K-Pop Quarantine
My problem is I can’t help myself.
I’m a rabbit hole guy. It’s how I keep my head busy when it wants to perseverate on more important, more depressing things. 2020 has gifted us an inexhaustible supply of important depressing things, so I’ve found myself deeper down the rabbit holes than usual, and since March my escape of choice has been K-Pop.
K-Pop is perfect for these purposes. It’s a complicated network of affects, aesthetics, and sounds that have hooked me completely. The music videos, the live shows, the variety appearances, it’s all a fire hydrant blast of daily content. It’s a never ending fountain of new.
Yeah it’s deeply problematic, like any entertainment culture industry. The labor conditions of K-Pop idols are worth scrutinizing, as are the awkward colonial politics of international cross-cultural remix. And yes, K-Pop is legible as a swirling apotheosis of nationalist politics, global capital, and cultural homogenization. Plus you’ve got the the stans. Oh god the stans.
But in the end, if you have any affection for pop, you’re doing yourself a disservice by holding out on K-Pop. Here are some of my favorite discoveries from my first three months as a K-Pop fan.
NCT — The Whole Dang Group
NCT is K-Pop maximalism. Take their name, NCT, which stands for Neo Culture Technology. No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative. Gets the people going.
NCT is a rotational group which means there’s way too many members to keep track of spread across multiple “sub units” that each have their own loosely developed aesthetic. In particular, NCT 127, the sub unit based in Seoul, released their second full length album this year (and then a follow up re-package) with the Bruce Lee inspired lead single “Kick It”. Its video is a great example of what happens when you turn K-Pop in 2020 all the way up.
NCT DREAM also released a fun single with “Ridin’” and then WayV (NCT’s Chinese subunit) put out the 80s metal thirst homage “Turn Back Time”. 2020 needs NCT energy and they’re all bringing as much of it as they can possibly muster.
Ryujin’s Shoulder Thing
ITZY dropped their rookie full length album a few months back and with it the lead single, “WANNABE”. It’s a bop for sure, delivering ITZY’s trademark anthemic self-love message in a glitzy, shimmering package, but it’s the group’s superhumanly precise choreo that seals the deal here. A twenty second music box intro leads into the track which then explodes into a wobbly bass line and shout spoken verses while Ryujin appears to liquify her entire upper body for this year’s most iconic dance move. You can’t look away. It’s like the femme fierce pop version of watching a snake unhinge its jaw.
There’s this alignment that sometimes happens in K-Pop videos where a sound, musical phrase, or refrain will match up so perfectly with the choreo that it affixes the moment in your brain forever. I’m used to having songs stuck in my head, but before quarantining myself with K-Pop, I’ve never had a movement get lodged there before. Ryujin is example par excellence of how K-Pop just hits different.
Relay Dances
When idol groups and artists drop a new track it’s a complete circus of promotional activity for weeks. They go on music competition shows, hit the interview circuit, post fan vlogs to VLive, and appear on Korean variety shows. There’s the music video, the performance music video, the dance practice video, and the multi-lingual videos that often see release too. But my favorite bit of promotional nonsense has to be the relay dances, where an idol group gets in a conga line and takes turns dancing each others parts for their song.
Here’s why it’s so good. K-Pop performances are these shining monuments to masterful production. These things are designed and architected to within an inch of their life. Everything from the idol’s personal image to the various instrumentation thrown into a mix is a focus-tested masterwork of hyperattentive control. And, to be honest, so are the relay dances, but they don’t feel like it.
Relay dances are the best way I’ve found to see idol groups just crack up and laugh at themselves, at each other. They showcase the performers adaptability and in so doing produce a really effective veneer of authenticity that’s hard to resist. Boy group Astro put out a particularly adorable relay dance earlier this year that I can’t stop watching.
Graphic Design and Typeface
From the start I was obsessed with how K-Pop looked — not just the idols and the music videos, but the promotional materials and packaging too. There’s a good reason for this. K-Pop albums and singles have consistently stunning, evocative, modern, and pop culture literate design with typeface designs and selections that are as bold as they are eclectic. I even started a tumblr about it.
Like most tumblrs I haven’t updated it in a while. Is what it is. It’s been a really long few months.
The important thing here is that Junggigo’s “Eyes On You” Single cover is a gorgeous bit of lo-fi design to study by.
Hwa. Motherfreaking. Sa.
Early on in my voyage through the K-Pop seas I discovered MAMAMOO, a girl group known for their wide-ranging influences, from 20s era roaring jazz to 90s hip-hop to early 00s diva pop to radio filtered flamenco. They have a huge catalog of songs, a whole bunch of gorgeously produced videos and one of the less intimidating hardcore fandoms I’ve found. Just super positive, super sweet, and super versatile as far as K-Pop idol groups go.
What really sold me though is the women in the group themselves — Wheein, Solar, Moonbyul, and Hwa Sa. More than any other group I’ve found they have this natural, comfortable dynamic with each other that makes them more personality driven than a lot of their contemporaries. They’re all hilarious and sexy and magnetic. They’re like a walking invitation to brunch.
And at that brunch, I’d want to sit next to Hwa Sa.
Hwa Sa is my bias, as the K-Poppers say. Her voice isn’t the rangiest or most powerful, but it’s so dynamic and matches her quirky/sultry performance style perfectly. Her solo stuff — including the absolutely must-listen mini-album Maria is a soulful, ASMR-friendly ode to self-reliance, like if Billie Eilish produced an early Christina Aguilera record. She’s an absolute star and is the best single thing I’ve found in K-Pop so far. I’m probably going to get a sweatshirt.
K-Soul, K-R&B, and K-HipHop
When I started out, I expected it to be bubblegum bops from top to bottom — and K-Pop definitely delivered on that end. What I didn’t expect, because I’m a narrow-minded chump, was the rich vein of slow jams and grimy soul I’d find there too. Releases from KATIE, DeVita, oceanfromtheblue, Chung Ha, and BIBI have all featured syrupy sweet vocal deliveries atop bassy electronic beats and heartbreaking chord progressions.
And there’s so much diversity within these sounds too. You’ve got the softer-than-feathers ballads from Yerin Baek coaxing tears out of you like a punch to the gut. There’s the hip hop inflected crooning and rapping on Way Ched’s cut with CHANGMO and Paul Blanco and then the trap influenced loops underwriting Zelo’s flow.
It’s the aforementioned BIBI thought that I keep sending people to. Her track KAZINO is a dramatic, gritty bit of musical hypnosis with a grimy little video to go along with it. Plus, on her recent video for the shimmering “I’m Good at Goodbyes” she’s repping a Buffalo Bills shirt. So, fucking A man, Go Bills.
So there you go. Some stuff I really love about K-Pop so far as a complete newbie who has now idea what he’s doing. What I love about rabbit holes like this is that slow, delightful process of finding your feet. Going from having now idea what’s going on to having favorite things and anchor points. It’s gloriously decentering. I highly recommend just jumping in.
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