It’s time for Kpopalypse to answer reader questions!  Read on for this month’s QRIMOLE!

I once read that entertainers had to be careful to not appear too smart so their fans would see them as more likeable and relatable. However it seems to me that in South Korea people value those who do well in their studies or have a high IQ. Most idols seem to be high school dropouts, the few that go to university tend to pick mostly “easy” courses. I noticed that when a group has a member who is considered smart, the other members often say that they don’t understand why he/she chose to be an idol. Are most idols really less intelligent than the average person in South Korea? Do you think the general public looks down on idols for that reason? Or are they just playing dumb to come across as non-threatening?

The phenomenon of finding occasional stupidity to be likeable or to enhance charisma is well-known and I might cover this more in an upcoming post if I consider it relevant.  However idols saying to each other “why become an idol, you’re so smart” probably has more to do with the economic situation of idols in general.  I think the conventional wisdom between idols themselves would be that if you were kind of dumb but pretty you’d be good idol material (because that’s probably your only chance of an eventual high sustainable income), but if you also had brains you’d be better off focusing on study so you could enter a high-paying profession, rather than the high-risk idol path where the top 1% get paid very well but the other 99% get peanuts.

I’m having a hard time figuring out the chord pattern for WJSN’s Dreams Come True, especially the bridge section at 2:37; I can’t tell what’s going on at all here .

I’m not sure if it’s because of the instruments they chose or they’re actually playing inversions so it doesn’t sound 100% right, etc.. Could you please help me out oppar? Thanks! 🙂

What I have so far:
Intro and Chorus: Eb F Gm Dm
Bbm Eb Ab-Adim7b5 D

Verse A: EbM7 D Gsus-G
EbM7 D Gsus-G

Verse B: Cm7 D7 Db Fsus-F
Eb F Dm Gm Cm Adim7b5 D

I think you’re doing well so far!  In the bridge I’m hearing:

G/B – | Cm – | Am7 Cm | Gsus G
Fm – | Bb – | EbMAJ7 – | D –

So you were right about inversions (G/B is G first inversion).  If you’re using the bassnote to figure out the chord, an inversion will throw you – if you think you’re dealing with an inversion, once you’ve got your bassnote then figure out the melody notes (easy) and from there you have a better chance of working out what harmony fits both.  Anyway see how you go with that.  I dunno if it’s 100% right but if not it’s probably close enough for you to refine it until it is.

Hi oppar, thank you for delivering entertaining posts!

I’d like to hear your thought about my story. Hopefully, it does not too long to read.

Since I entered boarding school (middle school), I started to write songs. In ‘write’ I mean just write simplest lyrics and record it with my MP3 player. I didn’t have any courage to ask other people to listen to it. I can’t play any instrument, nor pleasant voice to be heard of. Some of my close friends like some of my songs, but because of most of my songs are ballad or some J-pop idol group things, things that don’t really favored by teenage boys, I tend to keep all of my recordings alone.

When I graduated and back to home, I realized that my “songs” already piled up to like 60 songs. Even it has become so many when I entered college. You can guess, even though they said you can be anyone in college, I keep all of my songs to myself. I don’t know any band or performer that seems can accept my piece, or if there are, how to contact them?

When I listened to the radio and listen to a song that has some melody I like, I always pray that the song won’t be same as mine. I discovered Kpop today and with so many diverse music choices, I am inspired to write many songs in different genres.

Recently, I let my little brother few songs of mine and like some of it. It makes me happy, I want to make someone at least sing my song. However, I don’t know what to do to convince someone to like my song.

I keep asking myself why I never able to disseminate my music to other people? What should I do to make it possible?

One of my concern is my religious belief have this debate whether music is sinful or not. I tried to evade this with change my lyrics into more religion-friendly. But, my initial concern has never ended.

If in the end, I am never able to make any actual song, can it be said that I dumped something I love because I don’t brave enough?

Thanks if you manage to read until this end. Any thought, especially constructive ones, will be accepted.

