It’s time for QRIMOLE!  Read on as Kpopalypse tackles more reader questions!

Hey!

From your 2016 kpopalypse interview:

“K-pop is quite clever in that the girl groups are musically marketed to male music taste, and likewise the boy groups are marketed to female music taste more often than not – not talking about the image here or even the voices, but more things like grabbing bits from genres that have been shown in the past to have more currency with either men or women in other markets.”

1) What would you say is the male music taste that’s being reflected in girl group music and the female music taste in boy group music?

Im guessing that it has to do with men like sexy girl group music and women like sexy boy group music but I feel like I don’t really feel the music in a way that makes me a ‘desirant’ of the idol that is being desired.
The song+idols+MV sell a fantasy and listening to a song makes you place in the song/idol’s place like placing yourself in the characters in a book. That fantasy could be being a desired female idol X in context/concept Y with the great music of song Z. That’s the way I would enjoy song Z, besides the other factors why music is nice etc.
I musn’t be the only one who does this so in this case the girl (group) music is a great market for girls too. I even think a lot of girl groups are largely marketed towards girls since some boys could be ashamed of publically admitting liking ‘girl group music’ instead of male bands let’s say (taken uncle fans aside).

2) So isn’t girl group music also not largely marketed towards girls? (I know boy group music is only marketed towards girls but how about vice versa?)

1. Something like Kara’s “Wanna” is to me a really good example of a k-pop girl group song that is musically aimed at stereotypical male music taste.  Pedal-point riffs and heavy metal guitar slides everywhere, and this is just talking about the music, before we even get to all the visual stuff like the straight-to-camera first-person dating perspective which wouldn’t even be in the video at all if this was aimed at girls.  Of course I say “stereotypically”, there’s no reason why women can’t like these things, and plenty do, but there’s no question that women aren’t the target market for this.

It’s obviously much more marketed at men than something like SHINee’s “Replay”. 

Remember that we’re talking stereotypes here.  Stereotypes of course don’t represent everyone, and there’s always tons of exceptions to them, but they also generally exist because there is a grain of truth in them somewhere, which tips the average a certain way.  Therefore stereotypes can be useful when trying to understand how music is marketed.  Do a whole bunch of guys like SHINee’s “Replay”?  Yes.  As many as who like IZ*ONE, a group very specifically marketed towards men?  Probably not.  That’s useful information if you’re trying to sell something.

2. Some girl group music is marketed towards girls.  Some isn’t.  The demographic changes between different girl group audiences is no accident.  However overall, pop music in general appeals to females more than it does to males, whereas heavier music appeals more to males.  I don’t know why this is, but it’s definitely borne out through every statistical study I’ve seen.

Do you think the “self-producing-dol” aspect of groups like BTS and Seventeen is the reason for their meh discography?

It’s highly likely.  I get that people especially in the west see “creativity” as a virtue, but every pop song is still somebody’s creation even if it isn’t the performer’s.  Sometimes it’s best to leave things to the experts.

You mention in the FAQ that you owned your own label back in the day. Were your workdays relatively consistent, or did they widely vary? If so, can you tell what kind of jobs you did as the owner of an independent label? Did you also have a part-time job on the side?

(bonus: I remember you saying a while ago that Courtney Love was one of the worst acts that came out of grunge. Agreed. Huge grunge fan here, do you like any grunge bands?)

Nothing’s ever that consistent in the music business!  There wasn’t any real “work day” as such and the line between business/pleasure certainly got blurry as I wasn’t exactly actively aiming for commercial success anyway – I just wanted to release shit that I liked that nobody else was touching.  Yeah I had other non-music-industry jobs that I worked as well during this time, off and on.  Some music industry skills are quite transferable to other areas, especially the ones that you picking up teaching, audio engineering, and trying to run a business.

Courtney Love’s band Hole either sounds like a cut-rate Bikini Kill, a cut-rate Nirvana or a cut-rate Smashing Pumpkins depending on which album you listen to.  They were definitely the worst of the female-fronted grunge bands, apart from maybe L7 who I also could never get into.  Best groups that I thought embodied that sound at various points were Melvins, Babes In Toyland and the very underrated Fastbacks, although grunge’s “big four” (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains) all had their occasional moments too.

