That’s it – It’s happening. I’m finally going to start reviewing K-pop albums. Perhaps not regularly, mind you, but any reason I may have had against doing so in the past is starting to look a bit arbitrary in light of how little content I’m able to get up on this blog these days. Sometimes if an opportunity appears, you have to take it. And people should know about such brilliance as this. People. Should. Know.
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Released: August 2015
Label:JYP Entertainment Genre: K-Pop -◊-◊-◊-◊-
It’s not enough for the album to sound like the 1980s, it has to look like them, too.
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TRACK LISTING
1. Baby Don’t Play 2. Candle (feat. Paloalto) 3. I Feel You 4. Rewind 5. Loved 6. John Doe 7. One Black Night 8. Back 9. Oppa 10. Faded Love 11. Gone 12. Remember
1980s pop musical tributes may not quite be a dime a dozen at the moment, but they’re certainly in vogue. When someone as big as Taylor Swift decides to emblazon her polaroid-inspired album artwork with the title “1989”, you just know a trend is in motion. Synth hooks, big bass and full-ham electronic mixing are all back and you don’t have to look very hard to find them, as this entertaining 2014 list from Pigeons & Planes paints clear as day. And that’s amazing, because the musical quirks that define a “1980s sound” are pretty damn fun, particularly when used skilfully. Trend or no, I’ve always got time for a good 1980s inspired album.
REBOOT, the aptly named, long-awaited comeback piece from one-time Korean supergroup Wonder Girls, is a very good 1980s inspired album.
Time for another all-too-uncommon album review, this time from guest writer, graphic artist and DJ extraordinaire Youniversal.
—Written by Youniversal—
—Edited/formatted by Vagrantesque—
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Released: August 2014
Label:Virgin Records Genre: EDM -◊-◊-◊-◊-
All ethereal-like.
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TRACK LISTING
1. Divinity (feat. Amy Millan) 2. Sad Machine 3. Years of War (feat. Breanne Duren & Sean Caskey) 4. Flicker 5. Fresh Static Snow 6. Polygon Dust (feat. Lemaitre) 7. Hear the Bells (feat. Imaginary Cities) 8. Natural Light 9. Lionhearted (feat. Urban Cone) 10. Sea of Voices 11. Fellow Feeling 12. Goodbye To a World
There comes a time in every conceptual cycle where the new kid on the block finds a unique answer to the age old question: “What comes next?” On August 12th 2014, 22 year old Porter Robinson released a masterpiece that used its devices to break the limitations of what the industry would consider EDM. ‘Worlds’ is a 12 piece synthpop album that takes the charm of a late 90’s 32-bit title and the flare of otaku culture, then shoves them together to produce what you could call a beautifully glitchy nostalgic mess. Using the english vocaloid AVANNA by Zero G and the help of artists such as Amy Millan and Urban Cone, Robinson guides his listeners through a universe of escapism and the unlikely relationships that blossom between reality and the digital world.
I’m not going to lie – this is a list I do mostly for my own amusement, as I know that K-Pop fans who actually devote the time to listening to albums are kind of scarce. And yet, if you’re reading this, then you are either one of those rare people, or you’re at least curious. In any case, please make yourself at home, sit back and relax as I present to you my ten favourite major album releases in Korean pop music over the course of 2014. In my humble opinion there was a decent amount of good stuff to be found this year.
The list is split into two top fives – one for Mini Albums (essentially EPs) and one for Full Albums, which qualify when they contain eight or more tracks.
. -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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MINI ALBUMS
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5. Holler – TaeTiSeo
I’m sure it isn’t an original expression of opinion to say that the only thing holding up the overall quality of Girls Generation’s non-Japanese album output over the last several years is the work of TaeTiSeo, also known as “What happens when you distill a nine-member group down to its three best / most complementary voices”. Indeed the second album from the SNSD sub-unit is a strong sophomore effort that only falls short of their 2012 debut Twinkle by virtue of having one less track. Holler sees Taeyeon, Tiffany and Seohyun harmonise their way around a handful of vocal showcase songs that push their range and certainly do no harm to the future prospects of these three superstars of Korean pop. The mid-tempo ballads are there, as expected, but Holler also ratchets up the tempo more than Twinkle did, resulting in the highly enjoyable Stay, Eyes and Adrenaline, not to mention a general ‘all seasons’ feel.
Trust something like K-Pop to make me nostalgic for 2012, of all things.
The ancillary troubles that dogged the Korean pop music industry throughout 2014 are well documented in K-Pop circles, and while I have no interest in writing a full-on postmortem, there’s little doubt these troubles had at least some effect on the amount of quality stuff released throughout the year. As once-big acts found themselves on the way out and the mid-tier labels attempting to profit from this got caught in a game of follow-the-leader, the resulting stretches of ho-hum releases stretched on for quite a while.
But this is K-Pop, and you can always guarantee such a high volume of output from all the gazillion labels these days that some of it is bound to be worth listening to. 2014 was no exception, producing some good quality singles worth celebrating, or in this case, counting down!