The whole thing about “music being sinful” is completely alien to me – every single religious person I’ve ever met in my real life from any type of religion and I mean every single one from every religion without exception was very very heavily enthusiastic about either making or appreciating music as a good, positive, spirituality-affirming thing.  Many of them wrote their own religion-inspired songs, and those that didn’t pretty much all sung religious songs that other people had written.  Leaving aside the whole “is god real or not” debate, and assuming just for the sake of this discussion that there is a god and that he actually gives the slightest of fucks about what humans do with their day, why wouldn’t a god want humans to appreciate music, what possible logical explanation could there be?  Clearly there is none.  Why would god even allow music to be a thing that exists if he didn’t want people to experience it?  Isn’t god supposed to be all-powerful – if he really didn’t like music that much, he could stop all music from existing at any time if he wanted to, right?  Whatever religion you are following that says music is sinful and shouldn’t be listened to, I suggest you trade up to a better religion quicksmart, or at least dump the crappy religious teachers who are teaching you this nonsense that music is somehow bad.

The reason why I bring up this point is because easily the best way to get your music out there is to meet musicians, and a good, healthy religious community (one that actually supports and encourages music-making) would be a perfect place to do this.  Did you know that the entire rules of music that pop music is based from, originate from religious praise songs?  Did you know that Bach wrote over 1000 pieces and most of them were for church performance?  Did you know that most of the black American slave music that also inspired so much of pop and rock music was also “divinely-inspired”?  Even if your religious community sucks and for whatever reason you can’t change it, just start talking to friends and meeting musicians, there’s bound to be people out there who would like songs to sing.  Maybe that means you have to become a satanic heathen goat-sacrificing scumbag like Kpopalypse, but I doubt it.  Your challenge is a social one, not a musical one.

Hi oppar.

First I want to say thank you. Some time ago I asked your opinion about why I feel uneasy about people who are attracted to me, even though I am interested in romance (had crushes, confessed to someone).
You helped me realize that I’m still struggling to accept/love myself so it’s hard to respect anyone who likes me.

I’ve been trying to change since then. There’s this guy, a classmate in junior high , who had liked me when we were 12+. We didn’t really stay in touch after graduation but connected through social media. Fast forward to 22yo, he tried to approach me again. I felt uncomfortable and rejected him.

Then I told you about my concern, did some pondering. After almost a year, this guy gave another try. This time I tried to not close myself. I even asked him out first after we chat via message.

Now we’re dating. And even though it’s only been a shy of three months, we naturally talk about marriage. A lot of our friends have gotten married, and it makes sense to talk about it now even though we’re thinking of doing it 3 years later (all the planning, checking each other’s life values etc).

Logically, he matches me. He’s patient, can endure hardships, more sociable, etc. He has what I don’t, and isn’t that what I should look for? So he can cover for what I lack, or even better, I can learn from him to be better.

Nonetheless, I still feel anxious from time to time. There are times that I feel happy, but half of the time it’s just discomfort. He can’t help but show his affection, yet I don’t always feel good about it. 8 out of 10 he messages me first. We live 700km apart and I feel fine being so far away from him. I even dread meeting him in two days (the last time we met was two months ago).

I think relationship (family, romantic, friendship etc) is important and helps me to change myself. So I want to keep trying , I don’t want to run away so quickly when I feel discomfort (I realize I have low distress tolerance and want to change that).

I guess I’m just trying to channel some of my distress by writing this.
I don’t know if you’re going to reply or even read this, but thanks anyway oppar!

I think given that the relationship is still long-distance, some anxiety is probably to be expected and in fact quite a healthy and common-sense reaction, after all there are still so many unknowns.  It’s one thing to be in love with thoughts of marriage and it’s quite another to still feel that way after a year of living together and settling into a routine.  Don’t worry about your friends getting married or whatever, that’s their lives, and nearly half of them will end up in divorce anyway after rushing into things (statistically true).  I’d suggest before even getting to the marriage step, just try planning to live together first, or at least to be in closer proximity to each other, and see how that goes.  That will give you some idea of whether a long-term future is sustainable with this person, and it will also help to quell some of the built-up anxiety between meetings.

And don’t worry – I read everything, even if I don’t reply.

Hi Kpopalypse!

Ummmm first off, thank you for reading this whenever you do. I’m in a terrible place right now and I honestly don’t know who else to go to. I feel so distant from everyone around me. I feel like I’m not good enough for anyone or anything. I’m always trying my hardest at relationships (not romantic… I’m talking about family and friends. I’ve never been in a romantic relationship but I guess you didn’t need to know that for this), but they never seem to last. I feel like I’m not good enough for my family because I’m not religious. And growing up, I’ve always been told by them that I can’t do anything right, that I’m the reason why the family is never happy and that I’m the devil in the house. They’re much nicer to me now but I stopped practicing Catholicism because I felt like that made me hate myself. And now I feel like I’m a terrible daughter because my parents can’t sleep and take so much stress.

