It’s time for QRIMOLE – read on as Kpopalypse tackles more questions from readers!
Hi Oppar, I’ve been seeing a lot of people saying that they’re so shocked that April turned out to be bullies, because they had such a kind and innocent image. I’ve also seen some people specifically state that Chaewon was a shock to them, because she was so caring towards Rachel. I didn’t realize fans were actually this braindead — it seems obvious to me that the personality of intense innocent and girly cuteness April often portrayed was an act of fantasy, not anything remotely resembling an actual gauge of their personality.
Some kpop idols are a bit more genuine than others but all of them definitely play up their personalities into archetypes. It seems to me that there isn’t a lot to gain by being very authentic in the kpop idol industry, it will just lead to vulnerability and hate. It’s not like April’s ultra-girly stage personalities are a negative thing either, people can enjoy a fantasy like that as long as they can accept that it is a fantasy and to expect those idols to actually be cartoonishly sweet and happy all the time and capable of no wrong seems incredibly delusional. I’ve never met a single person who behaved even remotely like one of the members of April behaved on camera.
What is it about kpop that is convincing people that idols are portraying authentic and genuine representations about themselves? I guess I’m asking a rhetorical question here, but it’s been on my mind a lot with these bullying controversies, April just seems like the most egregious example of delusion.
Generally speaking, people believe what they want to believe. Whether it’s Jesus, Allah, chemtrails, flat earth, 5G in your COVID vaccine, Trump actually caring about bringing sex criminals to justice, or that k-pop performers are all angels who only think the pure thoughts, everyone wants their own little patch of delusion and they will fight tooth and nail to keep themselves from having to face reality. I think the brain is hard-wired to believe in nonsense and the next evolution of humans as a species will come when we learn how to cast off that shit. Maybe this is where AI will surpass us.
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to say ‘I like the music and content this person makes even if I don’t agree with their views outside of their music’ while judging people for using AKP while knowing what they did to Ailee? In both situations it’s choosing to consume content from someone who did bad things, whether that’s you enjoying Seungri’s music or me enjoying an artcile.
No. Here’s why.
A site that is supposed to be a news/journalistic site that spreads revenge porn instead as well as generally doesn’t cover news in a newsworthy way, those aspects are directly relevant to their quality as a news site, and directly detrimental to such. Whereas a person who is a musician who is also a murderer or whatever, those two things aren’t related. You can kill someone and still write good music. You can’t not cover news properly and also still be a good journalist.
helloo, do you think haven by stray kids and sober by big bang is similiar? i hear the other when listening to one of them but when i finally listening to them back to back they arent that similiar..?? if i had to guess tho (idk shit about music btw except that i think these two songs are good) it has to do with their pacing and the song structure lol tell me if im right. thank you for reading this!
The vocal meter in the chorus is what’s similar, also the tempo and rhythm of the backings.
Not really anything to do with structure – I mean pretty much EVERY k-pop song is the same structure, or nearly the same structure. There’s only about half a dozen structures (or less) that get used over and over again.
i recently got the groovy bot installed into my friends and i’s shared discord server and am wondering if you have any possible recommendations for songs to get them into
kpop, or at least make them not think of it as a complete shit genre (for an audience of younger guys if it matters) if i have to put up with their barrage of shitty meme songs, i figured i might as well carry my own agenda for getting them some insight into a topic that i appreciate
p.s. for a long time i thought QRIMOLE was actually spelled QRIMROLE and you just liked qri and cream rolls for some reason, reflect so more may be enlightened by this iconic kpop blemish
I dunno, start by clicking here I guess. Top ten are all bangers.
Hello Kpopalypse.
It’s weird that I’ve been wondering about this during the pandemic, but as an average Joe with an average job/life I never had anyone I could ask – What is touring and why is it evil?
I tried to find an answer, but all I could find were cryptic descriptors like ‘the road is unforgiving to those of weak spirit’, ‘on the road there’s nothing you can’t get away with no matter how many security guys you hire’, ‘I’ve seen what the road does to people and it’s so tough because you’re not living in the real world anymore. The only responsibility you have is to make it to the stage on time, outside of that there’s a million ways to get in trouble’, ‘you never really know where you are and it brings out all the worst in you’ etc. It’s all very vague. Since you’re a musician and you’ve played in multiple bands too (and I think you mentioned you don’t do drinking/drugs either – which is amazing, congrats!), what is it about touring that makes it so ominous and evil that it ‘brings all the worst in you’ ? and how did you manage to survive it unscathed?
Thank you and stay safe.
Obviously people are meme-ing about this but the dirty truth is that touring is hard mainly because it’s so boring and repetitive. Activity when touring is roughly:
60% travel
20% waiting around for something to happen
15% setting up, soundchecking and other boring stuff at the venue
3% playing the same songs you’ve been playing for years
2% actual fun stuff
That’s not to say that there aren’t occasional good times on the road, but the ratio is pretty shit. The extreme boredom is why a lot of people turn to substances and other harmful activities, either as a coping mechanism, to stay awake, or just for something to do. Also there’s a fair bit of loneliness if you’re missing a partner or something, or you’re just the type of person who needs to be around people (other than the people in your band). On top of that it can be alienating if you don’t get along with your bandmates. So while it works well for some it’s definitely a powder keg situation for others.
do you find musical songs utter shit ? Stuff from phantom of the opera and hyde and jekyll for instance
The only good musical is this
I have this terrible habit of obsessing over people online and absorbing information about them (not stalking, just reading their social media profiles), and I end up absorbing their opinions and worldviews as a result. Because of this, I tend to flip-flop between ideas and change my mind a lot. I feel like a sheep who just has other people’s opinions instead of my own. I think I was always a bit like this but Twitter made it worse.
I know I need to just stop using Twitter, but the FOMO of not knowing everything hurts. How can I become a real person again?
