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[MV Review] Monsta X - Trespass

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Somewhere in my calloused heart, I find room to actually care about certain parts of the wonderful world that we live in. One such thing was a survival show where Korean blokes tried to prove that they could sing, rap, dance, work in a team, build a canoe, etc. better than anyone else in the near vicinity. The show was called No Mercy, and a song where Hyorin sings about having sex came as a result of it. You know the drill; a group was formed, and a fair number of people were left outraged that their favourite just wasn't up to scratch when it came to canoe building. Now, because Starship have their shit together way more than YG, it took little more than four months for Monsta X to debut whilst iKon are still lost in their hunt for the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The question that is on everyone's lips is: "Sohyunna, is the song any fucking good you piece of shit?" which I intend to answer in my own way over this article. If you don't like it, then you can fuck right off and jerk it to the Excuse Me dance practice for the third time today (I recommend this option).






You chose to forego masturbation and keep reading, I appreciate that.


Something that will become immediately apparent is that Monsta X are going to be one of those hip-hop boy groups that are so popular nowadays. The beat is heavily trap influenced, there are designated rap breaks for people who actually know a thing or two about the craft, and even the chorus is rapped, which is a welcome break from five vocalists having to share two lines of chorus between them. Later on in the article, I will discuss the members and their roles within the group, but the other obvious thing that one can glean after watching this just once is that Jooheon must have sucked someone's dick at Starship (you can tell who he is because he gets about half of the song) as he is the sole person on chorus whilst also getting a rap break to brag about his charisma (twice, I might add). Despite the saturation of the market with hip-hop boy groups and the song being rather Jooheon heavy, I find myself enjoying "Trespass" a whole damn lot, which is aided somewhat by the fact that I can feel energy exuding from all seven members in their seven shit outfits; I believe that everyone was invested heavily in the song so the raps sound crisp and vicious, and the singers even sound kinda out of breath, which is in keeping with the frantic nature of the song and video.



The one part of the song that kinda falls flat with me is the execution of the rap verses; this may seem like a pretty major flaw given that Monsta X are supposed to be a hip-hop group, but it baffles me more than annoys me. Allow me to explain: My first issue comes from the fact that Jooheon's verse is significantly weaker than what he is capable of, but this is largely due to his English phrases being cringeworthy, which is part and parcel of most K-Pop songs so I didn't allow this to bother me massively. The most egregious problem with the raps is that I.M's verse serves as the outro where it has absolutely no right to; he raps rather decently but it seems to kill the momentum built up by the chorus, meaning that the song doesn't reach a particularly satisfying conclusion. It just stops because it feels that it has gone on long enough. It could have worked just before the bridge because the last two choruses are pretty close to each other anyways and could have done with some separation. As I said, this leaves me confused more than anything else because of the weird vibe that it gives the ending. Regardless, I'm not Starship, so I leave it to them to make their bad decisions.

We need to prove that we are tru hep-hap


The video itself I find rather adorable; in a similar vein to BTS' debut before they became more concerned with making MVs that felt like an anime plot, Monsta X are trying to sell themselves as the hardmen of the K-Pop world. But they took it even further than BTS because these guys not only went to prison on a firearms charge, but they broke out too, giving them limitless street cred. I am sure that I am not alone in doubting whether any of the members of Monsta X would survive in the penitentiary, so I decided to create a handy primer in which you can learn member names and also see how they would fare in the big house. Don't say this isn't an educational blog.


Name: Shownu
Role: Manning the circular saw, also dancing or something.
Crime: Public masturbation
Role in prison: Snitch, and all the other inmates know it.



Name: Jooheon
Role: Guard dog
Crime: Beefin' over turf
Role in prison: Shivved in the lunch-line for stepping to Big Hank



Name: Hyungwon
Role: Mechanic
Crime: Bestiality
Role in prison: Prison bitch


Name: Wonho
Role: Wasteman
Crime: Cooking meth based on love of "Breaking Bad"
Role in prison: Prison daddy


Name: Minhyuk
Role: Inventory manager
Crime: Triple murder, grand larceny, war crimes
Role in prison: Let out on good behaviour after two months


Name: Kihyun
Role: Bitchy friend
Crime: Sexual harassment
Role in prison: Killed by neo-Nazis


Name: I.M
Role: Makes the tea
Crime: Assisted suicide
Role in prison: Tries to be Andy Dufresne but gets murdered after 3 minutes

Though the song may be good, and the video may have a vaguely entertaining and coherent storyline, it just wasn't in keeping with what would actually happen if Monsta X went to prison, which I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt above. I would have preferred a terrible song than Monsta X flagrantly lying to their watchers and listeners as they did in "Trespass." I am now forced to throw all positives out of the window and ask that they re-record the video with three of the members getting murdered, I don't think that this is too much to ask.

0/10

Nah, this was pretty good, I give it a 7 or something. Peace out, bitches.

The Official Kpopalypse Blackjack Defence Rap Challenge

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Kpopalypse is back, and this time he's reviewing stuff!  Everybody hop on board for:

bdrc

Which Blackjack can pick up the microphone and defend Park Bom the most effectively in a rap verse?  Read on for the Blackjack Defence Rap Challenge!

Some quick background for those not in the loop about this: about 9 months ago in 2014 Kemy from nugu group A.KOR dropped the following diss rap for a rap competition about 2NE1's Park Bom and her drug-smuggling ways.



Are the allegations in the lyrics true or false?  I don't care.  I disagree with Kemy's anti-drugs stance and I actually think all drugs should be legal, but I also think Kemy pissing off crazy Blackjacks (2ne1's kooky fandom, notorious for hard-boiled insanity) is hilarious and has provided me with much entertainment.  As far as I'm concerned those two factors cancel each other out and therefore I have no horse in this particular race.

However Kemy's rap wasn't strictly an anti-drugs rant or even an anti-Bom rant and to characterise it as only these things is to oversimplify it drastically.  The criticisms that she made were more directed at YG Entertainment's alleged power to cover up scandals and bend the Korean legal system.  More importantly, since the rap was not an official A.KOR release but for a rap competition, Kemy wrote the rap herself, which is neither here nor there quality wise but it does mean that this places her in a very small pool of female idol rappers who do actually self-compose and that we can actually fairly assess the rap ability of.  To this end, she demonstrated superior wordplay skills and black humour that the likes of other self-composing idol rappers (including 2NE1's CL and EXID's LE) have always promised but never delivered, and I know this because everyone I know who speaks fluent Korean was impressed by the technical aspect of her rap (whether they agreed with the actual message or not).  Musically or ethically you may not like Kemy's rap, but as far as rap skills go, it's pretty impressive stuff for someone who would normally still be in high school.  I know the lyrics I wrote on desks during classes when I was a bored schoolkid weren't anywhere near this proficient.

phonealone

People may be wondering why I'm posting about this now, instead of when the issue was hot.  The reason for it is that Blackjacks tend to hold a grudge for a while, as the like/dislike ratio on A.KOR's most recent video shows, so I wanted to give ample time for all the hate-raps to gradually come in.  However I think that in May 2015 it's safe to say that any Blackjacks who had something to say about this issue in a rap verse have by now already done so.  Of course I don't really care about which side of the diss battle is "correct", but I wondered if any Blackjacks could come up with a quality rap track and match the level of microphone skill demonstrated by Kemy.  Time to find out!

82itsmytime - Don't Touch Bom!




This track starts off with some battlefield sounds because that's what artists do when they're being all hardcore and stuff.  Then the rap comes in with "hey, I've got nothing much to say", and rarely was a truer word spoken in k-pop diss battles.  Starting an intro with an admission of "I don't know what to say" is fine if you're just being modest so people underestimate you and then you proceed to tear the microphone a new asshole, but this guy actually runs out of ideas so fast that he quotes Inner Circle's "Bad Boys" at about the 40 second mark so maybe he shouldn't have drawn attention to his lack of lyrical inspiration any more than necessary.  Other rap crimes here include impersonating Nicki Minaj's weird Saturday morning cartoon bullshit novelty voice when he says "you feel so tiny", plus rhyming "bus" with "ass", a particularly awkward rhyme but I guess he was that desperate to make a joke about an underage girl being hit by a bus that he was willing to sacrifice the rhyme flow for it... which shows you what kind of people some Blackjacks can be, I guess.  Not that there's much flow here to sacrifice anyway, the style is fairly strict rhyming couplets throughout and they're massively awkward, cringeworthy couplets at that ("your shit is a bore and you act like a whore"?).  At least the backing track isn't too bad so I'll give this one 2/10 for at least not using a yoloturd trap beat.

Jesungiya - Kemy Bitch




As soon as you hit play on this one, you'll get plastered with a couple intimidatingly earnest text walls about how this guy has really moved on from the whole situation and that he feels bad about calling Kemy a bitch because he "understand(s) how important it is to pay attention to a word that is gender or racially charged".  This is of course completely weaksauce bollocks - apologising for using a specific word while simultaneously "not apologising for (the) sentiments" that the word represents means that even if you didn't use the word "bitch" you still meant the word "bitch".  One of the messages also says he wants to "move on with music" so I was going to take a leaf out of that book and looked for something more recent that he has written to review instead, but I couldn't find anything, just some EXID covers and stuff.  Oh well, guess I gotta review "Kemy Bitch", and there's not a lot to say about it - his wordplay is a bit better than 82itsmytime (still mostly basic couplet raps but at least not as awkward and cringeworthy) but his backing track is worse - pay attention class, diss tracks need a hard beat to reflect the anger of the rap, not some twinkly pussy slow ballad feelgood nonsense, and it all just sounds too mellow.  He's using an "I'm on top of the world, floating above the clouds, I'm the king" feel instead of a "I'm gonna fuck your face up" type sound and that's just a rap diss track faux pas.  2/10.

TMinsTV - 0-100 Freestyle (A.KOR Kemy Diss)




Even though we're still in boring rhyming couplet land straight from 1988 this guy's probably got the most lyrical skill out of anyone so far (not saying much but still...).  This track starts off promisingly with a decent atmospheric beat... then the rapper starts self-censoring his swear words.  Come on, what the fuck is this bullshit, it's not a very enjoyable diss rap if you edit the rude parts out.  There's no need for it, it's just a YouTube demo for some batshit crazy Blackjacks, it's not a fucking commercial radio drivetime slot, you don't need to self-regulate like Tipper Gore is looking over your shoulder, she's too busy masturbating to W.A.S.P's "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)" to care about what some weird k-pop fandom does.  Then things get even more wimpy as the tone changes abruptly at the halfway point from "me and my badass Blackjack crew want to cut your head off" to "you're just a girl, I can't wait to see you shine, one day you will baby".  It's like he's playing both the "good cop" and the "bad cop" in one song to try and manipulate Kemy's emotions and there's something really creepy about it all in a Chris Hansen-esque kind of way.  Imagine how laughable Lil Kim's diss rap against Nicki Minaj would sound if halfway through the beat changed to something soft and smooth and Kimmy started rapping "I hope you can shine one day girl".  Just nope.  Stick to one message please.  In the video comments the creator says "at the end of the day I am all about progression, so I'm open to criticism" so maybe if you could try to sound more like a rapper and less like a creepy preacher who says "god sends sinners to burn in hell for eternity" and then "...but he loves us!" in the very next breath, that'd be a good start.  2/10 for at least having a decent beat for the first half of it.

Ria.K - Reply to Kemy's Diss to Park Bom (teaser)




Oh wow, this girl sounds like she can actually rap, plus she knows how to insert rhyming words in places other than at the end of the bar - rejoice!  Pity she's less good at working out how to stay connected to the Internet, she promised the full version of this rap "tonight or tomorrow" about 9 months ago and her channel hasn't been updated since.  It's possible of course that she may have slept on it and then in the light of the new day thought better about doing a full diss rap reply, which is a shame as I think we may have been robbed of something semi-decent here.  Mind you even in this teaser format it's about the same length as some of the other offerings here anyway.  2/10 for low determination levels.

Crystal W. - Quit It




The Fischer-Price drum machine at the start sounded cute, I thought that was a good gimmick to intro a rap track so I waited for it to end and the real beat to kick in... and then eventually I realised that wasn't going to happen and this girl really thought that busting her entire rap verse over Baby's First Drumkit was a good idea.  Speaking of which, much mirth was had with the line "you messed with Bom, that's like effin' with a kid".  Can you cunting fucking rap bitches actually realise that fuckingswearing is a very fucking natural fucking part of fucking rap music and it's better to fucking leave the cuntfuckshit rap fucking swears in the fucking songs... bitch?  Also Bom is like 68 years old or some shit so comparing dissing her to fucking with a kid is kind of ass-backwards as fucking fuck.  If anything dissing Kemy is the "fucking with a kid" part, quite literally if we take the meaning of "fucking" to be "fucking with the mind/career of".  If you're going to be a rapper it helps to actually have some command of the language, sure most rappers do that whole uneducated "from the street" pose but in reality most of the good ones passed English classes no problem because they had to or they simply wouldn't be any good at rap.  Anyway I digress, this song gets 2/10 for at least giving it a go with the cheapest recording materials ever, which is at least kinda cool in a Crayon Punk kind of way.

Jennita Karurak - A Song For You Kemy A.KOR By Black Jack




Another cheap-ass production but a little bit better musically than the last one, this girl may or may not have good rap flow, I have no idea because she's rapping in Thai.  Howevber what I do know is that at about 1:03 she breaks into something that sounds disturbingly similar to bhangra.  Many years ago I lived in an international student residence and many of the students there were Indian Malaysians, and they would play that fucking bhangra shit all the fucking time.  It got really annoying because apart from our tiny bedrooms, all the facilities were shared so you couldn't just blast music without 20 other poor people having to suffer it.  These international students convinced me that bhangra is the worst music in the world.  I hear that T-ara is really taking off in Malaysia lately and that can only be a good thing because it will certainly lift the quality of the music there a little if bhangra is really what they all normally listen to over there.  I can't assess this girl's rap but I'll give her 2/10 because at least the entire song isn't bhangra, thank you girl for sparing us a total bhangra track and at least dropping an actual rap verse at the start of it.

KeNNy AKM - A.KOR Kemy Diss Park Bom Rap




Got to love these innovative song titles, hey?  This is another rhyming-couplets-over-a-ghetto-blaster-in-the-corner-of-the-room-sounds-good-enough-fuck-it job but hold up for a moment because this guy is flat-out creepy as fuck.  He can't stop obsessing through the entire video about how young Kemy is, wildly underestimates her age (she's not twelve but I bet he wishes she was) and even raps about how he got an erection over her in a rhyming couplet that would make Pedobear proud. Of course all this acute awareness of Kemy's youth doesn't prevent him from gleefully sticking the boot into her anyway, because it's more important to defend Bom apparently, but in this case I think defending Bom is maybe just an excuse for his real agenda.  At one stage of the rap he actually rhymes "rookie" with "cookie", and guess who else also does that:

rookiecookie

That's right, Kim Dani from "maybe joining T-ara N4 one day but basically just slumming it for now after appearing in that one awesome F-ve Dolls song, like, whatevs" and guess what age she is these days.  Perhaps it's some kind of code that KeNNy AKM thinks Dani is a perfect 10 but not for the same reasons that I do, and thereby he joins the list of Kemy diss rappers who need to take a seat over there.  2/10 for providing a community service to concerned parents who want to know what warning signs to look out for when meeting their daughter's strange older friends, might I suggest that one of them is if they own a studio with walls plastered in comic book art?

sukiluvzyuu - Congrats On Being Infamous (Just another Kemy from A.KOR diss rap)




The tacit acknowledgement in the song title that nobody gives a fuck is probably the best thing about this "for YG yeah we ride" diss rap lolocaust, but there's two important differences to everything else here.  Firstly, the rapping isn't rhyming couplets for a change, our female rapper is actually going to some sort of effort to mix things up a little and maybe she even took more than two minutes to piece this one together, wow!  Bravo for attempting to demonstrate some more modern rap style!  Unfortunately, this is completely negated by the beat also being more "modern" but in a bad way, it's easily the worst one of the entire bunch here, kind of almost a yolotrap thing.  What a shame.  2/10 for you.