I don’t know what goes wrong with my friendships. I give so much of my time, my energy and emotions once I know someone for awhile. These are people who I’ve trusted for so long-3 years, 6 years, 8 years. But when when something goes wrong, they find it so hard to accept their insecurities. And I’m left feeling so hurt because I want it to work and so my first reaction is always what did I do wrong and how can I be better despite who actually screwed up. But I feel like that’s turned on me and all I ever hear is how I can’t make anything work even in situations when I’m not the one who has screwed up. I don’t know what to do. I have this voice in my heart and my head that has always told me I’m shit and although I like myself now and can stand up against my negative voice to a large extent, I feel like no one will ever like all of me.. or ever like me enough to tolerate (or accept) the parts that they don’t like. This is regardless of the type of relationship. And that makes me feel so alone. I thought all I needed was one person- my best friend. And she’s given up on me. When I spoke to her after our fallout, it felt like after 8 years, she knew nothing about me. I trusted her the most. I don’t know how to move forward. I don’t want to give up. I want to solve this. I don’t know how because I’m naturally extroverted and social. I love being around people the most.

I’m no psychologist or whatever, but what I think, for what it’s worth, is this.  You can’t really talk to your family and you don’t have a partner either, so you’re very emotionally invested in your friendships.  That might seem like a good thing but it’s probably quite a turn-off to a lot of people, they may try to distance themselves from you because you go a bit “all-in” with the friendship, a lot of people find that a bit kind of freaky and weird.  I think what you’re really after is social approval, but for most people friendship isn’t that big of a thing.  My suggestion would be to get a new social group, start afresh (as an extroverted person this should be no problem for you and will be as simple as joining a club of some type that matches an interest you have or something) and then make friends but keep them casual.  Don’t go searching for that “best friend forever”, don’t try to plan social events with them, just keep things light and fun and don’t put pressure on people to hang out and do stuff.  If you do that, after a while you’ll probably find that they’re the ones making the overtures to you, and when that happens, just go with the flow.  This might be hard to do at first but the other part of the puzzle is increasing your self-esteem and realising that you’re worth something whether you have friends or not.  I know a lot of people but I have very few close friends, and the close friends that I do have, I see them exceptionally rarely, just because I’m so busy all the time pursuing my career and interests, plus I’m such an antisocial cunt.  It’s good to have people you know that you can trust, and you will meet more of them, but you don’t need friends for affirmation.  You’re the one who has your own back the most, at the end of the day.

Hey oppar!!

There’s something i’ve just realized about singing style of kpop group. Many groups prefer to not have that part (i think you call that vocal soup or something like that) when everyone sing same part. Ones who have those part in most of their songs are SM idols and some other idol groups. Any idea why most idol groups don’t have that part?

Actually they often do anyway, it’s just that with clever enough mixing it’s not always easy to tell.  A really good mixer can add several members to a part like a cook adding spices to a stew and you wouldn’t even know from listening to the final thing.

Hey. It’s nothing bad but it’s about now disbanded group History’s Queen; specifically its choreo video. The age limit (you know, that colored dot seen in like 99% of K-Pop MVs at the beginning of the video) for that video is actually suitable for kids (hence the green dot), despite that fact it had lyrics like “Someone puts fire on the hips” and “If you say nothing and keep going for tomorrow, you can be, before you know, we all Pac-Man”, which would be about sensual intercourse all the way. Why is it possible for a video like that (nothing wrong with the song – I love the song, and I admired it even more seeing your summary at the 2016 best of list) to get a friendly rating regardless of its actual me aning behind the lyrics?

Sometimes things fly by the censors.  They don’t always pick up on stuff, and that kind of symbolism is pretty coded for some stuffy old cunt on a censorship board.  These people get a lot of stuff to rate so if something doesn’t scream “erotic” they probably just give it a pass.  They probably took a quick glance at this, didn’t see much abs come out, barely even listened to most of it, and thought “meh, guys dancing, typical k-pop, just let it through”.  They probably heard “pac-man” and thought “that’s a video game, right?” and didn’t get the meaning of the reference.  Of course, that’s exactly what a lot of k-pop’s coy yet suggestive lyrics are designed to do!

Hi Kpopalypse,

Do you have an idea as to how the writers of Taemin’s “Drip Drop” got their sound for the chorus/chord progression?

