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Baby Boy - the Cuter than Cute Philosophy of a KMV Explained.

6/5/2015

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'Aggressive' and 'Adorable' are NOT Mutually EXCLUSIVE: 

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           High4 is not a band I've been terribly enamored with I loved their debut, but most of what they've done since just hasn't struck my fancy. This one is extremely different; I like it so much that it's even jumped the queue of MVs I should be reviewing! 
           From the moment I first saw it, my only reaction has been "Yep. That's it. We're done here. The most adorable song humanly possible has been produced. We can all go home, now". And that feeling hasn't dissipated at all in the two days I've been watching it while pretending to care about other things. And now I just HAVE to explain the full extent of its intricate weave of imagery, because there's much more than meets the eye to this release and it would be a shame for anyone to miss even the tiniest detail. What seems at first like a mess of contradictions is actually an array of perfectly inter-locking pieces that create a dynamic and accurate depiction of an enchanting reality.
           Kpop has done things were 'cute' and 'gangsta' overlap, there's been other examples of aegyo mixing with straight-up awesome, but nothing else I've ever seen does it quite like this; nor nearly this well. Most other versions of an attitude that resemble this one use aegyo to straightforwardly mix in a dose of adorable, but this release takes that a leap forward by avoiding straight-aegyo, for the most part, and using a more sophisticated weave of more traditional imagery to convey the idea that the object of the narrator's affection is a singular point of exception in his world. Every single detail in the visuals plays off the notions in the lyrics, leading to an achingly cute final product that takes its message more seriously than I would have ever guessed just by glancing at the colorful screencaps.
           It also has something very important in common with Beyonce (but we'll get to that later).

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Just Tell Me - THE (SURPRISINGLY) Sweet PHILOSOPHY OF A KMV EXPLAINED.

5/14/2015

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True Love Is Hard to Define, But It's Pretty Easy to See...

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        With their lovely So Too Very Much release in February, and their March activities in Japan, I wasn't expecting anything new from these guys for a while yet. I've been pleasantly surprised by their Korean return and the release in question is itself absolutely fantastic. And when I say fantastic, I mean FANTASTIC. This is easily going to stand up as one of the very best releases of the entire year, it's going into my history books as one of the most fabulous releases EVER.
          From the set aesthetics and the basic styling, it looks like Just Tell Me can't possibly be anything to terribly spectacular. MYNAME isn't really a band with a track record of deeply meaningful or profoundly impacting releases, so when combined with a concept that looks to be more of the same old, hiphop-grunge-but-still-clubbing-chic that's been flooding the market lately there was really no reason to suspect that this release would be incredible. Honestly, there were a dozen pressing reasons to think this release would be anything but awesome, including the fact that MYNAME has already had a comeback this year, and they've had activities in Japan, so theoretically they haven't had much time to spend on this; not to mention the fact that the concept seems blandly unoriginal and the the Choreo from the teasers has some moves that stand out as painfully frequent instances of recycling moves.
          HOWEVER, to anyone who believed the teasers or who concluded on a cursory examination that it really is just another sex-focused grungy hiphop club thing: YOU GOT PLAYED. The whole thing is one big joke on us and the best part of it is that our expectations were used against us by preparing us for something mediocre, but what they gave us was something FABULOUS. Unfortunately, there are still a ton of people who are taking the release at face-value and as it's easily the best thing MYNAME has ever released, I will not suffer it to be maligned by people who won't give it more than a cursory look to allow the true elegance, sweetness, and complexity to unfold.

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Rocking - The (surprisingly) Deep Philosophy of a KMV Explained.

9/3/2013

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Meaning comes in Many Forms, some of them catchier than others...

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Teen Top is not a band known for their incredible story-telling or deep-seeded philosophizing or even for good music at all really. If we are to speak realistically, Teen Top is known by everyone, including their more honest Angels, as a group fabulously funny, super sweet boys with tight, intricate choreography, massive issues with role-distribution & MR, interesting hair, and a high-energy synthy sound that plays into lyrics that don't really make sense but are super catchy anyway...
At first glance, Rocking seems to be more of the same, but is it? Not at ALL. As one of the catchiest songs to have been released this summer, and as one ingloriously (and incorrectly) placed in the category 'apparently blithe and simple', I decided to take a closer look (in all honesty, it was more of a violent reaction of righteous indignation than a level headed decision, but the point still stands). Rocking is the best thing Teen Top has ever released and I will not suffer it to be maligned by those who won't look closely enough to see that between the complex meaning built into the choreography, the variegated meaning of the lyrics, and the over all visual blast of color and movement, it's one of the top ten music videos released by anyone this year at all.

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'Bands' vs 'Idols' vs 'Artists' : Categorizing Musicianship

8/12/2013

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'Idol' is not a dirty word. Unless your Bias plays Guitar . . .

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There are so many great Idol Groups out there, in Kpop especially. So isn't it about time that we in the international music community start taking them seriously as musicians?
If you have ever gotten defensive because someone calls your bias an Idol, you are not alone.
You are, however, wrong.

Almost all of us do it, on some level. And as a whole, our culture categorizes boy bands and girl groups on a different plane of musicianship than rockstars and solo singers, even EDM DJs. Our culture thinks of them as being different species of music makers, we look down on Idols and up to Bands and defensively refer to our bias-groups as 'artists'. But should we?

The answer to that is a resounding NO.
            In this day and age, Muscianship is not something defined purely by the use of physical instruments in Live musical performances. I think it's about time we all get our facts straight and stop treating the technical delineation of artists into the category of 'Idol' like the relegation of the crippled into a Caste of 'Untouchables'.

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Be Ok - The Deep Philosophy of a KMV Explained.

7/17/2013

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And the Award for most Unexpectedly SPECTACULAR  goes to . . .

    I was not expecting this to be as good as it is, really, this blew me away. There's so much build and symbolism that I can hardly contain my excitement for explaining it all! Well, then let's go through this methodically, shall we?
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why SME Might Be Kpop's AIG . . . But should really just die already . . .

7/16/2013

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Here's the Lowdown:

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I have a wildly improbable, and spectacularly public, secret ambition to buy SM Entertainment.

Truly SM is a wonder of modern music business models: founded in 1995, it literally reshaped the way Korean Music is made. It's been a financial powerhouse for well over a decade, pulling in revenue that boggles the mind (including more than $100 M in music sales alone for 2012).

But, there's much more going on and most of it is not the sort of savvy that the music world needs, or should ever really want...

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Why EXO represents everything that's wrong with SM right now:

7/9/2013

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I genuinely like EXO, they have great skills and fabulous potential . . .

But I don’t really understand them. Or why everyone seems so completely crazy in love with them. Though they have tremendous potential, they really just aren't that good.

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Why KMVs are some of the Coolest things ever:

6/29/2012

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Otherwise known as "Internet rants Should count as Healthy Anger Management" . . .

It pisses me off unbelievably when someone uses a kpop song or mv to say that the industry is sending ‘bad messages’ to their audiences, especially when they're explaining said song or mv with blatant disregard for what the media's actual message is....

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Fantastic Baby - The Deep Philosophy of a KMV Explained.

3/13/2012

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BigBang's Fantastic Baby is truly Fantastic, in every sense of the word.


In case you didn't realize how deeply narrative this EPIC MV is, here it is, broken down into understandable chunks of awesome...

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