TheEvaristoCaitlin - Diss Kemy Rap Acapella: Blackjack Love




You see, this is the problem with fandom group-think, and I'm not just talking about Blackjacks here, but any fandom anywhere.  It starts off innocently enough, when you decide one day that you're going to write "Blackjack" on your school ruler and put it in the signature of your k-pop forum profile.  People start asking you "so are you a Blackjack now?" and you reply "yeah, well I like 2NE1 so I suppose I am".  Never mind that you're not technically part of the fandom because that actually requires membership which means financial outlay, you're still a "Blackjack" inside your own head and that's what matters to you, identifying with the fandom gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, like you're a part of something bigger than yourself.  However, then something strange starts happening - there's unspoken pressure now.  Suddenly, because you're a "Blackjack", you feel obliged to like everything that 2NE1 do regardless of how it makes you feel, plus you start to feel obliged to engage in "endorsed fan activities" even if they might make you feel a bit strange or might not really be what you want.  So when the whole fandom gets swept up in a "let's burn some high school girl at the stake" thing, you find yourself dragged into it emotionally, so up your awkward, hesitant attempt at a diss rap goes on the Internet, for not much gain except a vague feeling of "wow I'm representing Blackjacks now kinda" and Kpopalypse taking the piss out of you in a cruel, snarky blog post some months later.  Was it worth it?  2/10 because I feel sorry for this person will no doubt grow out of being a faux-Blackjack one day and turn into a mature woman and look back at this moment and cringe.  Maybe, just maybe, this will be the Internet post that snaps them out of it.  Maybe a few years down the track, I'll get a postcard sent to me at the radio station, it will read "I was that girl in that video and thanks to your blogging I realised that I had a Blackjack problem.  Being a Blackjack is no fun.  Blackjacks endanger the life and happiness of millions.  It must stop.  We appeal in particular to the youth of today.  Stop the madness!  There are better things in life."



Well, now you know what I think of all the above videos - but who cares?  What's more important is what do YOU think?  I've made a poll so you can vote for either Kemy or any of the above responses and select the best diss rap.  Click on the picture of A.KOR below to do the poll!

akorhanbok

I'll update this post later once I've got enough responses and you readers have decided if any of the funky rhyme-saying Blackjacks get to snatch Kemy's rap crown, but in the meantime, I only really give a shit about Minju anyway.



Minju is the second rapper in both of these videos, the hot mature-age blonde bundle of hotness who has a look that transforms wildly from nice Korean girl to saucily-smirking rock slut as soon as she dons her trademark circle lenses, padded bras and heavy makeup.  How many times am I going to link these mixtape rap videos in posts of mine?  As long as it takes to find out where I can get the fucking mixtape from.



Minju is a complete hottie who has flown under the radar of pretty much everybody thanks to the whole rabid Kemy obsession that's blinded Blackjacks to anything about A.KOR that's not Kemy-related, as demonstrated by this hilarious YouTube exchange where someone going by the name of "Park Bom" completely (and willfully) misses the point:

minj

I actually checked the YouTube channel of "Park Bom" just in case she had the initiative to make her own Kemy diss rap.  Sadly not - if so, I think she would have cleaned up.  Then I could have made a cool joke to end this blog about how Park Bom is really the best defender of Park Bom.  Oh well, robbed I guess.  The following joke will have to do:

kemmin copy

Interview with Lim Kim

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Hi! Soyeon Friend here with an exclusive interview with Lim Kim. Lim Kim as you know has experienced a huge surge in popularity with the tracks "Love Game" and "Awoo". Recently, she was kind enough to take time out her busy schedule and record this interview where we reminisce about old times.





Well, since we're short on time let's jump right into it.


I've missed you too. Not many people know this but we used to date. How long has it been?


Do you remember why we broke up?


We had problems in the bedroom, do you remember?


Indeed.


Oh? I didn't know that! Well it was a learning experience for both of us then.

What was your favorite part of our relationship?


Ah, yes!


Do you remember how we used to play dress up?


Great times!


What one word would you say best described our relationship?


Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far. But the cat costume definitely added another dimension to things. Would you ever consider another type of costume? What about an octopus?


Just the cat?


But enough about us. Have you started dating again?



And how is that going?



May I ask how things are going in the bedroom?



Uh-oh.



Well, I'm pretty sure I can relate.



It reminds me of the phrase I still think of when I think about us...



Well as we're running short on time I think we should wrap this up. Did you notice I did this interview without pants on?



Any final words you'd like our audience to know? About you. your costumes, or anything else?



OK well you've been a good sport throughout this interview but it looks like we've got to go. I'm sure our audience learned way more about us than they wanted to. Anyway, thank again, bye!



Kim Ha Neul To Be In A Movie Where She Romances A Student As A Teacher

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However, she plays a teacher that romances her students.


If she was my biology teacher in high school, I would let her do experiments on me after class.

"Miss Kim, I don't understand the reproduction system very well. The diagrams don't explain enough."

"Alright," Miss Kim said as she started unbuttoning her shirt. "First, as you look at my rocking tits, blood will start flowing to your penis, which is how you get an erection."

I nod my head as my pants get tighter. Miss Kim had taken off her bra and her tits was hanging out in full glory. She knelt on her knees and started unzipping my pants. She forcefully pulled down my pants and underwear.

"Next, after the male is fully aroused, the woman starts pleasuring the man," Miss Kim said as she grabbed my cock and started stroking it. "You need to know that the head is most sensitive part," Miss Kim said she as licked the head of my dick.

Next, Miss Kim stuck her left index finger in her mouth and got it dripping wet. "The fastest way to make a guy cum is to massage the prostate gland."

I was confused as she said this, as I remembered the prostate gland was on the inside. All of a sudden, I felt Miss Kim's index finger up inside my asshole. "You have to massage the prostate gland from the anus," she said as she kept fingering my asshole while sucking my cock. I didn't last very long since it was my first time and jizzed in her mouth.

"Normally the guy would then start sucking on my tits and licking my pussy and asshole, but since you're my little bitch, I have a special prize for you," said Miss Kim. She pulled out a strap-on dildo from her desk...and the rest is history, which is how I got turned onto pegging in the first place. Later on, Miss Kim said she wanted me to give her an Alabama Hot Pocket, but at that age, I wasn't into that stuff.

Jay Park - 몸매 (MOMMAE) International Version

Best of the Worst: May 21, 2015

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Welcome back, everyone. Let's cut to the chase this week: AOA is creating a line of toothbrushes.


Achieve your dreams: Put Choa in your mouth every day. 


I'm already planning to order the whole set. I'll use Yuna for my daily brushing, Jimin for special occasions like vacation, I'll attach Choa to a gold mount so I can stare at it all day, and Chanmi can help me clean around the grout in the bathroom.



They reacted similarly when they saw Jay Park live in concert.


Why did this happen, and who
can I call to voice my displeasure?

[Review] Diplo, CL, RiFF RAFF, OG Maco - Doctor Pepper

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CL + a can of Dr. Pepper + rushing a song to get home = disaster



Normally when I review a song I listen to it a lot of times, but in this case twice was the most I could manage. It would seem unfair to give my verdict on it when I've heard it so few times, plus I didn't want to delve too far into the part of my brain that stores shit music for fear of remembering other nightmares that I wiped from my memory. Thankfully, someone else has already reviewed it for me.

ask.fm; anon: "will you be doing a review of CL's american debut?" CZ: "I can review it right now: It will suck."
Are you a wizard?

If you really must listen to a song about Dr. Pepper, here's a lower budget but much better one with actual rhymes:


At least there is still some semblance of hope left for Blackjacks because there is going to be a full album with more songs. I'm not too hopeful though.

Kpopalypse's 30 worst songs of the Golden Age Of K-pop: 2008-2011

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It's Kpopalypse worst-of list time once again!  Time to relax, sit down with your favourite beverage and find out what k-pop songs Kpopalypse thought sucked the most from the Golden Age of k-pop!

eunjungt2copy

Warning: like all Kpopalypse lists, this one has 30 videos and may take a while to load.  Be patient.  Or get a better device to read this on.  Or disable your Flash player - trust me, you might as well, you're not going to be missing much if you can't play these horrible music videos.


The years from 2008 through to 2011 were really great for k-pop, there were so many good songs and the best ones in my opinion are documented in my Top 30 songs of the Golden Age list.  However every rose has its thorn, every cowboy has its sad, sad song, and every Kpopalypse favourites list has another list of all the fucking worthless shit that came out at the same time.  A "Golden Age" means that the good stuff was really good, but that doesn't preclude the bad stuff from also being really bad!  So due to popular demand, Kpopalypse now returns with his collection of the shittiest songs from K-pop's golden age of 2008-2011!  Read on as Kpopalypse rants about rubbish music and offends everyone with his horrible music taste for your entertainment and amusement!

Usual rules apply for these lists:
  • Must be a feature track (has an MV and/or was promoted on music shows)
  • Songs for sporting and seasonal events are exempt (because they all suck)
  • Songs for OSTs are not eligible (they also all suck)
  • These are my opinions, so if you disagree... handle it.
Let's get it started!



30.  T-ara - Yayaya





There's nothing like a good T-ara song to kick off yet another Kpopalypse list, and "Yayaya" is nothing like a good T-ara song.  It's substandard on every level - the songwriters admitted that the words were a bunch of nonsense that made no goddamn sense unless you could read their minds, the group themselves couldn't fucking stand the entire concept, but the real problem with "Yayaya" is obviously the music.  E-Tribe, still at that point riding high on their fame from Girls' Generation's "Gee", weirdly gave T-ara a thudding wall-of-noise backing track to sing over that lands the group texturally somewhere between Kraftwerk and Combichrist, and while that combination actually sounds pretty good in theory, it just doesn't work over the chant-happy joyous nonsense feel that the songwriters were aiming for.  Having said that, maybe a different backing track wouldn't have helped much, the song has virtually no melody to speak of - which is fine if you're Ministry but perhaps not ideal for a k-pop group.  At least "Yayaya" did the k-pop world a favour by daringly crossing cultural boundaries, bravely promotiong global racial harmony by letting the Native American people know that their history and culture means something special and unique to the world of Korean music agencies.  Oh and Eunjung and Qri both look super-cute in whatever the culturally appropriate term is for that shit they're wearing (and really they're the only ones in the group who pull off this look), so it wasn't a complete waste.

29.  f(x) - La Cha Ta





SM Entertainment's left-field idol-lite experiment group f(x) weren't always awesome and one of the first songs they came out of the gate with was this horrible new jack swing trash, the kind of thoughtless tossed-off crap that SM would normally palm off to TVXQ or CSJH The Grace.  SM at this time were riding high off the massive fame of Super Junior, TVXQ and SNSD's hits so a crappy debut by their new girl group was really no concern of theirs whatsoever, and it shows with easily the most generic and boring song f(x) ever got handed to them, a tune even more dull and colourless than the girls' curious semi-grunge styling in the accompanying video.  If only f(x) fans spent their time back in the day whining about this rubbish song instead of other bullshit nobody cares about like why the group don't have a fandom name (something there's actually really good reasons for), we might've got the quality of "Red Light" and "Rum Pum Pum Pum" a whole lot sooner than we eventually did.

28.  Secret - Magic





All of Secret's early songs before the excellent "Shy Boy" were universally rubbish and... oh wait, this song came out around exactly the same time as "Shy Boy".  Well, whatever - this song sucks and whoever the fuck thought that "umma umma umma" line was a catchy chorus idea was probably off their face on some "masic" mushrooms.  Speaking of which, is it really that hard for a k-pop agency to research the correct pronunciation of a word that's going to form the key component of a song's chorus and be sung by the group potentially for years to come?  I mispronounce foreign words all the time, just like anybody does when they're learning a new language, but if I was using one foreign word for the hook of a (hopefully) massive hit single that I was writing I think I would maybe make sure that whoever was singing it got some basic instruction in how to pronounce it.  Then again maybe the writer of "Masic" hates this song as much as I do and just didn't give a fuck because he was too busy jamming to "Shy Boy" and fapping to Jieun in that pale green dress when she's having a milkshake, so let's not be too harsh here.

27.  Secret - Love Is Move





This song is fucking crap too.  A blues trend in k-pop?  Thank fuck that fucking bullshit didn't take off.  After buying the "Shy Boy" single I went out and bought this album and boy did I feel cheated.  When I looked at the tracklist for Secret's first full album "Moving In Secret" that contains "Love Is Move" I couldn't really read the titles because they were silver on a gray, white and silver background so I had no idea what I was buying, but I thought "Shy Boy was GREAT, there's no way that this album isn't full of great doo-wop/k-pop hybrid songs".  How wrong could I be?  As wrong as I was.  The entire album sucks dick and the first person to send me an AOA toothbrush with a return address gets my copy in the post.

26.  ZE:A - Mazeltov





ZE:A are one of those groups that never really ascended to the giddy heights of A-list stardom and with songs like this it's pretty easy to see what might've been holding them back.  While I'm generally not someone who gives a fuck about if Group X is more successful than Group Y, I certainly am one to notice if shit song Z is better than a shit song by a group starting with Z, and this is certainly a song that makes me go Z... but why?  Maybe it's the dull-as-dishwater k-pop 101 melodies and harmonies, perhaps it's the 2069 layers of unnecessary hard Autotune dulling my senses into a coma (something we'll see a lot on this list as hard Autotune was a huge trend during the Golden Age and appeared in songs both good and bad), or it could be the Rebeccablackian snatches of English lyrics, or maybe even the generic tribal lycra spacesuits and bland grey walls they've got going on in the video.  Perhaps it's a combination of all these factors blending to create a near-perfect singularity of uninterestingness, like a Large Uninteresting Collider rubbing two really boring atomic particles together.  The only slightly interesting thing about this song is the weird name because "Mazeltov" sounds a bit like "molotov", but as soon as I found out it just means congratulations or whatever, it was straight back to uninterestingland.

25.  Dara - Kiss





2NE1's conceptual strength is as a group with multiple females who have multiple distinct personas.  There's CL with her brash, bold, bad-meaning-good swagtrocious feminism-lite, Minzy the cute bob-cut dancer with the got-prettier grin and Bom the money-note-crucifying nipped-and-tucked Realdoll - all huge personalities that are memorable in their own way.  Then there's Dara, who is just... some girl.  I think that Dara is only in 2NE1 so the group appeals more to girls with a "gosh I'm so average and non-special" complex because if someone as bland and nondescript as Dara can achieve her dreams, maybe so can they.  And boy does the song suit this persona, one of the only dull spots on 2NE1's great "To Anyone" debut album.  Did any 2NE1 fan want this song to be released?  Does anyone reading this even remember how this song goes without clicking the video?  "Kiss" probably owes its existence purely as a necessity for live concerts so that when Dara is performing it the other three members can take a break for a few minutes while the stagehands reapply their makeup, check their microphone headsets and adjust any facial features that may have gotten bumped out of position from all those dance routines.

24.  Stellar ft. Eric - Rocket Girl





In this video the four girls from Stellar break into some kind of control room and shoot a bunch of robot women with laser guns.  One of the robot women puts her hands up but Stellar don't care that she's surrendered, in a very non-Geneva-Convention moment they just fucking blast on that robot bitch anyway.  At first I struggled with the meaning of this scene and why they would portray Stellar in such a cruel hate-filled manner but then I realised that the music stops at that point - that's when it twigged that the robot girls were audio engineers in a futuristic studio control room, and Stellar were killing them so they could stop this awful track, which is totally understandable.  Upon succeeding in stopping the horrible music Stellar grab a pixelated heart which probably represents the beating hearts of fanboys fapping to "Marionette" in three years' time, and insert it into some kind of time-travel machine so they can move forward to 2014 but instead they inadvertently awaken Eric from Shinhwa who was in his cryo-sleep chamber sleeping off the years until Stellar did a concept he could fap to.  As punishment for disturbing him three years ahead of schedule, Eric reanimates the robot music producers and the shit music resumes all the way until July 2013.  Oh well, I guess the moral of the Stellar story is that all good things cum to those who wait.

23.  Sistar19 - Ma Boy





A few isolatedgoodsongs notwithstanding, Sistar have overall managed an incredible sleight-of-hand over the years, injecting enough fraudulent girl-power-lite into their tedious R&B junk to keep their female fans onside while simultaneously also maintaining the required amount of beach-body sex appeal to keep themselves on centerfolds sticky-taped to the back of army barracks locker doors across South Korea.  In "Ma Boy" Sistar19 (a subunit which in practice is "Hyolyn ft. Bora" as Bora usually gets about two lines of mumbled rap per song) turn up the gyrations to eleven in the hope that nobody notices that they're dancing to some horrid mothballed R&B track not even fit for Chinese restaurant background music.  The strategy must have worked because Sistar are supposedly really popular now (or something) but that doesn't prove anything much except that Koreans either like shitty music or know how to turn the sound of their laptops down while they masturbate.

