Kpopalypse tabs is back, this time with another T-ara song!

I thought I’d give my newest guitar, the Gibson Flying V, a spin on a song where I could showcase some distortion and hard rock tones.  Sugar Free is a pop-metal song in spirit and wouldn’t sound out of place on a Van Halen album.  It’s also not very technically demanding, which is probably good for the poor people who tried to play the very advanced “Love Of B” last time I did a post like this.  Anyway, let’s take a closer look at “Sugar Free”.

T-ara – Sugar Free

Structure and timestamps

Intro – 0:00
Riff 1 – 0:08
Riff 2  (“big room” mix riff)- 0:32
Verse 1 – 0:47
Pre-chorus – 1:02
Chorus – 1:19
Verse 2 – 1:53
Pre-chorus – 2:08
Chorus – 2:25
Riff 1 (breakdown) – 2:59
Chorus – 3:21

Key and time signatures

E minor – 4/4

Structurally the song is really simple.  For the guitar arrangement I’ve stuck to playing the vocal melody in the verse and chorus, and during the rap parts I’m playing the synth lines instead.  Note that riff 2 only appears in the “big room” version of the song.  All T-ara remixes seem to have that 8 bars near the start of the song that is different on each version and everything else is the same, but the big room riff (which is the second line of the tab page) sounds nice and chunky on electric guitar, so I prefer it over the single version.

My fingering in the video above is slightly different to that in the tab page, the main difference is that I’m doing the end of the pre-chorus on frets 12, 14 and 16 on the G string rather than 8, 10 and 12 on the B string.  This is because I think that the bending is a little more convenient for me to execute on the G string [insert pun here].  There’s also a run down that I do at the end of the second pass through the chorus which goes from the 5th of the minor scale back down to the root note, it’s similar to the vocal melody but not exactly the same.  If you can remember that all the solo patterns are in E minor then it’s a pretty easy song to play with and make your own melodies with if you’re familiar with your minor scale and note/pattern placement.

These scale patterns are sourced from here and might be useful if you need to familiarise yourself with minor scale patterns, but the are all essentially the same pattern anyway.  The black dot is the root note of E and the numbers at the bottom is fret position.

“Sugar Free” is not a very hard song to play, I’d put it at easy to intermediate level, so it’s a fun song to add extra elements to.  The hardest part of the song is probably actually the rapid picking in the intro, at least in terms of getting accuracy correct, and getting the bending to sound good.  At the first pass of the chorus there’s a half-bend the first time, which is different to all the other bends which are whole-tone or “full” bends.  There’s also a sweep-pick that I throw in at the end of the second chorus and the end of the song but that’s just optional and isn’t in the tab, you could put anything there you wanted, slides, solo runs, more pinch harmonics, vibrato etc.  It’s a good song to have fun experimenting with.

Anyway that’s all for this post – Kpopalypse tabs will return soon!

Ever since I dropped the post “Healthy porn for men – deconstructing dog-whistle concepts in k-pop“, about the deliberate pornographic subtext of certain types of female k-pop visual presentation, people have been asking me to follow up with a “healthy porn for women” post, and discuss how this subtext functions when the genders are reversed.  Here it is!

Many readers may wonder why I’ve more or less ignored the male side of k-pop in my dog-whistle posts so far.  Was it just that I didn’t want to write about hot guys because I’m an evil heterosexual male?  Was it just because I’m a lazy caonima?  No, the real reason is that when it comes to hidden sexual messages in male group videos, there’s honestly just less to write about for one simple reason – the male videos don’t tend to do so much hiding.  The dog-whistle messages exist for female groups precisely because the type of overt displays of sexuality that are more commonplace with the male groups are forbidden for the girls and often clamped down upon.  The companies running girl groups are trying to get the sexual content in under the radar, not because they enjoy being “secret” about it, but because overt displays of female sexuality generally aren’t permissible.  Don’t believe me?  Just take a look at the kinds of dances that are considered too hot for TV for men vs women.

In the music industry overall, women tend to be sexualised more than men, and there’s no doubt that this has been the case since forever across the vast majority of the music industry as a whole.  However in Korean pop, the reverse is actually true – male sexualisation outstrips (literally and figuratively) female sexualisation by an extremely wide margin in all of k-pop.  From music videos to live performances to appearances on TV and more, you don’t have to go far to find plenty of content like this:

However, is there another side?  Does the “cute” concept exist for male groups too, and if it does, is it secretly just as sexual as the “sexy” bodice-ripping, abs-flashing concept?  Kpopalypse says YES!  Let’s explore some examples of “healthy porn for women”!

Monsta X’s “Newton” is a great “healthy porn for women” video example.  It features the boys going on a nice camping trip.  Do you know what teenagers and early 20-something guys actually do on camping trips?  Well here’s a list of things that they definitely don’t do:

The don’t sing songs in the back of the van and wave their arms around gaily, while hugging each other and shit… at least not while sober.

They also don’t get all excited about oversized Jenga, and then fall all over each other while trying to make a Jenga tower or whatever the fuck they’re doing here… at least not while sober.

They definitely don’t make a barbeque and forget to bring the fucking alcohol, that’s for sure.

The video directors want you to believe that Monsta X’s beverage of choice when on the road is Lipton Iced Tea (who no doubt paid a nice sum for this promo).

And a campfire with no beer or soju bottles on the ground?  In Korea?  Not even any messy party food debris?  You mean these boys are not just having good clean sober fun together but actually clean up after themselves, DURING the festivities?  Get the fuck outta here.  This scene is as far-fetched and based in pure science fiction as any Star Wars film.

This is porn for women, without a doubt.  Monsta X’s “Newton” is completely analogous to how heterosexual porn portrays women, only showing the aspects of women that fit into male fantasy, and discarding anything that does not.  “Newton” likewise shows an idealised version of men, not as they really are, but as how young fangirls would like them to be – clean clothes, clean fun, always smiling and with outgoing personalities, having a good time with their friends.  Don’t worry girls, I’m sure they don’t get up to any naughty business while on tour – how could they?  They’re too busy being the bestest of buddies.  Just look at them!  They’re staying healthy and saving themselves just for you.  Really.

SHINee’s “Hello” is another fantastic example of “healthy porn for women”, which is to be expected from SHINee who are serious idols that with SM’s help have mastered the art of selling themselves to fangirls.

This guy is so busy singing just for you that he’s able to maintain direct eye contact with the camera (i.e you) and doesn’t even look once at the girl with huge tits walking by with the bicycle, even though she strolls right in front of his field of vision.

He’s still got time to take a few seconds out of his busy idol schedule to blow bubbles with children though, because he cares.  Gosh, he’d make a great father to your child, wouldn’t he?

This other guy spends the entire video agonising over whether to knock on your door and deliver you flowers to show how much he loves you, or whether to just run away and hide.  He’s so nervous about being rejected, this is really hard for him!  Don’t be mean!

Of course in the end he bites the bullet and takes the plunge, because you’re worth it.  If you’re a SHINee fan and you’ve ever wondered why you fell so hard for SHINee in the first place, it’s because the creators of porn are not stupid – they know what works.

I could provide more examples and this post could go forever, but it’s probably more fun for you to find your own, if you can – after all, k-pop fans tend to be a bit desensitised to the presentation of their favourite idols.  However if you are having any doubts about really understanding what you are actually watching, try watching this stuff with people slightly older and who aren’t exposed to k-pop sitting right next to you.  You don’t even need me to tell you what they’ll say, you already know.  If you want a video to pick for such an exercise, try this one:

“Chewing Gum” is actually a pretty damn good song.  It’s also fucking disturbing as shit to watch, the male equivalent of April’s “Dream Candy” for sure.

The guys are dressed deliberately as “young” as possible yet have huge amounts of makeup on their faces that’s generally reserved for adult idols.

The constant theme throughout of “misbehaviour at night in the dorms” is interesting (and disturbing) too.  Sure, it’s just chewing gum, but I’m sure for some people it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine it’s something else…

Don’t get me wrong however.  There seems to be a misinterpretation of my posts on this topic that somehow I hate “cute” concepts because of all this or whatever.  Not the case!  In fact for both men and women in k-pop I’d probably rather watch them be all “nice” and shit rather than pretend to be badass or whatever, which is just as unconvincing and even more cringey.

Seriously, if this is the alternative, bring on the cute.  I’m all for it.  Just be honest with yourself about what it is, that’s all I’m saying.  I think that’s a fairly moderate position.  Kpopalypse will return with more posts soon!

It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out some new releases!

Scan-dol of the week – Jaehwan (Wanna One)

Day6 – What Can I Do

The one time I forget to review a Day6 monthly comeback on schedule and it’s their best one in a while.  It’s still a bit soft and with too much smooth layered brass dulling the sound, but at least it’s not their usual fucking Coldplay shit.

Sunmi – Gashina

Guess what overused boring pop subgenre this particular pop song is?  Here’s a clue: it starts with T and ends with “ropical shithouse”.

DIA – Can’t Stop

It’s all very well doing “nostalgia” concepts or whatever the fuck they’re calling school uniform fap concepts this week, but if you don’t have the songwriting skills it’s all for nothing.  Maybe that weird number they have at the end is the amount of times they went into the studio to try and write something actually good before they just fucking gave up.

Pristin – We Like

What even is this.  It’s like Pledis keep trying to outweird After School’s “Bang!” and while I appreciate the effort to be different especially in today’s trend-encrusted pop landscape, you need the basic building blocks of a good song before you can do shit like this with it.

Victon – Unbelieveable

Looks the part but once again a song is seriously missing.

Momoland – Freeze

Nothing that special but at least it has an actual chorus, so we’re already doing better than most of the other big groups this week.

S.I.S – I’ve Got A Feeling

What the fuck.  A really good song (for fucking once) AND one of the girls out-chipmunks every other k-pop singer ever, 2011 Raina included.

S2 – Honeya

This is good too.  The extreme nugu groups are killing it this week.

BP Rania – Beep Beep Beep

The song is actually seriously good, Rania’s best since “Style“, and if I were Alex I’d be absolutely livid too.  Hey Alex don’t forget to flick me an email (contact details here) if you want to do that interview with me that everyone is begging you to do (and for good reason).

BONUS SONGS

Great Guys – Last Men

And again with an actual good song!  Someone actually remembered to write a proper tune for a boy group instead of just have them aimlessly warble all over the blues scale.  But then I guess the Korean Music Quality Police stormed into the studio and decided that the song was sounding too good for regulatory requirements and they made the producer put in shitty trap and dubstep breakdowns that kill all the song’s momentum.  Oh well.

High Teen – Would U

No I would not.

Hoody – Hangang

Probably the best Hoody song yet, you know it’s a weird week in k-pop when Hoody doesn’t completely suck.

Aleph – Fall In Love Again

When the most interesting thing about a song is that the suitcase in the video doesn’t have wheels, you know that we’re reaching Yoona-levels of boredom.

Nick & Sammy – Belong To Me

I didn’t expect much but it’s actually okay.

Heize – In The Time Spent With You

One day Heize will probably not suck.  Today is not that day.

Kassy – Let It Rain

Nice try with the stripes but it’s going to take more than that to get a good review here.

Trophy Cat & Edward Avila – Body

It’s that lame sound everyone else wets themselves over in 2017 but Kpopalypse doesn’t give a fuck about.

Hur Young Ji – Memory Clock

I remember when k-pop didn’t suck this much.

Cando – Fun Fun

Someone commented “I really like an MV wtih a white border” on YouTube, and it’s one of the most popular comments there.  You know the song itself is pretty unexciting if a bar of blank space at the top actually upstaged it.

