At first it may appear that the new f(x) album Red Light District is going to have an interesting and edgy crackwhore concept that makes Troublemaker's "Now" look like amateur hour...

It's halfway through 2014 when writing this post and I already can't count the amount of people who have asked me to throw down my opinions on my favourite songs of 2014.  However, I deliberately make a point of not doing lists like that in advance in order to give every song a chance to be included, so you're just gonna have to wait.  In 2013 I even mercilessly mocked people who released "best of the year" lists many months before the year was over, so damned if I'm going down that route myself.  While you're waiting, to keep you happy/shut you up how about a similar post with a list of my favourite k-pop songs from the past few years before I started blogging?


Note before you read ahead that this post contains 30 YouTube videos and might take a while to load on slow computers or on your crappy iWhatsit or whatever you kids use these days.

I refer to 2008-2011 as k-pop's first golden age - it's the time when k-pop songwriting not only caught up to but for the first time significantly overtook western pop music in quality and style and created world-beating pop productions that grabbed the attention of global listeners.  Before 2008 Korean pop music was always behind the pack in many respects, but by the end of 2011 it was clear that k-pop's songwriting and production values were easily able to better anything that the west was offering.  The songs were (and still are) highly derivative - let's be real, everything in k-pop is a western copy, but k-pop was able to transform itself into a superior clone in many respects that combined the songwriting smarts of various eras of western pop with modern engineering and production skills that surpassed many of the originals.

After the 2008-2011 plateau I believe that k-pop has backtracked a little from this point.  I've titled this post "k-pop's first golden age", hinting at the possibility that k-pop could have a second golden age.  I don't know if or when it will happen, but I do know that if it is coming, we're definitely not there yet. Most musical genres don't peak twice, but at the same time k-pop probably isn't going anywhere and will continue to evolve and adapt, whether the song quality peaks again or not.


A few things:

1.  This list is my personal opinion on what the best songs were during this period so if you disagree... that's nice, but I don't really give a fuck so you can spare yourself the energy of pointing out how wrong you feel that I am.  I've always known that music is subjective and nobody's opinion is superior so if you feel strongly about anything you read here, think a little before you write that 200 word essay on why your fave got ignored.  Maybe do your own list to make yourself feel better, how about that for a suggestion.  Then everyone else can hate on your picks and you'll know how I feel.

2. I'm sure many fangirls will disagree with the fact that this list is almost exclusively girl groups, but that's just too bad because with only a couple of exceptions I don't think the male groups had much to offer musically during this period.  If I did separate best-of posts for each year more guy groups would have made it on, but I'm not going to do that because I'm too lazy.

3.  I'm considering doing a "worst of" list for these years as well but it's very difficult as most of the really shit songs from this era have already been lost in time and their dreadful MVs are proving impossible to track down.  Although I'd like to do one, a "worst of the golden age" list may or may not appear at some point in the future depending on how my research goes, but if it does, it definitely won't be anytime soon.

4.  Only feature tracks with MVs qualify for this list because I don't have the time/money to listen to every k-pop album ever, plus I want this post to be visually interesting (read: fappable).

5.  Where are the nugus?  Well, you've got to remember that quite a few of these groups were nugus at the time these videos came out.

6.  Yes, I'm biased - what would be the point of this list if I wasn't?

Let's get started.

30. Girls' Generation - Gee

Yes, I've put "Gee" at #30, not #1, I didn't accidentally mix up the numbering order - deal with it, Sones.  E-TRIBE were always a production team incredibly ill-suited to k-pop.  Their typically densely-textured ear-assault always seemed better suited to some kind of industrial music than k-pop, and given that most of industrial music's greatest artists have long since peaked in terms of creativity I think there's a real market opportunity for them in this area.  However, if you put a blindfold on a machine-gunner and ask him to spray an entire box of ammo at a target on the other side of a football field there's still a mathematical chance he'll hit the bullseye eventually, and E-TRIBE's normally wayward aim was true on the day that they penned "Gee" for Girls' Generation.  The pacy analog synth-driven backing atonal enough to come from a Front Line Assembly b-side mitigated SNSD's super-cloying aegyo which would have sounded cringeworthy over just about anything else, cementing the group's pop stardom and ensuring E-TRIBE enough of an income stream to make the rest of their songwriting career unimportant.  Which was just as well for them, because they never made anything even remotely this good ever again.

29. 2NE1 - I Am The Best

It's hard to imagine in 2014, but there was a time just a few short years ago when 2NE1 were at the top of their game, and every new song of theirs was looked forward to with heavy anticipation as something that would undoubtedly be special.  Nowadays the group's releases have sunk in quality so drastically that just the mere suggestion of heavy anticipation of a 2NE1 track reads like a strange scenario lifted out of one of my fiction stories, but this was honestly the way many regular k-pop fans felt back then, even outside of the 2NE1 fandom.  The introductory synth riff to this song is as ball-wrenching as it is distinctive, and while the song arguably never peaks beyond the first 30 seconds of shock and awe, "I Am The Best" will remain one of k-pop's best party-starters and speaker-system-testers for the forseeable future.  Bonus points for a visually astounding MV with several iconic moments that 2NE1 haven't topped since and likely won't.

28. Brown Eyed Girls - Abracadabra

Every time I go to watch this video, I head into the task with the resolute determination that this time I'm going to finally work out what the fuck's going on in the story.  Then I always get distracted at about the two minute mark when Gain (is it actually Gain?  Maybe it's one of the other girls, I don't give a fuck) gets slammed up against the wall and her clothes get torn off.  Then I sort of lose myself thinking about the sexual appeal of that moment and then the video ends and suddenly I'm like "what the fuck happened what's going on here SHIT I forgot to pay attention again" and then I press play and go from the start of the video and the process repeats itself.  All of this constant repetition and replaying has really embedded what I initially felt was a fairly average song deeply enough in my head to earn it a place on this list which I guess was probably the idea.  There's a lesson here, k-pop record companies.

27. KARA - Step

KARA's "Step" is one of the straight-up rockingest songs in k-pop, and I'm aware that "rockingest" isn't a word but it describes this song very well as I'll use it if I want to.  No surprise that it came from KARA songwriting regulars Sweetune who specialise in sneaking heavy metal influences into pop music (more on that later), this song is loaded with crunchy riffs and a great Queen-style harmonised chorus.  It's just a shame that the music video is offputting and one of k-pop biggest eyesores, the set design and fashions on display here are simply terrifying and the MV nearly made it into my colour blindness test post for its formidable retina-shredding power.  Like the lights in The Day Of The Triffids, it's possible that no human alive today has actually watched "Step" all the way through and survived with their vision undamaged.

26. After School - Bang!

Out of all the songs on this list, "Bang!" has to be one of the weirdest.  Most of the elements in the backing track don't fit together in any way at all except rhythmically, but it all works because it just means more disparate and catchy elements that all get lodged in your head at one point or another.  One day it's that dit-dit-dit-dit keyboard part in the chorus that I can't shake, the next day it's one of those stupid raps with the horrible English that gives you secondhand embarrassment just from listening... but thinking about it some more, I must admit that just puts them more or less on par with most western rap lyrics these days.  Speaking of embarrassment, I imagine it's pretty difficult for a high school kid to explain their way out of having "after school bang" still sitting in their Google search bar when their parents or siblings want to use the computer so be grateful that this blog post allows you to conveniently find this video without actually having to type that in anywhere.

25. Sunny Hill - Midnight Circus

This song was sort of like "House Of Fun" by Madness given the high-gloss k-pop treatment with juiced-up melodies and production, crazy high-budget staging and hot girls of course.  There's a token guy in this "co-ed" group but nobody really gave a fuck about that dude (and he obviously realised it, recently leaving the group to focus on a career in music production).  This song is proof that k-pop at its best can and does take musical influence from any goddamn place it pleases, and that's one of the things that has kept me into the genre, the willingness to draw on a wide palette of styles to construct the product.  Oh, and hot girls.  Sunny Hill were always an A-list group for me, like a more left-field Brown Eyed Girls.  Like.