22.  E.via - Chu~♡ (Pick Up! U!)





These days E.via goes by the name of Tymee and is busy being a quality thugged-out Unpretty Rapstar contestant and occasional League Of Legends competition player, but there was a time when she was doing cutesy raps catering to those who wished that IU would write a rap song about jacking off uncle fans.  Needless to say she cleaned up nicely, or rather her record label cleaned up and left her with pocket change, but that wasn't the worst crime committed by E.via's old agency DLine Media, who actually let this gaudy, hideous clusterfuck of a song through quality control.  Just to rub more salt into her wounds, Dline Media's MV director didn't even bother to make E.via look any good, throwing a horrible retro posterize filter on top of everything that just screams "this is cheaper than hiring stylists".  At least the agency only ever released this severely shortened version of the song as an MV, sparing everybody a good two extra minutes worth of grating synthesisers, tedious Saturday-morning-cartoon-speed rap and cheese-grater-to-the-face aegyo.

21.  2AM - Never Let You Go





When JYP split up his eleven-member trainee group One Day into two separate units before debut, he called one unit 2PM and the other 2AM.   The symbolic meaning of the names seem clear enough - at 2PM the average person is awake, out and about working, at school or having fun, doing their business, and enjoying life.  At 2AM that same person is usually either fast asleep or alternately puking their excess alcohol out behind a bush somewhere while trying to simultaneously hold back a diarrhoea-infused turd threatening to creep out of their anus.  Thus it can be observed that the original group correspondingly were divided into two subgroups with the concepts of "music some of which somebody might actually want to listen to one day" and "nobody is going to give a fuck about this trash, gee we'd better make sure we throw down some money on the MVs", and that they did.  Many ladyfaps were probably had to these guys singing while crying as rain wets their hair and clothes in a music video tour de force which is as well-executed as it is mystifying.  Why is everything blurry around the edges?  Why were three backing dancers given a doorway to to do a dance in that barely even fits them, let alone the dance moves?  Why didn't JYP bury all the filler ballad rubbish like this in the albums like everyone else does instead of releasing it as a feature track?  No wonder half the group fucked off at the earliest possible opportunity.  Those tears are real, 2AM's members are probably crying about drawing the short straw and getting relegated to the shithouse ballad group.

20.  Secret - Madonna





There are songs in the western pop canon that should never be copied or "soundaliked" by k-pop, simply because they are classic tracks that nobody is ever going to improve much on, because it would be almost impossible to do much better with them.  I'd put ABBA's "Dancing Queen", Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall Pt.2" and the large majority of Queen feature tracks in this category.  Generally it's better to copy a song that wasn't that great to start with instead, because then there's some room for improvement.  However one doesn't want to go too far in the other direction either, because there are some western pop songs out there that are so utterlyawful that even the best, brightest musical minds in history couldn't salvage their basic ideas into something acceptable.  Without a doubt one of these terminally awful songs is Beyonce's "Crazy In Love", and we know for sure that it's not salvageable because k-pop has had umpteen cracks at it, and each and every one of them is utter shit.  Ailee has had more than one shot at it, and Secret also had several attempts, including "Madonna", which inexplicably was an even more boring song that Madonna's "Secret" despite the latter song being one of Madonna's worst ever singles, a turgid ballad of nearly unfathomable dullness.  Secret would go on to have manymore attempts at the "Crazy In Love" template, all similarly awful, but none quite as awful as...

19.  5Dolls - Like This Like That





"Like This Like That" (not to be confused with "I Likey Likey Dis, I Likey Likey Dat") wasn't the first clone of Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" to hit the world of k-pop but it was arguably the worst, topping everybody else's disgraceful multiple attempts at this style in terms of plunging straight toward the bottom of the barrel of shit.  Out of all the 692 different soundalikes that exist in k-pop it was also the most faithful to the original, which obviously explains why it sucked the most.  Not only is "Like This Like That" musically total garbage (of course), but the girls don't even look any good in the video, not even in the scenes where they are wearing school uniform-inspired clothing.  It's like the group have extracted the powerful force of worthlessness in Beyonce and allowed it to infect not just the music but everything else around it and associated with it.  Don't watch it for too long, or this supernatural force may transmit itself directly to your brain, and before you know it you'll be spreading unfounded bullying rumours about adorable Eunkyo.

18.  BigBang & 2ne1 - Lolipop





BigBang and 2NE1 were two groups who mostly did quite well for themselves during the Golden Age, both musically and commercially, therefore it would make sense in theory that having them together on a track should be a recipe for awesomeness.  Apparently not so in practice, as the energies of the two groups seem to have cancelled each other out and what we're left with is basically just a pedestrian electro beat with bland "stuff" over it.  It's like Brokencyde's "Freaxxx" with the screaming, bad hair, horrible raps and hard Autotune replaced with screaming, bad hair, horrible raps and hard Autotune.  Now I know what you're thinking - "there's no screaming in this song, Kpopalypse, what are you on about?" but every time I play it I hear screaming from somewhere.  Maybe it's my neighbours screaming at me to turn this fucking lame shit off.  Maybe it's my girlfriend who has finally had enough of my shitty blog-research music and is screaming that she's leaving me and flying to a country where k-pop is banned.  Maybe it's the internal scream of my brain cells from the part of my brain that processes sound deciding one by one that they don't want to live in this world anymore, commmitting seppuku and leaking out of my under-utilised eardrums.  Or maybe I'm just imagining screaming because that would actually be preferable to what I'm really hearing.

17.  T-ara ft. Electronic Boys - Beautiful Girl





Actually it's only one member of T-ara who got on this recording (Hyomin) so this is really "Electronic Boys ft. Hyomin" but T-ara gets top billing here anyway because their brand power is so fucking massive and all-encompassing that anyone with the opportunity would be crazy not to use it to the fullest.  T-ara can be used to sell damn near anything to anyone from shitty disgusting pot noodles that nobody in their right mind would eat to artery-hardening fast food strictly for homeless people and junkies so it figures that it can also be used to sell this awful song.  Hyomin's voice cops a thorough molesting here from trendy-at-the-time constant hard Autotune but that's probably nothing compared to the molesting that Electronic Boys wanted to give her, all through the cheap-ass studio MV you can see the guys sneaking sideways looks at her boobs when she's not watching and inadvertently rubbing up against her.  Clearly the two members of Electronic Boys were so happy just to get Hyomin into the studio so they could engage in some sneaky frotteurism and writing an actual song wasn't even an activity on their radar.  Hell, they're probably not even a real group.  I can see the conversation these two charlatans had while they were planning this now:

"Damn Hyomin is fine.  Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we were idols and we got to rub up against her and grope her?"

"Well... why don't we call ourselves a group and ask for a collaboration?  Then we can record in our tiny studio that barely fits three people and molest her a lot while looking at her boobs."

"Yeah that's a great idea!  But what do we call ourselves?"

"I don't know.  Well, er... we're boys and we're making electronic music, so... how about... um, Electronic Boys?"

"Fuck it,  that'll do... let's ring CCM!"

"But wait... don't we need a song?"

"Nah, don't worry about it.  Pay the fee to the agency and she'll come, then we can just write any old crap while she's on the way here in the van.  How hard can it be?"

16.  SM The Ballad - Hot Times





SM The Ballad have sure been responsible from some hideous musical turkeys over the years.  I wonder if perhaps the true function of this project group is as a dumping ground for ballads that SM Entertainment is required to release under some kind of contractual arrangement with the freelance songwriters but that are so shit that SM doesn't want to pollute the reputation of any one single group with them.  The poor unfortunate souls who are lumbered with the task of trudging their way through "Hot Times" and sharing the load of collective shame are Super Junior’s Kyuhyun, Shinee’s Jonghyun, TRAX’s Jay and a rookie singer called Jino who never debuted.  Clearly after Jino was forced to sing this lurching, warbling pedestrian vocal-wank nonsense he understandably decided that the idol life wasn't for him.  Maybe the initial signing sessions between Jino and SM were full of promises of all the quality music he'd be making as a part of the team, riding the new wave of sudden k-pop quality - then this song was tabled at a trainee meeting before the ink was dry on the contract and Jino suddenly felt like he'd been sold a bridge.  I wonder what he's doing now - not reminiscing fondly about singing this, I suspect.

15.  Dal Shabet - Pink Rocket





Dal Shabet were originally conceived as E-Tribe's pet project group, a special group that E-Tribe would write all the feature tracks for.  If you ever wanted to know why Dal Shabet never got anywhere over the course of the first few years of their history, now you know.  "Pink Rocket" is a typical E-Tribe production, full of random noise that just doesn't fit and sounding like a cross between Juno Reactor, the more dance-oriented side of Throbbing Gristle and the sound effects for Commodore 64 computer game Wizball.  Which once again should be good in theory but is just not the right fit for what's going on over the top of it all.  It hasn't helped that they've used a wet electronic fart noise for a snare drum and most of the track has a really intrusive bubbling-lava-pit sound cutting through it that will blow your speakers' bass response out twice as much as the song's actual beat.  Eventually E-Tribe stopped producing feature tracks and shitting in Dal Shabet's bathwater and it's not coincidence that this is also around the time that the group finally stoppedsucking.

14.  Girl's Day - Kyawooddung (Tilt Your Head)





When it comes to shit debuts from groups that went onto much better and brighter things, it's hard to top "Tilt Your Head" by Girl's Day, a song that always comes up when "shitty k-pop debuts" rears its head as a forum discussion topic.  The awful music is self-explanatory and not really a mystery of any sort, after all in k-pop a shit song can happen to anyone, but what's really puzzling here is that the video is also ugly and the girls even look like crap.  It's helpful that the text "Girl's Day" is in the bottom-right corner of the entire video because I really do need that constant reminder when I'm watching this video that I am in fact watching Girl's Day and not some nugu group that went absolutely nowhere due to their debut song flopping harder than Hitomi Tanaka's boobs on a glass tabletop.  It's telling that when Girl's Day released their first full album they included almost all of their early years-old singles apart from this one.

13.  U-Kiss - Not Young





This song is very confusing, because it starts off with "U-Kiss, we're new kids on this block, you heard?" and then in the very next breath "stop treating us like kids, because we're not anymore, you know what I'm saying?".  No U-Kiss, I don't know what you're saying, that seems contradictory and I think you need to explain it again... or better yet, don't - but if you absolutely must, explain it to me in a better song than this one.  "Not Young" sounds like it's trying to be some kind of reggae-lite thing, but it seems that nobody told the songwriter how reggae actually works and that an important requirement of the music style known as reggae is that the emphasis of the chords fall on the off-beat (2 and 4) instead of the on-beat (1 and 3).  With the chords in the wrong spot this tune has all the flow of Elvis Presley's last toilet visit but with none of the warmth, and unfortunately all of the pain.

12.  SHINee - Replay





Believe it or not, there are some people alive in the world today who believe that this song is not just SHINee's finest moment, but represents some sort of high water-mark for k-pop in general terms.  I guess they're just so blinded by the way these guys look that some bad music is not an issue, or perhaps k-pop has a lot of fans who dig generic R&B slop songs with vocal warbles and guys going "who-a-oh-oh-oh-aohhh" in horrible descending pentatonic scales over limp, soft beats.  Given how the k-pop world reacts with horror and disbelief whenever I tell people that Whitney Houston is a completely trash artist who never did anything remotely worthwhile with her life except take drugs with Bobby Brown and thus boost the American black market economy by a few tenths of a percent, I guess the latter may be true.  Anyway it's hard to believe that this song is from the same album as the excellent "Lucifer"... oh wait, no it's not hard to believe at all because almost every k-pop album in existence ever has a crap filler R&B track or seven, but what's harder to believe is that SM actually released "Replay" as a feature instead of leaving it on the album to rot like they usually do with this type of crap.

11.  Kino - Actually





This song doesn't start off too badly and then it gets to that blonde guy singing in the shower and it's just nope.  It's a moment that rivals Samwell, Skatt Bros or Azis for sheer gay video presence, and while there's nothing wrong with the actual gay part of the proceedings, there certainly is something wrong with the song from that point forward.  I'm not sure what it is.  Maybe it's the hard Autotune clunking away as per usual, maybe it's that weird hiccup that the synth rhythm does that kind of fucks up the groove every few bars, maybe it's the song just being boring and unremarkable as shit generally, or maybe I'm secretly mega-homophobic and in denial and me putting "Actually" on this list is a way for me to push away my inner demons rather than confront them.  In any event I'm pretty sure Kino didn't release anything else after this, I guess 2011 was just a few years too early for K-pop to have a dog-whistle gay-friendly MV concept.

10.  Teen Top - Supa Luv





Hard Autotune and vocal manipulation is one thing but Teen Top's "Supa Luv" takes it to the next level.  In the chorus it sounds like the keyboard Laurie Anderson uses to make the repeating vocal noises in "O Superman" had a Guru Meditation error and started spazzing random noises everywhere.  They might as well have just sampled each member's raw voice, gotten the vocalists to go home and just played the whole thing on a keyboard with the captured samples, and in fact I'm reasonably sure that that's exactly what the producers of this song did.  I've got no problem with any of that but if you're going to use samples instead of the real voices of the guys this should open up a world of possibility because you can write outside of their vocal ranges and do all sorts of cool stuff, or at least use the opportunity to use samples to make a good song and not yet another k-pop song from the Golden Age that sounds like a reject from a Brokencyde album.  Watching Teen Top recreate this hot-stepping electrofart awkwardness on TV shows is certainly a laugh though, recommended.

9.  Kim Tae Woo, JYP & Rain - Brothers and Me





It's bad enough that these k-pop labels try to convince everyone about the special camaraderie between idols with their stupid marketing (SM Town, JYP Nation, YG Family, FNC Kingdom, CUBE Rape Dungeon etc), now they want to convince me that CEOs are all buddy-buddy with singers who used to be on their labels... like "brothers"!  Suuuuure.  This song and video is directly aimed at the kind of people who actually would believe that SM's CEO goes out for weekly drunken karaoke singalong sessions with Kris and Luhan, and it's insulting to watch because they obviously think that YOU the viewer are that person.  Prepare to not just be insulted but also mortified and second-hand-embarrassed as you watch awkward-as-shit cringeworthy staged shots of the three guys pretending that they're really the bestest buddies in the whole wide world, no, really guys, look at us clown around in front of the camera, yep we do this all the time this is totally what we're like.  The song perfectly fits the action because it's a sentimental pukefest every bit as trashy and bile-inducing as anything any of these people have been involved with at their lowest points.  You know you're musically in trouble when JYP whispering his own name at the start of a song is actually the sonic highlight.

8.  Piggy Dolls - Trend





In such a crazily beauty-obsessed society as South Korea, debuting a chubby-chaser girl group was a bold business move, even if it was one that the label swiftly renegged upon.  Sadly it was a move that failed, because Koreans are Koreans, but I would have stood right behind Piggy Dolls with all my support if they actually had any fucking decent songs.  Having chubby girls in the group sadly just meant more vocalfagging, probably because of the prevailing attitude behind the scenes of "well, they don't look any good so we'd better make sure that people know they can sing" - and this was also combined with plenty of trendy-at-the-time hard Autotune, a weird opposites-don't-attract combination.  As a result the song is total trash because it's designed to cater heavily to that "look, they're talented really" plus "look how trendy we sound" aspect simultaneously, instead of, you know, just being a decent song.  At least the girl with the red hair was hot so this song and video wasn't a complete waste of everyone's time - or at least not mine.

7.  New.F.O - Bounce





If there's one thing that's pretty obvious to me when reading Allkpop, it's that Johnny Noh thinks you're a fucking moron and that he can get away with anything he wants and you will just roll over and accept it like a bitch.  What's freaky about that is that he's probably right - people complain about his shitty site all the time but apart from me it seems all you spineless fucks still fucking visit it.  Even after he attempted to destroy Ailee's career over some leaked titty photos and enraged a whole country the best anyone could manage was a 72-hour boycott, as if that's going to achieve anything.  Anyway with New.F.O Johnny discovered that even the stupidity of k-pop fans has its limits, and while putting up with his bullshit website is one thing, the k-pop group that Allkpop's parent company 6Theory debuted was clearly stretching the gullibility of their reader base way past breaking point.  Everything about the song is dumb, from the moronic chorus that makes T-ara's "Yayaya" read like a James Joyce novel, to the typically turgid dubstep breakdown, to the what-were-they-thinking styling.  Even the name treats you like an idiot, "New.F.O" stands for "New Five Order" but sounds like "UFO" so we have a sci-fi UFO concept, harhar get it?  Dad-humour at it's worst.  Fortunately nobody gave a shit about New.F.O's terrible song and they were disbanded very shortly after this song came out, which is a victory for music but a shame for the girls' careers.  Mind you, maybe they dodged a bullet because imagine being a girl in a girl group with Johnny Noh as your boss and having him suggest that you get breast implants every other day and make lame "edgy" jokes about kicking you in the face if you don't "get prettier".