Sanchez ft. Yong Jun Hyung – Mesmerised

Whenever I see Sanchez is in a song, which unfortunately is every week lately it seems, I always think of a “dirty sanchez” and about how they’re similar in so many ways.

Jade ft. Seungmin – Completely Yours

Korean slow jazz is like Australian rap.  It just shouldn’t be happening at all.  There is no excuse for this.

Hailey Rose – Masks

More jazz cancer.  This song throws some jazz chords into the mix but jazz chords are really just normal chords with wrong notes added.

Jisook & Ilhoon – Baeisis

Don’t be fooled, nobody actually writes songs in the studio unless they have their own studio, or they’re made of money.  You go in there with your shit already prepared in advance so you can optimise the time and come out under budget.  Singers don’t sprawl their lyrics sheets all over the console like that, the enginner says “get the fuck out, that’s my chair bitch”.

Pungdeng-E – Noodle Song

The biggest social injustice for me in k-pop this week is that we can’t have any more Crayon Pop or Orange Caramel but we still have to put up with this rubbish childrens TV hour music.  Pungdeng-E are more than bad, they are straight up immoral.

Idol School – We’re Beautiful

I missed this when it came out and I’m glad I did.  This is completely terrifying.  It would only be more terrifying if it was an American group, because then they’d also all have guns.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Kara – Pretty Girl (school rock version)

If you wanna special bonus retro song, every wanna special retro bonus song.

That’s all for Kpopalypse for this week, more new releases in Roundup next week!

It’s time for Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!  Let’s check out some fresh k-pop nugus!

I live in Australia where the population is part of the global minority who don’t have northern hemispherian privilege.  Due to this lack of privilege we’re just getting to the end of one of our usual shitful winters where all man-made structures are destroyed by the weather and wildlife and then we have to rebuild it all in spring.  However in the privileged northern half of the Earth there is right now a summer thing happening where there is sunshine every day and the weather is always lovely and warm.  Well okay, except certain southern parts of the USA right now where you’re all getting fucked up the ass by massive flooding, and let’s not forget southern Asia is also getting a major ass-reaming from the weather right now.  If you live in any of these places and you’ve actually got Internet access and are reading this, my thoughts go out to you – I think you’ve temporarily rescinded your northern hemispherian privileges and are allowed to feel bitter along with all the Australians at least until you have shelter and a steady food supply again.  For the rest of you privileged northern hemispherians with your privileged privilege, it’s probably hopefully warm enough for k-pop girls to wear bikinis and flash abs yet mild enough for them not to get 50 skin cancers after five minutes like they would where I live doing that shit.

Now wasn’t that a boring introduction to this week’s Nugu Alert – yes it fucking was.  That’s because it was about the weather, and weather is naturally boring, it’s the uninteresting common ground we all experience that you talk about with people at parties and in elevators when you don’t really give a fuck about them and don’t want anything to do with them but you just want to get through a socially awkward situation.  Of course Korea’s music scene is nothing if not expertly acquainted with boredom on many levels, and k-pop songwriters give even less a fuck about you than the distant acquaintances who get stuck having party conversations with you, hence each season in k-pop always brings with it the cancer of “seasonal k-pop songs”.  Korean musicians are mostly so uninterested in you that just like your work colleagues by the office photocopier talking about how they were too warm on the way into work today, their continual peddling of “seasonal pop” trash is proof that they couldn’t care less about creativity, self-expression or engaging you in any manner.

Of course, nugus are no exception.  Nugu groups don’t necessarily have the budgets for wide Taeyeonesque helicopter-shot pastoral vistas, so they have to work out cheaper ways to invoke those seasonal feelings and impart precious weather-related boredom into their music videos.  Since summer is just about to finish for Korea, let’s take a look at some nugus and how they’ve incorporated the theme of summer into their ultra-cheap videos and musical productions over the last few months.

Usual Nugu Alert rules apply:

• Less than 20,000 views on official YouTube channels at the time of writing
• International fans have been observed to give generally no fucks about these artists
• Kpopalypse thinks you should experience these nugus, just because

Impro9 – Tropical

It would logically seem that tropical shithouse would be the most obvious musical style of choice for a summer comeback, and we’ve all seen plenty of that in these last few months haven’t we.  However it really has nothing to do with the weather – regular readers of Kpopalypse roundup will know and remember that Korea has been boringly flogging this exact sound to death at every stage of the last year.  Some of the better songs from this horrible pop subgenre like Blackpink’s “Playing With Fire” and BTS’ “Blood Sweat & Tears” came out in autumn last year and even came with gloomy autumnal videos to match.  Also we have to remember that tropical countries don’t even have summer, autumn, spring and winter anyway, just “hot and everything’s dead” and “hot and everything’s underwater, and dead”, so the association between “tropical” and “summer” is in reality somewhat fraudulent.  Nevertheless people from milder climes rightly or wrongly do still associate the “tropical sound” with “summer” so here go Impro9 with enough toot-toots compressed into the first 16 bars of their song “Tropical” to power KARD’s entire career.  Add some bright fashions plus a rented sports car and boat that must have cost the video company at least $300 for the day and the “Sistar on a budget” vibe is complete.  Of course they kind of fucked up the actual song with all those squirting flatulent toot noises cutting in everywhere, but hey you can’t have it all, and I get the feeling that like with most k-pop the song wasn’t really a priority anyway.

YouTube views at time of writing: 176

Notable attribute: subliminal health message at 2:10 should help you increase your nutrition levels

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

Golden Doodle – An Alpaca On The Beach

Nothing says summer quite like the beach.  Throwing frisbees, catching salty waves and removing sand from your genital area in the communal showers after trying to fuck between two sand dunes and nearly getting busted, what’s not to like?  There’s also lots to like about alpacas, a distant relative of the grass mud horse which is ever-relevant to Kpopalypse.  Golden Doodle’s cruisy inoffensive song features a video with alpacas, and it also briefly features the beach, but unfortunately the video budget didn’t extended far enough to get the alpacas actually on the beach as per the song’s title, so instead you get the members of Golden Doodle observing the beach for no particular reason other than to say “technically there’s some beach in our video” and then feeding alpacas on a farm.  Much of the video seems to be shot vertically on mobile phones fancam-style but in a pleasant editing decision, Golden Doodle have frequently placed two panels of vertical footage side by side so less screen space is wasted, which is really something that more fancam makers should think about doing more often.  If only the band were able to find something interesting for us to actually look at other than dull holiday footage that would have been nice, but better to have dull visuals than a shit song I guess.

YouTube views at time of writing: 2003

Notable attribute: scruffy, fatty Hwayoungpalca hogs all the food and bullies the other two alpacas away from the feeding bowl

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

Sweet Fresh Thrill ft. Serri – Melon Shake

It’s tough being a big-titted girl at any time, but especially in summer, and being someone who has consistently dated more heavily-endowed women I hear about and know their struggles fairly well.  You can’t always wear the air-circulating, boob-displaying fashions you want without dickheads yelling stupid mostly inaudible things at you from cars, you have to be careful wandering around the empty streets or unwelcome admirers driven crazy by the heat might try to whisk you away into a dark corner for a Gain video re-enactment, and there’s also underboob sweat and back pain which just isn’t pleasant.  Often the more buxom ladies may choose to stay in the comfortable air-conditioned indoors during the summer months instead of out in the heat, and who can blame them.  However that brings up the problem “how do I shoot my boob-displaying summer k-pop video?”.  The answer lies in this video from Sweet Fresh Thrill – various images of tropical fruit, tropical plants and tropical cocktails are interspersed with the female singer to impart a “summer” vibe to the proceedings despite the video being shot 100% indoors.  The view count may seem high here, but is actually one of the lowest in k-pop for a video with this degree of boob-friendliness.  I’m not sure if the Serri who is featuring on this track is the one from Dal Shabet, but I couldn’t find anything linking the two anywhere on the Internet so I’m going to assume that this is just somebody with the same name, and in any case I don’t remember the other Serri’s melons being quite this shakeable.

YouTube views at time of writing: 2912

Notable attribute: the hand-held shower being used as a substitute microphone is disappointingly never switched on during the video

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

That’s all for this week’s episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!  Nugu Alert will return at a future date, as always with more nugus to share!

It’s time again for Kpopalypse to answer more pertinent QRIries from readers!  Welcome to another episode of QRIMOLE!

As usual the QRIries have been coming in thick and fast!

Hello, Oppar. I just wanna ask, do you think there’s gonna be the next T-ara? Not in the music context, since T-ara is unbeatable (at least for me) but, more in the sense of unnecessary scandal or issue being dragged for so long. Am I delusional for thinking there’s a similar pattern on T-ara’s scandal receptions with Mamamoo’s? Of course I hope I’m wrong but, somehow I kinda sense it already started since people already making a lot of baseless rumors. From the recent Mamamoo article on NB, I already saw people went hard on Mamamoo based on 6 or 7 fake rumors and several exaggerated issues. Based on what I analyzed, no Mamamoo member allowed to say the word “black” and “dark” anymore, even tho there’s Hwasa who indeed has a darker skin tone than the rest members and proudly admitted it. I can’t help but to notice the differences on people reactions about non-issue scandal that’s being done by Mamamoo vs other groups. Am I just imagining things? I’m just being too biased right? I hope I am. I just need someone else to tell me to snap out of it.

I’m sure that there’ll be another group that gets into a situation like T-ara’s, but I’m not sure it Mamamoo is it, as I can’t really see most people in Korea caring about the issues surrounding Mamamoo that consume the thoughts of international k-pop fans.  Most k-pop scandals on the Internet just don’t translate to the real world.  When IU was being called a pedophile or whatever she was still all-killing music charts and making money hand-over-fist.  People say that T-ara’s scandal sunk them but it actually didn’t – “Sexy Love” was released right at the absolute peak of the hate for them and it was a massive hit, the only thing that was affected were the things that nutty fandoms directly control, like award show wins, which is shit that is just for show and doesn’t actually matter for the career of a long-term active group.  These children who follow k-pop and think that everything someone says on the Internet in a comments section matters are so stupid, they expect everyone to care about what’s on some dumb comments section and that is the weirdest thing to me.  As for Mamamoo themselves the only real issue for me is that they consistently seem to get given crappy songs to sing, I think if we’re real music fans rather than fans of stupid shitrag gossip and chit-chat we should start a protest about their music before anything else.

Why do you think that so much of the fan service from male kpop groups is homoerotic/gay in nature? From what I’ve seen, there’s a larger volume of it in the guy groups than in the girl groups. Could it just be a means of showcasing them in a sexual or romantic manner for fan girls without creating the competition of having them interested in another girl, or do you think there’s another explanation? And on a related note, do you think the same principles apply for kpop fanfic writers who pair guys together? In that case, wouldn’t they just write themselves into fanfic instead?

I think it’s because a guy being with another guy is less threatening to fangirls than a guy being with a girl (who isn’t them).  Also I’m sure some girls like to watch guys get it on for the same reason that some hetero guys like watching lesbian porn.  I don’t think there’s much more to it than that.  Same applies for fanfic writers although the “self-insert” fanfic is also quite common too!

In light of the recent SNSD mess, do you think that companies (especially big ones) take into account the docile/rebellious character of someone when deciding who to include in an upcoming group? After all, the very nature of Kpop will make this nobody into someone who makes a lot of money and therefore has a lot of leverage when is the time to sign a new contract, so it is better if it is someone who can easily be convinced to sign with the conditions the company wants.

