A Decade of Bad Taste

I wasn't aware Brown Eyed Girls's Abracadabra (released in 2010) until 2014 or 2015, but because Brown Eyed Girls, like Shinee, were active at the beginning and the end of the decade, you can use the as a lesson in the evolution of Kpop of sorts. The video for Abracadabra was sent to me in the middle of a slow workday by a coworker who was also very bored. The video is definitely NSFW, so you can deduce from this that the job wasn't a particularly, how shall we say, high rent one. No, really, it was a pretty boring job in a small office in a business park. You could get very bored very fast there, and at some point half the office started watching Kdramas and listening to Kpop and discussing makeup. I know that about 50% of my time was spent making playlists. Anyways, back to Abracadabra.  It slaps. Hard. It's a sexy, energetic pop song that's heavy on the synth. The singers sound badass even without the video. I have no idea what they're saying ...

Anime is an interesting art form. I grew up with it. I sometimes say to people, "Oh I love anime because that was all there was on TV when I was growing up," but that's a lie: there was GI Joe and My Little Pony and The Smurfs and I'm sure something educational. But nothing caught my imagination like anime. There was something dark and sinister happening in anime that wasn't happening in any other animated TV show. There was a constant feeling of dread, and there was always — ALWAYS! — someone looking out in the distance sadly while the wind swept their hair and flowy clothes. Me and my depressed child mind latched onto that feeling of loss and longing, that feeling that something good might happen, but probably won't. Well, not so much "latched on" as "felt it deeply within my psyche". I also liked the red/blue oni thing (like a lot!) and the aesthetic of it all (also a lot! men wearing lace cravats and lipstick who can also vanquish e...

I don't think anyone is reading this. Or at most a handful of people are. As such, here is a nice, personal story about Waking Light and why it's the only Beck song I listened to this past decade. Most of my current friends have only come into my life since the turn of the millennium. For reasons I won't go into, most of my friends from the past millennium are gone.  Out of the handful of friends that date back past 2000, I only see one semi-regularly.  One summer night in 2014 I think, I met her at a Persian restaurant for late supper. We shared our plates like we always did when we were together alone. We shared dessert. We talked about our lives. She told me who she was dating. I told her he didn't sound much better than the guy she had just divorced.  The night was warm, and only slightly humid, with a cool breeze. We walked on the street for a bit after we had supper. Then we said our goodbyes, promising to see each other next week but knowing we pr...

There is a playlist I have always wanted to make but never had time to curate: The Infidelity Playlist. I have so many songs in my Spotify library about infidelity that I feel I could probably run a radio show about them. But instead I'll just write this blog entry for my favourite songs about infidelity from this past decade, starting with my very but very favouritest song, Fucking Around on You. Oh the glory of this tune! It's unclear whether the protagonist is actually cheating or is just getting off on some people they follow on Instagram. I figure that whomever they're fantasizing about is not of the same gender as their current partner. I'm guessing that the protagonist can no longer open up Instagram on public transit because their feed is full of lounging half-naked sweaty bodies. Or fan art. Or furries. Either way, let's crank it up and give it a listen! Please note that the video is not safe for work or public transit. And now for something sli...

There are many strange Kpop tunes out there, but none are quite as surrealistically strange and otherwordly as Lilili Yabbay and My I by SEVENTEEN. Besides sounding like lamentations by sci fi ghosts from across time and space, they're paired with modern dance pieces that also feel somewhat disturbing. Before we go on, a word about SEVENTEEN. SEVENTEEN, first of all, has, bafflingly, 13 members. They are what is commonly referred to in Kpop circles as a "self-producing group", meaning that they often write, compose, produce, and choreograph their own pieces. Apparently it's good that they're good at it because otherwise their company would have jettisoned them ages ago. Anyways, SEVENTEEN makes some very interesting music in general. The production and composition is interesting, and the choreographies are intricate (and sometimes exhausting to watch, tbh).  But My I and Lilili Yabbay are, to be blunt, weird as fuck. The vocals on Lilili Yabbay are dis...

I will admit that the first time I heard SOPHIE's PRODUCT compilation I thought "what the actual fuck is this?" I had to look up whether it was supposed to be music or something else because I was entirely unsure of what to make of it. As one reviewer put it, it was dance music that no one could be expected to dance to. I mean, BIPP kinda sounds like conventional music And VYZEE could be considered a tune in some conceivable universe But really it was JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE that hooked me. It's the most conventionally musical of the entire PRODUCT compilation, so you know that at heart I'm pretty basic and unable to really appreciate the avant-garde nature of the rest of the compilation. And on top of it all, the story is compelling — meeting someone after all these years and finding that you still have the same connection — and the track starts with the sound of thunder. I am a basic bitch. BUT COME ON THIS SONG! Anyways, I liter...