Are fantasy metal bands like Rhapsody or Powerwolf any good or am I just a sucker for “epic” sounding bullshit

You’re probably just a sucker for epic-sounding bullshit, but there’s nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong with saying “this is a thing, I like this thing”.  I would suggest that if you like something then for you it is “any good”, and if you don’t, then it is not.

so i was binge watching this sitcom recently and when this little segment was in there something sounded familiar

then i remembered it sounds a lot like the backing track in this kpop song

how the hell do you think that happened? are they using the same sample or something?

It’s just a really common, generic kind of rhythm and collection of sounds that gets used a lot.  You could probably find another 20 songs that use the same sounds and general rhythm easily enough if you searched.  It’s entirely possible that both tracks are sourced from the same collection of free samples or something.  This happens in music all the time.

My question: Hi kpopalypse, I think you don’t know this special information. I found out, because of already left member from the group TraxX, that the 7 year contract rule doesn’t work retroactive. I don’t know the contracts of trainees, but if they get updated contracts on already existing contracts, then some of early 3rd gen groups could also be affected to a certain degree, according to contract law (which can be quite different from country to country). I thought that this piece of information could be interesting to you, because you wondered yourself once why the 7 year contracts wasn’t applied to everyone.

Most laws regarding contracts don’t apply retroactively…. or most laws in general for that matter.  So that makes sense.

How good is Tina S compared to professional guitarists? I know literally nothing about guitar but she played Malmsteen as if she were just brushing her teeth

Well she’s better than me!  Anything Malmsteen is legit difficult to do.  I could pick up on a couple of technical flaws here and there but I’d just be being a cunt really because even half-assing Malmsteen is impressive honestly. Tina S is slightly better than After School’s E-Young.

I have a really stupid and strange request – I was wondering if you could give me your general thoughts on the songs listed below.

1) Destiny – Infinite: I didn’t really notice at first but there seems to be a lot of random synths in the background throughout the song but they don’t seem to be too distracting to me. Not sure if you like this song as much as I do but are there cases when the producers put too much synths in their songs and it becomes too much and distracting?

2) Walk with me, girl – IU (ft. Choi Baek-ho): It’s slow and its a ballad which I know isn’t exactly your thing but there’s something about this song seems quite different from other ballads (at least for me) and I’m not sure what it is.

3) idontwannabeyouanymore – Billie Eilish: It’s another slow song but it has this ‘atmosphere’ that I quite like. Would this be considered ambient music or do I just have shit taste and am talking out of my arse?

4) Cyclone – Mono: I remember you mentioning somewhere that J-rock is pretty trash but would this song be an exception? There’s something about it that makes it sound really “dreamy” but I’m probably talking out of my asshole again.

5) Hacker – Death Grips: A friend shared this song with me and it sounds really weird and cool but I’m not sure if I actually like it or not. Your thoughts?

6) The Belt of Faith – Jung Jaeil: This was composed for the Korean movie Parasite that everyone was raving about. Is this song any good by itself or do I perhaps only like it because it was played together with a really brilliant scene in the movie and therefore making it fit better?

I apologize for the stupid request. I’m prepared to get flamed and obliterated for my shit music taste over the internet.

The only thing strange about this request is how incredibly non-strange it is.  In fact it’s so normal that I get really sick of answering these, I’ll probably shut down QRIMOLE completely if people just continue to use it for “what’s your opinion of song x”, and if there’s anything worse than a “thoughts?” question, it’s a “thoughts? x digit” question.  However I’ll oblige you in this case just because I enjoy your self-deprecation.