When selecting anybody for any type of position anywhere, a person’s character and willingness to perform the role is always considered.  Obviously a label would try to select the best people for the job in all aspects, but of course they’re limited to whatever people they have trained and available.  Sometimes the cost of debuting someone already trained who may or may not become an issue needs to be weighed against the expense and time of training someone else from scratch.  Also, some people are also quite good at hiding their true colours!  You can’t always predict how people will turn out.  There’s the people who might have an attitude but then “come good” later, or people who might be initially happy with the deal but dislike how things progress.  There’s simply too many factors for anyone to make all the right decisions, all the time.  Netizen trash are great at making everything seem so simple and making themselves seem like “experts” at judging people’s character, but character is actually a really hard thing to judge even when you do know someone well, let alone when you know someone only via media and SNS.

As far as being “easily convinced to sign with the conditions the company wants”, well that’s a given anyway, because trainees signing to an agency have zero barganing power.  If you don’t sign up to their deal, they won’t negotiate – they’ll just forget about you and sign up one of the other thousands of hopefuls.

Is bad mixing on K-pop songs really obvious? My friend swears there is a real difference between groups but as someone who is musically deaf I can’t tell unless it’s an extreme case.

It’s exceptionally rare for k-pop songs to be mixed poorly, at least these days.  Mixes might sometimes be eclectic or whatever, but that’s a conscious choice on the part of the engineer to experiment and it’s subjective whether you like the result.  There’s a difference between “doing something differently, just because” and “not knowing what you are doing”, and the latter is extremely unusual in k-pop from 2008 onward.  Your friend is probably confusing the two.  You really have to go to the ultra-nugu groups to see examples of technically bad mixing.  More info here.

So what would be your thoughts on bands like Protest The Hero.  I feel technically they’re proficient but that that doesn’t resonate with just about anyone. Although does it fit into the it doesn’t matter how good your music is if you make crap it’s crap.

Technique in music is a means to an end.  In k-pop technique of execution isn’t required because the systems of delivery are sophisticated enough now that it really doesn’t matter, you can get the same result from just about anybody, and the things that people find “catchy” in pop songs aren’t technically difficult to execute.  There’s a really basic reason for this – people like to be able to sing along to their favourite songs, either out loud or at least in their own head, that’s part of what makes music enjoyable to people, and the more complicated the melodies are, the harder this is to do.  That’s why very repetitious songs often make the best pop music – people criticise pop music for being repetitive all the time but it’s that very quality which often makes the songs work so well.  In this type of music, the technique to play or sing complicated passages is more or less redundant.

In the case of Protest The Hero and similar groups in this metalcore/post-screamo/whatever the fuck you call it genre,  the complicated guitar and drum lines are not just there just for showing-off purposes, it’s supposed to sound “chaotic” and add to the feel of “controlled chaos” within the greater musical context of the songs.  Whether it works for you or not is another matter of course.  Personally I find that these type of groups do definitely convey that chaotic feeling but really sacrifice catchy elements to their music for the most part.

Good Day Sir,
I have a few questions; so pick and choose how you see fit, and Thanks in advance.

1. The YouTube comment section is toxic cancer…
Some of these “fans” are batshit crazy; and I think to myself, did I use to act that delusional when I was 12yrs.
2. These fangirls/boys are always auguring about their bias being treated unfairly.
3. My personal “favorite” battle quote
I’m a insert fandom name here to support insert fandom name.
Why do people do this!?
4. The new trend I notice a lot recently going on
Ex: CLC did a girl crush concept earlier this year, and was pretty successful with the international audience I’d say. However, their new comeback was soft, slow, and sweet; and a lot of international was highly upset by this. Then people come to the group defense by saying they need to be popular in Korea first before they can prosperous in other countries. I don’t see the logic behind that. I see many artistes/bands become fruitful, just by doing the touring route or just become famous in another country. I mean look at U-Kiss for example. Any thoughts?

As far as YouTube comments are concerned, you’re asking the wrong questions.  You should be asking yourself “why do I care?”.

The “you must get popular in Korea first” bullshit that k-pop fans do is just international fans copying the line of thinking that Korean netizens have demonstrated, because so many fans are trend-following fuckwits who can’t think for themselves and for some strange reason attribute massive levels of important to Korean netizen comments that really do not matter.  There’s no rational reason for an international fan to want a k-pop group to achieve Korean popularity before they go overseas.  It’s objectively much better for any artist in any genre to get out of their own country and spread their music to other corners of the world if they have the opportunity to do so.  In no other genre of music do fans ever say “please don’t tour – get popular in your home town first!”.

I see you’ve made a list of genres in K-pop and mention “soundalikes” for certain songs. Would you be interested in creating an open-source list of K-pop songs and their respective soundalikes? I know I have a mental list going, and I’m sure there are others who have recognized inspirations for other K-pop songs. Plus, it’ll give people a chance to branch out music-wise and hear old 70s, 80s, and 90s “versions” of K-pop songs that they like.

No, absolutely not.  The point of my posts about song soundalikes is to get people to realise how common this sort of thing is and to get them to STOP caring about it, not to get them to START caring.  Making such a list for its own sake would therefore have exactly the opposite effect to what I intended.  Listeners of k-pop should just calmly accept that every single k-pop song is a soundalike of something else and move on.

hi caonima oppar, first time QRIMOLE asker, long time ask.fm spammer. i recently saw a clip of Cao Lu in which she revealed that she’s made 0 won from Fiestar activities (which I’m sure is no surprise to you), and from there she talked about her plans to open her own business to support herself in the future, because she is very unlikely to receive a windfall from her kpop career at this point in time, on the cusp of her 30s. Cao Lu’s situation got me thinking though, how likely is it that an average, less-than-successful idol will find success in a second career as they wrap up their kpop activities? personally i’m not sure very many idols are primed to be successful business owners, especially those who get into idol training very early in life and become quite sheltered as a result. if they borrow money to start a business and it fails, then it will just add to their mounting debt. anyway i would love to hear your thoughts on idols’ financial planning and money management side of things for those who aren’t successful as entertainers. do they stand a chance to be financially independent without help from sugar daddys/mamas? if so, what does it take to pull it off? thanks for answering (if you do)!

I don’t think any idol’s chances of being self-sustaining after a k-pop career through business activity are necessarily any better or worse than anyone else’s chances.  Going into business for yourself is very difficult to do well, requires a lot of planning and forethought and is exceptionally time-consuming.  It’s a really easy thing to fuck up, too, whether you’re famous or not.  The people I know who run their own businesses work harder than anybody else I know, whether successful or not.  To answer this question in more detail I’d have to know exactly what sort of business she was getting involved in.  Hopefully Cao Lu gets into the business of pissing off netizens full-time instead of just as a hobby, she should be good to go with plenty of experience.

I know you’ve already talked about the advantages of putting out 2 MVs at once, and how it ups the chances of having one become very popular. My question is more about the promotion stuff – if, let’s say, the company wanted to release 2 songs at once, but they think that one of them sounds way better than the other, would they promote that one more? When AOA, Psy and Taeyang used this technique, I felt like every time they promoted the least interesting song MORE. Is it meant to be that way so that both songs make it big or is it just a coincidence?

I don’t follow promotions closely enough to notice whether this is actually true or not and really I couldn’t care less as long as both songs come out and I get to hear them both.  You should stop caring too.  It’s not absolutely essentiall that a group performs every song they have 57 times on all the different music shows.  Who cares what gets played more or what is popular.  If you’re going to continually worry about whether what companies do lines up with your personal taste, you’re in for a frustrating life.

I don’t know if this is eligible for V Files because surprisingly I don’t actually see it applied to K-pop all that often, only really just American R&B singers. But I’ve seen fans/critics praise singers (particularly those like Brandy and Beyonce) for their vocal arrangements, and how this makes them “”real artists”” in a way that supposedly makes up for them not writing their own material. What does this actually mean? When I asked the people discussing this, I only got some answer about ad libs that made little sense to me. I’d think that any form of song arrangement would be down to the producer of a song unless otherwise credited, right?

Most people who talk about “vocal arrangements” in the world of k-pop actually don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.  I’ll clarify more in a future post.

I’m worried about AI taking away jobs, and I’m also realistic about my intellectual shortcomings, especially relative to my peers, which makes me concerned about my future. What do you think are some non-tech job sectors that will never go away?

Right now machines can do basic factory work.  They’re gradually also starting to be able to do basic service jobs.  Eventually they will get smarter and be able to be more complicated jobs.  Machines are very good at doing exactly what they’re told, so they’re perfect for any task where you just need to be able to do a thing over and over.  Where machines struggle is when a situation comes along that is outside of the general pattern.  The types of human jobs that will survive AI are the ones that involve redefining processes themselves, or thinking outside existing processes.  An AI can currently do exacting tasks and even now evolve over time to do the task better, but what it can’t do is perceive its own limitations, something that humans do exceptionally well.  Nowadays a robot can work out how to climb a staircase, but what the robot can’t do is roll up to a staircase, say to itself “gosh, I’m a Dalek, I can’t climb that, I’d better build myself some legs” and then commission a factory to make itself body parts.  When it can – watch out.  Until then, you’re safe.

There is weird sample/sound clip (not sure how to accurately describe it) that I’ve been hearing a lot: it’s in the beginning of Heize’s Don’t You Know with a similar (albeit shorter) version in Fruity by Hyolyn. It’s sounds like someone saying “area” or in the longer version “groove it, area.” I’ve heard it before elsewhere, but I can’t think of where now. I don’t know why it’s bothering me, but it is. I also don’t know enough to figure out what it is, but I figured maybe you do? Also, on a related note, why does this one sound keep appearing? Is it a signature of a producer? Thanks!

It’s a signature of producers GroovyRoom, who throw the sound at the start of a lot of their tracks.  Here’s a couple more.

GroovyRoom are quite popular right now because they make that smooth boring shit sound that Korea loves to death so you’re going to hear this sample probably a lot more in your future, or at least until all those coffee beans Koreans have been drinking finally kick in and they want to hear something decent again.

Hey oppar!!!
Any tips on how to write anything with those shitload amount of words like what you usually do and still make it focused? Whenever i tried to do that, usually it looks like a complete nonsense to anyone who read it.
And have you ever stuck in writer block? How do you resolve it?
Thanks!!

It’s hard to tell you how to improve your writing without actually seeing any of it.  Feel free to send me writing examples (via email please) and I will write you back with tips.  Writing is really just organising thoughts so someone else can understand them.  I never really get writer’s block, k-pop is stupid enough to always generate things to write about.

Hey, just wondering why don’t you put disqus on your blog?

1. Fuck being able to “vote” comments up and down, it rewards hive-minded fucking bullshit thought and penalises people who think differently.
2. Not having Dicksuck really annoys stupid people, and annoying stupid people is an important part of Kpopalypse blog.
3. I’m not sure that WordPress supports Dicksuck properly anyway.
4. I don’t consider blog comments to be that important.  Unlike every other cunt I don’t bow to the sacred altar of random comments.  That’s because I don’t care what other people think, in general.  Sure, if they like my stuff that’s nice and I love them, but I don’t give any fucks about “expanding my audience” or whatever ducksucking crap.  This blog will find people who appreciate it naturally.

Having said all that if WordPress bothers to ever do a smooth implementation of Dicksuck I’d consider it anyway just so it would annoy even more people and they can call me a hypocrite and ask “why do you have Dicksuck when you said you hated it so much”, that would be amusing to me.  However I don’t think WordPress are ever going to do this.  It’ll probably never happen.

Hi oppar!! I hope you’re fine!!

There is this guy whom i become close with, maybe closer than it should be. We used to be a simple college friend who happened to be in same class for years and he maybe only guy who become very close to me (i’m an awkward person and rarely talk to guys on personal stuff) and i really value our friendship even though he kinda annoying and sometimes depends on me for homework and money (well not that much but still very often). Our relationship was a platonic friend initially.