Read Kpopalypse blog more. It might not help you rediscover your individuality at least in the short term, but at least your opinions will be less shitty. Maybe.
You mentioned in 2015 that Anda’s “Touch” was one of the most out there k-pop comebacks, both musically and visually. What did you think was smart about the visuals? I didn’t really get anything notable besides an overall lesbian theme.
An “overall lesbian theme” is generally pretty out-there, this is South Korea remember. Also the repetitive visual loops are clever because they imply there’s a lot more actual sex going on than there really is. It doesn’t really sound like anything else either. It’s definitely not a song I like but it’s certainly one where everything about the song is very thematically in-sync.
Until when are people capable of change? Until fairly recently, I used to have certain opinions I no longer agree with, but I worry about whether I can actually drop them or whether anyone would believe me. As I get closer to 25, I fear that if I don’t fix myself and my bad habits in time they’ll become ingrained – I know that’s not really how the human brain works but it feels that way.
Your entire life is a learning process. I’m the oldest person alive and I’m still learning things now.
Who your favorite prime minster my is the dude who like got kill in the sea or somewhere
Read caonimas stan Gough Whitlam
Oppar can you give me advice I’m start middle school soon
Answered here
Oppar why do you listen to boomers like metallics they dont even good music like they lulu album it pretty shite and I dont even like metal
Actually I haven’t actually sat down and listened to a full Metallica album since the Black Album came out in 1991 and broke my metal thrashing heart by being basically a pop album in metal disguise.
I just had my first breakup. It was for the other person’s sake (their friends don’t like me because of petty fandom bullshit, and it was causing them a lot of anxiety, so I made it so they didn’t have to choose) and it fucking sucks. I don’t think their friends are wrong to dislike me (I mean I’m the worst! I barely know why this person liked me in the first place. However, something a friend of mine said – that the friends who don’t support a relationship that isn’t toxic or damaging, ARE the relationship that’s toxic and damaging – has been on my mind; I am very flawed, but the relationship was good until it wasn’t), and I don’t regret it, cause I want them to be happy, but it hurts a lot. Anyway, any first breakup advice? I feel like I should’ve had my first bad one in high school, but sadly I only got hot last year. Anyway.
I find mental distraction works for me. Give yourself something completely unrelated to think about. It’ll hurt for a while regardless but that will fade with time, in the meantime the less mental energy you devote to it, the better. Resist the temptation to turn it over and over in your head.
Is it true that when you’re older you get more paranoid and obsessive? I see this happening to my parents who are approaching 70 AND my recently divorced older sister who’s almost 40 years old. I’m in my late 20s so seeing those patterns saddens me. In a way, it also makes me scared to age.
The other day, my sister walks up to me and said I shouldn’t get into stocks at all. No reason why, just straight up told me to not invest in stocks (ma’am, I’m no longer a kid and I do know the risks of investing…) She also told me, out of nowhere, that we must have a rich husband. Lol who the fuck does she think we are when we’re middle class (at best)? I guess there’s some sort of truth in it, but I never take it literally even though she said it in a very serious manner.
My sister is now reinventing herself as a content creator/influencer after telling me that we should look up to [really famous social media celebrities where we live] a few weeks ago. I fucking thought she was kidding. She even urged me to have public social media accounts, make “content”, and form a personal brand, practically suggesting that I, too, should become an influencer of some sort (what the actual fuck?!). Working with social media, having a parent who’s a public figure and on social media a lot, it’s obvious why I don’t go around having public online persona. In the past, I’ve even had my personal life ruined because of something my parent did. It was unpleasant and traumatizing.
I personally think there are so many other ways to make money and I much prefer living away from the spotlight, at least for now. Having to marry an ultra rich guy, being famous on the internet, must do this, must do that, must be like this or that, is my sister ok???? I know I can always ignore her, cause that’s what I’ve been doing. I just feel those views are… distorted and seems distant from my reality.
I think your sister is spending too much time in the online world.
I’ve actually become less paranoid and obsessive as I’ve aged – when I was younger I’d fall into mental traps more but these days I’m more inclined to look at something holistically, because experience has taught me that the first impression I get of something might often not be the correct one. K-pop is actually really good for teaching people that.
recently im just removing people in my online circle that have homophobic, transphobic or otherwise hateful opinions, because it makes me uncomfortable (oh, and im gay lol). i used to debate them instead but it always devolved into the same old shit. often i tolerated them just because i thought “i should give them my opposing viewpoint for their own good”. anyways today is trans visibility day or something and so this guy decided to post a meme making fun of lgbt suicide rates. fun, i know. i removed him. what would you do with these kinds of people?
I keep them around. They become my playthings. It’s actually really convenient to know that I’ve got a few people hanging around that I can quite easily annoy with very little effort because I know exactly what pushes their buttons.
I always wondered why clc no made it postivly to your year end list but not a single gidle title track made it, even to the honorable mentions although they’re all written by the same person. personally as a music illiterate all the songs have the “soyeon” sound and I like or dislike her songs in a similar extent so I wonder why you have this drastic like-dislike gap (the gidle song that negativly made it to your year end list isn’t written by her tho)
Believe it nor not, I really don’t keep track of who writes what. The only reason why I sometimes know this is because readers tell me! Anybody can have a good or a bad song. Keep in mind that a lot of k-pop is “written to order” i.e someone will get instructions for what to write and how it should sound. This is why I don’t follow songwriters – often the sound of the music isn’t even up to them! It’s possible that Soyeon has one set of “instructions” for G-Idle and another for CLC.
do you think hyomin looks like the short dude from 10cc?
Hmmm – let’s check.
No. Gosh that was easy. Next!
Do you have any recommendations of songs with a more complete sounding last chorus? like deja vu by dreamcatcher, dracula by fx, why not by loona?