6.  miss A - Breathe





When the idea of making up this list occurred to me, miss A's "Breathe" was the very first song that sprung to mind for inclusion.  A tuneless, nightmarish tribal-themed disaster similar to but far worse than T-ara's awful "Yayaya", "Breathe" swaps out T-ara's garish American Indian costumes for tight-fitting tops and short-shorts yet manages to make the girls look even more horrid anyway.  Then there's the music which sounds like Ladysmith Black Mambazo snorted a bunch of helium, drunk a case of Jack Daniels between them, then staggered into their local electronic keyboard store and started fucking around with the drum machines until the store manager kicked them back out onto the street.  It's as if JYP bought a new keyboard and just decided to fuck around with what it could do instead of actually writing a song with it, and it's telling that this is one of the first JYP-written feature tracks to not feature his trademark whisper at the start - I guess he was as embarrassed about putting his name on it as the girls were to be singing in it.

5.  April Kiss - Hello Bus





This group is so nugu that the MV for "Hello Bus" is either lost in time or it just didn't exist in the first place because it just wasn't worth the expenditure for the label to make one.  Either way, I wasn't able to find it and you'll have to settle for this TV show appearance.  There's not even any comments on the video because everyone who watched it just stared with their mouths agape in stunned silence as to how a song this shitty can even get on TV in the first place.  I'm not even sure what to say about it myself, but the Lil' Wayne-esque random yelling on the backing track is probably the only notable feature about this entirely flat, generic and boring song, and when the most interesting thing about a song besides the inexplicable name is that it sounds like Lil' Wayne is on it, you know you've got problems.

4.  A-Force - Wonder Woman





Regular readers of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert knew that this song was definitely going to make the cut here, and the only question left was where exactly in the list it would be.  As it happens, pretty damn close to the top and there's good reason - "Wonder Woman" is devastatingly bad, from the horrible synthesised guitars, to the "aaaaah, I'm wonder woman" chorus that seems to be inspired by a particularly painful dental visit, and nearly everything else about it from the styling to the dancing to the video is incompetent and laughable as fuck.  Just try and get all the way through the video without either laughing or turning it off, good luck with that.  This trash is also notable for coming from the songwriting pen of Bravesound (which seems incredulous given that even at their worst they're not usually quite this bad but it's true), and also featuring ex-Dal Shabet member and Korean softcore porn star Viki - but don't get your hopes up for this video to deliver the fap, she gets the same ugly overdone bedazzle-makeup and terrifying clothing here as the rest of them.  How this hasn't gone viral yet I'm not sure, but why not "Force-roll" your friends and help it along?

3.  Coin Jackson - Feedback





Imagine that it's late at night and in the company gym Lipservice are practicing the choreography for "Too Fancy".  After several takes, the choreograper stops the music and leaves the room briefly to grab a drink from the coffee machine.  Once the door to the kitchen swings shut, Bipa moves up close to Cora.

"Hey I found out you were in that useless group Coin Jackson - it figures, because you're so crap" Bipa whispers.

"No... that wasn't me... that was some other girl called Kora... with a K.  It's spelled different", Cora protests.

Bipa is unconvinced.  "That song Feedback was so fucking shit, what are you still even doing in k-pop?  Better not pollute my group with anything like that trash, you cunt."

Bipa motions Anna over, who walks up and hisses in Cora's ear: "I bet the reason why they didn't focus the camera properly for that video is because you're so ugly that you'd crack the lens."

"But... it wasn't me!" whimpers Cora.

Bipa snorts.  "Bullshit - I'm onto you, bitch.  You'd better start doing everything we say from now on, or we're gonna fuck you up.  In fact why don't you go right now down to the corner store and pick up some bread?  My friends drinking outside are hungry and I need twelve hot loaves, here's 50 won" - Bipa reaches into Cora's trackpants and deposits a single coin.

"50 won isn't enough for twelve loaves!", Cora protests.

"Think I give a fuck?  Go, get the bread now.  If you're not back in two minutes you're fucking dead meat, slut."  Bipa gives Cora a pat on the ass as Cora runs out of the room.

A few seconds later the choreographer returns, coffee in hand, and immediately noticed that there's only two of them.  "Where's Cora?" he asks.

Anna shrugs.  "I dunno, she just left."

Bipa plays dumb and looks nonplussed.  "She ran off, said something about dance practice interfering with her lifestyle choices.  She probably went food shopping because she's such a pig.  I bet she comes back with tons of bread to feed her fat face.  She's so sketchy, I wouldn't trust her if I were you.  Just as well we hired Anna, hey?"

2.  Sistar - Tic Toc





This song is so incredibly bad that I couldn't even believe it was Sistar at first.  Are these girls in the ugly T-shirts doing completely crap dance moves to one of the worst songs on the planet really the super-hot girls from Sistar?  Much research later and I confirmed that it is definitely them, and boy must they be embarrased by this one, because this sucks so badly that Starship won't even put the song up on the official Sistar YouTube channel.  Sure, it's only for a commercial film, but that's no excuse for this fucking garbage - Orange Caramel, T-ara and SNSD made some of their best music ever for CFs so if it's good enough for those groups to put in effort, it's good enough for Sistar.  How the fuck this group ever got to the A-list with shit like this I have no idea but then Koreans will actually buy Busker Busker every spring so there's no predicting what crap they will go for next I guess.

So who's number one for the shittiest shit that was ever shat during the Golden Age of K-pop?

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1.  The Grace (Dana & Sunday) - One More Chance





There's been so much negativity here so let's end this worst-of list on a positive note.  In the dark days of k-pop, the days before 2008, there was no sun, no life, no warmth, no flowers bloomed, dark clouds obscured the sky and a group were active under SM Entertainment called CSJH The Grace.  The tyranny of their shit music infested the TV, radio and Internet of Asia, spreading the plague of shit music disease to the populace wherever it went.  True music fans cowered in fear and subjugation, dreaming of a better day, a day when they would no longer live under the oppression of this group's horrible music.  Then, all of a sudden, a miracle happened - a new group formed by SM Entertainment called Girls' Generation released a song known as "Into The New World", and the song title was not coincidental.  The new group were commercially successful, gradually diverting SM's girl group energies away from CSJH, but more importantly they had much better music, showing the people what was possible for the k-pop of the future.  A new hope had arisen.  The clouds parted and the sun shone through for the first time, birds sung, flowers bloomed once again, and the frightened people came out of their houses for the first time and basked in the warm sunshine.  Eventually the news filtered back to SM, who upon realising what had happened, that they had lost their iron grip on the people to buy utter shit, quickly rushed out a CSJH subunit called "Dana & Sunday" with an awful song to try and regain their lost power and give themselves "One More Chance" to control the masses.  However it was too late, the chance was in fact lost.  The standards had been raised - no longer would the people accept what once was, they now knew of a better way.



Thanks for reading this epic list!  There'll be more of these from me at the end of 2015!  Until then, stay safe and don't listen to any of this trash!

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AKF's Top Korean Songs (#50-26)

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Hey everyone, it's Memorial Day weekend and I'm taking a break from studying. Considering how I haven't had the time to keep up with Kpop except for a few albums, I have nothing to write about. I won't be able to catch up on everything until the end of the year, so I figured I may as well do a list post since those are always so popular.

Anyway, the only criteria for this list is that the song actually has to be Korean.

The article is split into two because 50 videos in one article would lag more than trying to watch a video in 2002 on a dial-up modem. Anyway, the list will just give my general thoughts and some background information on the song. It will not be a song-by-song review. It's pretty damn obvious I like these songs a lot for them to make my list, so there's no need to go into detail as to why.


50. Han Ye Seul - Make Me Shine



Han Ye Seul makes the list mainly because this site is the sanctuary of Yeseulogy, and I must appease the gods and goddesses if I wish to still be alive. "Make Me Shine" is one of the OST songs from Ye Seul's movie "Miss Gold Digger." which I would recommend if you want to watch a rom-com movie. Anyway, back in the day this performance drew a lot of attention because Ye Seul's bra kept on showing.

49. Davichi - 8282



When Davichi first came out, they used to mix up their songs. A few of them were like "8282," which had shifts in the BPM, making the songs much more listenable than most ballads. It's a shame that after 2010 Davichi strayed from this style and went to straight ballads because I haven't really listened to them much since then.

48. Lena Park - Raindrops



Lena Park is mainly known for his ballads and her powerful vocals, but this song is much different than her typical song. I have always loved the upbeat nature of this song and the softer vocals she went with in this song.

47. Secret - Magic



I love the funky beat to this song. When this song came out, Secret was doing the worst out of the well-known 2009 debuts (aside from Rainbow, who has somehow never gained any traction), but "Magic" was their step out of nugudom and was the first music video where everyone fapped to Hyosung.

46. Son Dam Bi - Crazy



There's a reason why Brave Brothers is everywhere, because he used to produce jams like Son Dam Bi's "Crazy". Son Dam Bi was becoming really popular in the late 2000s, being the "Second Hyori" (I hate titles like these). Unfortunately, she has hardly released music in the past few, but has probably made more money doing acting.

45. SeeYa - His Voice



Depending on who you ask, SeeYa was one of the representative groups during the 2000s when Korea had a much heavier ballad focus. SeeYa was pretty big, but this song came on the heels of the ugly departure of Nam Gyuri (coincidentally which would be repeated three years later with Hwayoung, as Kim Kwang Soo was the CEO of SeeYa's company). Soomi came into the group and SeeYa released this jam, and essentially disappeared. They released some more songs after Soomi had left, but the group has disbanded.

44. Goblin Laboratory - 개조심



Goblin Laboratory has released two very good albums, and it's hard to choosing a favorite song from either album, so I simply picked the song I have listened to the most. Their second album came out in 2012 and it was one of my most listened-to albums that year.

43. BoA - Girls on Top



BoA was the first Korean artist I listened to and quickly became a huge fan because of her good looks and good music. "Girls on Top" was jam for the longest time when I first got into Korean music. Before I learned Korean, I thought this song was about fucking in the one of the cowboy positions. Sadly, I learned that this wasn't the case after I had learned some Korean and could understand the lyrics. Oh well, at least BoA came out with a song about licking her pussy instead.

42. Leessang - Remembrance



Leessang's seventh album "Asura Balbata" is an album chock full of great songs. I always listen to this song when I need something relaxing to listen to, and it doesn't hurt the song features Baek Ji Young, one of my favorite Korean singers. As with most Leessang's songs, this song is very good lyrically.

41. Kara - Mamma Mia



Yes, on my top 10 list, this song is only number 7, but that list was written months ago. Things change. Anyway, this has become one of my favorite Kara songs for reinvigorating Kara's career. The best part: no fucking rap section.

40. IU - Good Day



I remember back in 2010 when IU had about five fans, myself included. She had some good songs, but could not get any popularity whatsoever. She had debuted during the idol boom, which made it that much harder for her to get noticed. Then she released "Good Day," Koreans started jacking off to IU's note belting, and now IU is popular as shit.

39. Nell - Time Spent Walking Through Memories



Nell has always been one of my favorite bands, and I used to listen to their "Separation Anxiety" album all the time back in the day. This is the title track to that album. This was the last album they released before the members did their military service and before Kim Jong Wan gained about 50 pounds. Luckily he has since lost that weight.

38. Epik High - Soul



Epik High's masterpiece album "Remapping the Human Soul" has so many good songs that it's hard to choose a favorite. "Soul" makes the list because it's one of those songs that can make someone feel like a badass while listening to it.

37. Dynamic Duo - Chulchek



This was the first Dynamic Duo song I had listened to and I instantly became a fan of the group. Gaeko is hands down one of the best Korean rappers, and Choiza is pretty good when he's not busy banging Sulli. The MV is fun to watch, which has always been a staple of Dynamic Duo.

36. f(x) - Dracula



f(x) has had two of the best albums to come out not just in the past two years, but in K-pop's short 20-year-history. "Dracula" is one of the standout tracks on "Red Light." The screams are me when listening to Amber's solo songs. Fucking HYSF sent them to me to listen to to troll me. He's a dick. Somehow the composers were able to go into the future to record my screams to insert into "Dracula".

35. T-ara - Bo Peep Bo Peep



The song that got me into T-ara. Sure I was following them when Hyomin was on "Invincible Youth," but this song sold me on becoming a fan. I remember thinking Jiyeon looking cute in this MV, and then learning that she was 16. I felt trolled. Luckily a few short years later Jiyeon has become one of the hottest idols, taking the unofficial title of "Cyclops Overlord." I still listen to this song a lot to this day.

34. A Pink - Nonono



Another great song composed by Shinsadong Tiger. This song started off the era of no Yookyung, which made A Pink much better. That addage of "Addition by subtraction" rings true in this case.

33. Secret - Talk That



My favorite Secret song is composed by Shinsadong Tiger. Go figure. Secret really needed this song when it came out, because they couldn't release yet another version of "Magic".

32. SNSD - Genie



Back in early 2009, I was finally getting into idol groups. I liked SNSD's "Gee" among other songs that came out. The teaser pics for "Genie" started coming out and hnnnnnnng. I didn't know I had a "girls wearing military uniforms" fetish. Then the song was pretty fucking good. Too bad this was SNSD's title track peak in Korea.

31. miss A - Goodbye Baby



Remember when miss A was big musically? When JYP used to churn out hit after hit? When Suzy wasn't a fat whore. Yeah, that was a long four years ago. This is my favorite miss A title track and Fei is so fucking hot in the MV.

30. Leessang - The Girl Who Can't Breakup, The Guy Who Can't Leave



This was the song that introduced me to Leessang and I instantly became a fan of the group. While Gary isn't the best rapper flow wise, I have always loved his lyricism. The MV features Hyori before she went batshit crazy.

29. Lena Park - You Don't Know Me



The second song to appear from Lena Park's great "Parallax" album. I love the ambiance this song creates. The song is nothing to write about technically, but everything comes together to create an addicting song.

28. A Pink - My My



This shit is my fucking jam. I didn't like the song when it came out, but after I became an Eunji fan after "Reply 1997," this song quickly became one of my favorites.

27. Verbal Jint - 역사의 간지



One of the many great songs from Verbal Jint's masterpiece "누명" album. Man, I remember when The Quiett used to produce great songs like this before Dok2 ruined him.

26. Tensi Love - Shine



I've have always enjoyed this song. It reminds me of the good-sounding Shibuya Kei music. I love the synth beats this song uses. The singer is pretty hot as well.

That concludes part one. Part two should be up soon, whenever I finish it.

AKF's Top Korean Songs (#25-1)

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Same criteria as before.



25. Taru - Love Today



I'm a huge fucking Taru fan, and the height of her career musically was when she was with Pastel Music doing light pop music. It fits her voice much better than acoustic music does.

24. Epik High - Pieces of You



Epik High's "Pieces of You" was the first Korean album I bought and the titular track off the album is one of my favorite Epik High songs of all time. I was mesmerized the first time I listened to the song and couldn't listen to anything else but this track for the rest of the day. It was one of the first songs I could understand just by listening to the song instead of having to search the lyrics on Naver.

23. Fana - Rhymonic Storm



Fana's "Rhymonic Storm" is one of those songs that gets me pumped up with the loud bass and the rapid fire rapping at the end. If there ever was an apocalyptic theme, this is it.

22. Dynamic Duo - In The Line of Fire



One of the most addicting Dynamic Duo songs for me. I love the electronic beat, Jinsil's vocals, and the rapping is on point in this song.

21. Younha - Hero



Younha's second album "Someday" is her best one, and "Hero" is my favorite track off of the album. It's uncommon for her to do a fast-tempo, strong rock song, and it's a shame she has almost exclusively done ballads these past few years.

20. Beautiful Days - 소년소녀 만나다



This is my favorite song by Beautiful Days. The buildup in the song is worth it. I just wish it was easier to follow Korean indie music, because it takes too much effort for someone with limited time to find new songs to listen to.