Started from last year, sometimes we watch movies together because we shared similar interest in movies (and most of my girl friends are either broke, horror fans, or not into watching movies in theater so i have no option other than watch alone or with him). Earlier this year, he started holding my hand when we’re ‘date’. Initially, i rejected it but didn’t say anything because i didn’t want to make him feel bad. On next ‘date’ he did it again but somehow i didn’t reject him and we finally going together more often and we become more intimate and he even came to my house whenever he know i’m alone, yet we decide to keep everything as secret and not tell anyone about our relationship (although some of our friend suspected it).

Maybe because i was very naive, when he came to my house to pick me for another movie date, i thought he really only do that. Instead, he started hugging me. When i asked him why he started doing all these things, he said we’ve become closer and it’s understandable that we’re in ‘friend with benefit’ stage. I never date anyone so i accepted it because i wanted to have a ‘boyfriend’. Then he groped, kissed, and even tried to have sex with me (well he only said he wanted to bring me to my bedroom because i was looked super tired at the time but i knew his intention) without my consent and really got angry and rejected him whenever he want to come to my house (he came anyway).

I realize that i don’t really want him as my boyfriend (he’s smoking, which i hate very much, a bit helpless (he’s pretty much a freeloader in whenever we have a group study), many people-include myself-don’t take him seriously, and i don’t even think my family will like him) and decide to avoid him as much as possible (incld not respond his chats) and never having a ‘movie date’ with him anymore for months. At the end of the year, we’ll graduated and i hope i won’t see him often. Yet i still can’t bring myself to outright tell him that i don’t want to be his ‘girlfriend’ anymore and sometimes i still think of him fondly and even dreamed having sex with him once.

What do you think about this? I never spoke to anyone about this and i thought, although we don’t even know each other, it’s not that bad idea to talk to you about this. I’m sorry that it’s too long and not even related to kpop or music. Thanks!

I’ll answer any questions, it’s fine!

Seriously though, how many things are you going to put up with from this creepy rapey dude because you “don’t want him to feel bad”?  Are you going to have his baby and buy a house with him because you “don’t want him to feel bad” too?  You have to draw the line somewhere, and I’d recommend drawing it as sharply and quickly as possible.   There’s nothing wrong with making people feel bad if it’s justified.  Sometimes people should feel bad.  He might still have a few good qualities or even be worthy of the odd fap but that doesn’t make him a good person overall if you don’t feel good about being with him.  The right person is someone who you won’t want to avoid, or hide away the fact that you’re seeing from everyone else.  Kick this loser back to the gutter fast, you can do better.

Imagine what my blog writing would be like if I “didn’t want people to feel bad”, it would be boring wishy-washy bullshit, like… almost every other k-pop blog site ever.

Hey kpopalypse oppar!!!
I’ve read your qrimole posts and it’s great. Thanks a lot!!
Now i want to ask for your thought about something that not really related to kpop, but it’s kinda related on blackface and PC stuffs like that.

In Indonesia, there is a popular comedy show that airs every weekdays and sometimes it’s even aired live. One of the cast usually plays a comic relief character who wear ridiculous costumes and makeups and acts in a very OTT manner and sometimes not even related to the plot of the episode.
Sometimes this guy plays harmless characters, but other times he plays drag queen, certain ethnic group (from indonesia and other country), retarded person (well this one is very rare), and uses blackface/other-color face, and potrays these characters with stereotypes too (over exaggerated accent, behaviour, etc).
I never hear any kind of backlash towards this guy about his characters and he’s a nice person IRL (humble and often do charities). But i think he’s lucky that unlike in Korea, our entertainment programs (especially like this one) rarely exported to another country so it’s unlikely that random PC western person even know this show. I only know about PC thing when i started following kpop and its international community (NB, AJ, etc) and i don’t consider myself as PC and progressive (well by western standard) and still find the whole western PC standard kinda strange.
OTOH, i also understand some people may offended by his characters (i’m sure he never intended that) and i sometimes raised my eyebrow whenever he appears on my screen and acts ridiculously.
Should i stop watching this (problematic) show or not? I like this show (one of few comedy shows that i like).

(Sorry for my bad english)

Your English is better than my Indonesian.  I only know “Weki Meki”.

I’ve had dozens of questions just like this, and they’re all from countries where English isn’t the first language.  The “blackface” thing keeps coming up because westerners can’t let it go, and westerners are culturally arrogant and believe that everyone else in the world should respect the culture that they’ve shoved down the throats of the entire world repeatedly.  They’re at least as disgusting as the religious zealots that try to control what everyone wears, eats, says and thinks.  Almost all of the “outrage” over blackface stuff is from the USA (and a few other countries that the USA culturally invaded nice and early) and almost all the confusion about it is from countries where western culture isn’t so dominant.  Sure, you could argue that we should all bow to American culture and respect their sensitivities (especially if we want pop careers over there), but you could also validly argue that Americans should fucking bow to the rest of the world for fucking once and loosen up their vaginas a little.  Just because America is an occasional hotbed of moronic and sad racial violence doesn’t mean the rest of the world cares.  Other countries have their own problems, they don’t spend every second of every day thinking about how what they do is perceived by rich westerners with too much free Internet time.  As western culture continues to creep into absolutely everything everywhere (often at gunpoint), this issue will keep coming up, especially in countries that have a mixed relationship with western culture (i.e all of them).  It’s almost as if having illegal American-backed political interference in your home country tends to lead the local people into being disinterested in sensitivity to western cultural values, now imagine that.

Western fans online are so blinded by their own cultural bigotry that they have no sense of context about this.  Back in my school days I remember kids (of all races) painting their faces black as part of school art and drama projects where the theme was exposing and criticising racism.  The idea behind the project was “we’re all the same underneath, we’re all just people, therefore racism is bad”.  These days they’d be called racists because of the supposed similarity between this and some minstrel shows that nobody alive today has even seen, but they objectively couldn’t be more different.  That’s how it is now – you actually have anti-racist people these days witch-hunting other anti-racist people, because they’re not protesting against racism “correctly”, and putting those people in the same bracket as neo-Nazis.  Now that’s not to say that there also aren’t people online who jump on the barrow of defending blackface because they actually do have a racist agenda, and it’s also not to say that the TV show you’re watching is either deliberately racist or anti-racist – it’s far more likely that they just give no fucks.  My suggestion would be to take a leaf out of their book, ignore the online dickheads and watch what you want to watch.  Mind you the show does kinda sound like it sucks anyway, let’s not defend it too hard, I reckon if you really tried you could probably find something better on TV… I mean, you have Gfriend doing shows in Indonesia right now, why not watch those instead?

I don’t know why you seem to think minstrel shows only existed in the US; they were pretty popular across the Anglosphere. They were common in in Australia, for example. Australians not knowing about their past racism doesn’t seem to have helped with current race issues in Australia. You might want to read the New York Times op-ed “Why Isn’t Blackface Taboo For Australians” It’s an op-ed, so it isn’t the most stellar source, but it gets into Australia’s unique history and how that sets up current day casual racism.

But really, it’s because you don’t want to throw away your old golliwog doll that you keep weighing in on this constantly, isn’t it?

I had to double-check your IP address when I saw this question, I was like “how the FUCK did this person know I had a golliwog doll?”.  But of course we all had them, I actually made mine in school, in “home economics” class (a dog-whistle term for “women’s work”).  I don’t have it anymore because it fell apart because I made it so poorly, and if it makes you feel any better it didn’t meet required standards and I got a D for home economics that year.  Yes that’s right, I officially failed at racism.

Did Australia have minstrel shows?  Yes (the concept imported from other western countries, of course).  However I didn’t know this until about six months ago when someone from America pointed it out to me, which kind of says it all really.  Nobody alive today would have even seen a minstrel show.  If I was a neo-Nazi I probably would start one up though, I think all this obsession with the content of minstrel shows that don’t exist anymore pretty much guarantees that this will now happen, if it hasn’t already.

You’ve said before that kpop singers are trained to sound alike, and you’ve also said before that for certain groups (such as AOA) it is one person’s unique voice that makes their songs memorable/good. Setting aside the fact that music quality is a small aspect of what makes an idol group successful, do you think it’s standard practice to encourage/train one member of a group to sound different from everyone else on the market (not in the sense of designating someone as the one that belts in every song) or is it something that occurs a bit more serependitiously?

A “unique” voice is so incredibly rare in k-pop that I can guarantee you that nobody receives any training to be unique.  In fact the reverse is more likely to be true – if they receive any training at all, it’s to try and sound, look, act and think as much like everyone else as possible.  K-pop is like the 1950s “charm schooling”, where everyone is taught to do certain things “just so”.

If you’re wondering about the real reason why Rose sounds a bit like Bom, Teddy is probably just running them both through the same software.

Hey Kpopalypse, I’m a bit curious about Mnet’s new reality/survival series Idol School. You’ve briefly covered the results of reality shows in previous QRIMOLE segments and standalone pieces regarding how everything in reality television is scripted, but most of this seems (and correct me if I’m wrong) to come from the entertainment companies themselves. For example, on Produce 101, it’s likely that Jellyfish paid to have Nayoung, Mina, and Sejong on the series with the understanding of who would make it into I.O.I. so that they could later promote Gugudan. Same with Pledis and their eventual group Pristin, and most recently Fantagio with Weki Meki, both of which had former I.O.I. members and/or contestants that were featured prominently within the show.

It’s not that I think Idol School is in some way more “real” than Produce 101, I actually think it’s similarly scripted, but I’m confused as to where the return on investment is going and to whom. The gimmick of this show is that even more well-known contestants like former JYP trainee Natty, who was featured on Sixteen, aren’t currently with an agency or organization, so my question is who, if anyone, is paying for their screentime? Is Mnet just using the popularity of Produce 101 plus former trainees from prominent agencies plus a variety of fresh faces who may or may not turn out to be surprisingly popular with audiences (depending on editing, of course) to hopefully cash out on the temporary group that is likely already decided?

I called it ages ago with P101 – everyone who got through that show into any sort of good position was either already in a group that a label wanted to promote, or destined for one.  Idol School I’m sure is no different.  People don’t turn up on the TV station’s back doorstep with smelly underwear clutching a teddy bear and an empty food bowl, there’s an entire backend process happening where the people representing the artist are negotiating with the people running the TV show.  The TV show’s job is to fit the various entrants in various pre-ordained TV archetypes that work well for audiences, while at the same time promoting the entrants so the company behind them actually gets something out of it.  It’s a pretty complex area but the basic gist of it is – you’re getting fucked up the ass and treated like a moron while other people make money, once again.  That’s why I tend to not give any coverage to these sort of shows.  Don’t worry, it’ll all come out in the wash and then you’ll see.

Hi again! I don’t know if someone asked you this but…

Was there a KPop song that you liked at first listen then you hate the more you listen to and the other way around?

BTW…. i was shocked when my question got posted in your last QRIMOLE… like i have done something right for once… anyway thanks!

I wasn’t going to answer this one but seeing as how the answer to the other question meant so much for you, I thought I’d do you a good turn and let you know that I’ll answer this in tomorrow’s Roundup!

Thanks for all the education Kpopalypse! I definitely learned a lot about the inner workings of kpop from your posts!
You probably mentioned this before, but I was wondering, what music related things are you doing now besides the radio show?

I deliberately don’t discuss or promote my own musical activity here, because it’s not relevant to the blogging, and I don’t want to be one of those cunts who is like “here’s my great blog now buy my completely irrelevant musical output” (I’ve seen this bait-and-switch tactic on sites like Cracked a few times).  I’m not against people giving me money and in fact I strongly encourage you all to give me as much money as possible because I like money almost as much as I like boobs, but I don’t agree with the idea of baiting you to thing X by using irrelevant thing Y.  I talk about the radio show because it’s relevant, because it’s k-pop.  I don’t talk about the other stuff because it’s not relevant, as it’s not k-pop.  This is also the reason why I removed all advertising on Kpopalypse blog, and I will never put ads back up here no matter how many visitors I get.  Unlike almost every other k-pop website ever, I actually have moral values.