No, you are already aware of the main ones. I’m sure there are others but this isn’t something I go bean-counting about. I’m a lot less OCD about compositional elements than my readers are, I just mention them because it’s a way to make the writing interesting and it helps people understand why I (or them) may like or dislike a thing.
Hi Oppar. Reading your disdain towards the pretentiousness in music (such as too much focus on vocal, too much layers in music) really reminds me of my writing teacher. Back then I was always taught that I should always put clarity and comprehensibility over being flashy and sophisticated whenever I have to write something. Of course I still try to widen my vocabulary everyday but I will always prioritize being simple in how I convey my points by caring about how I structure my sentence and whether the logical flow is good enough. I just want to share this to you so I apologize for being this lengthy.
If you look at the world’s most popular songs, most of them are pretty straightforward. The “Bohemian Rhapsody” type stuff is an exception.
So for this, I will be referring to the two other people here as A and B(pretty sure everyone does this).
A and B noticed how generally quiet I am at school and decided to befriend me. At my school, everyone just uses their phones a lot for breaks so we’d do that, but we’d still talk for a bit of the lunch and recess periods. This went well for possibly three or four weeks(but it could always have been shorter or longer) but all changed when A was introduced to some other people.
I talked to A and the other people when I found them talking and stuff during some boring sport period I think. For the recess and lunch periods, I didn’t notice A from memory. Days passed and I would just try walking around the school or going to the library or something like that to pass the time instead. Then there was some lunch or something when B sat with me because B didn’t know where A was. Turns out that A had, in some ways, forgotten about B and would just always hang out with the other people and this made B feel depressed or worried for a good majority of lunch and recess. After this stopped, I would be in the library and always notice B there. Currently, I sometimes see B walking around presumably listening to music and I say hi. I just feel powerless or something. I think what I’m trying to say is, what should I do in this situation? I think I need to do something, but have just been doing nothing. Oh also, I am in different classes from these two people who are in different classes from each other so there isn’t any communication happening during class between us. That makes this whole thing pretty fucking annoying as well.
Sorry if you get asked this sort of question a lot, in my head, you get this exact question every Qrimole.
Really, the question you should be asking yourself is, what do you want to do in this situation? Do you want to befriend B? Then do it, talk to B more. Do you want to talk to A? Then talk to A. Do you not care about either? Then do your own thing. Personally I think B would probably be a good friend – if you find someone who is ostracised at school and picked on a lot, and you make friends with that person, you’ll probably end up with a friend for life, or at least a long time.
Why do you refuse to recognize Girls’ Generation’s “Girls’ Generation” from their debut album Girls’ Generation as the timeless masterpiece it is?
Dude, can you not read.
I’m really curious here, what’s your attitude on making money? I’ve always wanted to make enough money to pay for basic needs, fund my hobbies and maybe buy a house. But I’m approaching my 30s and I feel like I’m only getting 1.5 of those three things.
For context, I live in Asia where the min. wage is 400AUD per month. On average, I make 550-600AUD doing contract job but houses in the city and suburbs (where the jobs are) range from 70k and can go well above 200k AUD. Almost everyone I know who lives comfortably has some sort of a side hustle or business on top of their full-time corporate job. I don’t know what I’m doing here but the point is, prices don’t make sense, I’m very frustrated and feels like I’m going nowhere in life. Plus, I can’t count on social welfare either cause such thing doesn’t exist here. Seems like I’m fucked…
I like making money. Anyone who says they don’t like money, please click here and give me as much of your money as you see fit, I promise you that your money will be appreciated. However please don’t give money if you’re as broke as this question-asker – while I do like making money and definitely want as much money as possible I don’t want to make it at the expense of people who are struggling, so if you are going through tough times, you probably need it more than I do. (On the other hand Elon Musk if you’re reading, time for you to pony up – I’ve given Loona enough promo, time to pay the bill.)
Having said that, I think that endlessly chasing just money and looking it as the key to happiness isn’t completely true. I mean, it’s not completely false either – money does give you more resources to tackle problems in your life, that’s a certainty. But it’s also not going to materialise happiness out of thin air in the way people think it might. I’ve turned down a lot of high-income opportunities in my life in order to be able to do music, because the jobs were making me miserable and music was making me happy. I think balance is important.
House prices where I live are even more outrageous than these, but workers earn more as well. People of course take out bank loans to acquire property, but to do that you need a reasonably secure financial position to repay the loan. It’s not impossible to do (I’m doing it) but there’s a certain amount of financial risk involved.
hello i’m bored as shit and i’m in the throes of any excruciating uti, hope you’re having a good day lol
Yeah I’m good. Think of BTS while you release that infected piss, it’ll pass out a lot easier.
I just read your positive post about Shannon Williams and there is a part that catches my attention. It’s about your discussion on how people tend to make certain words become taboo without caring about the context. This somewhat resembles how you use the word “vocal-faggot” without actually meaning that you are homophobic (because here the context is that you refer to people who put too much emphasis on vocal techniques and this has nothing to do with people who are gay or belong to the LGBT+ community), but I bet there are still many people who will accuse you of being a homophobe just because they see the word “faggot”.
I also like how you explain that by continuously making words “problematic” like a chain, people can’t resolve anything because there will always be ways for people to break the “rule” and the cycle repeats. It’s the context that matters, and I can’t agree more (and if they keep making words become problematic, someday we may even have to mute just to not offend someone!). Sometimes this can lead to people cancelling wrong target (as they don’t intend to use the word to insult someone, the context) but become blinded to the subtler insulting, where the insult intention is still there but masked by no problematic words (and in more ironic circumstances, it’s these people who loves to claim everything as problematic are the one to commit the insult, and they may not even realize that they do it, as they really believe themselves to be the right ones, and in some situations they may even try to justify their wrongdoings!). Sometimes this can make arguments becomes pointless (people care more about the word rather than the arguments). And worse, like you once said, human are not easily to admit that they are wrong, and tend to be silent even after the target they harass is proven to be innocent.