24. f(x) - NU ABO

Everybody who likes f(x) always whines about how SM aren't giving them the same treatment that they give SNSD, but a careful listen to a song like "NU ABO" should tell them exactly why.  Play this song, ignore the vocals completely, and focus on the shit in the background.  If you're using your ears actively, after a while you'll be asking yourself "wait... what is that fucking shit in the background?".  Whoever wrote this song basically just made a dance track full of beats and weird noise.  There's not even any chord changes, when they go to a new section, they just replace the weird noise with some other weird noise.  As a fan of Merzbow and Einsturzende Neubauten I appreciate this kind of thing, even if it's at nowhere near the same intensity level.  Like SM were ever going to give f(x) the SNSD treatment - come on now.  It's obvious that they're after something totally different here, a left-of-centre boutique faux-artsy pop group experiment, just to see how it flies.  Fly it does.  Even Amber's horrible raps can't ruin this, but I understand that she's gotta be there or Sulli's hotness would overload and crack people's computer screens so it's all good.  But you can stop asking where your official fanclub name is and where your official colour is and why they don't get world tours and concerts and all that bullshit because SM are actually trying to do something different here for once, so maybe you should appreciate it for what it is instead of whining like a little spoiled cunt, now how about that.

23. 4Minute - Heart To Heart

There was a time when new 4Minute songs didn't sound like they were written by someone trying to impersonate their own fart noises with a synthesizer, and actually had listenable melody, harmony and structure.  Listening to them these days, who would've thought?  "Heart To Heart" is one of the best songs from back in those times of old, and hearing it in retrospect makes the fall of 4Minute from quality pop vehicles to Bravesound's broken Moog mechanics feel even more tragic.  It's enough to make a k-pop music fan want to cry... but if you're feeling down, just skip to 3:30 and check out one of the girls trying to deliver an emotional line directly to the camera with a hairstyle straight from 2NE1's nightmares.  You'll cheer back up again faster than you can say "even Dara would sack her stylist for that".

22. T-ara - Bo Peep Bo Peep

Back in the early days of T-ara, CCM ran a poll and asked netizens which song should be T-ara's lead single from their first album, "Bo Peep Bo Peep" or "Like The First Time".  Netizens voted slightly in favour of "Like The First Time", so CCM went ahead and released "Bo Peep Bo Peep" anyway, because even though "Like The First Time" is a better song, fucking with netizens is hilarious, right?  A song about a nine-tailed fox that kills gullible men after they fap should have tipped off Koreans to exactly what kind of trolling was in store from this group in the years to come, and the hilariously repetitive catchy-from-first-listen chorus and mocking lyrics implying that you're a fucking sheep being led to the slaughter just underline the idea that in the often overly fanservicey world of k-pop T-ara is a group that is not and never will be about what you want.  Even the butt-dancing is so quickly cut (an editing practice that would become a T-ara MV trademark) that it's literally impossible to fap to, but like the song says, "don't lose your temper so easily".

21. Orange Caramel - Shanghai Romance

Everybody likes to talk about cultural appropriation like it's such a hot topic these days, so I'd like to say that as a part-Chinese person, I'm deeply offended by Orange Caramel's "Shanghai Romance", how dare these Koreans pretend to be Chinese and make us look all twee and shit and insult my culture by wearing those hats and clothes like it's silly and... oh, who the fuck am I kidding, like I give a shit.   Sometimes you just gotta loosen up a bit, take the carrot out of your ass, wipe the turd residue off it and say "well, they didn't mean any genuine harm or insult by it, so okay then, I think I can deal with it, I'll find a way".  I actually think it's important in this multicultural global connected world to try and promote getting along with people rather than to nitpick at everything and get people racially fired up about stuff that they probably wouldn't have even thought to be offended by had someone not pointed it out.  Although if I ever catch that Raina in person I'll be sure to punish her severely - I'm not sure how, but I'll think of something, probably involving lots of spanking and tying her to that biplane.  She's the leader of this group so she has to take responsibility.  In the meantime this song is good.  Or something.  Sorry, I'm a little too distracted thinking about Raina tied to the plane's wings with her bare buttocks exposed to review this properly now, maybe another time.

20. Girls' Generation  - Mr. Taxi

Where I live a lot of women are afraid to catch taxis because they're afraid they'll get raped by the drivers.  A lot of taxi drivers on the other hand are afraid to drive a taxi because they're worried about getting stabbed by the passengers.  Perhaps adding more glamour and glitz to taxis is the key and if everyone sat down, chilled out and listened to SNSD's "Mr. Taxi" for a while that would make everything better... or maybe not, but it's still a great song anyway.  "Mr. Taxi" was SNSD's debut original song for the Japanese market (although it did also get a Korean-language release later) and as far as Japanese releases go they never topped that great earworm chorus for sheer catchiness.  I guess someone over at SM drunk all the "hypertonic".

19. Sunny Hill - Pray

I always take time out of my k-pop writing routine to regularly take a big smelly literary dump on the worthless ballads that Korean pop music produces.  These songs are 99% filler trash usually lazily thrown out by songwriters to pad out the length of an album or mini so it meets minimum contractual length requirements, or even worse, heartless, soulless, showoffy exercises in displaying singing technique to satiate k-pop's legions of obsessive-compulsive sycophantic fans.  Of course, I say 99% because very occasionally, a good ballad is produced, and here one is.  Showing a rare combination of melodic restraint, brevity, moodiness, sensible lyrics, and even a decent video with a worthwhile subtext (that those who like to parade around morally upstanding religious values are often doing so to cover up the fact that they are just as shady as everyone else), it's easy to see why it got banned from Korean TV - Koreans clearly can't fucking handle this kind of high quality in a ballad.  I guess go back to your vacuous sappy candy-coated bullshit, you pathetic Starcraft nerds.

18. Girls' Generation - Oh!

"Oh!" always impressed me as the superior companion song to "Gee", with the same type of production ideas being used but married to a song with better melody and less cloying cheesiness.  It's like they listened to "Gee", thought "okay, how can we do that sort of thing again, but make it even better" and scientifically applied themselves in exactly the right areas.  While "Gee" gained popularity outside Korea as a gimmicky viral video that spread quickly in computer nerd circles precisely because the aegyo overload didn't translate to western audiences (the true reason for its high YouTube hit rate, something Sones generally ignore), "Oh!" on the other hand was just a solid song with some hot girls dancing that people liked.  I don't really "get" the cheerleader thing in this video though, I must admit.  My school didn't have that shit, the girls in my classes were too busy getting stoned, applying hairspray and listening to bad 80s music to be bothered with pom-poms and choreography, so watching the "Oh!" MV is like a peek into a parallel fantasy universe where hot girls actually give a fuck about sports.  Also the locker room is clean and neat so you know this is pure fantasy.  Speaking of fantasy, whoever decided to put Sunny in that red shirt and suspenders was a genius and certainly helped along a few fantasies of my own.

17. Wonder Girls - Tell Me

One of the first really astoundingly good k-pop songs, it's no shock that this smooth and very 80s production comes from JYP, the most unashamedly retro of all k-pop producers.  JYP's production here is mid-80s pop all the way, right down to the distinctly inappropriate and hilarious sampled moaning that I'm sure he had a lot of fun creating with one of those five girls (my money's on Sohee).  No wonder they all went Christian on him, it was probably a planned tactic to stop him from turning them into k-pop's 2 Live Crew.  Plus, what other k-pop video has a streaker in it?  Talk about wearing his heart on his sleeve, never mind which girl is the hottest because JYP probably fapped to this before you did.

16. SHINee - Lucifer

I'm sorry but boy band songs are mostly generic as fuck.  The music that mattered in the k-pop revolution was nearly all female and the reason is (warning: music theory incoming) because songwriters actually write songs for the guy groups differently, usually favouring simpler harmony and pentatonic instead of diatonic melody.  This matters because anyone can shit out a semi-acceptable pentatonic melody over chords I, IV and V after about one improvisation class in any given instrument, but it won't ever sound any more than thoughtless.  Maybe it's because the songwriters feel that the crazy girl fandoms will carry the groups to fame with fan power so not much effort is needed in the actual song, but whatever because with SHINee a notable exception was made so bravo to SM for making a guy group song that I can listen to without throwing up.  "Lucifer" is actually really cohesive with great synth riffs, a tight structure and just enough blues-scale wank to show that they can sing more than one note but not enough to wreck the thing with aimless warbling like just about every other guy group song from the period.  Also, that dance, that fucking dance, easily the most iconic dance in kpop.  Props to anyone who can do that, how come the female groups never get dances this cool.  Credit where it's due - if there's one area where the guy groups are streets ahead every time it's definitely the dancing, even impressive girl stuff like T-ara's "Lovey Dovey" doesn't hold a candle to the shit that the male groups get forced to do.