You’re probably aware that the members of Stellar have been hinting at discord between the group and the company. They’ve complained on SNS about album delays, made “SOS” hand signs at a music show, and reportedly told Chinese fans to stop supporting their Makestar. Two questions: 1. Should we accept these hints as trufax, or might they be part of the most cynical marketing strategy ever? (Or both?) 2. Assuming things really are as bad as they seem and the members are trapped in a contract they want to escape, how should a responsible fan support Stellar from now on?

Not much need for me to answer this one as Stellar walked the talk recently, but if you want some general advice for how to support idols, I’ll dedicate a future post to this.  In the meantime know that anything in the media that looks like k-pop idols are having a bad time is definitely NOT noise marketing.  They really are having a bad time.  More detail later.

Please debunk this whole “Dreamcatcher sounds like jpop / jrock / anime opening songs!!” notion that’s so prevalent in the comments to their MVs and such.

The only reason why Dreamcatcher sound like that crap, is because that crap is copying the same influences that Dreamcatcher are copying.  It’s a bit like saying that if you and a 5 year old child both try and paint the Mona Lisa at the same time, that your painting looks like the child’s painting.  Yeah on some level it does, but they’re not related to each other, only the source material.

Do you think the members of Kard are sleeping with each other, and if so… who is with who?

They all sleep together, with each other, in really crowded and annoying dorms, like all k-pop groups.  If they’re really lucky sometimes the two guys get one room and the two girls get the other room, but that probably doesn’t happen as often as they wish it would.

what is your take on the park yoochun issue? I’m assuming that you saw shit like this a lot during your lifetime, do you think the case is real or fake? asking this because I used to be a big fan of the dude and I’m growing more and more nervous because of uncertainty… I don’t want to stan a sex offender but I also don’t want to blame an innocent man.

I’ve got to admit that I haven’t been following his case closely (I guess I should read Asian Junkie more diligently), but the nature of sexual assault cases is that it’s exceptionally difficult to prove that anything happened, combine that with the Korean courts being fairly lenient regarding any sort of sex offence and you can guarantee that most people get off with a slap on the wrist at most whether anything happened or not.  Having been in the industry for forever, sexual harassment and sexual assault is actually somewhat normalised in the entertainment business, but you still can’t assume people are guilty or innocent – unless someone admits to it, or both sides give a compelling and matching view of events, you’re simply not going to know the truth.  Don’t worry about “stanning a sex offender” – it’s okay to like someone’s music without necessarily having to like everything about the person, it should be easy to separate those two things.  Of course k-pop tries to “sell the star” and bring the music and the person together so they’re inseparable, but that’s actually just an illusion created by really savvy marketing.  Ignore the music machine’s trickery and whether Yoochun is an asshole or not should bother you less, but if you really can’t detach yourself emotionally and you’re still in doubt just remember Amy’s theory – you can’t fit five women in a bathroom.

Hello!

Hello!

I have a question about vocal production and audio quality.

The other day I was listening to top 40 radio in the car while driving at high speed. The engine and tires create high levels of noise, but the radio is loud enough that vocals and leading instruments are audible. Under these conditions all singers sounds exactly the same; all songs could be sung by exactly one person, except I recognize some and know that they are by different artists. When we later put on a commercial pop CD from 10-15 years back, the singer’s voice retains its individuality and never gains that “one voice of pop” sound, but he occasionally gets drowned out, and some of his consonants might as well not exist. Is this because of the change in format, or because the CD dates from an earlier period, or some mix of both? If the difference is because of the difference in production dates, have the production styles changed because of fashion or because modern producers prioritize audibility over personality when it comes to vocals?

An example of what kind of a quality actually survives in the background noise:

It’s the screech that plays during EXO’s KoKoBop breakdown. The one that goes down and up in pitch? Basically, if that sound was played in a car, it would sound exactly the same as anyone of Red Velvet during any part of Red Flavor.

If you’re listening to music on a reasonably good sound system of some kind, you ideally have full-spectrum audio, or something close to it.  This means that the entire frequency field is being reproduced accurately, with few peaks and troughs.  However a cheap car stereo, a portable stereo, laptop speakers, a telephone speaker – these are all examples of situations where the frequency field is altered due to the type of equipment.  Laptops and phones have tiny speakers that often don’t have high fidelity and aren’t capable of reproducing all frequencies more or less equally, so they sound like tinny garbage (but will then sound fine if you plug headphones in).  Car stereos are sometimes better, but sometimes not – if you’ve ever turned up a song really loud and you hear that farting noise when the bass drops, it’s because you car stereo speakers are just too crap to reproduce that noise properly.  Car stereos are also heavily compromised by the car itself, it’s hard to create an ideal acoustic listening environment when you’re welding speakers to a door frame which may or may not contribute negative elements to the sound, one loose panel or weird air cavity can be enough to change how you hear the music. Then add the fact that the car is moving, and you’ve got the noise of the engine and tyres cutting out some of the audio, this is called “audio masking”.  However those noises don’t cut out everything, they only cut out the frequencies which they operate at.  Engine and tyre nose tends to be “low-mid”, and so you’re mainly hearing the treble cut through on your k-pop recordings while everything else is drowned out.  In k-pop, large amounts of audio excitation and very present vocal mixing means that the vocals are front, center and very trebly, so they cut through just fine.  Take the k-pop CD out and put on something that is less-highly produced or where the vocals are in a completely different range and you probably won’t hear them at all.

This is no accident.  People who make pop music know that you’ll be listening to it in less-than-ideal settings, so they mix the songs deliberately to suit the maximum number of audio environments.  A perfect mix is one that sounds good on the best sound system ever, but also sounds good on shitty phone speakers, in your car stereo, on your laptop with no headphones plugged in etc, it’s the mark of a producer who knows what they are doing, and as covered before in this post almost all k-pop producers are exceptionally technically competent.

Hey kpopalypse oppar!!
I know most people have different taste in music but i’m wondering why you prefer upbeat songs like *insert any T-ara and Crayon Pop songs* more than *insert any ballad, vocal wankery, tropical house songs*. Is it because your background as musician and not speaking Korean or there are other factors??

I’m not a boring cunt like the average conservative Korean fuck, perhaps.  Imagine listening to music while you’re on hold with your telephone company and thinking to yourself “boy I wish more music was like this”.  That must be Koreans, every day.  Also I grew up on highly loud and offensive heavy metal and rap music (back when rap was good).  That might have had something to do with it.

Do you have any tips for beating stage fright? I do semi-regular performances at my school as part of a dance club and love the act of actually performing, but the entire day beforehand I am essentially incapacitated with awful anxiety. I can be anxiety prone to start with and am rather introverted, but consider myself generally confident. Pro-tips?

Some people say “imagine the audience naked” and I’ve tried that, but then I just get distracted by perving at them and I forget where I am in the song.

The very first band that I was in, in high school, boy we sucked.  We were actually the worst band ever.  We were worse than all the bands in the below video.

There’s no footage I can share because nobody with a camera would have dared to turn it on while we were performing, camera film was precious back then, you didn’t waste it on shit like us.  I can’t tell you the band name because I’m pretty sure we didn’t have one, we spent most of our rehearsals arguing with each other and as far as I remember nobody ever reached an agreement on what we should be called.  Because we fought so much we maybe got to play for 10 minutes for every hour that we were practicing, the rest of the time people would just make noises with their instruments while waiting for everyone else to do something.  When I heard “Bad News” and the way the people in that band talked to each other, I was blown away, it was just staring into a mirror.

So as we were obviously complete utter shit, we were booed off stage often, we had objects thrown at us a lot, people turning the electricity off on us to try and get us to shut up, audience starting fights with us, etc.  We did of course deserve all of this treatment because we were absolute musical trash that should not have existed.  Being in this shitty band completely robbed me of all stage fright forever, I was only afraid for my first show, after that never again.  After the first show wen I was onstage I asked myself “well what am I afraid of – what’s the worst that could happen?  People hate us and boo us off stage and want to kill us?  Well, that’s actually happening right now, and I’m still here, so what’s the big deal about it really?  Fuck it, who cares!”  I don’t recommend that you join a band as worthless as mine (although you could try and get into 88Rising’s crew if you really wanted) but maybe if you can mentally place yourself there for a while it might make life easier for you.  I went through the worst of it and I’m still here, so you’ll be just fine.

That’s all for another QRIMOLE!  There will be more QRIries answered in another month, until then if you have a question for QRIMOLE, please ask it below, or if the question box doesn’t appear, click Qri on the sidebar!  Until next time be a safe and happy caonima!

It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out some new releases!

Scan-dol of the week – Wheein (Mamamoo)

Hyuna – Babe

Hyuna takes a crack at IU’s conceptual territory because she’s just as sick as you are of closet pedophile “concerned fans” trying to make her act more “innocent” so they can fap, but unfortunately her version of the end result isn’t even as good as when IU did it.  At least it’s not another yolo comeback, gotta be thankful for that at least.

Lee Gikwang – What You Like

Evidently Lee Gikwang doesn’t know what I like, or he wouldn’t have been the 78th k-pop artist to try tropical shithouse this year.

IZ – All You Want

What’s the bet that these kids don’t even know how to drop a needle onto vinyl properly.  You can tell by the way they hold it.  Don’t get your dirty fingerprints all over the playing surface you greasy little fucks.

IM – Sad Story

At least there’s some electric guitar in this crap ballad.  What’s with the shit two-letter group names though, why is this a trend.

Good Day – Rolly

Something about this song doesn’t quite fit together, it’s probably the I-IV-I progression and 50s rock feel of the “Lolly” part combining with the typically k-pop everything else.

Golden Child – DamDaDi

That “oh yeah!” is a well-known and no doubt illegally-snatched sample but watch k-pop fans make absolutely no noise about this, because this is a new boy group.

10cm – Phonecert

Holy fucking shit this is pretty crap but it’s like goddamn Slayer by 10cm standards.  Let’s start a circle pit!  FUCKING MOSH CUNTS

Miso – Pink Lady

Hey boys and girls it’s one of the Girls Girls girls, from Girls Girls’ “Girls Girls“.

Black6ix – Like A Flower

I crossed my fingers as it started building up the chorus: “please let it not be tropical shithouse this time, please please please….” – oh well.  Better luck next time I guess.

BONUS SONGS

Junho – Fine

Fangirls couldn’t fap to this lyric video with no Junho images, and the song is boring, so what’s the point of it?

Vixx LR – Whisper

What does LR stand for?  Lazy Rubbish?  Leftover Rejects?  Lame Reviews?

Zsum ft. Nari – Ah Yah So Nice

More toot toot fucking balls but at least the video has some nice prim and proper dance moves.

Dreamcatcher – Sleepwalking

Dreamcatcher go for a late 90s drum & bass influenced sound, and incredibly make one of the worst styles of music in history actually work.  Can they do no wrong?

Henry – That One

Henry has had some good songs through the years.  This isn’t one of them.

Rose – Picture

If I was singing or playing on this I’d want my face kept in permanent shadow too.

Pentagon – When I Was In Love

It’s considerate how this trash is only two minutes long.  Most ballads are twice that length so I appreciate them wasting 50% less of my time than usual.

Trei – Up

I loaded this song up to review it and started reading something else on the Internet and then forgot that this was even on.

U-Kwon & P.O – Winner

It’s like Block B Bastarz with most of the bastarz removed.

Taeil – Lost & Found

Taeil’s song is far worse though.  I guess Taeil is the designated “boring ballad” member of Block B.