I’m not very musically experienced, so I think they’re using extended chords in the form of a saw wave heavily sidechained to the kick, and it’s being played as 16th notes (Not completely sure about the latter). Anything else they’ve done with the chords?

And do you know of any songs that have their chord progressions played out in a similar style?

Thanks!

It’s not sidechained to the kick because the chords aren’t in sync with the kick drum at all, in fact most of them are actually off-beat, not on.  I also don’t think that the chords are all that “extended”, certainly not as complex as the WJSN song earlier in this post.  It’s the sound they’re using which is probably making you feel that way, and I don’t know exactly what it is, modern workstation keyboards can produce just about any goddamn noise you can think of these days.  But it definitely sounds like it’s been played as block chords and then been cut up in appealing off-beat patterns later during mixing, because it’s hard to play chords that precisely without a bit of “finger desync”.

Hello Kpopalypse oppa!

How are you? I hope you are better than fan-fucking-tastic. Not a question… Just thought I’d recommend this video to you which you could probably send across to anybody who asks about Korean reality shows. (If you haven’t watched it already it already. If you have then here’s an emoji of candy instead ?)

Your emoji didn’t work, but thankfully your video did.  This video (which I hadn’t seen) I agree with 100%, it’s absolutely true (at least for the western market).  However there’s another aspect to this discussion which the video doesn’t cover, which is the “winning conditions”.  If you’re a winner on a reality TV singing show, you then get a contract as part of the “prize” and those contracts are often really shitty deals (because you WON it, so how dare you negotiate it) that aren’t really designed with your longevity in mind, plus you’re stuck with the TV company’s power as a pop music promoter which may vary.  On the other hand, whoever got into second or third place gets all that free promotion and brand recognition from the show but then they also get to walk away with no contractual obligation afterward, they can then proceed from there to negotiate their own deals with whoever might be interested.

Kpopalypse oppar suggested me to drop by here, since his comments block links automatically, so, I have a kpop newsletter where you can pour out all of your feelings, just like Qrimole, but weekly! I’m not as funny as oppar, but maybe you will enjoy it, here is the link to join.

To all my readers – if you leave URLs or images etc in the comments of my posts they tend to either get trapped in moderation indefinitely or trashed completely.  There’s a reason for it – a lot of my posts are really heavy on the image and embed content so they take a while to load, and if I let people leave comments with even more of that stuff, it can slow the entire site down to an absolute crawl, to the point where some people can’t even view it, which I found out especially with my top/bottom 30 lists.  Anyway if you want to do this person’s thing, click the link above and go right ahead.

Hello Oppar,

I noticed that under the MV of Oh My Girls “Banana Allergy Monkey” a lot of people wrote comments like “only Orange Caramel or Crayon Pop can do this kind of concept”. I never understand why people overreacting all the time when a group do one of these cute-quirky concepts, because we all know Orange Caramel and Crayon Pop are practically dead so it’s understandable that other companies try to fill that spot. I know there are lot of morons who think a concept “belongs” to one group, but in the case of this cute-quirky concept I noticed this much more often (maybe just my personal perception). Any answers why people are so sensitive about this concept?

I think if someone comes out with something fairly different, it gets sort of branded to that one person.  For instance there’s tons of groups that look like EXO or BigBang so when a new boy group comes out with basically the same idea (i.e like, all of them) nobody says they’re copying EXO or BigBang except the most diehard nutty EXO or BigBang fans.  However if it was someone doing what PSY does, then that would be more likely to be compared to PSY because PSY is fairly unique so anything that gets even close to that kind of thing will stick out more.  I don’t think this really says anything about Oh My Girl or Orange Caramel or whoever, I think it just says more about the psychology of people who follow music styles.

Answer me oppalypse, is Sana your favorite TWICE member? I don’t know why, but I feel like she is.

I have to update my bias compendium (one fucking day) but right now it’s Jeongyeon > Dahyun > Nayeon > rest.

Two questions in one because screw you I do
what I want:
I like BTS as a whole but – I hate their song Dope because it’s utter shit and I also hate Jungkook for no reason. Why am I such a cunt?
Also, how the fuck did Blackpink get so popular overseas (at least where I am) and why the fuck are the resident girl groups of the other two of the big three not popular? There’s no reason for Red Velvet to not be popular, I understand Twice (overdoing aegyo makes me feel sick) but Red Velvet can be good sometimes if not for Automatic.

1.  I don’t know.  I only like “War Of Hormone“.
2. Blackpink are attractive in that popular way that people like, that probably helps.