19. Supreme Team - Shinobi



Remember Supreme Team? The group that had Simon D and E-Sens. This group should have become big, but E-Sens love for the weed eventually destroyed the group and now Simon D has partnered up with fucking Jay Park. "Shinobi" is one of those bumpers that never get old to listen to.

18. Kara - Mister



The song that shot Kara to fame and millions of bucket loads of sperm. Nicole, please twerk in my face.

17. Nell - Run



Nell's "Run" was the main theme song for the drama "Two Weeks" and it was the perfect song that encompassed the show. The ranking for this song is most likely biased because of how much I like the drama "Two Weeks".

16. Eluphant - Kidult



Eluphant quickly became one of my favorite hip hop groups with the release of their second album, in which "Kidult" is the title track. The song is a lot of fun to listen to and the MV is great. It's a spoof of "I'm A Singer," using rappers from Soul Company to make "I'm A Rapper".

15. Outsider - Alone/Loner



Violins and speed rapping, who knew that would be a winning combo? This song shot Outsider to fame in Korea in 2009, and was one of the few non-idol songs to win #1 on music shows in 2009. This is easily my most listened-to Korean song. Fun fact: When I first started learning Korean in 2009, due to Korean being one of the faster spoken languages, the language sounded like "asdhjkabdkjas imnida" to me for a few months. I listened to this song over and over and Korean started sounding like it was at normal speed.

14. Glen Check - Racket



Glen Check is one of the more known indie bands in Korea and for good reason. I don't think these guys have yet to release a bad song. This is by far my favorite song from them.

13. SNSD - Trick



It's hard to believe this song is on the same album as that piece of shit "The Boys". I still don't understand how this song wasn't chosen as the title track. SNSD probably wouldn't receive half the shit from me if they had this song as their title track back in 2011. However, "The Boys" was the start of SNSD's sad, sad downfall in Korea.

12. Jisun - Goodbye My Heart



This was one of the first "contemporary" songs I listened to in 2009. When I first got into Korean music in 2008, I was mainly listening to older music, with the exception of Epik High, who had just released their "Pieces of You" album before I got into Korean music. Jisun had featured on a few of Epik High's song, so I had already known who she was, so I was excited to hear her solo debut album (which is pretty fucking good). However, after leaving the rock band Loveholic, Jisun hasn't really done shit aside from releasing this album.

11. BoA - Implode



In 2010, I was excited for BoA's return to Korea, as I had always like her Korean music more than her Japanese music. (I feel like I'm a minority there for some reason. Her Japanese releases haven't been that great for years.) I was even more excited knowing Nell's Kim Jong Wan composed and wrote this song. This is easily the most played Korean song from BoA for me.

10. T-ara - Sexy Love



Shinsadong Tiger has created a fuckton of great songs for T-ara, but the main reason why I probably like this song as much as I do is because it's the first post-Hwadog title track. It still has one of Hwadog's shitty raps in heavy autotune, but her rap didn't ruin the song.

9. Baechigi - No. 3



I fucking love this song so much. The fast tempo of the song makes it really easy to listen to and always gets me hyped up. Baechigi is one of my favorite hiphop groups in Korea all thanks to this song. They have a lot of other great songs, but this is easily their best one.

8. T-ara - Sugar Free



By this point I just fucking worship Shinsadong Tiger. This song is a step above the rest due to a lack of a rap break. BPBP doesn't have a rap break either, but this song has a better instrumental. It's a shame the MV sucks so much cock. Also kudos for Shinsadong Tiger not having Soyeon singing out of her normal range.

7. f(x) - Red Light



What else is there left for me to say about this song? Since its release last summer, I haven't enjoyed a song as much as "Red Light". I was surprised to see so many people hating on the song. I knew Zaku would dislike it, I mean, come on, the dude fingers his butthole to the Korean Spock. But everyone else? It shocked me. Everyone was defending SNSD's "I Got A Boy" for being experimental, but "I Got A Boy" was pure garbage and "Red Light" perfected what IGAB and other songs in 2013 couldn't achieve. "Red Light" doesn't sound like five unrelated songs smashed together. It effortlessly transitions without it being jarring. Plus, there's a reason why Kpopalypse and I wrote a three-part fanfic about "Red Light" shading anyone who didn't like it.

6. Taru - Kasio



Before this song, I never knew I was a sucker for light pop music sung by females with airy voices. When the song first appeared in one of the early episodes of "My Princess," I couldn't stop listening to the song. This song made me a huge Taru fan.

5. Epik High - Top Gun



This song goes hard. Great rapping backed by a bumping beat. Plus, the song references Kim Tae Hee, so it gets extra points just for that. This is one of those songs to listen to when you want to feel like a badass.

4. BoA - Green Light



This song only reaches this high because of recency bias. I have listened to this song a shitload over the past few weeks while I have been studying. This is a style of music that really matches BoA's voice, which has kept me listening to the song over and over and over.

3. f(x) - Airplane



There aren't many K-pop albums that I would call masterpieces, but f(x)'s "Pink Tape" is one of them, and "Airplane" is the best track on the album. Up until this point, I mainly liked f(x) because they had some good songs and because I think Victoria is the hottest idol in the game, but this album, and specifically this song, changed my whole opinion on f(x). The synth beat in this song is really fucking addicting.

2. Kara - Step



This is the song I dub "My favorite modern K-pop song". This is Sweetune at their best, and it's a shame they really suck now. The song is not without its flaws (the unnecessary rap break and the jarring transition to the bridge right after), but the strong points in this song (mainly the fucking instrumental during the chorus, which is fucking amazing) easily negates anything I find wrong with the song.

1. Dynamic Duo - Go Back



I love the laid back beat of the song, but what really makes the song my favorite is the lyricism. This song is about being in your 20s and looking back to your younger years. Now being in my mid 20s, this song hits home. It makes me feel old. However, I still remember high school like it was yesterday. A lot of good with a lot of bad, but it's hard to forget the good times, like toilet papering this one kid's house every Tuesday night, or playing football with all of your friends just about every day after school.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed these lists and you may find some new songs/artists to listen to.

Two Reasons To Stan Jin Se Yeon

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So AKF showed me who Jin Se Yeon was a few minutes ago through Twitter. I have two good reasons to stan her now.



Hey Vegeta, what is my fap level?


Nana Admits She's A Dude

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Nana recently had an interview with the magazine "One" and admitted what we all knew: she has a monster dick.



However, Nana happens to have both a penis and a vagina, which is how she is in a girl group.


Now I have a poll question for all of you:

If a man took it up the ass from Nana, would that make him gay?

Best of the Worst: May 28, 2015

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Book Review: Hello, I Love You

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It's Kpopalypse book review time again!  Read on as Kpopalypse reads books about k-pop, so you don't have to!

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Hello, I Love You

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St. Martins Griffin, 304 pages, hardcover, 254mm x 191mm
ISBN: 978-1-250-05259-9
e-book ISBN: 978-1-4668-5459-8
RRP: US $18.99 – CAN $21.99

I got sent a press release email about a month ago by someone in the marketing department of St. Martin's Press, talking enthusiastically about a new fiction book called "Hello, I Love You".  The email gave a brief plot synopsis and also stated the following:
This June St. Martin’s Griffin will publish Hello, I Love You, a debut YA (young adult) novel by Katie M. Stout.
Katie Stout’s novel is a wondrous blend of dynamic characters, witty dialogue, and KPOP—the music that has taken the whole world by storm.
Sweet, fun, and romantic, Katie M. Stout's Hello, I Love You explores what it means to experience first love and discover who you really are in the process. If you would like a copy of Hello, I Love You for an online review or feature, please send a mailing address.
My initial reaction was "fuck yeah, I'll review this!  Send me a copy!  Send me ten copies!" - why not?  I was mainly curious to see if a piece of young adult fiction about k-pop could outperform the trash on AsianFanFics - if so, then I'd have a good time reading it, and if not, I'd have a good time laughing at it.  Also, my last book review went down like a lead balloon just swimmingly, so I figured you folks would appreciate the entertainment of me not writing crappy fanfiction but throwing down on someone else's fanfiction for a change.

So - what is "Hello, I Love You"?  Here's a scan of the back of my advance reading copy that the lady from St. Martins nicely posted out to me:

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Note "blog outreach" is actually listed as part of their official marketing campaign - which is kind of scary when I think about it.  I find it hard to imagine some girl in an office tasked with the mission of "blog outreach" cruising around k-pop blogs, stumbling across my own blog of all places and thinking "yeah - let's send a press release to this guy".  I figure that there's only two possibilities as to how this occured:
  1. She just saw that I write about k-pop and figured "ahhh, publicity" and didn't investigate what I do any further than that because she was busy spamming every blog with "kpop" in the title and maybe it was close to lunchtime (hey Katie maybe you should have a word to her, just saying)
  2. She's a cao ni ma and thinks that my review of this would be hilarious
So let's get down to it.  What is this book about, and more importantly, how good is it, and should you read it?

The story is about an American girl called Grace Wilde (!) who is blonde, pretty and oh-so-famous in America and who the tabloids are writing about a lot because her brother was an oh-so-famous country rock star or some shit.   She's having a hard time dealing with her oh-so-famous family and lifestyle, because nobody really understands how internally tormented she is, so she runs away to South Korea where nobody knows how oh-so-famous she is and attends a boarding school.  There she meets oh-so-famous Korean musician Jason Bae (!!!), who is in an FTIsland-style three piece manufactured k-pop pseudo-rock group called Eden (okay the group name is actually realistically awful), and who also happens to be the brother of the girl who she is boarding with.  Did I mention that Grace is oh-so-famous and that tabloids write about her?  The first problem with this book, if you hadn't guessed yet (her name alone is a giveaway), is that the main character has a bit of a case of the Mary Sues.  She's just too much of a special snowflake, and our author makes sure that the reader knows just how special and unique she is:
I finger my own blond curls, which flattened along the journey but still hang down to my elbows.  Momma likes to call my hair my "crowning glory," a gift from her side of the family.  I've always loved it; it matches perfectly with what my sister, Jane, calls my "hipster look," but I now realise [that in Korea] it makes me stick out like a goth at a country concert.
And trust me when I tell you, that's pretty obvious.  I've been to my fair share of concerts, both country and otherwise.  When your did is one of the biggest record producers in the country music business and your brother has topped the country charts five years in a row, you start to learn your way around the Mecca of the music lover.
Of course she's also the only American at the boarding school, because if she wasn't, then she wouldn't be so special and unique.  You get the idea.  It's far from the most extreme case of Mary-Sueism that I've seen in fiction, but I would have liked the story a lot more if the main character was just a little more ordinary and thus believable.

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Anyway in the story Grace checks out Jason's band and then things start gradually simmering in a typically teen romance kind of way.  That's the first 35 pages of the book revealed, and honestly if you've read to that point and you've got half a brain, you can probably write the remaining 270-odd pages yourself.  The second negative point with "Hello, I Love You" is that it's completely predictable and the basic teen romance plot outline of "girl meets boy > girl crushes on boy because he's hot even though she also realises he's a dickhead > girl gets to know boy deep down and he's really alright underneath the 57 layers of fuckwit > shit looks like it's about to happen between them but then it doesn't for some trivial bullshit reasons > eventually everyone changes their smelly tampons and everything is okay" is strictly adhered to.  There are no surprises here and an attentive reader will see every twist coming at least 100 pages before it happens thanks to the author telegraphing everything miles in advance.  When a random photographer shows up in one scene and oddly takes a photo of unknown-in-Korea-but-oh-so-famous-in-the-US Grace instead of k-pop star Jason, it's obvious that the author is setting up American tabloid journos tracking her down at her Korean boarding school later on in the book.  When Jason scores a part in a k-drama with a hot female lead, it's clear that the hot female lead is inserted as something for Grace to get jealous about, and that this is a device insert partly to give the narrative some friction.  When it's mentioned that one of the members of Eden is a good dancer, you know straight away that eventually he'll be thinking about going the k-idol route instead of being stuck behind an instrument.  I don't feel bad about spoilering any of this stuff because all I'm doing is demonstrating how the book does a great job of spoilering itself as you read it - the only unknown about these plot points is when they will occur, not if.  The only twist that might catch some people by surprise is the unexpected meaning of the book's name, and even that development can be spotted way in advance for those who have knowledge in certain areas and are paying attention...

Mind you there's nothing wrong with predictability as long as you enjoy the ride, and the ride in "Hello, I Love You" is surprisingly enjoyable - but not for any k-pop related reasons, as the k-pop aspect of the book is actually a lot more incidental than hyped.  It figures too, as according to the author the story was never originally meant to be set in Korea anyway, but was changed to a Korean setting down the track for ease of comprehension and marketing reasons.  What keeps the narrative moving forward is the romance between the two lead characters which is quite engaging and page-turning, mainly because it's all told from the female character's point of view and she's a relentlessly clueless self-sabotaging fuck-up moron (and of course she has to be - without her being this way, there is simply no story for her to tell).  This characterisation is welcome because besides being funny it chips away at her initially-established cloying Mary-Sueism and makes her much more likeable, also giving the book some much-needed realism and somewhere for her character to grow.  You'll want to read the next chapter because you'll be curious about how (and how much) Grace will make a blundering assclown out of herself next, not because of anything to do with k-pop.

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There's one more catch this book had in store, that I initially didn't expect - and in a way, this was the book's biggest twist.  As I read through the book I started to get sick of the author describing Grace's chest constricting and/or heat running up the back of her neck every time she sees Jason, that certainly got a bit repetitive - then I realised that the author was continually focusing on those things because she was avoiding discussing what was happening in the main character's genital region.  It also dawned on me that the characters have the most clean-mouthed, goody-two-shoes, G-rated arguments ever.  Things don't get very racy either - anyone coming to this book expecting romantic liaisons and bedroom scenes with their favourite k-pop stars, which I imagine would be one of the main drawcards of a book that markets itself with the "k-pop fiction" label, is going to walk away with some seriously blue ovaries, so forget about any fap value (unless you're really into exposed collarbones on guys or western girls trying to use squatting toilets).  For a book that's supposedly "young adult fiction" the "adult" part of the equation is sorely neglected.  I also noticed that church is mentioned a few times in the book kind of just in passing, like it's no big thing for people to go to church like that's what people normally fucking do - even though Christianity is hardly a major big deal in Korea - yeah, okay I see what you did there, author.  A bit of research later and it turns out that the author is a "Christ follower" on her SNS and a Christian charity worker - notice how the book blurb mentions that she works for a charity but not that it's a Christian one, that's the book company doing their best to portray the author positively while also trying not to scare off readers worried about having religion forced down their throats.  While it would definitely be a stretch to say that "Hello, I Love You" is preachy in any way, there's a subtle (and to be fair, probably unintentional... but then again, the k-pop group IS called "Eden"...) undercurrent of conservative religious moral perspective running through it which I couldn't help but pick up on.  It's not necessarily a bad thing - it's probably better that the author write true to her own perceptions and values rather than try and throw in lots of edgy, trendy swearing or whatever (I know that might sound ludicrous coming from Kpopalypse, but swearing a fucking lot is consistent with my personal values, just like not swearing is (presumably) consistent with hers).  Just be aware that it's a thing, and while it may not bother some readers, for a music industry insider, the world the author is painting looks candy-coated and difficult to swallow as a result.  I mean, the main character's chart-topping music star brother has a drug abuse problem that doesn't involve anything illegal?  Come on now.

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For what it's worth for k-pop fans, the parts of the k-pop world that the book does handle aren't too unrealistic.  The group Eden write their own material, an unfortunate narrative necessity which rubs up against another narrative necessity - the fact that they don't like their own songs and play like a bunch of robots, but that's about as unbelievable as the proceedings ever get, at least for a casual reader who isn't in on k-pop's intense behind-the-scenes skullduggery that the book completely avoids even discussing.  Fangirls are portrayed by the author in a way that rings true (rabid dangerous zerglings), as are the entertainment gossip media (lying slimy cunts) and the celebrities themselves (cautious and skittish), and other details of Korean life like food (non-westerner friendly) and traffic (insane) seem plausible enough to indicate that the author does indeed know some stuff about Korea.  Forget about your bias turning up in the book though - apart from a few well-known western rock bands that are referenced, the music industry world portrayed in the book is a fictional one.  The closest this book comes to an actual known k-pop star is some celebrity girl called Na Na but it's not that Na Na (although it's possible the character was modeled on her).  Despite the blurb on the back you don't have to worry about Teen Top turning up.