1. I generally find synth I can handle – too much vocals is always the most distracting thing.
2. Probably the bossanova feel – unusual for k-pop ballads.
3. This is not ambient.  Not even close.
4. Mono are good.  “Post rock” is the generic term for stuff that sounds like this, as it’s obviously rock-based instrumentally, but doesn’t really have a traditional rock feel in any sense.  Japan are good at unusual styles of rock like this, it’s any sort of commercial regular rock and pop that they’re incredibly consistently bad at.
5. I find Death Grips boring.  People are always linking me them and I haven’t heard a song of theirs I like yet.  Cool sounds combined with boring shouting and no songwriting craft.
6. It must be a really good scene in the film (which I haven’t seen, and probably won’t for a while yet) because it doesn’t sound all that amazing out of context.

Go and reflect for asking this question.  I hope this answer satisfied your masochistic need to be flamed.

Hey Kpopalypse, I love the content on your site!

What I wonder about 9muses’s Hurt Locker is what connects the verses and the following bridges musically. To me they same different in every aspect, but that would be weird. Would you know?

The rhythm of the drums in the verses is continued with the rhythm of the vocal line in the pre-chorus.  You’re welcome.

I noticed some performers take out one of their in-ear pieces during perfomance. Why would they do that?

They can feel weird, because just like with any other sort of plug in your ear, in-ear monitors filter out a lot of the room ambience.  Sometimes performers will remove monitors from one ear, or take them out slightly, so they still get a bit of “live sound” from the room coming into their ear, it just lessens that unnatural “stuck in a fishbowl” feeling.  That’s the main reason.  Also sometimes there are technical problems.  If there’s one thing worse than a bad mix, it’s bad mix inside your ear, an incompetent sound mixer can make any singer remove their monitors quicksmart.

also i think a better way to find songs for roundup, is to go to r/kpop and search for “Filter by Flair” on the right side. Then click on M/V and there should be a bunch of vids embedded so that you can just scroll down and click play as you go. (So that you don’t have to go to a new tab) O wait I forgot you need the youtube links so yeah you’re probably good with whoevers sending you a list. But if they happen to die, then you know where to go

I think the current system works well and I’m very grateful to the people sending me video lists even though they always send way too much and I often end up having to just delete a ton of it.

hello, thank you for always writing, I hope you stay safe during this time. I need advice, I play violin, but my major is theatre cause I want a job in that industry, my mom keeps pressuring me to do the damn university orchestra but I do not have time to do it because it goes from 3 to like 5 every weekday. I’ll also need to get hours working in the scene shop for theatre like 60+ and it’s only open 1-5 on the weekdays, plus I’ll have homework, plus I’ll need to practice violin. Ever since I’ve come home on break (and cause the virus) I’ve been nothing but sad. My mom keep making me feel more and more depressed, she keeps putting more and more pressure on me, she keep bringing up that I have no friends (I have a few) she keeps saying I’m depressed. I feel like I’m going to kill myself at this rate, I just don’t know what to do, she won’t even let me fucking give up violin, I think I’m good enough to do it without a teacher but what do I know. I told her stop paying for lessons then, I’m just so lost, I just can’t anymore

I’m not completely sure what you’re asking.  How to deal with your mum I guess?  Don’t give up violin, just play really annoying pieces a lot now that you’re stuck at home on break.  Never underestimate the power of a solo violin to really piss people off.

Learn this one.  If she asks “what the fuck” just tell her it’s a modernist art piece from the 1930s or something.  She’ll soon stop paying for lessons.

I’m getting tired of having to explain myself. When I’m asked what kind of music I listen to, I don’t really feel like explaining my eclectic taste. So I just say Ariana Grande -, even though I don’t listen to her music. However, I don’t like to lie and as an amateur musician these questions are inevitable.

How can I explain them I like K-Pop, classical music but more often listen to symphonic rock without getting laughed at? I’m feeling less and less confident t
Is there any way to say that without “weirding” people out? For example, if I say ‘I currently have Within Temptation and NCT in my playlist’, I get such childish replies. Mostly: you LIKE these kinds of music?!?

Not sure why you give a fuck what anyone else thinks.  When people ask me what I listen to I just say “everything”.  Makes it simple.  If they ask for me to drill it down I just say “no – I listen to everything.  I’m a musician and a music teacher.  That’s what I do.”  Although if they then ask about some bullshit questions like “so you like The Beatles Sgt Peppers” or something equally insipid you can say “no not that crap – everything else“.