15. 2NE1 - Fire

(insert comments about how I don't really hate 2NE1 here but they just can't release anything decent lately here) (insert comments about how "Fire" is really good here) (quick superfluous discussion of the musical content that reveals nothing of worth or at least nothing that I can get called out on by some know-it-all in the comments) (mention Dara's silly hair as a precedent for her silly hair in other 2NE1 videos later) (mention the "street" version and how I didn't include it because visually it's boring and I can't fap to Bom in a hoodie) (throw in a quick reference to the "school" live version here and how my friend used to fap to Minzy dancing like she was getting fucked up against a wall at 1:33 until I pointed out that she was only 15 years old at that time and then he felt like the world's biggest pedo) (insert obligatory Bom plastic surgery joke here) (finish with witty conclusion that wraps everything up neatly and gives everyone positive vibes while still reinforcing my opinion that the last half a dozen 2NE1 feature tracks have all been dogshit)

14. Wonder Girls - Nobody

I know people have been wondering about this and will ask me about it, so here you go: I have searched fucking everywhere to find out what microphone Wonder Girls are using in this video and I keep turning up a blank.  It's definitely a copy of the ring-mount carbon microphones that were in popular use in radio in the 1920s and 1930s, but the fact that it seems to fit neatly into a modern microphone stand plus the fanciness and very good condition of the things makes me think this is a JYP studio mock-up.  The surround looks at lot like the Blue Ringer shock mount attachment for the Blue Snowball microphone that's been painted gold a bit around the rim to match the rest of the set and costume design, however what's inside it definitely isn't a Blue Snowball.  Not that it matters, they didn't ever actually plug any of these microphones in for any of the Wonder Girls' performances of this great song which meshes 1960s Motown melody and harmony with JYP's typical 80s production.  So typical of JYP that he's all over the damn video though, you could joke that JYP is the kind of person who would film himself taking a shit in his own videos if he could, but that's not even a joke because that's exactly what he fucking does here.   At least he didn't take a shit (literally) on the Japanese version that they did later.  Anyway it's a pity JYP didn't realise the strength of and stick with the Motown-meets-80s concept because they would have cleaned up all over SNSD both in Korea and the USA.  Oh well, at least they left us with this iconic song.

13. Bom - You And I

...and the best ballad in k-pop belongs to the best singer in k-pop which is 2NE1's Bom.  Yeah, I said it.  Why is Bom the best singer in k-pop?  For exactly the same reason that the vocalfags hate her - she can't fucking sing a note, she strains, she can't connect her notes together - I LOVE IT.  Such a commitment to "fuck it I wanna be an idol and no lack of technique is gonna stop me" is not only ideologically highly admirable in a Crayon Punk kind of way but it means that Bom has developed something that no other k-pop singer has -  a voice that is instantly identifiable in a blind listening test.  In the Korean idol system all idols sound the same because they are specifically trained to sound the same, and then on top of that they all get the same vocal processing, so telling them apart is nearly impossible unless you're an obsessive listener - the homogenisation is so extreme that even the idols themselves have trouble identifying their own singing parts when listening back to the results (proof in an upcoming blog post, anticipate it fondly).  If you still don't believe me, check out any forum thread where the audio to a k-pop song by a large multi-member female group has been leaked before any video is made available, and watch people guessing who sung what words at what time.  It's the same kind of homogenisation charm-school process that Hollywood actresses from the 1950s went though, and you can't tell any of them apart just from listening to the sound of voices either without the visual or familiarity with the lines of a film to help you along.  Everyone can recognise Bom though, her and arguably to a lesser degree AOA's Jimin are the only two distinctive singers that female k-pop has.  Also the fact that she can't vocalise much and do the kind of vocal improvisations that other singers do means that the song's delivery has a nice restraint to it which lets the true melody shine without being coated with several layers of unlistenable overdubbed wank (looking at you, Ailee).  I really also like the MV for this because I've been in exactly the same situation Bom's character finds herself dealing with in this video, and yes it ended the same way.  Trufax.

12. Super Junior - Sorry Sorry

That great opening riff, wow.  Slow it down a bit, play it on guitar instead of keys and that first keyboard line could have been lifted straight from a Black Sabbath record.  This song can commit any other musical crime that it wants to (and it does) but solid riff-writing is severely underutilized in k-pop (another notable exception further down this list) and "Sorry Sorry" gets full marks for a backing track 100 times more catchy than any of the actual vocals.  Maybe that wasn't the intention but it works for me, and it seemingly worked for everyone else too because this song catapulted Super Junior to instant super-stardom.  SM retried the "Sorry Sorry" formula again and again by copying the beat and the vocal stylings but they ballsed it up each time because each time they got just a little too fancy with it and when writing riffs simplicity is important [insert "Mr. Simple" pun here].  I've used the dance version of the video because the dance is cool and kind of hypnotic to watch as the group's members swirl up and down across the stage like a human lava lamp which actually gives me even more entertainment than the song itself, great as it is.

11. Girls' Generation - Chocolate Love

It's fitting somehow for the unashamedly ultra-commercial style that is k-pop, that the best song from the most popular girl group in the genre at the time of writing is actually just an extended advert for a fucking phone.  Having mentioned this, you could actually be forgiven these days for not even noticing that it's a phone advert, especially given that the 2001 A Space Odyssey obelisk devices the girls are holding are probably now a few generations of technology out of date.  Labelmates f(x) had a version of this song too, but it sounds rushed to my ear and the heavier accompaniment rubs too much against the smoothness of the melody - SNSD took the pace down a notch and this gave both the melody and the fairly intricate backings a bit more breathing room so you can actually hear them properly.  Also it's nice to see the girls dressing in colours that don't confuse my eye for a change, that's probably helped them work their way a few places up on this list.

10. T-ara - I'm Really Hurt

Remember when Girls' Generation's "Mr. Mr" teaser photos were released and crappy pseudo-feminist bloggers all jumped for joy about the possibly of them doing a "tomboy" concept?  "Wow, this could be revolutionary!" they all said, as if what some chicks wear in a fucking corporate rubber-stamped music video makes a difference to the world.  Then do you remember the tears that were extracted from these same bloggers when SNSD only wore the suits for about 10 seconds of the video and maybe one live stage and the rest of the time they were in the kinky nurses getup?  Ah, fun times.  Someone should have told these moral-high-ground-clutching twits that it wouldn't have mattered as doyens of jizz expurgation and fangirl arch-enemies T-ara had already been down this same road before with a song many times better than Mr. Mr. and the entire teenage male population of Korea still fapped.  No SM-style baiting half-measures here either, T-ara keep the male getup intact for the whole video, only stopping to change suit colour presumably because cumstains don't show up as much on white clothing.  Cross-dressing girls ares always hot (especially Eunjung who was practically born to cross-dress, especially in the bedroom while I conquer/dominate her) and frankly the song being one of the best that k-pop ever produced is just a bonus.

9. 2NE1 - Hate You

The problem with just about every 2NE1 song released in the last 24 months is that the songwriters are really trying to do too much fancy shit to get your attention and prove how cutting-edge they are instead of focusing on making a tune that doesn't suck.  It's like the pressure is on: "this song could be their next big hit so we're going to cram everything we possibly can into it to make it the best song ever ever in history ever" and of course whenever songwriters feel intense pressure they tend to respond by writing absolute trendy bullshit (look at the quality difference between what PSY has done pre and post Gangnam Style, for instance).  "Hate You" embodies the opposite of that type of attitude - the song keeps it simple with no tricks, no fancy bullshit, just a decent melody, a few rotating chords and some cool synth backing making this easily the best 2NE1 song ever.  Also as an added bonus the cartoon CL and Dara are considerably more fappable than their real-life counterparts.

8. f(x) - Hot Summer

K-pop has always been a copyist form and excels at remaking anything western.  A revamped, lyrically ultra-sanitised version of Monrose's "Hot Summer" where the girls sing about being literally hot instead of sexual-metaphorically hot shouldn't work in theory, but in practice it does anyway.  I guess when you've got Sulli in your group hotness isn't something you need to try very hard at, it just sort of happens naturally.  All versions of the song are great and this is the only time f(x) have had a feature track resembling traditional ultra-mainstream pop material, showing that they're quite capable of going down this path should the label choose to let them (spoiler alert: they won't).  There's even a Japanese version of this song which I think didn't do that well but I'm linking it here anyway just so I've got quick reference to Sulli wearing slightly different outfits so I can fap some more.