I know you’re a K-pop blogger and this shouldn’t be something you’re interested in but what do you think of this pop song from my home country (where most music is shit)?

Not quite my tempo.

In honor of Azealia Banks coming out with the rap song of the year “Anna Wintour” I just want to know if you’ve ever heard of her and listened to her music? You mentioned before how you sorta like rap music because all you need is a hard beat to get your socks off. AB makes a lot of music with good beats and her lyrical stuff is honestly super good. I don’t mind you not answering this but lemme just recommend “Ice Princess” “212” “Liquourice” and “jumanji.” these aren’t even her “best” songs but they sure are some of my faves!

The only good Azaelia song is “212” which is great and she’s been trying to repeat that kind of vibe ever since, with varying degrees of success but generally not really getting anywhere near close to the mark.  Just goes to show how much a good producer can make a difference.  However I find Azaelia’s SNS activity highly entertaining!  Twitter banned her but they didn’t ban Donald Trump, which just goes to show that Twitter have some serious double-standards going.

Hello oppar. I’ve been wanting to at least ask someone’s opinion regarding this, and since I stumbled upon your March QRIMOLE post, I decided to post this.

I recently talked about good heartbreak songs to listen to with my friends. Someone suggested Sam Smith songs, but one of my friend commented regarding his sexual orientation, saying that it’s a pity that he’s that way. And then they moved on to talk about other things.

I don’t seem to find the relationship between the orientation of a performer and how it affects the overall message of a song. I mean, I can’t understand how it affects the listening experience.

What are your thoughts on this?

It’s fine to have any sexual orientation.  People love Queen’s songs even though Freddy Mercury was as bisexual as bisexual can be, I’m pretty sure he’d fuck any hole going.  Your friends are just threatened by empathising with the song of someone who doesn’t swing their way, and what that might mean for their own sexuality.  In other words they are being homophobic faggot bitches.

Why do you not like Tame Impala and Courntey Barnett (sp.) ??? ㅜ.ㅜ

Because they’re fucking boring shit.

You once mentioned Jang Nara’s Sweet Dream to be a really good song, and I share that sentiment, but what about the song makes it so freaking good?

Clever harmony but melodically very simple and catchy, it doesn’t try to “do too much” like a lot of k-pop songs do.  There’s very few melodic motifs in the song, they’re just utilised well with no wanking off and it all just flows nicely and matches with the chords well, it’s really cleverly put together.  Even when harmony vocals are introduced later it doesn’t crowd the mix out because the basis for the song is so well thought-out.

Hi kpopalypse why is the red pill so popular when its so stupid

I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment.

Do ballads tend to have different melodies than upbeat songs? If so, why?

More distance between each note when they’re done right, however if you speed up most ballads what you’ll find is that there’s a lot of extra junk added.  That’s part of the problem with ballads in general at least in Korean pop, more info here.

I know you don’t like mashups in general, since I heard that during your summary on Melody Day’s #LoveMe at the 2016 honourable and dishonourable mentions, but if you liked two songs from different years, would you mind at least checking it out?

Here’s an example of two songs you liked in a mashup:

It has Expectation by Girl’s Day (which was part of your top 30 best songs of 2013) and Bboom Bboom by Momoland (a song you were annoyed at first, but now you said it’s “great” [no pun intended]).

Hope you answer with an honest solution.

All mashups are absolute useless pig shit, the lowest musical creations ever, nothing but pure garbage – even if I absolutely love both of the original songs:

1. If one song is good and one song is bad – why do I have to put up with the shit song ruining the good song
2. If both songs are bad, why does it even exist
3. If both songs are good I’d rather have two good songs than one, why blend them

Part of what I like about music is hearing the composer’s creative vision enacted, and a good song has a message in the sense that it tells a “story”, not a literal story necessarily but the music has a certain emotive meaning, it takes you on a journey through a certain feeling and mood.  By putting such a piece of music with something unrelated it’s like reading a story which has another completely unrelated story cut and pasted into it every second paragraph.  They might be the two best stories in the world, but reading them that way makes no fucking sense and is just annoying.  Even if both stories were similar, it wouldn’t make a difference, it would be super-annoying to not be able to just read them separately for what they are.

oppar
why does ts entertainment hate their artists so much
and
how would you feel about a collab between secret, dal shabet and kara?