If someone says word X to hurt you and your reaction is to be totally offended and upset at them for using it, then the person using that word completely achieved their aim. You didn’t “take the word back”, instead you just handed them a very effective tool to hurt you with. The right attitude to problematic words is to go the other way use them as much as possible, and crucially, let others use them as much as possible, and show how unbothered you are – then they completely lose their power to be offensive. LGBT people have pretty successfully taken back the words “gay” and “queer”, which don’t even sound like insults anymore because the gay community uses them so much and is so unbothered by their use when others also use them, yet they don’t seem to be able to take back “faggot” in the same way which is a real shame. We’ll known when they’ve succeeded – because LGBT events will be called things like “the faggot film festival” and that won’t seem even 1% offensive in the same way that “the queer film festival” in my city doesn’t seem 1% offensive. Both words used to exist on roughly equal tiers of offensiveness, not a very long time ago. What happened? Gays took on “queer” as a positive identity badge, as a way to say “so what if you call me queer? It doesn’t matter, because I AM queer, and proud!” There’s no reason why any marginalised group can’t do the same with any word, and turn everything around in their favour. Whether they will – I guess it’s up to them.
Best Korean ballad vs. worst Korean ballad, and what differentiates them?
Answered here
Do you have advice on how to not want to die every time I wake up and realize it’s a school day? thx
Learn a musical instrument, play it whenever you’re not actually in class – worked for me
What makes a good (musical) cover?
I recently saw 6band’s version of Spring Day and was reminded that there’s a S.Korean tv-show whose only concept is “people performing covers”. I don’t tend to listen to covers, but now I have and one thing I notice is the end gets screwed up so often. Most covers start good or mediocre, but the last bars… Maybe it’s that some people try to show off specific skills, even when it doens’t suit the song.
I always like it when people vary the cover wildly and “make it their own” – but only if they do a good job of course.
What do you think about yeon woo jhi
I don’t think about yeon woo jhi
COuld yeon wooo Jhi beat Shindong in an fight, I bet that shindong is going to win, as he is an god, but she is but an queen
idk
My brother has been in this stupid ‘loves Disney+’ phase lately, and one of the [fucking boring] shows he seems really intrigued by is Wandavision. So the theme song to that show is actually really, really shitty in my opinion and I have a lot of complaints about it, but because he’s so obsessed with the show, he keeps on playing that painful section everyday. What should I do? I’m screwed. I have to listen to this everyday it feels like and it’s always when we’re in the same room so I don’t really have any time to get up and leave or tell him to (ik this is very petty but u would be struggling if u had to listen to that Little Psy song everyday)
He’ll get over it. In the meantime a good set of headphones will be helpful. This is one of the things noise-cancelling headphones are actually good for.
I’ve been a fan of your work / blog for years now, I was even around when you announced the fanclub name was Caonima! Thank you for your continuous efforts to entertain and educate. My question: What would the environment surrounding kpop music need to look like to have a complex and thus human image of an artist and cultivate a healthy singer-fan relationship, if that is even possible? Like basically a world where people don’t end up in scandals for smoking or not smiling 24/7, and stans aren’t what they are right now.
I think such an issue is bigger than just k-pop and the whole culture of the entire country would have to change. Not sure if this is even possible, or how a cultural shift like that would even happen. Maybe things will get to breaking point or someone will just tip it over, in the way that Madonna tipped over the expectations of female performers in the west for instance. I don’t see anything like this on the horizon however.
Opinion of the random break at 2:08
K-pop album tracks – I don’t care. They don’t make the cut in roundup for a reason. This break is just stupid, it doesn’t fit the song.
What does it mean to see in a writer, composer, arranger, producer in song credits? And is having writer credits without lyricist credits means that they’re the same person? Some goes for producer and composer can they be the same person essentially doing the same thing or they differ?
Answered here.
What the fuck is “city pop”? To my ears, it sounds like disco and jazz music fucked and had a baby.
It’s just yet another fake rebranding of “disco” in order to get people to buy it while attempting to leave the stigma of disco behind by not actually using the word “disco”. Also see “acid jazz” in the 1990s which was also just disco with another fancy new name so people would feel sophisticated instead of like old farts when buying it.
I’ve noticed that there’s several metal/heavy metal fans who become kpop fans. Do you think there’s any reason why?
Why not – it’s all music. There’s probably just as many people who went the other way.
Hello Kpopalypse, hope you’re doing ok
I keep on thinking about the 2013 favourites list because of a few reasons, but I’ll only be touching on one of them
For the F(x) Rum Pum Pum Pum part, you claimed that Airplane and Step, if they had been title tracks, would’ve ranked higher than Rum Pum Pum Pum, since the Pink Tape album was like really fucking good(who doesn’t think that?)
I was wondering what in particular you like about these two songs because every time I happen to stumble upon an article about these songs, you only really mention that the Pink Tape album didn’t suck
Also around how much higher do you think these songs could’ve ranked?
I don’t want to get into specifics of placings because then people will ask me about number placings of EVERY b-track EVER and if I start doing that then I’m effectively adding them into the posts to begin with and I want to draw a solid line under that shit. This is Kpopalypse, not The Bias List. While I like his writing, I’m not so obsessed with listing and placing everything super-accurately, nor in revising lists over time. I think if I wrote the 2013 content again in 2021 it would look different in quite a few ways but I’m not interested in expending mental energy over things I wrote so long ago.
Step is good mainly because of the tempo, the song really flies along and is rhythmically punchy. As for Airplane it’s mainly the synths in the chorus that make that song.
Hey! Last QRIMOLE I asked you about having friendship troubles with a guy on my volleyball team. Your advice worked out well, I had an honest chat with him about our friendship and we worked things out. Thank you for your service!