7. T-ara - Why Are You Being Like This?

T-ara get their ABBA on for this amazing retro-styled song and the only thing harder than my erection when the chorus comes in is trying to find a high-quality version of this video that also has the correct aspect ratio.  Listening to this gem takes me back to the days when melody was actually important in western pop before rap and dancehall musical influences started creeping in heavily and fucking everything up, fortunately most k-pop producers are my age or older and remember the halycon days of pop music that didn't suck a distended goat's rectum.  Not that I'm against rap or dancehall, I like those styles too, but they don't go well with this sort of thing, and there's plenty of proof of that in this song's awkward half-time rap breakdown which is annoying and needless but mercifully short and not enough of an imposition to ruin what is probably one of k-pop's best drunken karaoke singalongs.  I don't drink but I almost want to start drinking just to take advantage of how great this song must sound when I'm collapsed on the floor of a karaoke booth choking to death on my own vomit while some girl in a maid outfit tickles my asshole.

6. Secret - Shy Boy

Hey guys and gals, want to call out a k-pop company as being a pack of retards who have no idea what the fuck they're doing?  Well, forget about all your usual targets like SM, YG, CUBE, CCM, JYP etc because give or take a few shit songs and an SNS slip-up here and there all those guys are just fine - instead consider to make your first stop TS Entertainment, Secret's record label.  Secret walked into major, major fame with the utterly brilliant "Shy Boy", a throwback to 1950s doo-wop music and style.  Doo-wop is a music scene analogous to k-pop in many respects that I'm honestly surprised more k-pop fans aren't into, especially given k-pop fans' tedious vocal obsession - unlike k-pop, singing correctly in doo-wop music actually matters.  "Shy Boy" was ultra-bright, fun, awesome and of such incredibly high musical and conceptual quality that nobody even noticed or complained that Secret had put most of their clothes back on.  Then TS (which presumably stands for "Tough Shit") Entertainment looked at the success of "Shy Boy" and said "hmmm... that really worked out well for us and the fans all loved it, let's make sure we never ever do that shit again" and went straight back to making Secret rip off Beyonce's godawful "Crazy In Love" for the 57th time.  Someome should do something about this incredible waste of potential for Secret to be k-pop's first doo-wop/k-pop hybrid group.  It's enough to make me want to throw an egg at TS Entertainment's headquarters, miss and hit the gutter, or form a protest meeting and then cancel it at the last minute, because that's what k-pop fans apparently do when they really mean business.

5. Orange Caramel - Magic Girl

In the 1980s, one of the biggest, most successful pop songwriting teams was Stock, Aitken and Waterman (hereafter referred to as SAW).  SAW were an unreservedly "high production" trio, much in the style of k-pop production teams: they were always candid about their sometimes controversial techniques, inviting documentary crews to observe the virtues of pitch-corrected vocals (this is pre-Autotune, and yes they could fix vocals electronically back then too), heavy vocal layering and their ability to turn what were basically fashion models with limited musical ability into pop superstars.  Their signature sound is a sound that everyone reading this has heard before - think of them as the Bravesound of western 80s pop - they'd reliably milk exactly the same formulas and sounds with each artist and create charting hits with the results, even if they weren't that different to their charting hits that came immediately before.  Sadly, the songs themselves were often very lacking, and the trio made their biggest mistake getting mixed up with then-Neighbours soap star Kylie Minogue's career for a quick buck. The Kylie/SAW combination didn't gel, and when Kylie finally realised it in the early 90s in the face of declining album sales she flew the SAW coop to instant international #1 hits while SAW suddenly found their fortunes fading as they were now associated with "that 80s sound" which everybody in the 1990s now wanted to leave behind.  Orange Caramel's true concept is basically recreating SAW as it ideally should have been back then - the same sonics and production ideas but with better technology, catchier melodies and more fappable girls (although there's definitely something to be said for the fapability of ex-"page 3 girls" Mel of Mel and Kim and Samantha Fox who also recorded under SAW).  "Magic Girl" was the ultimate realisation of this concept, a formula that Orange Caramel has only deviated from slightly ever since (at least where feature tracks are concerned) and just to make it super-obvious the intro even copies Rick Astley's infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up" drum roll; yes, that was a SAW production too.  Like Bravesound in 2014, SAW in the late 1980s was everywhere and damn it was annoying at the time but now we reap the benefits thanks to Orange Caramel.  Maybe in 20 years from now somebody will repeat history and copy Bravesound's 2014 style to make it better, here's hoping.

4. T-ara - Like The First Time

Here's the song that really sold me on k-pop as an overall genre.  I was aware of k-pop's existence ever since 2000, but when I heard "Like The First Time" the deal was sealed and my attitude concerning k-pop changed from "yeah those Koreans I've heard they make pop music like whatevs dude" to "HOLY FUCKING FUCK YEH KPOP YOU FUCK BITCH CUNT WOOHOO".  You see, before I found out about T-ara, I was a big fan of English synthpop group La Roux.  In fact, I still like them, I think they have some really good songs, but there's just one thing about La Roux that bothers me - their singer Elly Jackson is not that hot (well, not to me anyway - I reckon people into f(x)'s Amber might like her so if you're into her consider yourself notified).  When I heard "Like The First Time" I noticed that it sounded quite similar to La Roux's "In For The Kill" but instead of having to stare at an English Amber lookalike for the whole MV, T-ara featured six hot girls dancing (well okay, five hot girls and one that looks like my mum, sorry Boram) and as an extra bonus the song was actually slightly better ("In For The Kill" is a damn good song too so this is very high praise FYI).  Before then I always thought that great pop music had to come from ugly people but T-ara proved to me that I can have my rice cake and eat it too... I was thrilled!  I've followed T-ara closely ever since and while they may not hit this level of gold again, their hit/miss ratio is still better than any group in k-pop for my money, which is noteworthy in a genre that's known for inconsistency across the board.  Also they're hot... well, five of them are.  Boram I'll make it up to you with a feature article someday.

3. KARA - Wanna

Don't be fooled by the keyboards and the pretty girls smiling dorkily straight to camera - KARA's "Wanna" is a heavy metal song, straight up.  Yes, there are some occasional guitars but ignore them, the elements that make "Wanna" a metal song are actually all keyboard-driven and this would still be a metal song in spirit even with no guitar in it at all.  Any metalhead worth their weight in low E strings will instantly recognise the use of metal-style pedal-point harmony at 0:44 that could have come straight from one of Iron Maiden's better songs.  I can only guess that songwriters Sweetune are some closet headbangers because this song is loaded with quality heavy metal riff writing sneaking under the radar so it can get on k-pop TV.  As someone who listened to metal a great deal in my teens I appreciate the effort, and I appreciate it even more that I get to watch a video like this and look at Seungyeon whose sexy crosseyes are life itself, rather than some dreary stoned acne-scarred male teenagers with long hair and awkward-shaped pointy guitars.  Why did I waste my teens being a metalhead, standing in crowds surrounded by other guys equally as ugly as myself, when I could have been fapping it to Girl's Day?  Oh that's right, there was no Girl's Day back then.  Bless k-pop and culture technology for improving the quality of my life fuck yeah.

2. After School Blue - Wonder Boy

At some point during After School's career Pledis thought it would be a good idea to split the group into two halves and have two separate comebacks.  Hey, it makes sense on paper - double your money, right?  One half of the group was called "After School Red" and featured Nana and all the members nobody gives a shit about and who were on the graduation (read: firing) list anyway and they put out a song called "Into The Night Sky" which is probably one of Bravesound's better tracks to date but that's not saying a lot.  The other half was called "After School Blue" and had all the most fappable members - Kpopalypse bias-list-approved Orange Caramel members Raina and Lizzy, cute multi-instrumental freak (and I mean freak) E-Young and fapworthy Jooyeon, and their song was called "Wonder Boy" and it fucking shat gold.  Basically an updated reimagining of John Paul Young's "Love Is In The Air" except not shit, "Wonder Boy" was such a good song and the girls looked so good that Pledis had to enlist the help of boy group Nu'est as their live backing dancers just so ugly fangirls would have something to drool over to stop them storming the TV set and attacking the After School Blue girls in a jealous rage during the performances, like a secret agent breaking into a high-security compound and quickly throwing a guard dog a raw steak before he gets mauled.  It seems to have worked as all four girls are reportedly still alive at the time of writing, and although Pledis will probably never do the Red/Blue thing again I notice they're still employing Nu'est, presumably for continual crowd control purposes just in case they ever pull out a girl group song this good again.

Anyone who knows me even a little will find that the #1 is no surprise.