Hi Kpopalypse,

Apparently Josh (aka that crazy nayeon stalker) said something that threatened Nayeon’s life…… smh
I hate saying this, but at this point I really hopes he would be infected by the coronavirus, and his family would need to spend their entire fortune to save him.

Also, there is one thing I could never understand: assume Josh is indeed a spoiled rich brat, what would he spend so much time and money on a Korean girl? Shouldn’t people like him have other more interesting matters to dealt with, like sleeping with models, having yacht parties or racing his recently-brought sport cars?

As a (sorta) ONCE, I must say your criticisms are perfectly valid. There’s absolutely NO way he could pull this off without the infrastructure built by sasaeng fans – particularly those who would sold their idol’s private information to the highest bidder. Actually, if the sasaeng fans are willing to use their skills in a relatively more lawful ways, they might end up become pretty good intelligence officers……

Some rich people are very entitled and they think money can buy them whatever, i.e the idea that “everyone has their price”, because they’re used to that being the case.  Gonna go out on a limb and say that his letter to Nayeon is probably full of basically him offering her wealth and a queen’s lifestyle, that’s possibly why he thinks that she won’t refuse him: “if she would just read the letter she’d know how I could enhance her life”.  It’s all quite sad obviously and fails to account for the fact that most people do actually have moral values of some description that take precedence over wealth when it comes to long-term shit.  Statistically Josh isn’t at a very high risk of coronavirus but at least the travel bans many countries have imposed will certainly make his stalking activities more challenging.

Just a quick rant,

so I met this guy on reddit and we traded snaps. If you don’t know snapchat is an app where you chat with each other and messages get deleted after you view them. and you also know when someone views your messages as well. so I’ve been chatting with this guy a little bit and I’ve seen his images and he’s not really attractive to me, which I feel guilty about. Like, I’ve had crushes on average looking guys before but he’s on the androgynous side and I can’t tell if he’s a boy or girl. Anyways, he says “can I see your hole and d*ck” and I never responded. He then sent a video of him and his friend dancing to “I don’t want no scrubs, A scrub is a guy who can’t get no love from me” After that, we still keep chatting and he saved a story time I posted unto the chat. (A story time is just something for friends to view, not someone specific) The story time was basically me acting cringy and pretending I’m in a yaoi manga, and I deleted it quickly after posting, but he managed to see it and save it unto the chat. So I’m thinking I can’t trust myself to send snaps to this person because he could save it and I just feel creepy vibes from him. He then sent a picture of him and his girlfriend saying “I finally got a girlfriend” and I’m thinking “ok???? good for you I guess, but lets just ignore the fact that you were flirting with me a few days ago but congrats???”

So, anyways, should I block him??? I don’t even respond to him that much, it’s more of him sending random videos of him at work, which I don’t really care about. But also, he gives off a lot of stalker vibes, and I kinda wanna see how bad it gets xD???

These QRIMOLEs are full of people noticing stalker tendencines but not heeding the warning signs and then getting themselves into some shit.  I would block him personally, I know enough train-wreck people to not want to associate with any more of them than I absolutely have to.  Hopefully his new gf will distract him and he won’t even notice you’re gone, act quickly before she figures him out, dumps him and then he’s back to sending you stuff. 

I’ve had a few comments here and there like this since the Cheska interview came out.  I’m familiar with the general argument, but I can’t take it very seriously, because I find it really hard to believe that someone can’t actually tell the difference between the kind of behaviour that I exhibit and the more extreme fan behaviour that I’m distancing myself from, and can’t understand why I would do that.  However I’ll explain myself anyway, because this is QRIMOLE where I do the explaining thing. 