Jackson Wang – Pavillion

Okay well that settles that – Jackson can’t rap.

10cm – Help

Okay so this is more in keeping with 10cm’s usual garbage music.  No wonder Korean Indie is an alcoholic, you would be too after listening to three albums of this crap.

Yeseo – Silhouette

This girl’s very non-Gangnam looking face is fascinating, pity the song isn’t.

Jessica – Starry Night

Look at this grainy, crusty video.  It’s almost as if YouTube isn’t her best friend.

K-Bridge – Dream-O-Clock

Snore-o-clock, they’re not fucking kidding.

Lee Seung Hwan – God Of Money

I can’t remember which awful western song this is ripping off but it sucks.

Dean ft. Yerin Baek – Come Over

Even when Dean gets a semi-reasonable-almost-not-shit beat he can’t do anything decent over the top of it.

Jeong Sewoon & Sik-K – Just U

GroovyRoom are one of k-pop’s worst producers.  Even with something relatively upbeat like this they still manage to fuck it up.

Moon Yirang ft. Hoody – Aphasia

Remember last week when that Hoody song came out that was actually almost listenable?  I knew that wouldn’t last.

Crush – With Band Wonderlust

More bullshit.

SPECIAL BONUS WASTE-OF-TIME SHIT R&B SONGS FROM PRIMARY THAT NOBODY CARES ABOUT SECTION

Primary ft. Yang Yoseop – Tukk

Primary is probably the best producer in Korea, but only when he wants to be.  Most of the time he’d rather just do this bullshit R&B/funk-lite crap than anything actually good.

Primary ft. Solji – Diet

Even when he goes for the retro 80s feel he still layers it with so much R&B funk bullshit that the result is just uninteresting.  Why even bother.

Primary ft. Soyou – Right?

I think Primary just lives to annoy me.  We could be listening to another “Don’t Be Shy” but we aren’t, because Primary is too much of a faggot bitch.

Primary ft. JB – Hush

I don’t know what the point of him releasing all these songs at once is, but they all suck.

Primary ft. Kim Sungkyu – Drama

Imagine being so highly esteemed that you could work with anyone in k-pop you wanted, doing any song you like, and picking this type of trash.

Primary ft. Sandeul – Pick Up

I wonder if he makes this kind of crap by 100% creative choice or if he actually wants to do something proper but someone is paying him megabucks not to.  Either way it’s probably Korean music’s greatest musical crime.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Hyuna – Bubble Pop

Today my girlfriend showed me a “k-pop parody” which was some desperately unfunny skit from Family Guy (which is always desperately unfunny – basically The Simpsons mixed with South Park for people too stupid to understand either, and with the second layer of humour removed from both and replaced with boring, weak “bipartisan” political soapboxing for dunderheaded American TV audiences) and it was that dumb one copying Hyuna’s song that I’m sure you’ve all seen.   I told her “this might make more sense for you and be a little funnier if you’ve seen the original”, so I put on Hyuna’s “Bubble Pop” and played that to her.  After we got through about the first chorus I turned it off, as I realised that it was a pointless exercise as I remembered that nothing could help make something as lame as Family Guy become anything even approaching funny.  Also the song was annoying her at that point and I can’t really blame her, I wasn’t going to defend it.  I remember liking “Bubble Pop” when I first got into k-pop but in retrospect I think it was just Hyuna’s (natural, at that time) tits that I liked and the song was just something extra I could tolerate in the background while watching them bounce around.  That accordion-grinding noise that cuts in at the end of every eight bars is by far the best thing about the actual music, and the fact that the first appearance of the noise coincides with the video’s biggest boob bounce is probably what sold me on the song for an entire year or two before I realised that there was actually nothing else in there to listen to.

That’s all for Kpopalypse roundup this week – more next week!

Everyone knows that all idols are perfect angels who can do no wrong and should be loved at all times.  Everyone also knows that every k-pop agency is mean and nasty and only exists to oppress idols and stop them from spreading their beautiful wings like a butterfly of k-pop love.  So naturally, inquiring minds wish to know: how does one support their favourite k-pop idol without supporting the mean nasty agency?  This post has the answers!

This post is going to break down various ways you can interact with idols into a helpful list, which shows you how much the idol and the agency benefit from each action.  Read and enjoy while crying as you waste your life!

PART 1 – SHIT THAT DOESN’T BENEFIT YOUR IDOL AS MUCH AS THEIR COMPANY

BUYING PHYSICAL ALBUMS

As previously discussed on Kpopalypse blog, most of the money from buying a physical album does not go to the artist on that album.  The only time when the artist sees decent money is if the album is a mega-hit (four-leaf-clover rare) AND the idols themselves wrote songs on the album (meteor-hitting-your-house rare) AND their contract allows them to actually collect a decent return on those songs that they wrote (planets-aligning-in-the-shape-of-Jimin-from-BTS’-penis rare).  Companies typically see a much larger share of the profit from physical sales than the artists they employ, and they won’t let the artists see any money at all until they have recouped all the expenses involved in making the album.  This includes not just the music itself but manufacture of physical materials plus photoshoots for the album jacket, studio time, and also all the expenses that come with distribution, plus all the wages for the staff required to do all of this.  All of these people are standing in line before your precious idol, waiting for their paycheck, so don’t expect your bias to see a red cent until everyone else has been paid.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

BUYING DIGITAL RELEASES

Artists get the same type of ass-reaming from digital releases as they do from physical sales, as most of these arrangements are under the same contractual agreements.  The one benefit here is that overheads for the company are lower which means that there’s less money for the company to have to pay out in expenses before idols could theoretically get some money, but this benefit is completely offset by the lower costs of digital releases as far as artists are concerned.  Companies however do like not having to do as much stuff because it means less staff to pay, and that’s why super-ultra-nugu agencies will often go for digital-only releases now.  It’s much better for the company if they don’t have to worry about shipping a bunch of large inconvenient boxes of crap.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

STREAMING ONLINE

If you want to explore the true meaning of being absolutely assraped by the music industry, just read up a bit about streaming services and how much they pay artists.  This new model has been hyped as as a way forward for the business to survive, and this may be at least partially true, but it also fucks musicians of all types in the ass harder than a German Goo Girls video.  Companies love streaming, which has lately been hailed as the “saviour of the music industry“.   Profit share is actually pretty good for agencies that control their own product.  So why don’t they give any of that cash to your bias?  Because they’re cunts, that’s why.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with them having a business to run which has been teetering on the edge of the abyss for over a decade.  The only way your idol can get any real money this way is if they run their own recording label, and even then they have to be big enough to negotiate favourable terms with the streaming service.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

VOTING IN POLLS AND AWARDS

If your idol wins an award, guess what happens next?  Absolutely fuck all, that’s what.  Imagine if you all got together and voted for Kpopalypse as “most dicksucking k-pop website” and gave me a trophy for that when I won (as I surely would).  Sure, I’d be honoured, but it wouldn’t actually affect anything in real terms.  However awards, while meaningless, are a nice filler item to talk about when agency staff are writing press releases, so for agencies these stupid awards actually do have a function.  That’s the whole reason why k-pop angecies let all this bullshit go on, it’s for their benefit when trying to push the product (i.e your idols).  If a company can say someone was “most awarded” then that helps them sell the thing.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

ATTENDING CONCERTS

Idols can make money from concerts, if the company lets them, but to get anything out of it, it really does need to be a sell-out or close to it.  The average k-pop show has got a fair bit of staging involved and that shit costs money.  Big productions can start losing money hand-over-fist if the bums on seats don’t add up, and guess who is first in line to get their pay cut back to zero as soon as a production stops turning a profit?  I’m sure you’re all starting to see a pattern forming by now.  In the music business, “glamour” is often seen as compensation for lost income – the attitude of label staff is “well, the idols are getting all the shine out of this, so that means at least they get something, meanwhile we have to work real jobs so we expect to be paid!”

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

BUYING MERCHANDISE

Buying merch will generally help an artist quite a bit, it’s one of the few ways in which bands actually make money from touring.  That’s why every heavy metal band ever has a wide selection of T-shirts to choose from.  Of course, that changes when one of these two things apply:

• The artist has signed a “360 deal” which means that merchandise sales are included in the contract debt repayment plan
• The merch is bootlegged and therefore has no connection to the artist themselves

Guess what k-pop has a lot of?  Artists under disastrously-skewed lock-in contracts where they see 0% of all ancillary sales until a massive and ever-increasing debt is hypothetically paid back, plus lots and lots of bootleggers making cheap merchandise.  You’ve probably got almost no way of knowing whether that f(x) coffee mug or Monsta X tea towel is the real 100% fully endorsed deal or not, if you didn’t buy it at an actual concert.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

MASS-VIEWING ON YOUTUBE

K-pop fans are full of helpful instructions regarding YouTube along the lines of “watch once every five minutes, make sure to refresh the browser each time, watch the whole thing or it doesn’t count, don’t minimise the window, also make sure you stand on your head while drinking a cup of tea”.  How much do these instructions matter?  The truth is that YouTube’s secret viewing algorithms are known only to them, but they’re actually pretty good at detecting view-manipulation so they are able to fuck your non-organic view campaign up quite easily.  Of course, if you are going to view some idol content on YouTube in an attempt to throw a few pennies towards your bias, you can forget about the official music video – the company owns that, not your idol.  Where you should be putting your views in is the idols’ personal YouTube channels, if they’re one of the three idols in all of k-pop who is actually allowed to have one.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

WATCHING IDOLS IN DRAMAS AND MOVIES

Agencies love to put idols forward for TV shows because it’s a great way to diversify their portfolio, and once again it spices up those dreary press releases, however there’s not a lot in it for your faves unfortunately.  We’ve all heard those stories about IU getting paid $100,000 to do the voiceover for an animated penis in a Korean anime remake of Leisure Suit Larry, but unless your idol is at IU levels of fame, they’re probably getting paid about the same as every other actor in the damn TV show, which is generally not a lot.  The stories of actors getting shafted by Korean TV stations are many and legendary, with most thespians finding out that they would have made more money actually working in retail than pretending to work in retail on a TV show over the same time period.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

CROWDFUNDING

Have you ever noticed that the reward tiers for different levels of participation on sites like Makestar seem like they would cost the company almost as much to give the fans per-person as the money that you’re actually putting into each tier?  That’s because the companies don’t give the idols any cut of the profits from Makestar, so they can afford to make those rewards nice and lavish.  Crowdfunding sites like Makestar won’t even deal with you in the first place unless you’re a corporate entity, you can bet that your faves aren’t even at the negotiating table.  That’s why Stellar, the most successful girl group on Makestar so far, didn’t give any fucks about throwing Makestar under a bus when they started feeling mistreated by their agency.  They weren’t getting a penny.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

SAESANGING

Will your idol’s life be enhanced by the used menstrual pad that you slid under his dormitory door?  Will following your idol crush in a taxi make them feel more loved and needed?  Will poisoning oppar’s coffee with a mix of cyanide and your urine lull him into a deep coma of love for you, his number one fan?  Unlikely.  However what it might do is really annoy the company who will then have to spend money upping your faves’ security level – money which then gets charged to the idol’s ever-increasing debt.   Or, maybe they won’t bother, just because.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

ANTIFAN ACTIVITY

In one of his eternally-wise moments, the righteous CEO of MBK Entertanment Mr. Kim Kwang Soo said “I consider all anti-fans of T-ara to be fans of T-ara”.  Of course he’s right, as always – hating a group actively requires at least as much energy and commitment as liking a group actively.  Antifans benefit companies greatly, as antifans trend search terms for the idol higher, and give the company and their artists an increased aura of cultural relevance, who then can exploit the situation for even more money by adding “controversial” to every single paid-for news article ever and attaching ads to it.  Antifan content however does also make the poor idols miserable, but not as much as yourself as you gradually waste your life.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

ONLINE PETITIONS

As my own online petitions have proved, online petitions are very effective at changing idol behaviour.  However they are less effective at changing company behaviour.  As far as I know, KeyEast Entertainment still hasn’t sprung the required funds for new coffee tables in Kim Hyung Joong’s loungeroom so poor women who visit him will stop having accidents.  It’s all the stingy k-pop agency’s fault, and we are all poorer for this.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

SENDING GIFTS

There’s three types of k-pop idol:

1. The type of k-pop idol who is not very successful.  When this person gets fan gifts, they have to throw them out because they only have 30 centimetres squared of floor space in their crowded dorms that the agency lets them call “their own” and they don’t want to fill it with all your fucking shit.
2. The type of k-pop idol who is successful.  People who are successful get given heaps of crap all the time from everywhere but they don’t want it because their mansions still aren’t big enough for all of it.  That’s why they throw out fan gifts all the time or just give them to the guy who cleans the dorms each week.
3. T-ara’s Soyeon.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

WRITING LETTERS

Stop wasting your precious idol’s life, they get like 20 minutes of leisure time per day, they don’t want to waste it reading your essay about how you were a lost little lamb until you discovered their abdominal crunches.  Also every single letter that an idol reads gets opened and read by their company first (just like the letters you send me).