My question pertains to volleyball once again (very fun topic I know). Next year, because of how school works where I live, I won’t be able to see the friend I’ve just worked things out with, and will basically only have regular interaction with him through doing sport (unaffiliated with schooling). However, if I stay at this same club, I’ll be with an absolute cunt of a coach, who is such a fuckwit that he willingly treats his players like shit and is perfectly aware of what a cunthole his Napoleon-complex ass is. I’m conflicted whether to say for the sake of my friend, or risk changing clubs and looking like a clingy child for attempting to drag my friend out of a place he is seemingly comfortable with. What might I do in this situation?
Change clubs. It will actually look more clingy if you stay in the same club even though the coach is a dick, just for your friend. Whereas if you join a new club, your friend may join or may not, but it’s something you’ve decided for yourself. If he’s happy where he is let him stay there, it doesn’t mean you couldn’t still play together sometimes or whatever I’m sure. I’m sure sport clubs aren’t like the Capulets and the Montagues and you’re allowed to play with people from other teams every once in a while.
How new IU album became so mediocre? I mean, it have only couple of listeable songs. I was exited when it came now, however right now I’m dissapointed
I didn’t listen to it so I dunno
So, I’m not really all that familiar with Japanese music. The only Japanese song I can think of that I’ve consistently gone back to listen to is [censored for reader health]
That being said, I have a friend who really seems to like Japanese music, I think because of the cute and upbeat vibes. I can certainly understand listening to upbeat music – similar songs for me include like, “Step,”, “Mannish Chocolat,” and pretty much anything in a major key by Oh My Girl. But many Jpop songs he recommends to me have female singers taking on this really high-pitched vocal quality that I don’t enjoy at all. I don’t know if it’s all Jpop or just anime openings or some other niche subgroup.
Recently, he showed me this song called [censored for reader health] which I thought was fine, but I wouldn’t revisit because of the high-pitched girl singing. I looked up “metal cover” to see if I could find someone singing it in a richer tone, and I did [censored for reader health], but I still didn’t enjoy the song. I don’t know – in a weird way, taking this cute song and giving it this intense symphonic feel mean the structure of the original song didn’t build enough for the SUPER LOUD METAL MUSIC payoff.
Basically, why am I unable to enjoy “cute” songs in Jpop, especially given that I’m willing to put up with cutesy vocal stylings in Kpop if I think the song is really good (see: Oh My Girl again or most things by IU)? It’s kinda sad to me, because music is one of my primary interests (albeit one that I basically never talk about with people because I’m classically trained and very few people have the will or knowledge to discuss classical music with me,) and I don’t want to be categorically excluding this whole category because of a weird vocal style.
I was going to delete this question completely for the good of all humanity because it mentioned j-pop at all, but then I realised it was about hating j-pop so I’ll let it slide. I of course had to delete some references to songs though so as not to spread the ass cancer that is j-pop. I think what you’re picking up on is that j-pop tends to really exaggerate a twee pedo-friendly sort of vocal sound whenever they have girl singers, and they do that often at the expense of melody. You don’t really get much in the way of nicely phrased melodic lines but instead this horrible see-sawing kind of melodic action (often even more exaggerated with Autotune etc) that just isn’t how most people sing songs in general, except maybe children singing to children’s TV. On the other hand they do tend to get harmony right, but good harmony paired with terrible melody is like a cake made with the finest flour and rotten three-month-old eggs.
Spotify has introduced itself to Korea, which has now pissed off korean streaming services like melon. Now some of my favourite songs from groups are gone from Spotify because of the dispute.
Here are some songs they took off Spotify:
-Scream by Dreamcatcher
-Mago by Gfriend
-Crazy by 4minute
-All of mamamoo basicallyYou’ve heard about this too? When will they be back?:(
Hopefully never, but by the time you read this Spotify have probably worked out some sort of deal. There’s too much money involved in shafting and underpaying artists for Spotify and other streaming services to let money walk out the door for too long without coming to some kind of arrangement.
if you were choosing between one of the members of the female austrilian basketball team, who would you have sex with my dude
For all your sport question needs see asian junkie dot com
My question: is it just me or is it creepy as fuck that hyosung and choerry are wearing such similar outfits, especially since choerry was underage
Blockberry sexualised Choerry so much in pre-debut days that quite a lot of people suggested Choerry for the big boobs in k-pop posts. So of course I actually put her in, and deliberately highlighted exactly how Blockberry were presenting her. Of course in a classic case of “shoot the messenger” Loona fans got really upset at me for pointing that out, but oddly didn’t get upset at Blockberry at all for presenting her that way in the first place, so I took her entry out because I was sick of getting one email per week about it from fans who didn’t “get it” and acted like I was the one who puffed up her boobs with Photoshop. It’s pretty evident to anybody with their eyes even half-open that Blockberry were playing the sexual card with Choerry as hard as they could, from her fashions and videos, right down to her name itself which is obviously designed to insinuate sexuality. The sexual connotations of “Love Choerry Motion” are so like-a-brick-to-the-face unsubtle that they don’t even need timestamping.
hey you fag you dumb and stupid fag you are not goint to talk with me because you are an fag who like to suck dick and ass you suck my kangaroo dick you bithc and fargor
I got lots of questions like this for this month. I think a reader out there needs to go easy on the turps.
Is there a surge or noticeable spike of hate crime/animosity against Asians in Australia since the pandemic started, and if there is, what is the severity on a scale of 1 to 10?
Apparently there is, but I haven’t seen much of it personally. Of course the media will always ignore the thousands of Asians and non-Asians all getting along just fine and zero in on the few incidences, especially at a time like this when this sort of content is quite newsworthy (whereas before COVID if you went to any news outlet with footage of anti-Asian racism it would have been ignored). So is it more prevalent or just more visible on TV. I live in a very multicultural area with lots of races and I see no racist violence when I’m out and about, maybe a bit of snivelling very rarely from old white people and the odd drunk aboriginal calling everybody Asian “ching chong slope”, etc but even that’s not something I encounter every day, or even every year. Certainly seen none since COVID.