For the record I’m not against being a fan of something in a general sense, whether that be a k-pop group, Harry Styles, a football team or whatever.  I also think it’s fine to buy merch for an artist: if you like what they do – why not support them financially if they’ve produced something you enjoy?  It’s not manipulation if someone produces a thing you like and you say “I like that thing you made, I want to give you money so you can make more of the thing”, that seems like a very honest transaction to me.  What I am against however, is stupidity and lack of critical thinking.  Fandoms and stupidity often do belong together – but they don’t have to.  One of the reasons why I think the AustralianSana content on this blog is so valuable and why I have lots of time for her, is that she’s someone who is a deep, deep fangirl, but at the same time she’s not into uncritical acceptance and will happily call out her faves immediately when she feels that they are making missteps.  Of course this emotional honesty and willingness to speak her mind goes down like a lead balloon with k-pop fandoms who demand groupthink at all costs, and that’s why she’s so ostracised and reviled by other fans despite her very, very obvious fangirl leanings.  I don’t necessarily agree with all AustralianSana’s points of view and observations on various things, but at least she’s thinking about what being a fan actually means and not just accepting everything blindly but making a conscientious decision about what she consumes, and she’s also not under any illusions about what that acceptance or rejection might mean, unlike the 13 year old girl mentioned in the Ted Talk who will stab you if you come between her and Harry Styles’ inevitable marriage.  AustralianSana is there with her content on my blog partly as a means for me to say: yes, cynical k-pop bloggers and k-pop fangirls can get along, and there’s plenty of middle ground to meet where people can have sensible dialogue, plenty of room between the extremes of streaming your faves 24/7 on 57 different devices and shitting on everything for lulz.  AustralianSana embodies a perfect demonstration of why someone who likes k-pop and who even “fangirls” over k-pop group members might still find genuine discomfort in the word “fan” and all that it implies.

Not calling myself a “fan” is also an acknowledgement of a reality that I do actually think about content that I consume and I don’t just lap it up unconditionally.  I think that’s a fair statement to make because it’s borne out through plenty of evidence.  For example it’s well documented in these blog pages that I like T-ara, and I’m probably closer to “fan behaviour” regarding them than anyone else in k-pop, but regular readers will also know how often their songs come in for a roasting when I feel like they don’t perform (T-ara members have far more entries in my “worst of k-pop” lists than BTS members, for instance).  On the other hand “fans” in the “k-pop fandom” sense will usually demand that people get ready to stream, like, share and promote a song before they even know what it sounds like, and many of them certainly won’t tolerate any questioning stances or observations.  In other words, they’re not actually looking at the content that they’re consuming at all, it’s just a token for entry into the fandom clubhouse.  To me that’s a key difference, and for someone to conflate my own k-pop activity which is very much about assessing content on its own merits independent of the people creating or performing it, and the actions of someone who just absorbs content without a second thought just because of the name on the box, I think that’s a disingenuous criticism, or at least one which has turned a blind eye to a great deal of content to somehow arrive at that point.  

On a scale from 1 to 10, how much noise do you think ITZY’s music is?
PErsonally, I think it ranks

I think it ranks, too.

My question: Are Kpop trainees allowed to have social media accounts and stay in contact with their friends? Can idols stay in contact with their friends who are ex-trainees? I have a friend who is an ex-trainee and she was very close with a member of a popular group from a strict company, and she said he cut contact with her when he debuted. Would this be the company’s doing?

From my conversations with various people in the system this varies from company to company, between “you can have it but we’ll monitor it and ask you to remove anything dumb” to “no you can not have the phone thing”.  It also seems to change a little sometimes depending on what stage during their training/career they are at.  But I would say that any mysterious ostracisions that coincide mysteriously with career milestones are likely to be company-driven.

I remember you saying how Spotify sucks at paying artists and that it’s better to listen through YouTube. I searched it up and found that YouTube views do pay higher, around $0.18 per view. But then I found this article https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/12/25/streaming-music-services-pay-2019/ that says YouTube pays the least per stream. What’s the difference between streaming and viewing? Which music-listening platform is most beneficial to the artists? What do you usually use to listen to music when driving?

Maybe they changed the streaming payout since last time I wrote about this.  Mind you no services are anywhere approaching “good”.  You might as well just pirate it, seriously.  If you want to support an artist forget where you buy or stream their songs from, just straight up send them money on Bandcamp or whatever.  My last two cars only had cassette in them so I listen to the radio if I want to listen to music, but Necro is my favourite driving music when I have a choice.