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

INTERACTING ON SNS

At least with SNS you are forced to keep it short (and don’t be one of those cunts who posts an image with text in it instead of text to get around the character limit).  However most idol accounts are closely monitored by their agency and you can’t hope for more than the most tame white-listed interactions at best.  Even if your idol and their company start going to war against each other, the company probably still wants to claim ownership over the social media presence to some degree, and there’s still things that your idol can’t say.  If you want to hear an idol tell the whole truth and nothing but, skip all that noise and go straight to Kpopalypse Intervew.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

PART 2 – SHIT THAT DOESN’T BENEFIT YOUR COMPANY AS MUCH AS THEIR IDOL

FOOD SUPPORT PROGRAMS

Companies fucking hate “food support”, they spend all that time and money trying to get your idols on the “boiled chicken breast and two bananas” diet just for you to fuck it up with your slovenly greasy yummy high-carb high-sugar western food support programs.  They hate it even more because if they complain about it, they look like the biggest cunts ever.  Send your idol a pizza and the company manager will look like a true fucking cuntosaurus if he doesn’t let the poor, starved idols enjoy it for the cameras.  Sure, the cunty managers will try and snatch it away as soon as the promo shots are over but hungry idols learn to eat fast and hide the rest like Private Pyle.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

BUYING PRODUCTS THAT IDOLS ENDORSE

Buying the trash that idols promote does benefit the company in the short term (which is the whole idea) but a powerful idol with so much brand-selling value that they can call the shots is another level of caonima as far as their agency are concerned, especially when they start insisting on “special conditions”.  The idols that really bring home the bacon and turn into megastars in Korea who can then do things like kick their agencies down the stairs and negotiate better contract terms, are the ones who line up large amounts of endorsements.  Idols are more likely to get those endorsements if the people who are doing the endorsing notice a spike in their profit margins once said idols start getting involved.  You can help here by buying the fuck out of the stupid shit that they’re selling to you.  Do it in an organised conscious way, and bring (literal) receipts.  Message the companies and say “I bought this caonima plushie because of Sulli” with a picture of the receipt itself for maximum impact.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

START A STUPID SNARKY BLOGGING SITE THAT EVERYBODY HATES

K-pop companies don’t like Kpopalypse, no they do not.  The cone of silence that I’m met with whenever I approach anyone in the industry on the management side with the details of what I do is as severe as it is deliberate, and confirms this beyond a doubt.  They don’t like this blog because I’m actually honest about the shitty nature of the music business and what idols go through.  Some idols would like to talk to me but they can’t because their contracts and legal agreements say they can’t.  That’s why it takes courageous people like ChoColat’s Melanie and Tahiti’s Sarah who have completely extracted themselves from the industry to give you the truths that you won’t read on crappy k-pop “news” sites that have both no news, and no good news.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over, but Kpopalypse is here to help

PART 3 – SHIT THAT HELPS NOBODY BUT YOURSELF

NOT BEING A FUCKING RETARDED CUNT

K-pop companies make money in a lot of ways, but it mainly boils down to making money out of your stupidity.  If you can avoid getting sucked into the silliness of idol infatuation, you can avoid a lot of crap.  Imagine being into music because of the actual music itself, instead of the way that music is sold to you.  It’s easy if you try.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over

FAPPING

You might as well.  Here, let me help with some premium fapping content.

Conclusion: your idol is getting fucked over, and there is no hope, but you can still fap

It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out some more new releases!

Scan-dol of the week – Lizzy (After School/Orange Caramel)

EXO – Power

If you want to see some of those “stand on your head and drink tea” YouTube click-campaign posts that I was talking about in my “idol support” article, you’ll find plenty in this video’s comments.  In the meantime this song won’t set the world on fire but at least it avoids most of the usual shit trends that are in k-pop right now.

Eunji – Manito

Is she trying out for the new Busker Busker lineup, this garbage certainly sounds like it.

Day6 – I Loved You

If you really loved me, you’d perform better songs.

Pentagon – Like This

Starts boring, and then builds into boring.

MXM (Brand New Boys) – I’m The One

I sense a long stay in nugudom for this group.

Flashe – Popping

Arguably there’s a potentially good song here but it’s completely ruined by some of the worst production choices imaginable.

B.A.P – Honeymoon

It’s alright I suppose but even B.A.P fans will admit that B.A.P have done much better than this.

Yoona – When The Wind Blows

And the shock of the week is that the new Yoona is a new acoustic semi-ballad AND it doesn’t suck.  And I had my “when the song blows” joke all prepared and everything.

BONUS SONGS

Soyou – The Blue Night Of Jeju Island

The crap female solos just keep coming.  It’s like when every k-pop group disbands it divides into tiny cancerous fragments.

VMC – Tik Tok

Playing the Asian servers on Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is exactly like this.

10cm – Pet

Why is the puppy wearing baby clothes.  It’s not a fucking human you freak.

Seenroot – Together

When that beat started I thought “damn I hate those stupid video intros with the logos and shit” and then I realised that this was the actual song.

San E, Penomeco, Microdot, Kebee – Fresh Up

None of this fits together, it’s just weird.  Can all of these people just stop it.

Hangzoo ft. Gaeko – Best Driver

This song makes me want to take the bus.

Zia – Sad Eyes

This person had Hwasnake in their video once.  A good enough reason to dislike this song as any other.

Na Aram & Seha – Ennui

I’d like to beat the shit out of some crappy Korean pop composers too.

Koh Nayoung – Stars

When is this shit trend going to die.  I’m counting the days.

Rocoberry – Broken Heart

She looks about as interested in this as I am.

Novadox – In My Sight

Does not meet Flying V inclusion standards.

Dasom Hyung – Think I Wanted To Be

I’ll do that post one day about why jazz is all shit.  In the meantime, here’s example 6827b.

M To M – A Wind Of You

Is this song really about farts?  It certainly sounds like it just escaped from someone’s anus.

Sleepy ft. Bloo, Liquor k.jr – So What

This cover of the Anti Nowhere League classic seems to have lost a lot of what made the original great.  They really shouldn’t have taken out the “I fucked a goat” line.

Shin Hye Sung – Still There

Another boring song to scratch off the ever-shortening list of things I care about.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Beast – Beautiful Night

This was back in 2012 when every k-pop boy group ever wanted to sound like BigBang’s “Still Alive” album, which is a lot better than what we have nowadays where they all want to sound like either a z-grade Soulja Boy or some “tropical” bullshit.  Some people do have rose-coloured glasses though.

No you dumbass.  There were plenty of fanwars back then, in fact the most notorious of all fanwars date from the Golden Age period and immediately before/after.  You just weren’t following them as closely back then.  Gradually, bit by bit, trashy k-pop websites that prioritise stupid bullshit above music slowly sucked you into following the media gossip circus shit-show and now you spend almost all of your time reading about what some k-pop singer did or didn’t do or maybe did and forget to listen to the actual music that got you here in the first place.  Hopefully these roundups are helping to drag you back onto the right path.  You’re welcome.

That’s all for Kpopalypse roundup for this week – more new songs next week!

It’s time for the second bi-yearly Kpopalypse survey!

Click the button below to get started!

(if no survey button appears below because your browser is being a caonima, click the picture of Sulli to open the survey on a separate page)

It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out this week’s new releases!

Scan-dols of the week – Madtown

Sunny & Henry – U&I

Sunny’s bridal C O S P L A Y looks so good here that I nearly didn’t notice at 1:15 where a word comes out of her mouth while her lips are closed.  Ventriloquist Sunny is real.

Gfriend – Summer Rain

The AC/DC of k-pop just released their “Blow Up Your Video”.

Junho – Instant Love

Okay, so someone at JYP really likes Cocteau Twins and decided to make Junho be Elizabeth Fraser for a song, which is a pretty balls-out move right up there with Rainbow channeling Laurie Anderson and expecting people to buy it.

Junho – Canvas

At least on this song he’s ruining a backing track that was already crap anyway so I feel less bad about the wasted potential.

Bobby – I Love You

The path to hell is paved with toot toot bullshit.

Bobby – Runaway

If there really was a god, he’d allow Bobby to be hip-hop while also looking after his hygiene.

Elris – Pow Pow

So much guitarface in k-pop videos and finally a song arrives where they could have justifiably used guitars in the video and they didn’t.  I guess they didn’t want to offend anyone.  I guess you can’t blame agencies for pandering to political correctness when there’s money to be made.

IU – Autumn Morning

I like this song only because it really lays bare how heavily post-processed k-pop vocals are in that first acapella minute.  I might use it in a blog one day.  In the meantime I’m sure “Flower Bookmark 2” will be a waste of time musically but I look forward to seeing IU in an upcoming MV wearing more slightly see-thru white fabric and being all “innocent” ahem cough.  Talk about a girl who knows exactly how to play the game.  IU is the yin to Hyuna’s yang.

BONUS SONGS

Han Yeoyoo – Life On Their Own Terms

Life on my own terms would involve not listening to this trash ever again.

D.I.P – A Likely Night

I like it how they’ve taken that stupid noise and dropped it into the chorus to make this first-half-of-2016-yolo-by-numbers seem “up to date”.

Dreamcatcher – Secret Love Song

I was listening to this thinking “hang on, this is fucking garbage… why?  Usually Dreamcatcher are great” and then I realised it was a cover of a Little Mix song.  Ah, now that explains everything.

Leesun – Cake

The song called “Cake” being good is a lie.

Lundi Blues – Gaze

I hate trawling through the “indie” channels.  It’s almost always garbage like this.  The “indie” scene or whatever in Korea needs some serious hard drugs injected into it.

Sugarbowl – A Very Special One

I nearly fucking cut my thumb off the other day which is why you didn’t get any other posts last week apart from the survey, but I decided to still do a roundup this week as roundups are pretty light on the word count compared to my usual posts so I wouldn’t fuck my thumb up too much.  Anyway I hope you’re appreciating the physical pain I’m going through now just to type to you that this song fucking sucks and you shouldn’t listen to it.

20 Years Of Age – Not Him

More boring trash that isn’t worth the movement of your mouse finger muscle.

Legit Goons – Junk Drunk Love

When Deepflow eating a hamburger is the most interesting thing about a song and video you know you’ve got quality issues.