Before I became obsessed with Kpop, I was obsessed with PC Music. Hell, if PC Music was still active, I'd probably still be obsessed with PC Music! PC Music makes (made?) very bizarre, very surreal, very futuristic electronica reminiscent of early experimental synth music but with actual musicality. Sometimes. Sometimes it just sounded like weird. I can't really tell you why I became obsessed with PC Music. You can't dance to most of it. A lot of it is repetitious to the point that it could give you a headache. And it's not really good as background noise for the gym or for writing or for coding or for driving or for anything really. What it is good for is making my brain feel like it's full of pop rocks. Pink pop rocks, to be exact.  Anyways.  PC Music was (is?) a label that had as primary actors SOPHIE (whom I love), Danny L Harle, and AG Cook. They are music producers.  And now a diversion back to Kpop for a moment… Look, I am not stupid. ...

OK so in Part Le Un  I talked about Sherlock by Shinee, but what I didn't tell you was that it sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole through every damned Shinee video and performance ever and then landed on BTS, priming me for the discovery of my favourite boy band of all time, EXO. One of the big differences between NA pop acts and Kpop acts is that you can find EVERYTHING about a Kpop act online. Fans post concerts, variety shows, crack videos, whatever and they never get taken down. Fans will subtitle shows, provide lyrics, and give background all out of the love of their favourites. On top of this, the entertainment companies will happily provide piles of high-def content for free on YouTube. These companies still make money from ticket and concert sales, so putting concert footage online for free is basically just advertising costs. All this to say that I eventually ended up watching videos of Shinee live, and that's how I came to find my favourite Shinee song, Beautifu...

We should probably get the Kpop Thing out of the way as soon as possible. Prior to 2015, Kpop was not part of my musical vocabulary. There had been Gangnam Style of course, and occasionally one of my friends would post Sorry Sorry by Super Junior (really one of the best tracks) or Gee by Girl's Generation (a classic!) to FB, usually as a joke ("OMG how many guys are in this group!"), but nothing else. Up until this point in the 2010s I had been listening to Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Porter Robinson, Deadmau5, Robyn, Stars, and going through an REM revival. I was in a weird place. Then one of my friends posted this Rolling Stone article about The Greatest 50 Boy Band Songs of All Time  and at #12 was Sherlock by Shinee. There are other Kpop songs on that list, including Fantastic Baby, which is one of the best Kpop tracks ever fight me, but only Sherlock caught my fancy. There was something about the song and the dance and the look that spoke to me. ...

Hi. How are ya doing? I had written out a really long, very revealing, and extremely raw entry for these songs and then I deleted it all because no one wants to hear about the inner workings of my mind unless it's hilarious af. Or if it makes you feel good about your own existence. Or, in this case, your taste in music. But here I present you a series of tracks that maybe aren't shit? Oh who are we kidding, really? If I like them, you know that they're probably pretty bad and basic. But enough idle chitchat! ONWARDS! — OK, so the first one is On Hold by The xx. It's like the soundtrack to your sad breakup, but without the catharsis. Like you're sitting there thinking, "yeah, this kinda sucks, but I guess it was bound to happen idk?" Why is this here, you might ask? Because it's a breakup song for people who aren't able to feel, and there aren't enough songs like that around. Also it feels deep and meaningful to me in a way tha...

Around the middle of 2010, I changed jobs. I had been at the same job for 5 years and I loved all my coworkers — no, really: they were awesome and I miss them to this day — but the job was going nowhere. Plus I was customer-facing, and the job was driving me to drink. I'm not even joking about that: I was drinking to cope. I switched to a low-stress job that payed more. It seemed great, except it wasn't. In retrospect, I was probably depressed the entire 2 (3?) years I was at that job because I have only the very vaguest memories of it, and all my memories appear to be of nighttime. I do remember the day I was laid off, though. That was a good day! Anyways, as I mentioned before, my playlists were all on Grooveshark, so they're lost to time. But I do remember that I was into weird, moody music. That said, on the Thursday I got laid off, I listened to Thursday by The Pet Shop Boys, and Dance Your Pain Away by Agnetha (of ABBA) on repeat!

At the beginning of the decade I had a shitty car with no bluetooth. I would listen to my playlists by connecting my iPod to my car using a USB cable. But most of the time, I just listened to the radio. My favourite station was an "indie" radio station that played your favourite "edgy" rock tunes from the 90s and today! At work I'd listen to music on Grooveshark because Spotify wasn't available in Canada yet. I'd listen to the radio in my car, and then look up any songs I liked on Grooveshark when I got to the office. And then Grooveshark died -- well it was killed because it failed to secure rights to the music it streamed -- and with it died many playlists. I have only a vague memory of my playlists from 2010-2014, but I remember that they were great and they had themes. Grooveshark would let you save a queue as a playlist, which was great. Basically for the first half of the decade I spent my time listening to the radio and using that as a way to...