I know many songs are put up for sale without any particular buyer in mind. Do you know what this market is like — are their song brokers that an aspiring (or established) song writer gives there songs to? Does someone at companies like SM go “browse” sometimes? Do they have people who are in charge of going to a known set of places and seeing what is on offer? It seems clear that there are personal relationships where sometimes song writers pitch a song to a particular artist or company (and sometimes the companies ask for something from a song writer), but it also seems like songs travel much more widely. What mediates these exchanges when the writer and people at company don’t know each other or have each other in mind?

Songwriters have their own dedicated social networks for this type of activity.  I’m really looking forward to doing some upcoming interviews with people behind the scenes who have pitched, wrote or sold songs, so I can get their stories, because people of course don’t ever believe me if I say stuff.

your prediction about ex-SNSD/SNSD members getting real came true with Jessica’s “fictional” novel about a nine member girl group, lol

Listen to Kpopalypse, kids.

[lots of boring j-pop questions]

You are all cancelled.

Hello oppar!
Thank you for always trying to answer in detail about queries that are not related to kpop.Recently I have been trying to get over kpop specifically the group I stan, due to my health issues I had to take a drop year and kind of lost touch with my friend circle in order to fill the emptiness I started obsessing over one group for 2 years now despite barely any activities left to watch now I constantly want to check out updates what if they did something bad and all news site my day starts with the group and ends with the group I think one of the worst aspect is I get panic attack at their slight negative news I tried deleting twitter deleting from Spotify but even a mere mention of the name sort of triggers into a bad memory. I know I shouldn’t blame them for my mental health but sometimes I really despise them why I had to stan them how do I stop this uncomfortable feeling

You need to fill your activities with other things, then you’ll regain a more balanced view of k-pop.  Imaginary social relations don’t hold much currency when you have real ones.

What will SPUNKMOP/스펑크멉 look like? How many members, and what kind of discography? Will it be more of a T-ara 2 or more like dreamcatcher 2? Sexy-ish or Cute-ish concepts?

I think that Kpopalypse’s upcoming girl group SPUNKMOP should just be a bunch of girls who do whatever they want and make music occasionally if they feel like it.  “Sexy” and “cute” is a false dichotomy.  SPUNKMOP will transcend all notions of typical girl group concept roles.  Girls will train for as long or short as they choose, eat three square meals per day and all drivers will adhere rigorously to speed limits and road safety rules.  Kpopalypse will bring the new generation of k-pop girl groups to you, and create a revolution in k-pop, just as soon as I have the necessary working capital.  There will be as many members as it takes.  They will all be allowed to have opinions and speak their minds openly and problematically, like Han Seo Hee.

This video tries to put a negative spin on Han Seo Hee and fails, just proving how great she is instead.  Everyone hates this girl but she has proven to be the real deal because she might talk a lot of shit but she has the fucking receipts to back it up every single time.  She will be remembered one day as a fighter for k-pop justice, and she is a perfect role model for SPUNKMOP to model our future success on.  I’ve been trying to get Han Seo Hee to join SPUNKMOP but she hasn’t been replying to my texts, therefore there is at least one position still open at this time.  Stan Han Seo Hee, the living legend – don’t wait until she’s not around anymore and then be a bandwagon-jumper, like all those people who hopped on the Ladies Code bandwagon out of sheer guilt because they felt bad that they secretly didn’t even know who Ladies Code were before that car crash.  The time to appreciate people is now, while they’re still alive, not after they’re gone.  We’re all only here for a limited time so cherish the gift of life while it exists and stream Rockit Girl OMG YOU HAVE TO STREAM OR YOUR NOT A TRUE FAN I WILL OSTRACISE YOU AND MASS REPORT YOUR FIVE YEAR OLD TWEETS TO GET YOU BANNED OFF TWITTER WERIUYDFSPIFHWEIPOHBSDJFB

That’s all for QRIMOLE!  This series will return in a month, in the meantime don’t forget to practice social distancing and keep at least 1.5m away from BTS fans at all times!

Oh, and 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 soon with more postings!