1. T-ara - Roly Poly

You know it had to be this song (or maybe you didn't, but now you do).  "Roly Poly" is the ultimate k-pop feature track and the benchmark for which I measure all other songs in k-pop, their quality scientifically measurable using the fundamental unit RP% or "percent of Roly Poly" (don't ask me to ever measure any songs like this by the way, I always just get distracted and end up listening to Roly Poly instead).  But what is it that makes Roly Poly so good?  Let's break the great features of this song down into dot points because too much truth in a traditional standard paragraph format might just melt your brains.

• Song rampantly steals from The Bee Gees' "Staying Alive" but removes the awful scrotum-bashing male falsetto, to everyone's benefit
• Dance moves and set design in the MV also directly stolen from Saturday Night Fever but I don't have to look at any Scientologists in flared trousers to appreciate them
• Qri's rap at the start and then the drums and bass kicking in is one of the most blissful and effective k-pop intros ever created, equal to 2NE1's "I Am The Best" and Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry" in iconic status, except that Qri is prettier than CL and healthier than Shindong
• Same key and harmonic content as GG Allin's classic punk anthem "Bite It You Scum" (post-scandal arguably the same lyrical message too)
• Hwayoung's rap only goes for four bars and is so comically awful that it's valid conceptual continuity fuel for a thousand Kpopalypse blog posts and a constant reminder of why removing her from the group was a good idea, as if her slackitude and nail-polishing habits weren't enough
• Invented disco k-pop as a subgenre, there was no disco in k-pop before this worth a shit
• Verses so awesome they contain not one but two simultaneous melodies, each of which could carry the song purely on its own
• A chorus that will stay in your head to your grave - maybe beyond, perhaps even the maggots that eat your rotting flesh after you've expired in a freak k-pop dance routine accident will probably sense residual brainwave vibrations of Roly Poly and start lining up and doing the hand-dance together

On top of all that, it's the perfect song to introduce someone to k-pop with.  I've been playing it on my radio show every so often and whenever it comes on someone always enters the control room and says something roughly along the lines of "you know, I think this k-pop you've been listening to is fucking shit, and I truly lament the day that you started this radio show of yours and I found out that you liked this complete fucking disposable pop dogshit because I used to respect your taste and opinion... but this song here is cool, what the fuck is this song?".  If that's not a recommendation, I dunno what is.


This post took me fucking forever!  Don't ask me to do another one of these fucking mega-lists before the end of the year, when you'll get two of them - my best and worst lists of 2014!  Patience is a virtue!  All good things come to those who wait!  Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet!  Shut the fuck up and wait patiently!  Etc!

SHE IS THE ONE WHO KNOCKED

"In a report by KBS News, according to prosecutors on June 30, Park Bom attempted to bring approximately 80 pills of amphetamines into Korea from the United States via international post... and the singer was found out while passing through customs at Incheon International Airport. However, according to the report, her case was suspended, as amphetamines can be given as a prescription in the United States, and there was an instance of Park Bom being prescribed the drug while in the U.S. 

"...distribution of the drug is banned in Korea. 

"Park Bom’s agency YG Entertainment has stated that they will soon be releasing an official statement." 

Yep. You read that correctly. Park Bom was hopped up on speed, ice, shabu, whizz, fettle, throttle, meth, crack, coke, yayo, blow, cocaine, e, ecstasy, MDMA, Ritalin, Adderol, and/or all sorts of amphetamines, and tried to MAIL HERSELF 80 PILLS OF THAT SHIT.


Intelligence of the act aside, Park Bom has been ousted as either one of two things:

(1) Park Bom is the true leader of the YG Family drug cartel. We all thought it was GDruggin, but that guy is small time pussy shit. He just pushes half ounces of shit weed he probably grows himself on his patio, but Park Bom is the real deal. She's pushing the real shit, the hard shit that everyone wants a piece of but is too afraid to get their hands dirty for.

(2) Park Bom is just a poor mule, caught in a bad position by the popo because someone probably ratted her out. I blame JYP, they're pretty jealous of the other big entertainment groups these days. At any rate, the true mastermind behind the YG Family drug cartel is still unknown.

The fan outcry has been extremely delicious, with both sides ("WOW PARK BOM IS A FUCKIN' DRUGGIE, BURN THE WITCH" and "UNNIE DIDN'T MEAN IT") full of hilarity. Most of Park Bom's defenders are saying how she has a prescription for them and she was totally in need of it, so case closed.

l0l

As if people can't get prescriptions for anything these days, or as if you need prescriptions to get pretty much anything you want. Just head toward your nearest college campus if you yourself want to get your hands on some of these "amphetamines" for example (in any country, I guarantee you). And besides, amphetamine itself is a pretty broad term for a wide range of narcotics from the relatively mild Adderol to the big bad crack cocaine. It's illegal in Korea to have this shit, and drug use in general is heavily stigmatized. I don't need to remind you all how crazy everyone gets when people get caught with marijuana, and that's the "baby" of illegal substances. There's really no reason, culturally for all you relativists (mostly using the wrong interpretation or flawed premises, more on that in a future article) or otherwise, that this was okay.

Look, I don't mean to pass definitive legal judgment on this whole deal (as I'm not qualified, let alone give a shit), but you gotta admit... MAILING YOURSELF SHIT THAT IS ILLEGAL IN YOUR COUNTRY BY FEDEX? Not exactly the smartest idea. When I first saw the headlines, I thought she was getting pills from her fangirls sewn into the stuffed animal goods or hiding that shit under her boobs or something. But MAIL? Come on man.

Not exactly her finest hour.

In addition, YG released a personal letter trying to diffuse the situation (translated here by our good pals Allkpop). I can't be assed to dissect the thing line by line, but I just wanna bring this particular one to your attention:

It's said [the drug] has narcotic properties, did they know of this?

In common sense, what mother and grandmother would go get their daughter and grandmother narcotic?

Especially in a world like today when most medications need prescriptions, how many people know of what kind of properties a medication has?

Emphasis mine. How many people know of what kind of properties a medication has? ALL THE RESPONSIBLE ONES? In America at least, doctors are expected to know the side effects and properties of a drug so they can SAFELY prescribe something to the patient based on their personal medication history, health concerns, and other important factors. I can't imagine a world where any self-respecting doctor would just let her take drugs "prescribed to her by a famous university hospital in the U.S." without letting her know what it does or what to expect in terms of side-effects or WHAT THE FUCK SHE'S ACTUALLY TAKING. Of course, you can take the letter however you like, but I just was extremely irritated by that bullshit line. Especially as a pre-health student.

However, I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is how this whole thing was revealed to have gone down in 2010. Yes, almost 4 years ago (I intentionally left that part out in the quote at the top because I wanted to join in on all the sensationalism going on at the moment, kappa), but is suddenly being brought up now.

According to the press (Yes, I know it's Allkpop but they're the only ones with some more context into the whole thing. Surprising to me too.)/authorities, the whole thing was caught and pardoned back in 2010 without a trace.

She was originally caught by customs, and it was reported to the Incheon District Prosecutors. The pills were scheduled to be delivered to the address of a relative and the package recipient was in the name of Park Bom's relative. The prosecution discovered the package was meant for Park Bom after investigations at the receiving address. The case was officially registered on October 19th. However, 42 days later on November 30th, the prosecutors decided to suspend the case. Case suspensions for cases where there is a charge, but there is no need to book the case. When cases are booked, a suspected person's status changes to a criminal suspect. It's the first time that the prosecutors have given such an indulgence to a for drug related crimes. Park Bom avoided all punishment because of this, and many are wondering why they decided to just let her go. 

A prosecutor with experience in drug investigations said, "Even if it is their first time, amphetamine smugglers are held and investigated by rule, and I cannot understand what the logic behind not even booking her case was.There are cases where drug criminals are first booked and then the cases are suspended, but I've never heard of a case where it wasn't even registered."

Sounds pretty shady to me. YG probably pulled some strings, paid some people, and scared some others into making this go away at the time. That part shouldn't really surprise anyone, but there are those who are saying that (as is alarmingly common for "major scandals" in the damn country) Park Bom's drug thing is being used to mask outcry for a different governmental scandal altogether. With the track record of previous scandals and suspicious timing, I'm fairly inclined to believe the allegations of government media manipulation. People are starting to realize it, but all the idiotic fangirls are drowning a lot of that conversation. Sigh.