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In the end it doesn't matter much though, because most importantly of all, the author can write, and this carries the book despite its faults.  It's definitely not the AsianFanFics-style muddle that I feared it might be, it's quality writing that's quite engaging, and I blew through the book's 300-odd pages pretty quickly without ever feeling like I was forcing myself to read it just so I could write about it later and be intolerably snarky about it.  If you can look past the slight Mary Sue aspect, the lack of any really juicy k-pop related content, the somewhat conservative narrative and general predictability of it all, there's a decently entertaining "let's fall for a total douchebag" love story here to be had, if that's what you're into fiction-wise.  Personally, I dig it - it's nice to be reminded occasionally that girls still love douchebags, as a certified asshole it warms the heart to know that I am actually exactly what women want.

Final rating: 2 unrealistically perfect female characters out of 5...

EunjungHyominBoobs2500

...but add an extra one if you don't know anything about the Korean entertainment industry and therefore the fact that none of the characters do any sex work, visit any sex workers or encounter any advertising for sex services during the entire book doesn't bother you or strike you as odd in any way.

qruiinsta

The real pussy magnet

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Who's kpop's biggest playa?


This guy.



In the past month, kpop has seen more than its typical share of tits and ass with Big Bang's white girls in hanboks orgy in "Bae Bae," Hyunseung's breast signature in "Ma First," and Jay Park's two releases that were the musical equivalent of an STD. (Herpes, if you're wondering)

Despite all this, the biggest playa* in kpop is not GD, wannabe GD, or Jay Hard. It's Jung Joon Young.

To be honest, I wasn't familiar with Jung Joon Young until I recently started watching "The Lover," which is a super enjoyable, low-key kdrama he's in now. I mean, sure, I recall him as the derpy young assistant in Mamamoo's "Mr. Ambiguous" video, but I was only watching for the 'Moo, so he and Bumkey could have fucked right out of that MV and I wouldn't have cared.

But then, I caught his latest release, and my views on him changed. Boy spends the MV recalling a wild night that's more hardcore than every other kpop party combined. There's whiskey shots, dudes in collars, foxy boxing, a lightsaber battle, and more boob and ass shots than I can count. Take a look.





For anyone who's not convinced enough to watch the whole MV, I've collected screenshots of some of the tastiest bits.










Ahhh, if I had a dollar for every mirror I wrote "Fuck me" on ...


Ahhh, if I had a dollar for every ...
oh wait, we were talking about the video weren't we?


For comparison, let's look at Jay Park's magnum opus of try-hardedness, "Mommae." I would have used Big Bang in this exercise, but you lose all credibility when your song is called "Bae Bae." So back to Jay.





First off, lyrics. Jung Joon Young and his creatively titled JJY Band talk about being carefree and living life like it's one big party. The lyrics to "OMG" won't make you omo, but they're perfectly fine fluff.

Every night is a Vegas party, feel good ladidadi
My pounding heart’s engine, strong alcohol bourbon and whiskey
Don’t be timid in life, do whatever you want, freedom of the heart
Like a romantic fool, put reality behind you
Wherever my heart goes, make things happen
Wherever my feet go
Down unbelievable
My friends go with my running personality
Oh my god
Wherever my heart goes
Now Unbelievable
Source 

Meanwhile, Jay the Bard says:
Even when you wear a turtleneck
I can see your nice body
My throat is drying
So I take another sip of this cocktail
My pupils are zoning out
My focus is moving
Because of my basic instincts
My rice cake mullet has grown
Getting hard as soon as I see you
Your eyes are like Medusa
Making my nose bleed
Your waist line is a punch line
Your skin, even the way you talk like a 4-year-old
It’s so cute, Busan accent
Are you sure your parents are Korean?
Your hips are like an import
If you’re hot then take it off
No conservative clothing allowed
I wonder how you taste like
Source 

As for the MV, sure Jay also has plenty of T&A and the obligatory up-close pantie shot.




And he has the "Multiple hoes all in my bed" scene, as well.




But then Jay and his crew had to go that extra step and include Nicki Minaj-esque floor humping and shot after shot of rappers I don't care about. And, well, not to be shallow or anything, but Jay looks like this:



I can't take you seriously when you're wearing gold chains with a gold jacket.

Meanwhile, our boy JJY looks pretty badass in his vid:




Oh yeah, and JJY Band's song is enjoyable af, while Jay's song creeps me out. 

So to Jung Joon Young, I say "Play on, playa."






* Note: Playa as in "player," not playa as in "beach"

What it's like to be pegged without lube

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This song truly deserves a rant for why it's so bad (and go suck a bunch of whale cocks before you start complaining about me not liking G-Dragon's yologayswag shit, Unknown), but then I would have to subject my ears to this shit multiple times in order to write why it's so bad.

The May Honours List

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Where April was mediocre, May was straight up bad. Let's see if I can scrape together enough songs to say nice things about before abusing every other release this month.



Best song

Runners up

Tresspass (Monsta X)

If you want some writing on Tresspass without any useful information, then you can check the review that I already did of it. It doesn't leave me with much to say here so I will waffle until this paragraph seems to have reached a sensible length. Much as the concept is trying way too hard, I do really like the energy that flows throughout this song and, because they tried so hard, I actually kinda think Monsta X could make it as a hip-hop group. Doubtless people will be comparing them to BTS but it seems that only the Rap Man is taking hip-hop seriously after they shat this out last month. Monsta X have 2 good rappers, vocalists who fit the style, a solid dance line, visuals that get your dick hard, and the backing of Brand New Music to provide them with extra street cred. Maybe San E will do a feature where he talks about how much he wants to bang Jimin. There are two members who have about half a line each so Starship are willing to unashamedly flaunt their visuals as visuals, meaning that you can jerk it to Hyungwon whilst you can hear a good-ass rap from I.M in the background. In the words of my G, Gottfried Leibniz, this is 'the best of all possible worlds.


Sold Out (Yankie feat. Tablo, Loco, Zion. T)

Traditional K-Pop has not been delivering in May so, Imma spoil it right now, all of the top 3 are hip-hop related in some way. Where Monsta X represented an odd liminality by being a hip-hop boy group, now we get a group of four genuine hip-hop artists. Sold Out's quality is underpinned by the fantastic beat with crisp drums, smooth bass, and a great use of a brass sample. Take notes, UNIQ. It's also fun whenever a hip-hop song drops with multiple rappers trading verses on it, especially when the group has flows and deliveries as varied as Loco, Yankie, and Tablo. The supermarket swag concept is a severely underused one across the K-Pop sphere, but I must say that if I managed this supermarket I would definitely kick Yankie and Tablo out for causing trouble whilst eyeing Loco and Zion. T with suspicion for loitering. This song has an obvious weakness; during the bridge they just say, "It's the bridge" followed by naming cities with bridges in them which feels more like an aspect of a complex meme rather than a $wagg£d out rap video. Regardless, this song got me to bounce along and I will think of it whenever I buy prosciutto in the future.

Winner

Spell My Name Right (Yankie)

The man's only gone and done a bloody one-two punch in my, "Best of' List." This time Yankie is on his own, not that the other people were holding him back at all but I guess he thought that this was a better platform to show off his best flow. Once again, the producer (I think it is DJ Pumkin) absolutely makes this song which has the best K-hip-hop beat I have heard outside of the work of Nochang. Of course, they still aren't on the level of El-P but let's face it, who is? I digress. This song isn't about anything particularly deep and his English lyrics are suspect at points but Yankie flows hard here, and he achieves his mission of assuring that people don't spell his name wrong (not that I would in the first place, it's five fucking letters). The video is reminiscent of 90s rap videos when no-one could afford to put any money into locations that looked cool so they chucked a whole bunch of stupid effects over their face. I assume they spend all the video money on Sold Out, or that they wanted the quality of this song to speak for itself, unadulterated by fancy shopping trolleys or bridges. Also there is a DJ solo which I appreciate, even if it does feel like it is only there to use up time.

Worst song

Runners-up

Just Tell Me (MYNAME)

MYNAME were unsure of whether or not they wanted to make a sexy jam, a danceable bop, or a club banger. After negotiations broke down they decided to do all 3, but rather than alternate between them like IGAB they thought it would be better to do all three at the same time. A truly visionary act from whatever the fuck agency they are under. The video seemed more interested in the existence of butts because butts are infinitely more interesting than the members of MYNAME. Long gone are the days where they released what I genuinely believe to be a contender for the best K-Pop MV I am ever likely to see, and instead they force me to watch their new stuff on mute as I jerk off sadly in my basement whilst Yankie plays in the background.

Might Just Die (History)

The jokes write themselves with a title like that. Also, the still that has been provided for me whilst in 'edit' mode looks like he is fucking her over a billiards table. This is one of the most fantastically OTT song/video combinations I have come across; the chorus is constantly trying to wrestle with itself to prevent it from becoming a dubstep breakdown whilst the raps are screamed so as to force the idea that History are feeling particularly bad about whatever the fuck happened in this melodramatic mess of an MV. Maybe the girl found out that their huge Victorian house was to compensate for their tiny dicks and overemotional natures. The vocals and production belie each other as History wants to be a ballad group and the producer wants them to be the next Pitbull. In an eternal struggle, they fight against each other; the producer trying to excite History, History trying to keep the producer frenigerent. What we are left with is an end result not quite as good as the eventuality that either side envisaged. History continue their trend of making shit music I guess.

Winner


Mommae (Jay Park)

At least Sex Trip was funny.

Least consistent momentum


Bassline (Nuol feat. King Kong & Huckleberry P)

This could have been something fantastic. Depending on my moods, I prefer this to Tresspass so you can think of it as an honorary 4th best song of the month. Nuol and Huckleberry P particularly have pretty fucking amazing verses and the low key chorus on its own works pretty well. The issue is that there is no link between the two so there is the musical equivalent of a glottal stop whilst the song reels from the speed of the bars that have been delivered to try and make a transition to Nuol saying that he controls things. If Nuol does indeed controls things then he should definitely be fired because this is not a controlled shift. This is the equivalent of only being able to stop a car by crashing into a wall. This is very much to the song's detriment; if there had been better shifts between the two modes, it could quite possibly have been the best of the month.


Group with the most hateable faces

Awesome (N.Flying)

If there is even one thing worth saying about Awesome (which there probably isn't), it is that is is significantly better than GOD. FNC have managed to hold a monopoly on K-Pop groups with a band concept, and with FTISLAND having a ballad-centric approach and CNBLUE being all about that light-rock vibe, the stage was set for N.Flying to put a hip-hop spin on the band concept. The song wasn't particularly memorable and the MV should be best remembered for Seolhyun. The point I am trying to make is that J. Don himself looks like a dickhead and I wanted to find a suitable format to write about that in. If there are no further questions, I will post gfycat links to the best parts of the BTS video.

Best conspiracy theory


Excuse Me (BESTie)

BESTie let the cat out of the bag: dudes are either thirsty as fuck for tits or they want to bang other dudes. The government are in possession of glasses which allow you to tell the difference but they are keeping this marvelous invention from the general public so that we spend more time trying to get people to make our downstairs areas feel nice rather than questioning authority. That is the message I got from the video and in lieu of such an interpretation, I would like to commend BESTie's bravery in coming out and being the proverbial whistle-blowers on this practice of the global government (also known as the Illuminati). BESTie are fighting for freedom whilst the rest of the world looks on, fapping sensually.

Song that sounds most like 'Nice Body'

Into U (Jun Hyosung)

They are the same song, but Hyosung has a nicer body than Hyomin. Thus balance was brought to the world.

Most unreasonably forward flirting


Ma First (Jang Hyunseung)

Hyunseung is the type of thirsty dude that BESTie were trying to warn us about. He's got to the point where he can only communicate with women through writing on mammaries and dancing violently. He does it all whilst looking like the sexiest heroin addict in all of Korea, which seems to make it acceptable behaviour. Note that Hyunseung's best friend Giriboy never once behaves inappropriately and is a model of acceptable social conduct. That said, he never actually comes into contact with any woman and stands remarkably close to Hyunseung at points, almost certainly making him one of the predatory homosexuals that BESTie also revealed to the world. It's amazing how some MVs contribute to your understanding of others.

______________

May was a shit month, June had better try harder.


Masters of Mediocrity (Jan-May 2015)

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It's true that 2015 hasn't been as shitty a year for K-pop as 2014 had been, thank heavens for that, but I'd be lying if I said there hasn't been some really terrible music, too. Well, I'm not gonna talk about the shitty or the good songs today, but about those that stand annoyingly in the middle; just plain old, "meh".

It's time to throw some spotlight at those songs that aren't memorable in any way, neither for how catchy they are nor for how cringe-worthy they are; the songs that are so unremarkable on so many different levels; the songs that have no value at all, and have no influence whatsoever or a reason for existing.


So let's take a moment to thank them for not giving us a mental breakdown, but also shit on them because of how unremarkably boring they are.

These are the Masters of Mediocrity.

10. 9MUSES - 'Drama'



Now I always liked 9MUSES' music (Namyu stan here), but this song was just dull and boring as hell. I couldn't care less about Eunji and Lee Sem leaving, but it was Sera's departure that really affected them, since she was one of the better vocalists and she had a unique voice. To me, Namyu lost their 'sound' and this is clearly evident here. I would have put them a little higher up the list but since no one was expecting much from them anyway after those, "developments", they've landed themselves the tenth spot with Drama. However, though the music video was bland as fuck, the visuals and outfits were on point (excluding Sungah, anyway).



9. Big Bang - 'Bae Bae'


The song was alright, but not Big Bang standard. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed with their double comeback, both the songs were pretty bland (Loser ranks higher up this list since 'Bae Bae' was slightly better). The video, though, is another story. But we're not here to talk about that.

8. SNSD - 'Catch Me If You Can'


The song isn't terrible, but it's not great either. Huge improvement since I Got A Bitch, but that doesn't stop it from making the list. Good for you, GG! This comeback also proves that Jessica getting the boot doesn't really affect the group since she never contributed much anyway. Simultaneously she is also now free to follow her dreams of becoming a pornstar, so win-win right?

7. CLC - 'Like'


The song was alright but doesn't live up to 'Pepe'. 'Pepe' had a really catchy chorus and it's a song that instantly grabs you on first listen. As for this one... I don't even remember how it goes. Apart from that, the music video was everything a K-pop stereotype is- overwhelmingly bright colours, overly cutesy girls, some shit about oppa and ermagawwwd revenge. Skip. Also, really terrible outfits.

6. Jay Park - 'Sex Trip'


Not sure if it's appropriate to put this one here since it's not really K-pop, but ah fuck it. I couldn't not include it.

5. Red Velvet - 'Automatic'


Why does this exist again?

4. Big Bang - 'Loser'


So this is the Big Bang comeback everyone was waiting for. Seriously now? You made everyone wait two years for this shit? Heck I could compose a better song. But why does it matter? Why bother making good music anyway? They already have a huge fandom consisting of dumb, delusional fanboys and fangirls who will buy whatever is thrown at them. Even if it's middle-class garbage like this.

3. Jun Hyoseong - 'Into You'



Hyoseong easily made this list at the very first listen. But this shit sells anyway, for obvious reasons.

Bet you wanna squeeze those tits.
2. Miss A - 'Only You'



Miss A has never failed to disappoint me with their consistency in making good music. Until now, of course. I've stanned them ever since I could remember but this song is so mediocre, it's sad. It has a nice instrumental but the rest is just dull as fuck, there is literally nothing to talk about here except for how much I'm disappointed with this comeback. However, it's just like the old saying, "a little Fei saves the day."

I just farted all over your bias list.
1. KARA - 'Cupid'



I literally could never get halfway through this music video, heaven knows I tried. There is nothing remotely interesting about it to be honest. I liked 'Mamma Mia' to some extent, even though the chorus gets annoying after a while, but this is just... ugh. All I can say is, congrats, KARA, you made the top of the list. Fucking A!

Well that was my opinion anyway. I may have forgotten some songs, or I may have terrible taste in music. Anyways, leave your opinions in the comments; what songs did you find most mediocre this year so far that may have not been included in this list?

Extra:

G-dragon looking fa-fa-fabulous at the airport. 