Do u like Rammstein and do u know similar thingsies?
I didn’t mind their first album I guess probably because I grew to like it through its use in “Lost Highway” but generally speaking I don’t care about this group.
My previous questions have been short and lighthearted, but this one is a bit longer.
For context: I’ve been vaguely dissatisfied with my university since I first started here. I had a dream where I was accepted to another university I applied to in high school (which I was waitlisted, then rejected at,) and as soon as I woke up, I realized that every current problem I had with my school seemed like it’d be at least slightly less of an issue at the other school. The odds of getting in as a transfer were about half that of two years ago, and it’s a pandemic so lots of the gap year kids were coming back. But I decided to try anyway, because hey, if I failed I was just back at square one.
Yesterday, I was accepted. It’s like a fairy tale. I’ve never accomplished anything this difficult completely on my own before. (I started working on the application approximately when I started reading your blog, so theoretically, I have that to thank for the success.)
At this point, I feel like I have a lot to look forward to, but also a lot to organize. I need to pick classes that will let me graduate on time that are still interesting. I need to make new friends in the midst of a global pandemic. I need to find job and networking opportunities ASAP before I graduate – and in the midst of all that are other hobbies I want to keep up, like listening to kpop, reading, singing, etc. And I feel like if I let anything slip through the cracks, I’ll be letting go of this incredible opportunity and the people around me will be looking at me like, “I told you so; you shouldn’t have done something as risky as transferring.”
Your advice might just boil down to “just do whatever you want,” but I tend not to know what I want without either trying it or giving it a lot of thought. And my time is limited.
Can I manage to structure my remaining time to set myself up for success in a way that’s still enjoyable? I don’t know. I guess I’m looking for encouragement.
You probably can – but you also shouldn’t feel bad about letting some things slip through the cracks. Last year I quit an entire radio show partly because I wasn’t able to commit to it properly in a way that valued my mental and physical health. That might seem insane to some people – “why would you quit something so awesome?” – but I really wasn’t getting out of it what I used to and as I was getting busier I had to dump some stuff in order to keep other things viable and commit myself to the stuff that meant a lot more (like this blog for instance). Nothing wrong with that. You can always pick things up later if you really have the drive to – and if you don’t, well maybe that path wasn’t for you anyway. It’s impossible to be everything to all people.
I come from a pretty religious Christian family, and I’ve found it increasingly hard to lie to everyone about my own thoughts on God. My family and the church we go to is relatively “liberal,” so the people there are more interested in the social gospel than condemning other people. Honestly, they’re the most generous and kind people I know, and if I cut them from my life, I’d be surrounded with far worse people, which would be super toxic. I know I could just tell them that I don’t believe in God, and they’d still accept me since they’re just good people like that, but I’m scared of what’ll happen. I know that our relationship will change, and I don’t want that. It’s been tearing at me just how much of a selfish POS I’m being, and I just want some advice.
Just be honest, tell them you’re losing your faith. They’ll probably amp up the generosity and kindness to fever pitch to try and save your soul. I played in Christian bands for a while and was quite open about the fact that I wasn’t into the actual religion (Christians would be amazed how many high-profile “Christian” music artists aren’t even Christian) but they were still very nice to me. Yeah the relationship will change somewhat, but that’s better than living a lie, right?
hello oppa! some things i have to say to you:
1) thank you for opening my eyes to why sites like allkpop and koreaboo suck. they do, and i feel like an absolute fucking idiot for not having cut off my addiction to them before. about allkpop, well, i only really visted for the fan-forums, but then i found another one (which is far more peaceful, and isn’t infested with idiotic armies which made me stop listening to bts for a long long while, even though i love their music). about koreaboo, i stuck around for the cute articles, but then one day i just stopped. and i wouldn’t have if it weren’t for you. i also used to visit the actual buzzfeed, but then reading their listicles on ‘2547838 ways the media failed britney spears and other women’ when they’re a fucking part of the problem, and did nothing to stop before britney’s documentary came out… ew. just ew. i only ever visit soompi, asian junkie, and your blog now.
2) thank you for opening my eyes to why objectification isn’t bad. how on earth did i ever think it was bad? shuddup you self-righteous sjws, s.coups of seventeen is fucking hot, let me objectify him for a bit. and oh, wait. what’s this? a female movie critic from my country who’s been criticized for being too much of an sjw says objectification isn’t all that bad – it’s fucking good.
so yeah, thanks!
Glad to help! Soompi are no angels but they’re at least meeting the bar for a crappy news translation site, which one wouldn’t think would be too much to ask but apparently hardly anyone else can do it. Go figure. If you want to know what generic crap is floating around Korean news outlets, they perform that function better than most. Asian Junkie is good but he’s selective in what he covers, doesn’t stan Loona that much because he’s too busy doing the sport ball shape, also there are ads (oh boy are there ads) but if you can stomach all that I’ll begrudgingly admit that his site is educational and a great time/research saver. Just stay away from the comments section (fortunately the advertising is so thick and heavy that you probably won’t even notice there’s a comments section there underneath all the pop-ups).
A great way of fighting clickbait in general is r/savedyouaclick which I highly recommend!
Hey, I know you said that recognizing stuff by ear is in no way the end-all be-all of music, but let’s say I’m both stubborn as a mule and convinced I can do it. Where should I start?
I don’t know what you mean by “recognising stuff by ear”. If you mean “perfect pitch”, don’t even bother – it’s not that good anyway. If you mean “relative pitch”, the far more useful skill, try this (it’s old and needs an update plus I might have got a song or two wrong but it will do to explain the basic idea).
two questions for u kpopalypse oppar!
1. bighit released a rhythm game for mobile in the past month that’s basically just the old superstar bts games except with more artists on it. like any other mobile game, there’s paid options for in-game currency and premium plans. do they actually make any substantial money of off this?