Companies don’t hate their artists necessarily.  There’s all sorts of things that can go wrong.  Who knows what’s really happening in that company, but nobody sets up a k-pop company thinking “boy I can’t wait to fuck around all my artists and make them plus their fans miserable”.  It just sort of happens that way sometimes due to circumstances that may be beyond people’s control, or maybe not.

As for the collab, why would it matter.  None of them write their own songs, it’d all be written by some outside person, whether they were performing together or not, so it’s not even really a “collab” anyway.

How are you?

I’m good!

My new year’s resolution was to practice my instrument every day. After one month of adhering strictly to it, I crashed and now I sometimes don’t practice for weeks on end. As a musician, what advice would you give for practicing regularly?

Just sack up and do it.  Motivate yourself with whatever it is took the place of music.  If you’re slacking because you’re playing computer games, learn computer game themes.  If you’re slacking because of k-pop, learn k-pop.  Etc.

There are a few songs and MVs out there that dare to criticise the kpop industry and all its associated problems (thinking mainly of IU’s twenty-three and Hyuna’s Babe right now) but how are they even allowed to be released? Wouldn’t the companies prefer not for that sort of material to be released, considering that the companies/industry makes money precisely off of the issues the MVs discuss (Ie infantilisation, ‘lolita’)? What would be the reasoning behind this?

Look at all the people who misinterpreted those songs, the average consumer of this music isn’t going to “get it” anyway, the songs are sufficiently ambiguous enough that people can attribute their own meaning, and k-pop companies think that all fans are fucking morons anyway so they’re like “whatever”.  Also sometimes it’s refreshing to be honest.  The movie “White: Melody Of Death” has a lot of behind-the-scenes k-pop secrets revealed in it as part of the film, and that film was released by MBK (then CCM) who were making tons of money from T-ara at the time.  Read more here.

What do you think will become of 100%’s musical output now? I feel horribly selfish for saying that I don’t want them to become a ballad group like LC, but I’m pretty sure they will lest netizens accuse them of not being sad enough.

Hard to say.  Minwoo from 100% dying certainly hasn’t had the impact of the Ladies Code incident (probably due to the “natural causes” involved), plus they’re male so they might be able to get away with selling themselves as being “tough in the face of grief” with tears trickling down as they blast out a really rocking number or something, which girls can’t really get away with in k-pop it seems (which is a goddamn shame).

So I started reading your blog way back Jan-Feb 2017 (oh a happy anniversary for me as a caonima) …… and I just discovered what caonima really meant during the latest Qrimole. I only searched the word after reading that one qrimole. Haha I just relied on the Kpopalypse lexicon too much. Now I can’t stop saying caonima in its proper pronunciation haha you caonima!

Anyway, I don’t know if you’ll answer this but what’s your first name (just your first name)? I don’t really have your determination skills to search for your name but sometimes I just want to refer to you by your name and not only saying Kpopalypse everytime I got to say something to myself about your blog. It’s fine if you’ll not gonna answer this, I’ll just refer you as kpopalypse for the time being then.

Also just gonna say I love/hate you for influencing me on your music taste. I mean you have some great taste but then sometimes there comes a point when I actually genuinely like a song but you don’t like it for reasons and so I’ll not like it then, like you guilt trip me? But then you’re also encouraging caonimas to have our own opinion and own taste and don’t mind what others would say including you as long as we are enjoying what we enjoy without hurting others….
I don’t know, I’m just typing my bottled up feelings right now regarding the round ups.
Well, I have my biases (Woollim sure knows how to pick talented and appealing people) and as you witnessed, that damn company also produces decently great music and some shitty ones and of course you criticize the latter and it would sting my biased heart but I just take your review with a grain of salt and still enjoy raving on my faves so that’s something.

Another thing, (oh boy now I’m releasing my pent up thoughts here) as indicated earlier I’m a Woollim GROUPS stan. I guess I just have to clarify it here because Woollim as a company is not doing their job well in terms of customer satisfaction. As a fan, it’s frustrating to see how they manage their 3 different markets. But as a business student, I’m trying to see on the company’s perspective and sometimes there are things they’re doing that’s reasonable for the business but it’s also so frustrating like I’m not a company stan I don’t want to defend them but there are reasonable things worth explaining in favor of the company and I just feel I’m defending the entity and I don’t actually like that. Again I don’t know f*ck.