But enough about that. With the not-so-obvious reveal of the YG Family drug cartel, this makes the Big 3 entertainment companies embroiled in some pretty funny scandals. If YG's been busted for drug and SM/JYP/CCM have been busted for embezzlement, who's next? Will Cube be busted for prostitution? Will Loen be caught in a gambling circuit? Will we ever find out how deep the YG Family drug cartel's rabbit hole goes??

Men's Health realized that every male needs some Vitamin Hani in their lives to improve their health. To improve Hani's health, I want to stick my Vitamin D in her Vitamin A-hole.

Most people are whining about a new member being in Kara or that their favorite applicant didn't make it. I didn't pay attention to Kara Project at all because as long as Sweettune produces for Kara, I really didn't give a shit who the new member was. I found this video a few minutes ago and thought "I'd pee in her butt." And honestly, for a group like Kara, as long as you want to pee in every member's butt, that's all that's really needed aside from some awesome Sweettune songs.

Review after the jump.

So, an article just came out about 2NE1's Bom mailing drugs, and it reminded me that I'd been planning a post for a while now about drugs and the music business.  I'm not really that interested in commenting on the Bom situation specifically (after all it's already been done here, here, and of course here and probably countless other places by the time you read this, and plus I don't really give a shit about it anyway, if she's getting fucked up on some good shit good luck to her) but I thought instead k-pop fans might appreciate a general demystification around drugs, the music business, and how likely it is that their bias is about to sell their bodies for a shot of heroin or take bath salts and eat their manager's face off.



A few things about me:

1.  I don't do or condone the use of any drugs whatsoever.  I also don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke tobacco, I don't even drink coffee or tea in the mornings.  I'm also not on any prescribed drugs.  I'm glad I made that decision when I was about 10 years of age to never start doing drugs because most people that I know who are my own age who went down the other path when they were younger are now a complete drug-fucked wreck and on shitloads of medication just to keep their bodies and brains alive after all the damage they've done to them.  BUT...

2.  I'm not a high-moral-ground-claiming, "oh my god that's so wrong"-yelping, grandiose-lecturing cunt about it - I don't care what other people do, it's their own business and in fact I think all drugs should be legal.  I think it's a personal rights issue.  It's your own body, you should be able to do whatever fucking stupid shit you want to it.  Drink raw sewerage, eat powdered charcoal, sniff petrol, inject battery acid... your body is yours, and if you don't have the freedom to control your own body, what freedoms do you have?  Nobody should legally be allowed to stop you from doing whatever dumb crap you want to your own body - even if it kills you.  That doesn't mean that I think you should do drugs (in fact I'd advise strongly against it), I just believe no-one should be able to put you in jail for something that you willingly do to yourself just because it's none of their business.  AND...

3.  I work in the music business.  Oh boy.

To get some perspective on what working in the music business means as far as drugs are concerned, let's start with a taste of some western music industry tales, from me to you in Korean gossip site "entertainment radar" style format to protect the guilty innocent.  Of course I wasn't involved in any of these situations personally or in any business capacity whatsoever because I'm a fine upstanding law-abiding citizen who doesn't involve myself with or condone drug use.  Hell, I don't even know who these people are, and since it's well-documented that I have no journalistic integrity whatsoever I'm probably just making this all up for your entertainment (hey: to my lawyer - does this paragraph sufficiently cover my ass?).


1.  Large rock festival Z tours Australia and many famous bands play.  Headlining act on festival Z's lineup and large ticket drawcard is group Q, well known around the world for their energetic rock style.  The promoters get the rider for Q's singer (for those unfamilar with the jargon a "rider" is a list of backstage and technical requirements for an artist, for big acts these can be comically fastidious and overblown but believe it or not sometimes it's for good reason) and notice that a certain form of very hard and very illegal drugs are actually requested on the rider as an essential backstage requirement!  They query it with Q's management, and the response comes back: "no, we are not making this up, yes, this is requested, no, the band will not play the show unless this is guaranteed to be provided".  The promoter says "fuck that, we're not giving them these drugs!" but doesn't tell Q's management this, the promoters just sign off on the contract anyway saying "yeah we'll do it" because Q is a headlining act which is going to bring a big audience to the festival, they don't want to risk a cancellation as it would mean financial disaster.  The festival happens, Q play the show but their singer becomes very angry about the lack of promised hard drugs backstage (not to mention strung-out, hahaha), then the group's management does something unprecedented and unexpected - they take the promoters to court for "breach of contract" for not providing the illegal substance... and win.  Festival Z has to pay a hefty breach of contract fee and learn their lesson - they resolve to always provide hard drugs in future to international touring artists who request them.

2.  In the early 1990s internationally famous band Y tours Australia but didn't impose similar conditions on the local promoters to provide narcotics.  The two principal members of Y are notorious crack cocaine addicts and figure that they'll just pick some crack up locally on the streets - little do they know that Australia at that time was not a big country for crack cocaine.  The group spend the entire tour chasing crack rocks in each city without success, they become sick as a dog from crack withdrawals and vow never to return.  The group are still active today and so far they haven't been back!

3.  Group M were a popular girl group.  They had a rocking but super-cute image and lots of teenage and tween fans who have been drawn to them by their breakout hit single and squeaky-clean parent-friendly non-sexualised charms.  Each member of the group had a separate fan following , each member also had a cutesy Spice Girls style nickname, and "who is your fave out of the girls" was naturally always a busy hot topic on the band's official fansite.  However, those fans (and their parents) would have been horrified to know that in private circles each member of the group had another nickname, each name related to which illegal drug they prefer to consume!

4.  Group G are superstars, a household name.  During the afternoon they are soundchecking, at a big outdoor arena concert, when suddenly they realise - where's our guitarist?  A search party is conducted.  After about 15 minutes of looking (the arena is big), G's guitar player is found aimlessly wandering through the stands in a complete drug haze.  The road crew ask him what's going on.  "Sorry - I lost my way from my bed to the stage", he says.  His bed is in one of the tour caravans, and the stage is right there in front of it and it's HUGE, several stories tall, you step right out of his caravan and there it is right in front, you can't miss it.  Nevertheless, the road crew oblige him and build a concrete ramp extending from his caravan to the stage side entrance, and tell him "when the time comes, all you've got to do is walk out of your caravan and follow the concrete ramp, okay?".  He nods, completes his part of the soundcheck, and then wanders off in a drug-haze again.  Night falls, and the concert is about to begin... G are ready to rock, but... "where's our guitarist?".  He hasn't shown up.  The search party is called out again, this time they find him quite quickly, in the first place they look - he's passed out inside his caravan.  They wake him up, but he's so drooling and wasted that he can't even walk - still, the show must go on so anticipating total disaster the road crew resolve to drag him to the stage anyway just to see what happens.  Two road crew members slowly and carefully carry him shoulder-to-shoulder up the concrete ramp, a third roadie straps his guitar onto him... and suddenly G's guitarist springs into action, fully alert, and plays the intro to the group's first song - like nothing ever happened!

That's just four examples out of a potentially much longer list.  What these examples are intended to do besides amuse you, is illustrate the following: firstly, in the world of music, drugs are everywhere.  If you work in the music business and don't encounter them on a regular basis, you're just not paying enough attention.  Secondly, the music business has its own culture, rules and tolerances, and it's often completely at odds with the culture, rules and tolerances of the actual society that the music scene is in.  Aspects of life that are not generally condoned (at least on the surface) in wider society are often encouraged and even celebrated in the music business, and the higher up you go in the food chain of the music industry, the more prevalent this is.  Musical endeavours tend to draw in the more creative free-thinking type of individuals in society, and it's that same free thought that drives innovations in music which also motivates other "behavioural and cultural innovations", like snorting cocaine off the buttcracks of hookers - as a result, the music business and the world of organised crime have never been more than a stone's throw away from each other.

"Rock Against Drugs, what a name. Somebody was high when they came up with that title. It’s like Christians Against Christ. Rock created drugs." - Sam Kinison

Now let's talk about Korea and k-pop for a little bit.  Korea's idol music scene has a little bit in common with the western popular music scene (like overuse of dubstep and bad hair), but it also has some important differences.

• Korea is a bit more uptight about recreational drugs than most western countries (at least on the surface)
• Performers are generally held to a higher physical standard, not just for marketing reasons but also to help their ability to perform demanding routines
• Actual performances are rarer and thus each one carries with it more pressure to do well
• Performances are held up to a higher degree of technical scrutiny by fans
• Performers practice a lot

None of these aspects remind me overly of the western pop and rock music scenes, which people usually get into because they don't like the idea of working hard for a living.  What they remind me of instead is the western world of classical and orchestral music.  And guess what?  The world of classical music is the world of some seriously drug-crazy motherfuckers.  Out of all the different music scenes that I've worked in, I've encountered drug use most commonly with classical musicians.