GD, teach me your pretty ways~



Mission: Free Hyunaisaslut57!!!!! (T-ara vs AOA – The Final Fap part 2)

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You said that you wanted it, so here it is - a sequel to "T-ara vs AOA - The Final Fap"!

fanfij

While this post does work as a standalone story, it's a lot more fucking entertaining and the various references in it will make far more sense if you've already read the original, so read the first part by clicking here!  For those who have already done so, read on, cao ni mas!





You've heard the stories.  Everybody has heard the stories.

One minute they're organising a protest, the next minute they're gone.  K-pop fans.  It's been spoken about several times before, and you've seen it on your favourite k-pop forums.  A group of concerned fans, worried about the increasing objectification and depersonalisation in k-pop, will talk about organising a protest rally.  Then they'll go down to the street in Gangnam where all the agency buildings are and actually have the rally... and then they're never seen on the forums again.  At first you thought it was because they became so disillusioned with the current state of k-pop after their protest didn't achieve anything that they quit following the music and the forums altogether.  That seemed like a logical assumption, but now that assumption has changed - because of what happened to your high-school crush.

You're a 15-year old female k-pop fangirl and you were crushing hard on Hyunaisaslut57 who was in your class - at school he was a quiet, nerdy shy kid with confidence and acne issues, but on the forums he was a brave self-described "online feminist k-pop activist".  You admired his ability to construct arguments showing the evil of k-pop's portrayal of women, and his last post “Why Gain Is Classy And Hyuna Is A Slut part 15″ (tl;dr – “Hyuna shakes her tits but Gain makes art that raises questions”) was amazing.  You figured that he might be very intelligent and astute, and you dreamed of getting to know the real person behind the forum persona.  So far you've been too shy to approach him - it's tough to get to know someone when both people are shy!  Then he went to that protest and he hasn't been seen at school since.  At first you thought maybe he was just sick, but then you saw the "missing" poster in the school corridor posted a few days later by the local police.  You knew something was up - something big, but to this day he still hasn't been found.

A few weeks later, you noticed another protest being organised.  A forum thread appeared - "LET'S DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE STATE OF KPOP IN 2015!!!!!!!!!", screamed the heading.  The original post in the thread ranted passionately about the current state of play in k-pop, tits and ass being used everywhere in videos for both the male and the female groups, and criticised the previous group of protesters for being "pussies" for abandoning both k-pop and the cause of social justice in the music business straight after the protest was over.  "Don't think just one protest is enough and then you can vanish, we have to keep up the pressure!" the original post ranted as it gave instructions for a new protest, and invited as many concerned people as possible to attend.

That's what's brought you here.


You're sitting on a bench across the street from the SMTown building, watching a small group of protestors from the forum thread wave signs and chant something about objectification that you're just a little too far away to clearly hear.  You're not part of the actual protest, and you haven't spoken to any of them, they don't even know who you are or that you're observing, and you don't want to get directly involved with any of them.  It's not that you disagree with them, in fact you completely agree with everything the protestors stand for, but you know what happens to people who protest about k-pop objectification - they vanish.  You're here to watch what happens to them, and hopefully in the process try to solve the mystery of what happened to your crush, and bring him back from wherever he is.  You've brought your mobile phone to record as much evidence as possible and alert the authorities if need be, a portable camera so you can save your phone charge for calls, some sandwiches, a water bottle, a small torch and even a pocket Swiss army knife, which all fits neatly into the small backpack you're wearing.  It seems a little paranoid, but you have no idea what to expect so therefore you've come prepared for any eventuality.

swar

Who knows if anything will happen, but better for nothing to happen and for you to feel a little over-prepared and silly, than to be caught short in a dangerous scenario.  If something does happen, you're ready to go all-out for Hyunaisaslut57 - whatever it takes to find out where he is and bring him back to safety... if that's even possible.  A shudder goes through your body as you consider the worst, but you push it to the back of your mind, as you watch the group of protestors yell and wave signs.  Passers-by look at them oddly, but they don't understand - this is important.

-=*=-

The hours pass and the protest group gradually moves down the street, from one agency headquarters to the next.  You do your best to keep a low profile, pretending that you're waiting for someone or just browsing in the shops across the street.  You haven't drawn any undue attention to yourself, and none of the protestors know what you look like, so it's not like they'll have any chance of recognising you, they've got enough people looking at them oddly to pay attention to some random girl.  It's starting to get very boring though, especially their tedious slogans, and the group has had zero reaction yet from anyone apart from odd stares from strangers, certainly none of the workers in the buildings have paid them any attention at all.  You start to wonder - is this protest really achieving anything meaningful?  You continue to pretend to window-shop across the street and start thinking that maybe this isn't the best use of your time.

Your pondering is cut short when you notice some police squad cars pull up on either side of the protest group, who are now in front of the Chrome Entertainment building.  One of the cars turns their siren on and then off for a brief second, startling everyone.  A bus also pulls up beside one of the cars.  A female police officer wearing a motorcycle helmet gets out of one of the cars and starts talking to someone from the protest group.  You're too far away to hear what's being said... but why is she wearing a motorcycle helmet when she was in a police car, not a motorcycle?  She's soon joined by another female officer, who is about the same height and also wearing a helmet.  They have a long discussion with the group, you wish you could hear what the conversation is about but you don't want to blow your cover, however from everyone's body language it's clear enough that the protest group are in some kind of legal trouble.  After a few minutes of talking more police get out and the protestors are handcuffed and herded into the police bus.  They're being arrested!  It occurs to you that maybe Hyunaisaslut57 is in jail somewhere... but if so, why would there be a wanted poster with the police looking for him distributed around your school?

The bus engine starts and the bus slowly drives off.  You're too young to have any motorised transport so you take your phone out from your backpack to search for the location of the nearest police station and how you're going to get there.  However before you can begin looking, the bus turns off the street completely and into a driveway behind a building only a block away!  Why aren't they going to the police station?  Oh well, at least you don't have to figure out transport options now.  You wait about 30 seconds so you're not too conspicuous and then walk briskly up to the building to take a closer look.

fnc-ent

FNC Entertainment.  You know this agency as the home of CNBlue, FTIsland, and AOA, that obnoxious slutty girl group with the miniskirts that all the boys like.  Ugh.  It pains you to think about them - they were so much better with the band concept before they became slutty whores.  You walk around to the back of the building and up the driveway into the parking lot to see if you can find the bus, just in time to see a parking garage door set into the building close behind it.  The bus, and all those protesters, are somewhere inside the building now, doing god-knows-what.  You have to get in there!

Looking up, the FNC building is large and imposing, several stories tall with large windows. Anyone on the upper levels who happens to be looking outside can probably see you right now, standing in a car park looking lost, not to mention very conspicuous.  It's probably not a good idea to try to access the building at this time, you resolve to come back in the evening and attempt to enter under the cover of darkness.  Sighing, you begin the journey home.

-=*=-

That night after dinner, you catch the bus back into town and reapproach the FNC building.

fnc-ent2

The front entrance is brightly lit, with imposing metal bars and rails no doubt designed to keep the sasaengs at bay when groups enter and exit vehicles.  You're not going to walk straight in the front door, so you scout around the building for any other way to get in.  You move up the side and around to the back of the building, the car park that you entered easily enough earlier in the day now has a gate across it.  Looking around you try and find another access point.  You notice a ventilation shaft on the side of the building at ground level.  Is entering a building via the vents as viable in real life as it is in computer games?  No time like the present to find out, fortunately you're fairly small so if anyone can do this it's probably you.  It seems like the only option so you pull out your Swiss army knife and start undoing the screws that hold the vent cover in place.

After a few minutes, the vent cover is off, and you flick on your torch and crawl inside, doing your best to close it behind you while still leaving it loose enough to re-open easily if you reach a dead-end and have to go back out.  Inside it's dark and the pocket-sized torch isn't nearly as powerful as you hoped it would be, only allowing a couple meters of clear viewing.  You persist anyway, inching along slowly on your knees.  Progress is slow but steady for about about two minutes, until the vent shaft abruptly slopes 45 degrees - downward.  You shine your torch into the darkness.

shaf3t

You can't see where it ends, the torch isn't powerful enough.  Should you risk it?  You wonder what could be at the bottom of the slope, and think about how whatever it is, you're probably not going to be able to get back up this way.  You ponder if maybe you should give this up and go home, as this might be your last chance to reconsider.  Then you think about Hyunaisaslut57 - he needs your help!  So do all those protestors, who knows where they are now, but police buses don't go into k-pop agency garages and never come out again, something sinister is up, you just know it.  Taking a deep breath, you awkwardly twist around in the narrow space to arrange yourself feet-first and gradually ease yourself down the slope, pushing at the sides of the ventilation shaft with your hands and feet to prevent you from losing your grip and sliding down at full speed.  You inch down the slope gradually for about 30 seconds, but then something happens - the walls of the ventilation shaft start getting slimier and slimier, they're covered with some sort of mucky film.  It becomes harder and harder to maintain a grip.  Fear suddenly rises through your chest - this was obviously a terrible idea!  What were you thinking?  You've got to get out of here!  You start to panic and clamber at the sides of the shaft desperately to try and extract yourself but this only ensures that your grip becomes even worse, and in a split second you've lost any contact with the sides and are plummeting through the darkness.

After only a second of travel (although it feels like ten), your feet slam up against a metal object and you come to a stop.  You then hear a loud creaking, as the entire shaft that you're in starts moving back and forth, wobbling on an axis.  Light appears at the side of one of the shaft panels, and before you can react the entire bottom of the shaft you've just slid down on breaks apart and you fall onto a concrete surface, knees first.  You slide out from under the rest of the now broken vent, get up and look around.  You've emerged into part of an underground car park.  The vent that you fell out of was attached to a large silver commercial-sized air-conditioning unit.  Your exit has broken the fan off the side which now lays on the concrete floor next to the part of the vent that you just slid out from under.  Someone is probably going to notice that this unit isn't working and come to inspect it eventually, so you move quickly to one side of the car park where there are some lifts and stairs.

fnc-ent3

Lifts probably aren't a good idea, so you take the door into the stairwell.  The stairs go both up and down, and you pause for a minute to consider your options.  You figure if anything is hidden here surely it's on the lower levels away from the business as usual of the upper floors, so you decide to take the downward staircase as far as it will go.  Five flights of stairs later, you reach the bottom - who knew that the building went so deep?  As you approach the fire door, you can hear a faint whirring machine noise on the other side.  You quieten you footsteps and open the door very gently.

The door opens into a small corridoor behind a large, brightly-lit dressing room.  As you open it, the machine sound becomes a lot clearer and is now easily recognisable as a hair-dryer.  You peek your head around the corner.

hyomindry

You can see T-ara's Hyomin, drying her hair.  You recognise her instantly, you were fuming when she released that disgusting "Nice Body" video, so unfortunately you know what she looks like all-too-well.  Her eyes are closed to protect them from the hair-dryer's heat blast and she hasn't noticed your presence.  You duck your head back behind the corner quickly, and move back into the stairwell, leaving the door slightly ajar so you can hear what happens in the dressing room.

"HYOMIN!" - you hear a female voice call out to her.  The volume startles you and you flinch, nearly accidentally slamming the fire door shut in the process.

"WHAT?" you hear Hyomin reply.  You can't see her from around the corner but it's obviously her.

"Can you come and help me?  I've got jelly stuck in my cleavage again!" the voice shouts.

Hyomin turns off the hair-dryer and sighs loudly.  "Can't you fucking do it yourself?"

"But it's all slimy and... ewww!  And I've already got my corset on!  You've had big boobs a lot longer than I have, I need your expertise!  I'm worried I'll void the warranty on these!" asks the unknown voice.

"Alright, alright... give me a moment... fuck..." Hyomin sounds frustrated.  You can hear her drop the hair-dryer on the dressing-room table and walk off somewhere.

You wait a few seconds, creep out back into the corridor and peer around the corner again.  Hyomin isn't there but you can hear her cursing under her breath, she has gone somewhere else in the dressing room, which seems to actually consist of multiple connected rooms.  You see a wooden door on the other side of the corridor, so you quickly rush to it and open it, then close it as soundlessly as possible.  Just after you close it behind you, you hear Hyomin's voice get louder again as she returns to the dressing room and walks through it to the corridor you were just in a moment ago.

"I need a fucking cigarette after touching those tits - fucking hell" she mutters to herself as you hear her loudly opening the fire door that you originally entered the corridor from.  You guess that she's going to the carpark to light up.  You breathe a sigh of relief - that was a close call.  Leaving the door closed you look ahead of you, at a long brightly-lit corridor with polished wooden floors and multiple doors on each wall.


The corridor extends for what seems like a hundred metres in both directions.  How large is this place?  You could be here all night trying to find Hyunaisaslut57 - and then when/if you do find him, how the hell are you going to get both him and you out of here?

You open the nearest door on the left side of the corridor.  It has a sign on it: "GREEN ROOM B6".  You can't hear anything on the other side, so you quickly enter and close the door behind you.  The sign didn't lie, it's a room that is green.  The walls are green, there are also several green couches here, and two large fridges.  You sit on the nearest couch for a moment and catch your breath, and you become conscious for the first time that your knees are grazed and actually really hurt from hitting the concrete when you fell out of that ventilation shaft earlier.  There is also a full-length mirror here, and above it is a TV screen.  You watch the TV, it's showing a feed from a closed circuit TV camera in another room.  The image is of a gymnasium, and there's an inflatable pool in the middle of the floor, with a red/purple substance in it.  The camera pans across the room... and you gasp as you see a bunch of naked people, tied to chairs!  You recognise some of them, they're the protestors who were driven here!  Why are they tied up... and what's that pool for?  You keep watching the camera.  The vision cuts to a different room, a large space that looks like a small factory floor.  There's a machine in the center of the room, featuring large conveyor belts and cogs.  It's seemingly switched off, and it's not apparent what the machine is for.  The camera pans across the newly-displayed factory room, and you notice that the machine is connected to another machine, which doesn't seem to have any moving parts at all, just an esoteric silver box with a few holes in it.  The vision cuts to a different room - it's one end of the corridor that you were just in!  Shit - you didn't notice any camera in there!  Where else are there cameras, you wonder?  You figure that you'd better keep watching the screen to find out.  Your heart then sinks in panic as you realise that there's a possibility that you've been filmed going into the "green room" and that you may be discovered.  You perk your ears up for any outside noises and look around for a hiding space should somebody enter.  There isn't really one here, except maybe under the couch.  The CCTV vision cuts to a fourth room, an open-plan office.  The camera pans across - there are a few people seated at computer terminals and wearing telephone headsets, looking as if they are deep in conversation, but most of the seats are empty.  Then the CCTV loop begins again, returning to the gymnasium.  You shudder as you see the naked, imprisoned protestors pan across the screen a second time.

You can't stay here, it's only a matter of time before somebody finds you - but since the corridor is under surveillance, how do you avoid being seen?  You think for a moment, and then an idea comes.  You take out your phone and make a video recording of the CCTV.  This has two functions - firstly, you're collecting evidence of what's really going on here, but secondly, and more importantly for your immediate situation, you're timing how long the CCTV takes to loop around.  You consider that if you time your travel correctly to avoid when the CCTV is scanning the corridor, you can move between rooms undetected.  After you make a full recording and play it back you notice that the recording loops after one minute exactly, with 15 seconds spent on each room.  You access your phone's stopwatch feature, and start a timer from zero the corridor appears.  Now, every time one minute elapses on the stopwatch, you know that the camera is focusing on the corridor for the next 15 seconds after that before it changes rooms allowing you undetected travel.  You quietly cheer yourself on for being such a smartypants, wait for the next 15-second period of surveillance to be over, and swiftly exit the green room.

You quickly move to the next door.  There is a sign on it, that says "BAD THOUGHTS ROOM B6".  What the fuck is that supposed to mean?  You don't hear anything on the other side, so with only 45 seconds to make your move, you quickly enter the room and shut the door behind you.  You get the shock of your life as you see T-ara's ex-singer Areum in a chair, looking directly at you!

ahreumbrick

"What are you doing here?" asks Areum.

You rush to think of an answer to cover yourself.  "I'm.... your biggest sasaeng!  I finally found you!  I love you Areum!  Can I have your autograph?"

"You are not my sasaeng.  Don't be silly.  I know why you're really here", Areum replies, completely deadpan.

You realise that you have nothing for her to sign.  You must look stupid.  You drop the facade and your heart sinks.  Is she onto your real reason for being here?

Areum continues.  "You're having troubled thoughts."  Areum points to the wall.  "Troubled thoughts obfuscate the reality omnipresent in the brick."