2. – so in this song, there’s two vastly different ideas shoved into the same song. any real reason for this? i assumed it was because of some dumb “subverting expectations” thing but it sounds like such a cheap way to do that – if you wanna subvert expectations, don’t change the song entirely!
1. Yes
2. Your link didn’t work but if it wasn’t for Super Junior’s “House Party” I’ll be very disappointed.
Hey kpopalypse! This is the same person from the past two qrimoles about the dude with the crazy fanservice. It’s funny how much you probably got right about it since you didn’t even recognize it as being Sunwoo from the boyz lol. You’re right about him having “something bad in his past” and he definitely feels bad about it. I actually took an interest in him since he’s the most “scandalous” idol out of 3.5/4th gen so far, and his company still hasn’t kicked him out.
Most recently, a pann user accused him of sexually assaulting his gf in middle school, smoking, and saying misogynistic things. He’s one of the ones you covered in that bullying post back in February. It’s pretty unsure whether this is true or not b/c the person who uploaded it 1) deleted a few hours after it got popular 2) wrote a handwritten apology letter a couple days ago saying they had a grudge against him for 5 years because their friends told them something about Sunwoo that may or may have not been true 3) there were some other former classmates posting and claiming he wasn’t perfect in middle school but he was decent or whatever. 4) some of the claims made by the person about what he was doing predebut just don’t match up factually.
This isn’t his first scandal though, his main bane is from the “misogyny scandal” beginning in 2017. Apparently he had sent some weird, misogynistic answers on ask.fm. One of them was about keeping foreign women as pets, and another about growing women in a garden, having his ideal type being a hopeless woman, and some joke about being buff due to having a high libido? I don’t really recall all of them, there are more if you search for them. This scandal is also murky because people are now arguing that Sunwoo had friends come over to his house and he had a friend who supposedly wrote the offending messages. Tbh It’s hard for me to say whether he did or not because “my friend did it” excuse sucks ass lmao. I was able to laugh it off, because for me Sunwoo is just a pretty face and not a paragon of moral supremacy, but from what i’ve seen on knet anon sites he’s well known as the “ask guy” and the boyz as the “one with the misogynist in it.” So effectively Sunwoo’s stupidity in middle school holds off a lot of international and korean fans from becoming interested. Maybe that’s where his guilt comes from?
Finally, his only confirmable scandal was about a year ago, where a picture of him was uploaded by their official account and you can vaguely make out a cigarette in his hand. The issue is that smoking on beaches is illegal and has been banned for a few years in Korea. He released an official apology and all that. I don’t feel bad for him one bit here because if he had double checked that picture he could’ve avoided the entire blow-up lmao. I still wonder if it was some weird noise marketing…
If I seem a bit obsessed, I probably am, it’s just so rare that idols are this interesting to me lmao. The crazy fanservice + the scandals. It makes me wonder what his company is telling him to do behind the scenes to. Also cheers for mentioning “moral equilibrium” to me! That was an interesting thing to learn about.
I’m really not sure why you care about this stuff. There’s nothing here worth caring about. K-pop idols are human, they do human shit, like smoking cigarettes, saying misogynist jokes, etc. For anything that is actually a crime, the police can sort it out, for everything else there’s the big round filing cabinet. If people weren’t so invested in the image of idols as “perfect people” then when accusations start flying around people will be a whole lot less bothered. But the accusations come, and they keep coming, because it generates “engagement” from the horrified fans. These companies and media agencies have got k-pop fans by the balls. K-pop fans need to have an attitude more like heavy metal fans. Nobody stopped listening to Burzum just because he killed a dude, they just shrugged his shoulders, said “oh well, guess he’s a complete dickhead then” and carried on with life.
How do you like your eggs cooked?
When I was young I used to like them hard-boiled but my girlfriend likes them softer so I’ve gotten used to making soft poached eggs and so I like that more now.
My question:Hey Oppar,hope that you’re having a good day/night!
Although it’s kind of weird considering that you’re decades older than me and live across oceans from me,I’ve come to really appreciate your advice and sort of trust your judgement in many things. You’re the coolest dude from (what I assume is) my mother or father’s age group.
If you don’t mind could you recommend some forms of media you enjoy,like books,movies, etc? I really don’t think that we’d have similar tastes but I’d still like to see the stuff you like outside of music and read/watch something that I normally wouldn’t.
Thanks!
This question is so non-specific that I could be here forever. There might be some stuff about this here.
I am kind of new to this site. I have been reading your posts(or is it blogs?) since last year at least. You seem to be very understanding and also funny. I am just wondering if it’s normal to be able to get very fixated on one thing but then also fluctuate so much on interests of a different thing? Also, do you think it would be an interesting idea if somebody attempts to match a song to every episode of a show, like match in ideas and style and feelings they could invoke?
This question is also kind of vague. I’m not entirely sure what I’m being asked.
there are two type of people in this world, those who think radiohead is a godsend band and those who think they’re a snoozfest which one are you ?
I think there are two types of people in this world – the type who think that there are two types of people in this world, and the type of people who don’t. I’m the latter type because I don’t really have any strong opinions about Radiohead. They’re alright sometimes I suppose but I wouldn’t listen to them without being paid to.
Would you say you tend to have a “type” in biasing female idols who have a general “done-ness” with life and the Kpop industry (Eunha, IU, Sulli (RIP), etc.?) Or that you’re more likely to bias someone if they have that attitude?
Yes caonima attitude is a big factor.
Hi Qri!
Would you mind taking this test and sharing your results? You can click through the boring instructional stuff. It’s a medium-long personality test, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to.Just to be clear, I’m interested in Kpopalypse’s results, not Kpopalypse-imitating-Qri’s results.
Well you should have asked me, not her.