I know you probably don't believe this, or think that perhaps it's an exceptional case, so I'll explain.

Many years ago I went to university and studied classical music at the conservatory.  I remember the day I went to auditions - there I was standing in the very large foyer, probably the only person in the history of the conservatory to audition with an acoustic guitar worth less than the price of the pen I had to sign the audition sheet with.  I got bored so I started reading the student community noticeboards, and the most common notice up on the pin-boards after advertisements for people seeking accommodation were phone numbers of folks you could call to buy cheap drugs.  These dealers weren't selling recreational drugs, but performance-enhancing drugs normally available only on prescription for people with high blood pressure such as beta-blocker steroids Inderal and Propranolol, to relieve the symptoms of stage fright.  In the classical music world using performance-enhancing drugs isn't considered "cheating" (because they only take away nervous shakes and sweating rather than directly improve performance) and there are no drug tests conducted on musicians.  Quite the contrary - the conservatory were happy for the ads to stay on the noticeboard, and the use of such drugs is generally encouraged and condoned.  If your tutor finds out you're taking them, he isn't going to ask to see if you have a prescription or not, he's more likely to ask you which brand you find most effective and recommend!

That's not all - of course it isn't.  Classical musicians take all the other drugs the rock and pop musicians take too, on top of these.  Various musicians that I've met were quite partial to a bit of crystal meth to keep them up late at night practising those long hours, cocaine before a performance to give them extra confidence, and then of course there's the heroin.  Just one example out of many that I could recount: during my time at the conservatory I once made the massive mistake of writing a piece of music for a chamber orchestra and then putting together an actual chamber orchestra to play it at a performance.  Looking back on it with the wisdom of hindsight I should have just fucked the chamber orchestra off and used a fucking computer, no shit.  There were only six people in this chamber ensemble but not one rehearsal that I organised had all six of them, these bitches were slacker than Hwayoung about showing up to practice (and in true Hwayoung style I had to organise a replacement for one of them mere minutes before the final performance).  In particular one of my violinists would almost never show up - one day after getting pissed off and cancelling the session I went down the street to get some food and found him busking in the street outside!  I thought to myself "how come you can play your fucking violin out here but not play at my rehearsal?" but then I thought about it and realised that it was the money factor - a great player, he could get decent money busking very quickly, so that was his go-to if he needed quick funds for a fix.  Maybe in retrospect I should have made the entire ensemble rehearse outdoors on the street with their money tins out, that could have worked, maybe.  Or perhaps I should have just gotten them all into Krokodil and then their arms would have fucking dropped off and they wouldn't be able to play music anymore which would have made the performance a bit problematic but it would have been funny.


While I don't work in the k-pop scene (or the classical music scene anymore, thank fuck), I can reasonably guess that because k-pop has got a similar high-pressure environment to classical music, I would expect the same drugs to be in use that people take in the classical music world just to function consistently in that environment.  Korean society being conservative and having harsh penalties for drug use only makes this more likely in my eyes - when you've got an extremely obsessed-with-appearances morally upstanding society on the surface, an active seedy underbelly is a certainty.  I wouldn't expect high marijuana use (because the last thing a k-pop idol wants is "the munchies", plus the quality is crap - DMTN's Daniel was probably telling the truth about not smoking his own stash), and I also think that heroin addictions are extremely unlikely, because being "on the nod" is fine for slack western performers who can get carried around by their road crew like in the example above (oh, and Hwayoung could probably sustain a heroin habit without it interfering with her bath time too much) but in the tough idol system this would directly relate to a lack of functionality.  Instead, I'd expect to see drugs that make k-pop idols lives easier rather than harder: beta-blockers to combat debut nerves, methamphetamine for its "go all night" properties, plus massive use of legal prescription or over-the-counter drugs and supplements to control and manage sleep, appetite and energy levels.  K-pop drug use wouldn't be recreational, it would be about "brain management".  Speaking of management, Korean idols are also micromanaged quite heavily and generally don't have disposable income until the money starts coming in from CF work which can take several years if at all so I'd also expect in some cases for the labels themselves to be very much in on the game, controlling the supply.  Some labels would probably even have their own known preferred dealersjust like the punk scene I worked in for many years who have special arrangements with label staff and know how to operate their business discreetly.


Some of you fucks are naturally going to say "how do you know all this?" and you're right - I don't.  I'm guessing just like you, it's just that my guess is probably a lot more educated than most people's thanks to decades of experience dealing with every flavour of drug-addled fuck-up you can imagine from all corners of the world and in several different music scenes.  My hot tip: expect an Open World Entertainment style scandal that goes right to the top of a company, but with the crime of choice being the supplying of drugs rather than sexual assault.  When some startup nugu agency's CEO gets busted sometime down the track for drug trafficking meth, speed and/or crazy prescription shit without a prescription to his own trainees so they can pull longer hours in the gym remember that I told you this in July 2014 before it blew up.  In the meantime, enjoy everyone on all sides of the Bom drug smuggling debate losing their shit over something which isn't even any concern of theirs.

---

p.s I might be anti-drugs at least as far as myself and my own life goes but I hate those "straight-edge" wankers.  Fucking dickheads turning the simple act of choosing not to do drugs into some kind of fucking religion and bashing everyone over the head with it (often literally).  Any of you reading this who are into that trendy crap and also think I'm in with that bullshit, no way.  What a bunch of absolute cockheads.  In my experience most of them secretly do drugs anyway when no-one's looking - trufax.

THE SECOND CUMMING OF JESUS IS UPON US! THE F(HEX) ARE COMING, WITH A MESSIANIC MISSION TO SLAY THE CHARTS AND OUR SOULS WITH "RED LIGHT".

I have never, ever been more mortified by a song since SNSD released that tragic rhapsody entitled "I Got a Personality Disorder Boy", but f(x) have taken the cake when it comes to "Red Light". Listening to "Red Light" is like having a high powered, electric drill in my ear whilst listening to a castrated goat attempting to Yodle with a side of Princess Peach being bludgeoned to death by Luigi Mario. It took me a whole a hour to  gather my scrambled brains together after putting myself through the voluntary torture of listening to this song so I could bring you all this review and heed warning as to what you might encounter if you do press "play" on the above video.

I am here to lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil.



"Red Light" combines all the aneurysm-inducing aspects of IGAB and 2NE1's "Come Back Home", which wouldn't sound so diabolically bad if they didn't pump it up on Molly. The song lacks any form of cohesion and is a convoluted mess - it's basically another one of SM's failed attempts at emulating Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". But, as seen with I Got a Brain Disorder and Ulf, the song is utter dog piss.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that this is SM's second attempt at making IGAB, because f(x) have been releasing this sort of dementor shit for a long time, but before it actually worked as there was some cohesiveness to their songs. This, this is just a mess. SM have finally succeeded in releasing something more awful than Kyrary Pamyu Pamyu's "Candy, Candy", which was nauseatingly bad. This song leaves me feeling like a dementia patient.

The pre-chorus and bridge were really wasted on this song and could have made an entirely different, but listenable, track.

Audio aside, the music video is like some sort of devil-worshipping, satanic shit that I just LOVE. The girls look great, and even Amber doesn't look repugnant because her styling and the music videos settings prevent her from sticking out like a sore thumb. I suggest watching the music video on mute because the girls look hot (especially Victoria, I wish I had her legs they are amazing). Luna's hair cut, weight loss and boob job also really added to the visuals of the music video.

I AM JUST SO GLAD THAT SM STUCK WITH ORIGINAL CONCEPT, BECAUSE FUCK IS IT GOOD!

Sadly though, the song fucking sucks and I will be sure to delete it once I download the album. Now, if the album isn't as good (or better than "Pink Tape") I am hitting the SM building with a helluva lot of TNT. I'll make sure to hit e*o whilst I'm on my jihad.

Here are some smoking hot gifs of f(x) slaying everything to oblivion.

CHINESE QUEEN OF THE WORLD

HEXING!

APOCALYPSE IS NOW!

F(SLAY)

STEP ALL OVER ME, QUEEN VICTORIA!

I don't have to write shit!

a.k.a. "When bad things happen to good songs"




Tiny-G's "Ice Baby" sparks a special rage in me. I enjoyed the group's previous song, "Miss You," and was looking forward to this latest release. Sure, they lost a member in the interim, but that's kpop. It happens.