No album B-sides or non-Korean language songs from K-Pop artists are eligible for this particular list – generally only songs with MVs (music videos) appear. The visual nature of K-Pop means I have taken said MVs into consideration when ordering the list, but ultimately I made this list via an IPod audio playlist, so the song itself is the biggest contributing factor.
time that . -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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15. Jackpot – Block B
K-Pop is a lesser entity overall without the crazy creative energy of Block B, so it’s a very good thing indeed that they are still around after all the label dramas of last year. Block B’s new home, Seven Seasons Entertainment, seems even more willing to let Zico and the boys loose on whatever concept tickles their fancy than Stardom was, and as a result we get things like Jackpot. Somehow both high-energy and creepy at the same time, the song leverages a carnival atmosphere to thrilling effect. Yes, the change-up for the chorus is jarring, but I have no doubt that was part of the plan, and that post-chorus is just so infectious. Block B is alive, manic and well. .
I’ve been listening to this one for over a month now, and I’m about ready to call it pretty damn awesome.
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Released: October 2014
Label:Big Machine Genre: Pop -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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TRACK LISTING
1. Welcome to New York 2. Blank Space 3. Style 4. Out of the Woods 5. All You Had to Do Was Stay 6. Shake It Off 7. I Wish You Would 8. Bad Blood 9. Wildest Dreams 10. How You Get the Girl 11. This Love 12. I Know Places 13. Clean 14. Wonderland (Deluxe only) 15. You Are In Love (Deluxe only) 16. New Romantics (Deluxe only)
I used to be really, really apathetic about Taylor Swift. For a long time I, like many people around the world today, barely batted an eyelid at a new single or album release from the Nashville-raised countrified pop star. I’m not exactly sure when that opinion started to change, though I know it probably had a lot to do with her refreshingly down-to-earth, highly entertaining public interviews with Ellen DeGeneres. Then in late 2012, Redhappened. An album that seemed impossible to avoid, Red represented a tangible departure from Swift’s country roots, pushing towards a more universally appealing sound. I let my curiosity get the better of me, bought it, and didn’t look back. Aside from its perhaps overindulgent length, the album was very hard to fault, and it was quickly deemed a modern classic by critics and fans alike. I kinda liked it too, so when the talented singer-songwriter announced an album with my birth year stamped on the front cover earlier this year, I was instantly hyped. The album promised a sound that borrowed liberally from late-1980s synth pop, and that it most certainly does. Yet 1989 still feels like a worthy successor to Red. It’s not as good, but it’s still a really enjoyable listen over and over again.
I’ve been both busy and ill this last week, which is never the best combo for this blog, but here we go now.
It was the experience I felt I had to have. After almost three years without such an opportunity, last weekend I finally made it to a full-on K-Pop concert (That incredible late 2011 K-Pop extravaganza came a few months before I cared). Though my enthusiasm for the genre probably peaked last year, when I came pretty damn close to attending a similar event before it fell through, I am by no means done with appreciating K-Pop and even if I was, I have bought so many albums and written so many words about it already that to move on without having seen it live in its purest form would have been a real shame.
Enter TS Entertainment and their always busy headline act, six-member male group B.A.P.
Also known as “A K-Pop World Tour That Actually Includes Australia – Wow.”
Sydney’s Big Top in Luna Park was packed for the May 10 performance event and there was a surprisingly decent contingent of older and male fans getting into the swing of things (I had expected an almost completely teenage fangirl demographic in the crowd and was happy to be proved wrong). As I mentioned in a K-Pop countdown two years ago, B.A.P’s musical output does tend to have a more universal appeal than most male K-Pop groups, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Continue reading →
2013, much like any other year, saw an insane amount of movement in the Korean popular music industry. Its lightning-fast trends and short attention span continued to make the rest of the music world seem like it was moving at a snail’s pace, and while the obscene rate of new groups debuting in 2012 slowed considerably this year, there was still a constant stream of new material to ensure boredom was near-impossible. While I didn’t quite follow the industry as comprehensively as I did in 2012, and despite some stretches of time without any remarkable releases, the sheer volume of music on offer meant that I sat down to chisel this countdown out of a shortlist of no less than 39 tracks. I honestly struggled to keep the honorable mentions at just ten.
Just like last year, this list is devoted to “K-Pop Singles” only (they’re technically “title tracks”, but no need to confuse things too much). No album-only tracks, or ‘B-sides’, if you will, or else we would be here for a while. This year there will be a list dedicated to K-Pop albums anyway. Once again, I’ve ignored every 2013 K-Pop single released in Japanese or other non-Korean languages. But don’t let that stop you from checking some of them out (particularly when it comes to SNSD). Tracks are ordered based on visual factors as well as musical ones (such is K-Pop) but audio strength is given preference where applicable. Let’s get started.
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15. Gentleman – PSY
Let’s kick things off by giving credit where credit is due. PSY may not have lit up the world like he did in 2012 with Gangnam Style, but his 2013 follow-up Gentleman still managed to smash several YouTube viewing records. Though the song no doubt shares deliberate similarities with last year’s mega-hit, it maintains its own character through a more aggressive style of humour, a larger scale and a partnership – both in personnel and in borrowed choreography – with veteran girl group Brown Eyed Girls. Ga In of the influential foursome brings her famous Abracadabra moves to PSY’s set to enhance an already hilarious and catchy package.
Vagrant Rant 