I refuse to take a Myers-Briggs/MBTI test or even link one. Myers-Briggs was debunked in the 1980s, nobody sensible believes this trash. It’s only hung around like a bad smell in the corporate sphere because it’s a “known brand” and a lot of people are suckers easily parted with their money. Read more details about exactly why the test sucks and why you should never share it with anybody here. But if anyone wants a quick four-letter personality type for Kpopalypse know that I’m definitely a CUNT.
Hello oppar, hope you’ve been well. First of all, if you ever answer this question, I ask you to please not post what I’m writing here. (Ideally, I would like to ask it privately, but that’s not possible so here it is.) Also, this is a sensitive topic, and probably more serious than what people usually send, so I understand if you don’t want to answer this one.
[a whole bunch of stuff that could have made this question and my answer interesting to read, edited out at the asker’s request *groan*]
Thank you for reading; even if you don’t answer, just being able to send this anonymously makes me feel a little less anxious about the matter.
Without really being able to go into any detail – don’t worry about it. I think you’re being super-paranoid about this. Your question is a little vague on detail as well but from what you’ve provided I don’t think that you did anything to be concerned about. Your decisions seemed sensible enough to me, over-cautious if anything.
Even assuming you did do something wrong (don’t see how, but anyway) apologising would be a waste of time. What’s done is done, just forget about it.
I know what you jack off to oppar I going to tell mom about this
Trust me, your mom already knows, she’s still washing out the stains that I left.
Oh My Girl has made many, many Pororo versions of their songs. Does WM expect children to become OMG fans? Because I wouldn’t expect teenage OMG fans to end up watching Pororo. What is each party’s endgame here and has there ever been a precedent to this in the history of the industry?
I don’t even know enough about what Pororo is to be able to answer this. I think maybe you have to be Korean to understand the significance of whatever deal they’ve got going with each other.
Hi Oppar. I don’t know if you ever experience this feeling but I want to ask that do you know how to overcome the fear of upcoming future. Lately I have been constantly worried about the unknown future ahead of me to the point of it prevents me from being unproductive. Although I know that it’s silly to be afraid of nothing (here is the unknown future, so who knows if my future will be better or worse, but now I’m still fine with my life), it keeps coming at me unexpectedly. I’m just got scared immediately without even knowing why, and this time is the same. I keep imagining worst situations that could happen to me and got scared out of nowhere. What if I can’t find a good job? What if I get stuck in toxic working environment? (I’m especially awkward when it comes to social gatherings, and I have heard many people said that if I don’t go out and have nice social relationships with my colleagues, my working life will be tough. I don’t like and care for other people’s personal drama, but I’m scared that if I don’t join in, I will get bullied by my colleagues because they may think I’m being standoffish, and I’m never good at dealing harassment or hateful comments from other people, despite always telling myself that outsider’s opinions shouldn’t have its effect on me). What if people will secretly hate me and talk bad behind my back? (I know this happens to most people in this Earth, but somehow it still scares me, as I hate being misunderstood and have to explain myself) and so on. Despite knowing them is silly fears and I know the reasons why I shouldn’t be scared of them, my fearful feelings keep getting a better head of me and exhaust my energy. I hope that you can give me an advice to escape this weird and unreasonable feelings. Thank you.
Your fears are hard to defeat because they are not completely irrational. It’s quite possible that your first job will suck – it happens to many. People do get ostracised in the work place if they don’t socialise. Etc etc. There’s no point being in denial. However what you should do is don’t let it immobilise you. The best Dr. Seuss book I read as a kid was the one where the guy lives in some sort of perfect world, and his life is great, until one day when some dickheads appear. So he goes off in search of some faraway land that is still perfect, but when he gets there he can’t get in because there’s a guy who lives inside the keyhole that keeps pushing his key out of the locked gate. So what he does is he goes back to where he originally came from, but with a club, and smacks the shit out of all the dickheads giving him a hard time. The end. That should be your attitude to fear of the unknown – don’t worry about trying to find some utopia, instead just arm yourself with the tools to deal with unknown situations effectively.
Hello, Kpopalypse.
I always thought it was kind of weird how WJSN always seem to pick less worthy title tracks over better/catchier songs (La La Love over Cantabile and You Got, Boogie Up over Oh My Summer and My Type, As You Wish over WW and Luckitty Cat)*. Someone called RJ Yuggy commented on the Oh My Summer lyric video “Even the album says For the Summer. I also feel like this is supposed to be the title track but the unexpected viral Loveshot fancam of Seola made Starship decide to capitalize on Seola’s fame. Oh my Summer gave Seola only 5 seconds so they chose Boogie Up which gave Seola a lot of lines.”
Do you think this is a feasible explanation?
What factors do companies need to take into account when choosing these things? Can companies completely disregard song quality/the likeliness of that song being a hit if they know that they have the budget to promote it everywhere?*not that these songs are bad per se, but they don’t seem like title tracks or hit songs
What people need to understand about song selection is that songs are essentially business cards. The company will choose whatever business card makes the most sense to slip under an advertiser’s door. Of course, if person X has a lot of value and a song gives that person a lot to do, they might be more tempted to push that song. There might be other factors too – maybe a song of a certain type might be deemed a better fit for a certain advertiser’s product. What fans don’t grasp is it’s not about them – you’re not actually the market for any of this, your fan-attention actually forms part of the product. More info here and here.
Do you like “Mother Mother” by Tracy Bonham? You linked to “Bikini Kill” in a previous Qrimole, and I liked it for the same reasons I like Mother Mother.
Not really, I feel like it’s a far less successful attempt at a similar idea.
“Heart Attack” is a song where the rap verse just flows as part of the song instead of dragging the entire thing to a goddamn halt just to let one person get out twenty words.
Just wanted to say that.
Consider it said.
That’s all for this month’s QRIMOLE! This series will return next month! In the meantime don’t forget to watch all the Chuu!
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!
KPOPALYPSE 
You must be logged in to post a comment.