Lastly, I know Woollim CEO Lee JungYeop is not that relevant in today’s Kpopsphere but can you maybe make a positive post about him.? Just my wishful thinking, it’d be funny. Also you actually liked my tweet regarding this matter looooooooooooooong agoooo so I really look out to this (Eventhough the probability of this happening is about 0.000000000000001%)

Yeah this is about it caonima. More qrimole incoming for me I guess, I don’t know. Anyway, have a nice day 😀

I don’t have a secret identity, all my personal information is pretty easily searchable, just click the links from my radio show page.

I put almost no thought into the roundups, and that’s deliberate.  I don’t want people to take my opinion of music seriously.  Sure, I have preferences and I’m not afraid to talk about them (that’s part of the fun of discussing music, after all) but you shouldn’t let me influence you.  Just enjoy what you prefer to listen to and take all my reviews as cheap laughs + information/education, whether you agree with the opinions isn’t the point.

Companies don’t do stuff randomly.  That doesn’t mean that they always make the best decisions either, but what it does mean is that there’s a certain mode of operation in place for a reason.  Sure, it might not be a good reason, but it’s never random – there’s too much money on the line.  Whenever a company does thing X it’s because they really thought that was the best way forward.  Also remember that there’s an element of “treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen” going on sometimes.  Give the people too much of what they want sometimes, and they might start taking it for granted.  Space out those comebacks bit and people start to pay more attention when they appear… of course this isn’t guaranteed to work either, but remember every company is competing against every other company for that “magic formula” and it’s not always easy to know the right thing to do ahead of time.  When you get the product that’s always after the hard decisions have been made, and vision in hindsight is always 20/20.

I’d need to know more about the Woollim CEO to do a “positive post” and in any event I don’t have plans for who to feature next, it’s more whatever jumps out at me at a certain time.  The guy really isn’t on my radar so it’s hard for me to care about this.  He isn’t doing anything that I’m not seeing dozens of other k-pop companies’ fans also complaining about their CEOs doing.

Just a theory, but I think a big reason for most One Direction and other fans flocking to K-pop again is girlfriends and dating; One Direction and other Western boybands (like 5SOS) had always been free to bang whoever they wanted. Sure, their fans could cry till kingdom come, but at the end of the day there really was nothing they could do about Harry Styles shagging supermodels and 12/10s. They’d all fall in line and buy their singles/albums anyway.

In Kpop, where even looking at an idol of the opposite sex is a criminal career-ending offense, rabid fangirls finally found an industry where they can control their oppas dating choices and where their screeching and whining does have an effect on their oppas’ earnings. And if these idols want to keep earning whatever peanuts they get, they pretty much have to bend to their fans’ wishes.

What do you think?

I’m not aware of this mass migration of fans personally but I think the Korean marketing is definitely more conscious of the kind of concerns you’ve outlined.

How do kpop idols do the dance routines but not get hair stuck all over their faces? Is there some kind of hair chemical I’ve never become aware of? A light jog will make mine go out of place, and hair spray just makes it rock hard and immovable, while they spin around and have it do gentle waves.

The hairspray that the (good) k-pop stylists use for TV appearances is some real high-grade shit that you can’t just pick up at Price Attack.  Also remember that their hair product only has to stay in place for three minutes and thirty seconds, whereas you probably expect your own styling to work a little longer than that.

Hi! I’ve been reading your blog for about 4 years now, thanks for making my kpop experience a little better!

My question is about line distribution in songs, how does that work?
Because, at least in the groups I follow, the one who is known to be a competent singer gets a lot of lines while the one who is pretty gets like a line or two, and the others somewhere in the middle, or things like that. Now, knowing that autotune is really good and can be used live, wouldn’t it make more sense to distribute lines equally so that everyone gets to see their favorite? Or give more lines to the most popular or the pretty one?
For example, in Monsta X the one who is the competent singer is not that popular, and he is not that good of a dancer either, but he is in the center of performances a lot because he has a lot of lines. He does have good expressions and charisma on stage so maybe that matters too.
A friend told me that lately they are requiring groups to sing at least 80% of the song live in music shows, my guess is that people want “authenticity” and I think that may be why they distribute the lines the way they do too.
What do you think? Thanks again!

While a lot of lipsyncing and other vocal fakery does definitely go on (read more here although if you’ve been reading for four years, no doubt you already have), it still pays to have the people who are better at giving the appearance of knowing what they’re doing the center stage a bit more than the “I’m here mainly for the CF work and modelling contracts” types.  That’s why a natural model like Jaehyo will never get more lines than a natural performer like Zico.

