’s RAS presentation last week about girl groups was well worth attending. There was a lot of textual analysis of lyrics and dissection of the narratives present in the videos. I liked his description of the dichotomy between girls presenting themselves as shy and inexperienced while at the same time ‘anticipating being deflowered,’ I think was how he put it.

The article which made him interested in the topic of Girl Groups can be found here (enter page 25 at the bottom). There’s lots to tear apart – you’ve got to love a self-described “middle aged man” asking, “Just what is it about them that drives us into such a frenzy?” and then match that with this: “Some are so surprised by the elder generation’s enthusiasm for girl groups that they cannot help but mention the Lolita complex. Nevertheless, that would be an example of an exaggerated principle that remains from the past authoritarian era.” (Nice try, but I don’t think wonjo gyoje began in the 1970s.)

“In the course of shifting from a masculine-dominated era to one of feminine equality, the imposing frames of age and gender are being slowly torn down. The time has come in pop culture where a man in his 40s can cheer for teenage girl groups without being looked at suspiciously.”

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SeoulBeats has an interesting article that got Facebook-posted and Twitter’d at me all day today:

The title is “K-pop Expansion into the West: Moving Too Fast?” It discusses the way K-pop has been facing an increased demand in different countries of the world, a topic sure to get the we’ll-repost-every-Korea-article-from-any-foreign-news-source Korea Promotion-type people all hot and bothered.

As you can see from the following four videos, K-pop has swept the entire world and every human on the planet now loves Dongbangshinki and Shinee and 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation.

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The highlight (and it was a huge huge highlight), was when Lee Joon came out on stage, sang his solo, ripped off his shirt, and did a pole dance.

A+’s (MBLAQ fans), maybe you should stop reading there.

You may wonder why I’m saying that up front, right away. The simple reason is, due to various reasons, the Men in MBLAQ show is going to go down as one of the worst concerts I’ve been to in Korea. The depressing part is, the boys themselves had very little to do with why the show was bad.

First, I’ll be quite honest, and will personally take some of the blame. Since there are concerts coming up every single weekend for the next five weeks, I cannot possibly afford to get good tickets for every show I go to. I figured MBLAQ would be a show that it would be okay to see at the 300 level.

And while my view was fine, and the sound was great, I was surrounded by a bunch of high schoolers who probably saved their allowance for months to afford this one ticket, and sitting with them was hell. They screamed like banshees, but wouldn’t stand or do anything other than wave their little light sticks. I watched as the second floor and ground floor were able to dance along with songs, while I had to sit, miserable, being hit in the head by the zealous fan behind me who was waving her fan around to the music.

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The Korea Times reports that the Fair Trade Commission has taken action that “bans sexualizing teen stars:”

Government officials are attempting to prevent the revealing styles of teenage pop idols as they warn against the media’s portrayal of young women as sex objects.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) Friday announced a new guideline for standard contract terms between production companies and artists, which include preventing underage singers from dressing in excessively sexual clothing. Management shouldn’t deprive the boys and girls in showbiz from their educational opportunities either, the FTC said, and needs to protect them from long working hours.

Well, announcing a guideline ought to put a stop to all of this. Now entertainment companies won’t have their teen stars wear skirts so short they show off their underwear, and the media will stop portraying “young women as sex objects.”

Such as this Joongang Ilbo article which was at the top of Naver awhile ago titled “Chinese netizens go wild over Son Yeon-jae,” which gave a matter-of-fact account of what Chinese netizens were writing about the girl known in Korea as the ‘gymnastics pixie’ (much as Kim Yuna was once the ‘figure pixie’). It was mostly stuff like “A Korean girl like a dream,” “absolutely perfect,” “a Korean body you can’t help but dream about.”

Much the same thing happened when Son appeared at the ‘LG Whisen Rhythmic All Star 2011′ gala show last Sunday, with Asia Gyeongje publishing a slew of photos from the show with titles like “Son Yeon-jae’s captivating look – her ‘pixie’ image disappears,” “Son Yeon-jae’s seductive beckoning,” “Son Yeon-jae shows off her S line,” and “Son Yeon-jae’s stand out s line“:

I suppose someone could point out she just turned 17 and that headlines like that might be inappropriate, but then, she is four years older than the age of consent, so perhaps it’s all okay after all. Besides, according to this, she may have wanted to get a reaction:

“I’ve always been seen with a cute and youthful image but now I want to show a transformed me.”

Mission accomplished. One wonders if that’s something she wants – or if its more her management’s idea. At any rate, being cute and known for your ‘S-line’ will probably ultimately mean more advertising contracts. As for the performance, the training video shows some ho-hum ’sexy’ dancing, but I’m more impressed by the ‘human windmill’ thing she does at 0:55.

You can read the original post at Gusts of Popular Feeling.

This week we review 4Minute’s “Heart to Heart” and deal with dumb boyfriends Read the full story

So with the success of “Superstar K” (which I wrote about) and the ridiculous glut of Kpop bands that, as their numbers (and surgeries) increase, are becoming more and more indistinguishable (if you can explain to me how Sistar is different from Dal Shabet, such that you couldn’t switch out their music, costumes, and choreography, and have pretty much the same product, I’ll be impressed.  Name for me all the members of Sistar, Dal Shabet, AND Rainbow, without searching, and you win a waffle iron). A few are popular enough that I can recognize them one from another, and a few have made some pretty good songs (and especially videos), and even carved out something of a personality…

But while these starlets are dominating the airwaves with dances and images that more mature and adult-oriented singers couldn’t compete with if they wanted to…

Sorry, YouTube video was taken down, so all we have is a screenshot

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This week we review 東方神起 (TVXQ’s) Before You Go and try to figure out the NDI Read the full story

My attempt at making weekly review roundups failed pretty soon as I couldn’t get around to follow up the first post in time. Let’s see how I’ll do from now on, but for now here’s a bunch of album and song reviews from the last two weeks:

It’s been almost three years since the release of modern rock guy Park Joon Hyuk’s but on March 3, he returned with his second full length album, Human Life. Some friends of his promoted it before release and now fans can check out the music video for Control. Some already did:
In France: Park Joon Hyuk – Human Life
In Finland: Park Joon Hyuk (박준혁) – 강아지 + Park Joon Hyuk – Control
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So “Superstar K” is the Korean counterpart to “American Idol”

Wifeoseyo has been totally enrapt in this show: she had her favorites, and rooted for them, and the final was this weekend.

There’s more on the finalists at ALLKPOP

The two finalists were John Park – known by some as the Korean-American American Idol contestant from a previous season, and Huh-Gak, a shorter, less handsome guy, but all-Korean.

Here’s Huh-Gak, in one of the performances that hasn’t been taken down from Youtube because of copyright violations.

Here’s John Park, singing “Man in the Mirror” from a previous episode: his English is stronger than his Korean, and Wifeoseyo says this was the best song of the “Michael Jackson Tribute” episode.

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It’s Music Monday time again! Last week we reviewed 2NE1 Can’t Nobody and put it up against F(x)’s Nu Abo. This week we review TOP’s “Turn it Up.” Read the full story