"W...what?" you exclaim.  You are in shock.  What is she talking about?

"A brick is strong, like the strength of T-ara, yet brittle, like the vulnerability of T-ara."  Areum stares at you blankly, her stare is piercing but shows no discernable emotion.  "Is T-ara not the perfect sensory embodiment of the brick's physical form?  Stay here a while, and strive to become like the brick."

This is making no sense at all, and you're feeling very uncomfortable. "Um... no, that's alright.. I'll just be leaving now", you stutter.  "Er, please don't tell anyone I came this way."

"Does a brick speak?" asks Areum rhetorically as she covers her lips with her hand.  Although you're thankful for her co-operation, this doesn't make you feel very reassured.  You quickly check your phone's stopwatch to gauge the moment when the camera focuses on the corridor outside again.  You've got 8 seconds to get out, or you can wait another 23 seconds here with Areum.  Getting out seems preferable.  Areum's gaze remains fixated on you as you exit.

You quickly move to the next door.  It is marked "SITUATION ROOM B6".  With no time to think further, you quickly enter, and immediately realise that this is the open-plan office that you saw the CCTV focus on earlier.  There are people in here, but they are all distracted by computer terminals and conversation in their headsets.  You duck down low behind an office divider and make your way quickly to an unmanned cubicle.  Your mind races as you struggle to remember the sequence of the CCTV camera - where was this room in the sequence?  That's right, it was after the corridor, so it wouldn't have seen you enter.  You lie down under a desk and catch your breath.  You're safe for now.

You can hear the voices of some of the office workers, chattering away.  You decide to listen in for a while, maybe they'll provide some clues as to what's going on.  Various disembodied overlapping voices float around the room:
All I need is the 16-digit code on the front of the card and the expiry date ...
No I don't need the code on the back ...
T-ara situation hotline, report your position relative to the target ...
Why is it so hot in here, don't tell me the air-conditioner is off again ...
Thank you for calling the FNC/MBK Jelly Wrestling hotline, how can I help you? ...
Yes, you can order for other people, but they must be over 18 years of age on the date of the event ...
They should let us adjust the air-conditioner, how come only the manager is allowed to do it? ...
T-ara anti activity spotted in netcafe co-ordinate 253-256 ...
You can use American Express but this carries a 3% surcharge, we recommend Visa and Mastercard ...
Await clearance to engage hostile T-ara anti, netcafe co-ordinate 253-256 ...
Your confirmation number is 690238 ...
Thank you for calling the FNC/MBK Jelly Wrestling hotline, how can I help you? ...
It sucks how just a few minutes before a game we get overloaded with these Jelly Wrestling calls.  Why don't they call earlier ...
Yes, Choa is in this fight ...
T-ara situation hotline, report your position relative to the target ...
Yes, you can still pre-order tickets, but the event starts in 10 minutes and you must be seated before commencement or you will be denied entry, will you make it in time? ...
Thank you for supporting FNC/MBK Jelly Wrestling! ...
All of a sudden you hear a scratchy noise coming from the roof.  The building's intercom comes on with a radio-hiss noise.

A female voice clears her throat and starts talking. "Attention, attention.  This is a fire drill.  All those in the basement Situation Room B6 please terminate your calls and evacuate immediately.  Follow your designated fire warden and assemble at your fire safety meeting point.  Please remember to use the stairs, not the elevator.  Remember no smoking in the stairwell or any other place within the building during fire drills.  Do not re-enter the building until given clearance to do so.  Thank you for your co-operation."

You hear the group of workers get up from their seats and file out of the exit door.  Fortunately none of them walk behind the desk that you're hiding under.  You hear some random chatter as they lethargically move out:
Shit, not again ...
I'm due for my break soon, I hope I can take it straight after this is over ...
Why a fire drill 10 minutes before a game, this is really going to piss off the Jelly Wrestling customers wanting last minute tickets ...
Five flights of stairs, I don't get paid enough for this shit ...
Damnit, I nearly forgot my phone ...
A minute later and the office workers are gone, their noise replaced with the steady hum of computers.  There's no point staying here, you have to keep focused.  You look at your phone, considering the optimal time to make your next move, when the building intercom crackles to life again, emitting another hissing noise.

The same female voice clears her throat again, and talks.  "Hello, little girl."

Then silence.  Uh oh.

"You might as well come out and show your pretty face.  I know exactly where you are."

Oh shit.  You stay hidden.  Maybe she's bluffing you into showing yourself.

The voice sounds pleased with herself, almost happy.  "You know, it was absolutely the cutest thing ever watching you time the camera-switching on your phone and moving from room to room.  That was very cleverly thought-out, I must say.  However, did you know that the vision-switching of the cameras in the green room has nothing to do with when they're on and off, and in fact all the cameras are on all the time, and that they record all the time?  I not only know which room you're in, but also which desk you're hiding under.  Take a look at the PC box next to you on the floor there and tell me if it doesn't say that it's computer 57".

You look at the PC.  There's a small sticker on the side.

57

The voice continues.  "Fortuitous that you should hide with that particular computer, isn't it?  Hey, I wonder what else ends with 57?  Don't think about it too hard.  Anyway, why don't you come out from under there and wave hello to me.  If you look straight across from that desk there's a TV on the wall, and you can see me, just like I've been seeing you.  Let's meet each other!"

You're shaking like a leaf.  The voice not only knows exactly where you are, she also knows why you're here - which means she's probably holding Hyunaisaslut57 hostage.  There's no point hiding anything anymore.  You gradually get up from under the desk, stand up and turn to face the TV.

boramscreen

It's T-ara's Boram.  She gestures to you and then smiles.  "Give me a wave!" she says.  You wave slowly.

Boram keeps talking.  "Of course, I know why you're here.  I also know what you want, because I'm smart like that!  Don't worry, you and your friends will be reunited a lot sooner than you think!  All you need to do is follow my instructions, and you can be together in perfect safety!  How does that sound?  Does that sound good?  Don't bother talking, I can't hear your voice from here.  A little nod will do nicely."

You nod slowly.

"Okay, maybe not that little.  That nod didn't have very much determination in it.  Can you give me a better nod than that?  Please nod like you mean it."

You nod a little more vigorously.

Boram smiles.  "That's better.  Now, I'm going to give you directions to a special place.  Please pay careful attention because I don't like repeating things unless I'm being paid.  Turn to your right.  You'll see a door at the far end of the office, take that door out into the corridor.  Then turn right again, go all the way to the end, through the door that says it's a fire exit, up one flight of stairs, and then through the next door that also says it's a fire exit.  Can you do that for me?"

You nod again, being careful to show minimum required determination levels so Boram doesn't ask you to nod a second time.

"Oh come on.  That nod was pathetic.  We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your friends as a result of me misinterpreting your body language.  Please nod again."

You nod again, harder.  Boram smiles.  You're close to tears - she's very obviously enjoying this.

"Settle, kettle!  That was nearly a headbang!  Please don't injure yourself, the paperwork for workplace accidents is very time-consuming.  Anyway, since you seem to really like timing things, you have 30 seconds to arrive.  Don't be late, or something bad could happen!  I'll be seeing you again, one floor up!"

The image of Boram on the TV vanishes, replaced with a live feed from the jelly wrestling arena.  AOA's Choa and T-ara's Jiyeon stand in the inflatable pool with jelly up to their ankles, sizing each other up in an obviously rehearsed manner before the inevitable fight begins.  No time to watch - you run to the office door, into the corridor, sprint all the way to the fire exit which is a good 50 metres, run up the flight of stairs and put all your weight onto the door at the top.  You emerge onto a factory floor, with two large machines - the room that you saw earlier in the CCTV footage.

The intercom comes to life again.  "28 seconds!  I'm impressed!  Now look over to your right!"

On the right side of the room are some large industrial mesh-style balconies.  On these, you can see five of the protestors, all teenage boys sitting on chairs with their hands and feet firmly tied and wearing gags.  One of them is instantly recognisable as Hyunaisaslut57, the others are all people from the protest group that you saw earlier today.  Below their balcony position is one of the two large machines that dominate the floor space, a confusing system of conveyor belts and metal cogs.

"Please - take the stairs, come up to the balcony and meet your friends!" Boram giggles.

You make your way across the factory floor and up the metal stairwell, your mind racing.  As you are halfway up the stairs, a girl appears from a doorway at the top of the balcony and stares at you. You immediately stop ascending the stairs.

aoaseolb


You recognise her as AOA's Seolhyun.  You always hated her - "what a dirty whore, trust her to be involved with this", you think to yourself.  Turning away from you, Seolhyun grabs one of the protestors, a skinny teenage boy about your age, stands him up from the chair and pushes him off the balcony.  You gasp as the protestor lands on the conveyor belt with a thud.  Seolhyun then pulls a lever control by the balcony and the machine comes to life, the conveyors slowly carrying the protestor towards a series of cogs.  Unable to move due to the rope around his wrists and ankles, the protestor wriggles in a futile struggle.

Boram chirps up again over the intercom: "This machine is called the Depersonaliser 5000.  We had it installed here only six months ago, it's the latest in depersonalisation technology!  Watch it work and I think you'll agree that it's very effective!"

You scream in horror as the protestor's body is completely crushed by the first series of metal cogs on the conveyor line, spraying blood and innards all over the gears as they continue to turn unhindered.  You wince at the sounds of cracking bone as the now flat, compressed body is shunted through some more cogs.  Eventually the carcass is ejected from the mechanical process onto a metal tray as a reddish-pink amalgm of minced offal, barely discernable as once human.

"He's certainly not a person anymore!" laughs Boram.  "But in that state could he really be considered an object?  Now it's time to use our second machine, the Objectificator GT!  Pay attention and you will discover how objectification can improve our quality of life!"

The metal tray tips up on an axis, and the giblets that was once a teenage k-pop fan are carried into the top of the second large machine, a large metal box.  The box whirs and chugs for a minute, producing horrible grinding and squelching noises, and then eventually falls silent.  From the bottom of the machine, a purple-red gelatinous substance seeps into a long bathtub-shaped tray.  A circular mechanical arm then stirs the gelatinous broth for consistency as it empties into a 44 gallon drum.

fact2


Boram cheers, briefly distorting the intercom.  "Bravo!  What was once an annoying, useless, whining person good for virtually nothing at all has become a practical object that can enhance the lives of many people!  After all, everybody loves jelly wrestling!  Now Seolhyun is going to help you and your other friends experience the joys of depersonalisation and objectification!"

You look up at Seolhyun.  She smiles at you and motions for you to resume climbing the staircase.  Nervous and shaken by what you just saw, as well as what is likely to happen to you next, you climb slowly to the top.

"Remove the backpack so you can sit with the others." says Seolhyun.

You take your backpack off your back and lay it down on the ground.  You then quickly open up the front pocket, and grab your Swiss army knife.  You extend the blade and point it menacingly at Seolhyun's neck.  Seolhyun responds by pushing her boot into the back of Hyunaisaslut57.

"You cut me with that thing, your friend goes on the conveyor!  Is that what you want, bitch?" Seolhyun snarls.

Boram crackles over the intercom.  "Now that's not playing fair, little girl.  I'm coming for you, don't be going anyplace!"  You hear a static noise as the building intercom system switches off.

"Let me have him, and I won't hurt you!  I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to get out of here!" you yell.

Seolhyun spits at you.  "No chance, bitchface.  One fancy move from you and your loverboy is a jelly sandwich!"

You freeze.  It's a stalemate - one that will quickly change to a situation in her favour once Boram gets here.  You try and think fast of a way to turn the tables, when Seolhyun inexplicably falls forward and collapses on her face, unconscious.  You look at the back of her head, there's a brown lump there - a broken piece of brick.  You turn around just in time to see Areum scurry away through a door on the factory floor.  No time to thank her for her exemplary brick-throwing skills - you quickly slice through the ropes around Hyunaisaslut57 and the other protestors, and undo the gags around their mouths.

"How the fuck do I get out of here?" you ask the people you've just freed.

They all look at each other.  "Um... we were hoping you would know that.  How did you get IN here?" one of them asks.

You sigh.  "Never mind, let's just go!  The exit is about five floors up, we just need to keep going up."

"You women have no sense of direction, you're not going to figure out how to get us out of here.", one of the protestors comments, seemingly not in a hurry to move.

"WHAT?" you cry.  "Fuck you, I just rescued you, asshole!"

"No, it's actually ME who has rescued YOU, by protesting against objectification and freeing your mind from entrapment." he replies.  "Not that you deserve it.  Women have all the power in society anyway."

"Yeah, it's women who keep stringing men along by their dicks, they really control everything" one of the other protestors pipes up.

"We do all this fighting for the rights of women, and don't even get a blowjob out of it or anything." says Hyunaisaslut57.

"What good is White Knighting for pussy this much if there's no payoff?" says the first protestor.

"I think we just need to try harder.  Maybe if we start calling out AOA more in blog posts for degrading women, we'll get more respect from girls we know." Hyunaisaslut57 replies.

You look around.  Who ARE these people, really?  What have you been doing?

"Wouldn't it be great if 'respect" translated into actually getting a girlfriend though", one of the protestors continues.

"Really, women owe us a hell of a lot for being so nice to them.  Nobody is forcing us to fight for their rights as hard as we do." Hyunaisaslut57 sighs.

"Yet they still date the assholes, and don't even talk to guys like us who really care about their feelings." says one of the others, finishing the sentence.  They all nod in agreement with each other.

A door loudly opens and Boram appears at the bottom of the stairwell, brandishing a pistol.  She turns to face the stairs and points the gun at you and the protestors.  "Nice of you to all wait for me!" she says, smiling gleefully.

Involuntarily, you smile back.

-=*=-

Three weeks later, you're at home, in the comfort of your bed, with the lights out, looking at your favourite K-pop forum on your laptop.  A new thread appears: "WHY DO ANTI-OBJECTIFICATION PROTESTORS ALWAYS QUIT THE FORUM STRAIGHT AFTER THEY ACTUALLY HAVE A PROTEST?" the title asks.  The actual post rants on for a while about how k-pop protestors don't really have any courage of their convictions and how nobody has heard from the latest lot since they went down that street in Gangnam, just like the last few lots before them.  Out of curiosity, you refresh the page a few times and watch some replies come in:

Minafapper: I guess they get disillusioned when they realise nobody cares.
Liekthisliekthat: Nobody who is successful at life cares about non-issues like objectification.  So it's only natural they would fail and give up.
Yoloswag420: Low determination levels.

You think about adding a funny comment, something like "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you", but you decide that it's probably better to just lurk on this thread.  It's getting past your bedtime anyway and reading the screen is tiring on your eyes.  You roll over and go to sleep, not bothering to turn off your laptop.  After a few minutes the screen dims and your laptop's new T-ara/AOA screensaver flickers in the darkness.

swd

Over the Top Music Video analysis: Speed - "What U"

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Speed is back after a year hiatus without Zico's big brother. They apparently have an advertising deal to promote some fantastic shoes (because that is the only realistic reason for using shoes made for 3 year olds). Other than that, the music video is here to teach us some new lessons.

For starters, this music video has taught me that I am hanging with my 'squad' all wrong, like someone please buy me those sweet as kicks.


Anyway, the song is pretty decent for the group'sstandards, but who is watching MVs for the song? Speed is encouraging everyone to get on their ultimate lady killer kicks with their crew and then stalk a girl. Seems stalking is a new favourite concept in the K-pop world, and I love it.

The only true way to show you love someone is to break into their house and stroke their face
I personally think this is the sweetest thing since Twilight. The only thing better would be to stalk me down the street *swoon*.


It's just so romantic! Honestly, I would fall so hard for a guy who stared at me like I was some form of prey. Yes, you heard it here folks, girls love to be stalked, a lot, and continuously.



I've actually been wrong this entire music video: They've actually just killed her and then went to a skate park with their Heelys because they are the coolest kids ever.


Either way, Speed is trying to tell you to get Heelys because Heelys mean you can chase after any girl/boy you want. Murder them maybe, or just stalk them. You will become the coolest person known to man, and anyway, all the girls and boys will flock to you. Heely's will become big again, because this barely known group is bringing it back with their sinister pop song. Everyone will have to pay attention to this. Speed will get $1 for each purchase of Heelys, whenever they actually sell their shoes - and Speed will become the next Big Bang, I predict it. And my predictions are all perfect and legit.

***
Just for anyone who didn't pick up on it.


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