Well, Korea, or so it seems. We have some houseguests this weekend- a friend of my wife and her adopted Korean daughter. I guess the kid is about 10 years old, cute as a button. She noticed my Bose Soundlink speakers and wanted to know if she could pair them to her iPad, so I set her up and tested it out. She went to youtube and I watched these two videos with her. I know nothing about K-Pop, but it seems to me that this is much like American pop music from a couple of decades ago.

This one pays homage to the pioneer film maker George Melies.



This one references Luc Besson's The Professional (Natalie Portman's dress-up scenes in Leon's apartment)



Very interesting to see this stuff. High production values, and clearly influenced by American pop.

In my opinion they'd need to go back at least 6 decades of American pop music to get anything worth listening to.

The music in the links is OK, though--maybe 7 decades back.

flashguy

American pop was sucked into and destroyed in the never ending vortex of talent-less Rap and Hip-Hop.

Damn, boss, I want my ragtime and swing back.

Now, the buzz is all around the K-Pop. What the heck is that, anyway?

I'd rather have a dozen Rapid Zombie Japanese Snow Monkeys repeatedly attack my scrotum with a nail gun than listen to that crap.

H&K-Guy

I liked it.

It’s been part of my life for many years. Mrs. Cooker is Korean, born and raised there (legally immigrated and is a US citizen).

While it’s not her first choice, she prefers Vivaldi, Mozart, etc, when it comes on, she’s right at home. My granddaughter listens to it relentlessly.

I find it okay at best. I’ll stick with some good ole heavy metal or some EDM.

My daughter and wife have been listening to K-Pop for a few years now. although most of the bands they listen to seem to also perform rap too.

quote:

Originally posted by H&K-Guy:
Now, the buzz is all around the K-Pop. What the heck is that, anyway?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the 'K' stands for 'Korean' and the 'pop' refers to pop music. Whadda ya think?

Luna Lee on her gayageum is my favorite korean musician.

Riders of the Storm. Crank it.

https://youtu.be/bLS9fl91DkU

Your friend may find her cover of Dreams to be more accessible.

https://youtu.be/gSMqSFPHV5s

Not related to the original topic but its pretty dang cool. On the electric mountain dulcimer, I Wanna be Sedated.

https://youtu.be/_KBvRdR4c44

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by H&K-Guy:
Now, the buzz is all around the K-Pop. What the heck is that, anyway?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the 'K' stands for 'Korean' and the 'pop' refers to pop music. Whadda ya think?

When I was just some punk, hanging around the wrong parts of Munich, I came across an underground bar in the old Munich catacombs.

It had scantily clad servers delivering mysteriously blue drinks in martini glasses to whoever would take one. Blaring punk music blasted every corner of the place, daring your hearing to die a slow death.

All of the servers wore "gaz" masks and mini skirts, like this was a Paris bistro, or something.

The catacombs were filled with their own natural terrors of course, but they were augmented with a crazy lighting style, large WWII era bombs, and such.

Because of this, I will always remember "euro-pop."

K-Pop, not so much.

H&K-Guy

liked her style....especially the 'Sultans of Swing' as well.

I'll be looking for more of her music.

Made me smile

You know K-pop is a thing here now when a K-pop group is featured in the Macy’s T-Day Parade! Lol. I’m pretty sure we started to notice it when Psy got famous here.

FWIW, some of their TV and movies are pretty darned good too, if you don’t mind reading captions.

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the 'K' stands for 'Korean' and the 'pop' refers to pop music. Whadda ya think?

Yes, that's exactly what it stands for.

I know nothing about it but hear about it often enough to know there’s quite a few in the US into it. I had to look up what K-Pop was a few years ago.

Much easier to listen to then rap crap and punk rock.

Mr Kablammo those links were amazing I had to subscribe.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
American pop was sucked into and destroyed in the never ending vortex of talent-less Rap and Hip-Hop.

This

K-Pop is a more professional version of the Japanese idol genre (cute girls but generally acoustically horrible). K-Pop groups are generally professionally, rigorously trained. Many are actually talented. But the dance routines are probably just as important as the song, arguably more so.

Many K-Pop idols transition to acting and do very well.

The group Twice (above) has one person who is originally from China. She is stunningly attractive. And if you look her up in the Korean K-pop idol 'olympic' games they hold annually, she's actually quite the archer all things considered).

In a recent thread about somber songs, one I listed is sung by JeA, who is member of the K-pop group Brown Eyed Girls. She sings a song that was part of the soundtrack for a TV drama show. I don't know why but that song moves me each time I hear it. I don't understand the words but it brings vividly back the story of the drama and the heart wrenching longing of the backstory. A lot of K-pop is teeny bopper stuff - mindless dance music. But much of it is also targeted to draw out emotions Koreans are known to exhibit.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
K-Pop is a more professional version of the Japanese idol genre (cute girls but generally acoustically horrible).

The first vid I posted is a guy.

Yea - there are boy band idol groups as well. Japan also had them (ie - SMAP) but largely the genre was dominated by cute girls or girl groups. The Korean version is much more diverse and talented. And the dance routines are very professional in contrast to the original Japanese version of the genre (ie - Wink, Matsuda Seiko, et al).

K-pop is more Pop than Idol. I have some Japan idol CDs - more of curiosity in the genre than anything although some groups / songs are nice. But the K-pop CDs I have are actually nice to listen to even though I can't understand what they are saying.