Overall, "Ice Baby" is a sweet R&B song about a relationship experiencing a sudden chill.




I like the chorus. I like the verses. I can even forgive the song's non-ironic use of the phrase "Ice, ice baby." Then the rapping starts.

Why, why did someone think it was a good idea to include an unnecessary rap not once, but twice in this otherwise pleasant song? I've said it before, and I know I'll say it again, but 95 percent of kpop raps are superfluous and do nothing but bring the song down. Their inclusion usually stems from at least one of two reasons: 1. A mistaken notion that since raps have been present in a majority of kpop releases in the past few years, people must like them, and 2. Because not all group members can sing well, so they've got to have something to do, right?




Both of those reasons seem to factor in with this song. I realize they've got to give Mint something to do to keep her place in the group. But forced, terrible rapping can't be the only option.

If a member can't sing, have him or her dance. If he or she can neither dance or sing or just dancing ain't gonna cut it, honestly, that's fine — just as long as you don't label them a rapper solely because of that. Teach the member a skill. I'd much rather watch a video where one of the members was just painting a portrait in the background than listen to another painfully forced kpop rap.

There are plenty of options: miming, shooting baskets, target practice (an option I'd love Sistar's company to explore. Just have Bora shoot arrows in the background the entire MV. No raps, just arrows.). The possibilities are limitless.



The video's concept gives me a headache, too. It's like someone heard "kpop" and translated that to stand for "Kindergarten pop."




The dances and most of the outfits seem like they were intended to make the group look 5 years old. The MV's dominated by giant bows, lace, and skip dances with little respite.




The only way the group could be more infantilized would be to put them in actual cribs. I guess we'll have to wait for their next release for that.

The "Ice Baby" video had nothing going for it. Even the song's signature "brrr, it's cold in here" dance was laughable.




Don't even get me started on these pillow+rug eggs. They're the most interesting part of this video, and I still hate them.



BOTTOM LINE: Obnoxious concept and superfluous raps ruin an otherwise strong release.



* His sudden coldness surely has nothing to do with the fact that he's dating all three of them at once.

You probably already know the rules, but here they are again:

• Less than 20,000 hits on YouTube
• Nobody outside Korea gives a shit

Let's do it.


Everyone who likes k-pop likes to remind everyone else who likes k-pop that Korea's entertainment business is a conservative arena steered by the moral quandaries of teenage girls with too much Internet access, especially when controversies constantly arise over situations that wouldn't register a blip on the "care radar" of any free-thinking intelligent adult.  However, this observation is sharply at odds with a lot of Korean MV drama activity which continually descends into positively Lynchian territory even when tackling the most benign of subjects.  This time on Nugu Alert we're highlighting videos that have ambitious yet inexplicably surreal Mills & Boon romance style drama videos.  Dramas videos are actually quite expensive to create even if the scenes themselves are relatively simple, and I'm not talking about paying the actors (who get paid very little and often don't get paid at all) - it's the technical requirements of drama-making that spin out the cost.  Therefore I ask you to please watch and appreciate these drama MVs because a lot of money was sunk into them for probably very little return and it would be a shame to see all that effort go to waste.

WARNING: these reviews necessarily have to contain plot spoilers, otherwise discussing them and meeting minimum snarky Kpopalypse observation requirements is impossible, so if like me you are deeply concerned about that sort of thing and want the maximum entertainment value out of this post, watch the videos first before reading the text.

---

Hong So Hee - Lemon

This video starts off normally enough with our protagonist driving in typical Korean style (changing lanes without indicating), wearing high heels at the airport (clearly masochistic tendencies) and having something creepy done to her ears (that I'd rather remain ignorant of so feel free to not enlighten me in the comments below).  A basket of lemons tip over, and being a starving Korean nugu in the entertainment business she naturally steals one for precious sustenance.  Then she spends the rest of the video mooning about, reminiscing, having flashbacks and being all miserable and shit presumably because she doesn't have a partner, but what that's got to do with stealing the lemon I'm not sure.  We don't see what happened to the guy (maybe there wasn't the budget for it) but I can only presume that he died in a car accident given the general reckless driving throughout with the couple continually not wearing seatbelts and poking their heads through the sunroof of a moving vehicle (both illegal activities in Australia) not to mention driving with shockingly low visibility.  What is it with Koreans and driving?  How did the people making this shit even survive to the end of the video shoot without becoming road casualties?  I know that if I ever found myself in a car in Korea I'd fucking wear double seatbelts and a crash helmet if I could.  Anyway whatever it's all supposed to mean, it's entertaining and puzzling enough to make the fairly unremarkable song sort of drift off into the background of your consciousness throughout, which I guess is probably the intention of the video director given how much Koreans seem to love their elevator music.

Youtube hits at time of viewing: 5479

Notable attribute: entire cast and crew of this video probably still alive at time of writing

Nugu Alert rating - very high

---

Taibian - Pinocchio

There's a saying in the music business - "don't shit where you eat".  What this saying really means is don't mix your personal love affairs with work, because if things go badly it will cause you problems.  If you play in a band, don't fuck your bandmates, if you teach, don't fuck your students, if you work in an office, don't fuck the cute guy or girl who comes to change the coffee machine filters etc.  Imagine being in a really successful group, having a fling with a band member, it doesn't work out, you end up hating each other, but you gotta see each other every day anyway because your band has legions of fans and you don't want to break it up because it's now your bread and butter.  Welcome to the awkward zone.  I don't know if the world of baristas has a similar creed but if not, they should consider it.  In this video for some godawful "Bone Thugs N Harmony meets k-pop" trash, the horny coffee attendant recognises an old friend at the counter, then makes a sneaky play for her literally 0.5 seconds after she broke it off with some dude.  It seems to work out even after the dude smacks him down... that is, until about 2:50 where everything goes sour for a reason that isn't explained.  She gives him a letter which seems to have something to do with it... but what's in it?  The cuntfaced video director doesn't want to tell us, he wants to be all like Pulp Fiction and the fucking briefcase about it.  But maybe the letter has nothing to do with it, maybe the guy was just a bit over-keen straight out of the gate and she became cautious, I mean, he literally buys her a coffee and then a ring in the next scene - hold your horses there, that's just a little quick off the mark, son.  Whatever happened to dinner and a movie first?

YouTube hits at time of writing: 1694

Notable attribute: smallest face scratch ever shown in a MV fight scene

Nugu Alert rating: very high

---

AB Avenue - Sad Story

I pity AB Avenue - they obviously had some money behind them, this is not some traditional nugu caper.  Looking at this video for the first time, I was expecting them to be huge, and maybe they were massive in Korea but from where I'm sitting, it sure doesn't look like it.  They have a very high-budget and great-looking MV featuring a hot bitch-faced fappable actress which is hosted on 1theK(aka Loen)'s YouTube channel, one of the biggest distributors of Korean MVs out there, yet they still have managed to somehow fucking qualify for Nugu Alert.  Their official Facebook has only 383 followers at the time of writing (don't rush to friend them and boost the numbers - their last update was in 2010) and their MP3'd pirated songs on YouTube actually have more hits than any of their MVs.  AB Avenue are a group that surely has the blood of the nugu flowing through their veins, even Gangkiz would be envious presuming such lack of success was actually something to envy.  Anyway the MV for this mediocre join-the-dots Davichi-esque snorefest starts with a guy waking up to find out a jilted ex-lover has handcuffed him to a chair and is going to make him pay for dumping her for some unspecified reason.  Perhaps he let her go because he got a hunch that she was a psycho killer and wanted nothing more to do with her, if it was me in his shoes I reckon that creepy stare at 1:56 would have tipped me off.  Then she decides to kill him (because that will make everything better, oh wait) and she either thinks better of it and turns the gun on herself for being such a bitch, or the guy just has the thickest skull known to man and is able to deflect the bullet back in her direction.  It's pretty straightforward really, the only real mystery here is why nobody watched this back in the day - I guess with idol pop peaking in quality at around the time this song came out, it was enough to overshadow mediocre ballads like this completely.  Ahhh... those were the days.

YouTube hits at time of writing: 6569

Notable attribute: actual lips-on-lips visible during kissing scene did not cause the destruction of the Earth

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

---

That wraps it up for another episode!  Kpopalypse Nugu Alert will return at an unspecified future date to bring you more fresh (or stale) nugus!  Until then, drive safely!