Hi kpopalypse! I hope Stiglitz is okay.

You say “trapshit” more often in this year than previous year (increased 42 %). It gets less defended in comparison to Tropical House music in your blog(no statistic, since the tendency is changing regarding trophouse in the recent months, thus I cannot say valuable data) Will we see a similar post regarding Trap like “Things Kpopalypse dislikes in music” ?

Do you also get sometimes the feeling that most people that are interested at KPOP aren’t really here for the music/visual style/something. Instead, they are just here to enjoy drama? Sometimes, during my breaks I read some articles due to boredom and the focus is kinda bigger at everything else and less in the music and people. Do you think that the mass consum had an impact with that, thus the criteria of ceretis paribus changed due to the economy decline and we value/spend in stuff that we don’t really care about it? I would really know your opinion about it.

The Mamamoo post got me thinking. Do you think I have chance at IATFB from asianjunkie? I look like Suzy and I am 7 years younger than him. You guys are friend, thus you know about his tendencies, I think. The question sound probably weird, but I am curious.

I don’t know, if you will chuckle, but the fandom name of Mamamoo is described as the scream of a cow in certain countries. Thus, if you hear a cow screaming, you also hear the name of the fandom.

One last question regarding the monetary power of kpop companies. Since, companies invest tons of money in their group and the possibility to file bankruptcy is really high, how do they survive? I found an old song of the group “Touch” and the company it still alive after all these years. Do they have subsidiaries like SM and have companies like restaurants, but with a different name? Apparently, YYJ Entertainment and SS Entertainment still exist. It is kinda hard to find information, since I mostly see trash news from the usual kpop websites, that are forbidden to call/name here at kpopalypse

Since, I live in a rural area with shitty connection, I cannot compensate my boring questions with kpop idol pictures as some other people at Qrimole. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Yours sincerely

Someone, who loves IATFB

Trap post – yeah I probably will do something like this, at some point.  It’s overdue as trap is nearly over at this point, but that It G Ma bullshit has certainly given it a new lease on life so if I hurry up I think I can still be relevant hahaha.

Are people in k-pop here for the drama more than music – yes I think so!  Less so on this site, I hope.  I try and encourage people to be into the music first.

I think that nugu companies survive with bank loans!  Also, organised crime.  There are nugu agencies that exist to literally pimp their idols out.

You totally have a chance with IATFB and here’s how to do it – pay close attention, this will totally work.  I’ve got this porn film somewhere, I can’t remember what it’s called but it’s all about big-boobed girls getting banged by black guys with large cocks, it’s probably called “Well-Hung Black Guys Love Big Titties vol.137” or something innovative like that.  Anyway the girl in it is being interviewed by the unseen guy behind the camera, and she’s asked about what she likes and dislikes in guys and she says “I don’t like neggers”.  She means “niggers” of course, but she has a funny kind of accent (I’m not sure where she’s from, I can’t place the accent, South American maybe) so it comes out like “neggers” which sounds really cute.  The guy interviewing her is like “that’s a bit rude, you can’t say that – why don’t you like black people?” and she replies “well, I don’t like neggers because… they’re ugly, and they’re dirty, and they smell funny, and…” etc.  Then this very large, very buff black guy barges in and interrupts the interview and he’s all angry like “YOU DON’T LIKE NIGGAS, HUH?  I’M GONNA SHOW YOU, BITCH!” and he picks her up and carries her out of the room over-the-shoulder, while she kicks her legs and does this cute little mock-scream, then the next scene is them having sex somewhere.  So that’s what I think you need to do, have a meet-up with IATFB and just say some really KKK-grade racist shit like “Asians all look the same because their eyes are slanty and they all eat dog” and that’ll piss him off so much that he’ll just grab you and hate-fuck you right on the spot.  Or, he’ll say to you “that Kpopalypse asshole told you to say that racist garbage just to piss me off, didn’t he?” and then you can break down in tears about how I’m so evil and made you say it and that you just want someone who can teach you how to be a good global citizen, then he’ll put his arms around you and say “there there, it’s okay, you’re safe with me, don’t listen to the nasty man” and squeeze you tightly while you snuggle up to his chest.  Thank me later.

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That’s all for QRIMOLE for another month!  Do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE?  If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage!  Kpopalypse will return!

p.s and don’t forget to do the Kpopalypse objectification survey if you haven’t!  I don’t want to hear any whining about “I didn’t know it was a thing”, thanks!