Sik-k, ph-1, Jay Park – Iffy

Whenever you hear that “groove it area” or whatever the fuck it is at the start of a song, you know you can just stop listening, safe in the knowledge that you’re not missing anything of interest.

Rocoberry – Bob Shou Wa

In a country where most of our own TV animal mascots were eventually arrested for pedophilia, this shit just creeps me out.

Skilleto – Get High

My god it’s every DJ Muggs production from the early 90s compressed into one song, didn’t expect that.

Yoon Hyun Sang – Silhouette

If only the song was as fast as their keyboard skills.

Jisoo – Vague

Vague indeed.  This song doesn’t even know what type of boring it wants to be.

Gugupapa – Last Day Of The Month

Gugudan’s fathers thought they’d drop a song with some advice to help the girls in Gugudan deal with their monthly cycle.  You can’t knock that for solid parenting.

Sway.D ft Superbee & Goretexx – All I Got

The green shapes off to the side are to help you aim better if you want to bottle him off the stage.

Jannabi – She

Hofner instruments are rubbish.  That bass guitar in the video goes for about $5000 even in shit condition nowadays just because Paul McCartney played one in The Beatles, but the price has got nothing to do with the quality that’s for sure.  The fact is Hofner were cheap student-grade instruments back in the day and back when the Beatles first started out they all had them because they couldn’t afford anything actually good, as soon as they started making money they bought decent instruments instead.  The only reason Paul still played his stupid Hofner was because it was the only electric bass available at the time that didn’t look fucking stupid when played left-handed.  Trust me, I own a pre-Beatles Hofner guitar and that’s dogshit too, it plays like ass, it’s not even built properly, it even fell apart once because I visited a friend who lived about 300 metres higher in elevation than me and the guitar couldn’t handle the change in air pressure, then I had to glue the fucking overrated piece of shit back together.  Something like a Squier Affinity strat is miles better than the student instruments of the 1960s, there’s a reason why Squier and Epiphone is in every guitar store and Hofner isn’t.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Produce 101 – Pick Me

I didn’t write about this song much when it came out because it was too boring and shit to really even rate a mention and I didn’t assume that people were so suckered in by Korean reality TV bullshit that they’d actually care about this crap.  More fool me as everyone leaned against the fecal trough to take another lick of the runny distended turds shat out from the k-pop hate machine.  Notice how occasionally they zoom in on some random girl individually?  How many of those girls who they zoom in on individually actually made it into I.O.I?  It’s not a rhetorical question, I really don’t know the answer because I find all the I.O.I girls to be bland as fuck and can barely even tell them apart, but I’m willing to guess quite a few, and I’m also willing to guess that’s not a coincidence.  There’s nothing random about any of this, it’s as regimented as those triangle formations.  K-pop companies hate you.  This song is their contempt for you, with 101 girls emotionally ground down for your entertainment into a singular prism of disdain.

That’s all for this week, more songs rounded up next week!  In the meantime don’t forget to do the Kpopalypse survey if you haven’t, you’ve still got a few days to fill it out!  Until next time, caonimas!

The latest Kpopalypse survey is still going at the time of writing, but one of the overwhelming responses is that most readers think that the Kpopalypse dreams series is fuckin’ stupid.  I already knew this because my website stats don’t lie, but seeing it confirmed was amusing.  Naturally this has prompted me to finish Kpopalypse dreams V, because I blog for my own entertainment first and foremost!  Read on and enjoy the crazy, and perhaps be thankful that your k-pop related dreams are probably not this fucked up!

WARNING: these dreams are actually completely fucked.  You should probably stop reading now.

I’m called into a meeting by SM Entertainment.  Several military officers are here, they are talking about their plans to unite Korea using the power of SM.  They run a Powerpoint presentation and I sit down and watch.  There are about a dozen chairs in front of the presentation but I am the only one watching.  The presentation talks briefly about Korea’s war history, and then details the plan – to try to seduce Kim Jong Un into seeing the benefits of South Korean lifestyle using Shindong fanservice.  It is assumed that Kim Jong Un is secretly gay for Shindong and that he would appreciate seeing Shindong’s flesh enough to unite Korea under South Korea’s terms.  The officers then ask me to take photos of Shindong in semi-nude “erotic” poses and send them to Kim Jong Un’s phone.  I reply that I’d be happy to do this to help further the cause of world peace.

I’m in a domestic kitchen, Sorn is here.  Some doo-wop music is playing, and Sorn is dressed in a red and white polka-dotted dress.  Sorn is drinking a milkshake through a straw.  I notice that the straw fits perfectly in one of the corners of her upper lip, like it was especially designed for a straw to go there.  I think about saying something to Sorn about this but I worry that it might be perceived weirdly so I decide not to.

I’m reading the entertainment liftout section of my city’s local newspaper.  It’s a gay-themed liftout and the first few pages are dedicated to gay hookup stories, with accompanying surreal drawings of buff guys holding their big penises while looking at each other and smiling.  After this is a section on T-ara, written by Jacques Petersen (Arcadey), it’s similar to the piece that he wrote for Billboard about T-ara getting stronger because of their haters and uses much of the same text.

I’m at the radio station and I have some downtime between shows that I’m supposed to DJ, so I play a round of Counter Strike: Global Offensive to kill some time.  During one round I spraypaint a wall with one of the more suggestive pictures of IU where the other team can see it, and then start shooting at them from behind some cover.  I don’t kill anybody (as usual – I’m quite bad at this game), but the distraction of the image and my constant wayward shots pin down the entire enemy side in one location allowing the rest of my team to approach them from another angle without being detected and easily wipe them out.

Later that day, an email comes through the radio station’s bulletin board:

This is LOEN Entertainment.  You have found to be using an unauthorised image of IU in a computer game.  This is an infringement of our intellectual property and carries serious penalties.  Please explain how you acquired this image and inserted it into the game.

Fortunately I don’t have to respond, as someone at the radio station responds on my behalf.

Anybody can insert any image into the game, it’s a simple process.  The image in question is low-resolution and is only on screen for a few seconds before it was obscured by bullet holes.  We have attached video evidence of this.  We don’t believe that this usage constitutes a legally actionable violation of intellectual property.

I leave my computer and go into the break room, which is actually a small outdoor beer garden.  IU is here.  She is wearing a black jumper and black leggings, she’s very attractive but it’s also really noticeable how skinny she is.  A few of my radio station friends have gathered around, they don’t really know who she is but they’re all excited to see a k-pop star in the flesh.  We all sit down at a table.

IU smiles.  “I’m glad to meet you.  I don’t care about my label, I liked it that you were using my image.”

“Thanks!” I reply.

“Don’t worry about their email.  I hate them, they’re so boring.  I want to do some more photos and some collaborations.  Who should I choose to do photos with?”

I think for a moment.  “Definitely Suzy from miss A.  Anyone from T-ara.”

“That’s a good idea, it will really annoy people.  That would be funny.  I’d like to do photos with Jiyeon.”

“What about Sulli, is she still in k-pop?”

IU laughs.  “Sulli will never return to k-pop!”

We all have some lunch and my friends buy IU drinks.

I’m reading an online article on Brietbart news, about the changing demographics of k-pop.  The writer says that due to changing economic circumstances across the globe, k-pop is making the shift to marketing towards more middle-class right-wing fans because lower-class left-wing fans are now too poor to afford Internet connections.  As an example of a song marketed in this manner, the article showcases a new video by F-ve Dolls, who have reformed as a four-piece “rock” group (similar to late Wonder Girls/early AOA).  The line-up is Yeonkyung (bass guitar), Hyewon (guitar), Eunkyo (guitar and vocals) and Shannon Williams (drums).  The music video is shot in that brown building with arched windows that all the nugu groups use.  Eunkyo wears a green cardigan and huge glasses, she looks a bit like an Asian version of YouTuber Laci Green.  She smiles to camera as sings the group’s new “coffee shop” soft rock song, which I find very boring but I’m glad that F-ve Dolls are back.

Humans now live on Mars.  Most people who live on Mars are young people in their teens and early 20s, they are enticed there by reality TV shows which glamorise Mars are a trendy cool place with lots of open space and green sporting fields.  In reality it’s just lots of red, dusty hills and frightening weather.  Terraforming allows people to breathe on Mars to some degree, but the terraforming isn’t complete so people still need to spend most of their time indoors in oxygenated buildings or they get sick.  The biggest k-pop group on Mars is T-ara, who sound better there due to the atmospheric conditions.

I own a run-down apartment on Mars, I don’t live there but I rent it out to some people.  I’m over there visiting, and I’ve just finished inspecting my apartment, and I’m driving around town.  Everyone who lives on Mars lives in one small city, which is quite crowded with lots of traffic problems, all the people drive beat-up 1950s/60s cars with little regard for road safety, and all the roads are dirt with no traffic signals.  All of a sudden a meteor shower breaks out.  Meteor showers are very dangerous here, the meteors are big and lots of them fall at once, wrecking cars and buildings and killing people.  When humans colonised Mars they didn’t consider the regularity of meteor showers would make the place nearly unliveable.  I drive past an intersection where there’s a roundabout in the middle with a picnic bench that is covered in blood and entrails, a meteor obviously landed right in the middle of it when some people were having a gathering.  I see people screaming and rushing to get inside buildings, however the traffic is jammed and there’s lots of people on the roads, so getting to safety is difficult.  I decide not to worry about it, I figure if it’s my turn to get hit by a meteor there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.  No meteors hit me.

Eventually I get out of my car and start walking down a long hill by a road.  Cars are jammed bumper to bumper going in the opposite direction, up the same road.  There’s an auditorium at the top of the hill and T-ara are playing there tonight, everyone in town is going.  Because I’m walking down the hill away from the concert, some people assume I’m a T-ara hater, they jeer at me from their vehicles and scream insults.  I don’t give them any attention, I know their assumptions are wrong but I wouldn’t be believed if I told them so I just keep walking.

I’m in T-ara’s old dormitory, standing in the doorway.  There are six beds in one small room, making it impossible to move in the room at all without climbing on the beds.  The doorway and hall outside are really dirty.  Eunjung is here, sitting on one of the beds.

She says “this room is a lot dirtier now than it was in 2011 when we were living here all the time.  However, if you want to see something even worse, go next door, that’s Dal Shabet’s dorm.”

I walk out into the hallway and go next door.  Dal Shabet’s dorm is just one solitary toilet cubicle.  It doesn’t even have a sink, and the walls and floor look like they haven’t been cleaned in a long time.  There is graffiti on one of the walls, next to the toilet roll dispenser – “Yoochun was here”.

I’m watching KARD’s live show in Chicago.  They are standing in a row on stage, talking to the audience and clarifying their “racist lyrics” controversy.  Jiwoo addresses the audience.

“We all have our own opinions about words and when it’s okay or not okay to use them.  However our tour manager read some articles on the Asian Junkie blog and that told us that some people would be upset if we sung the word “nigger”, so we didn’t sing it.  I don’t really know why it’s such a big deal not to sing “nigger”, but we really wanted to make sure that KARD is liked by everyone, that’s really important for us, so we didn’t sing “nigger”.  We hope that you understand.  Thanks for supporting us!”

The crowd applauds.  Jiwoo smiles.

I’m at a T-ara fansigning for “What’s My Name” promos.  The girls are all behind a small counter in a room that only fits a few people, talking to fans who are sad that they’re breaking up.  They’re all wearing suits like in their promo pictures.  A long queue of fans extends outside the room and onto the street.

Later I’m doing a livestream about being at this event.  Someone asks me to talk about a song that has a “10000-octave high note” according to the Korean press.  My cat sits on top of my head and looks at the monitor.  From the angle of the stream to viewers it looks like I have the eyes and nose of my cat but my own mouth.  My viewers start freaking out, so I start smiling, which looks even weirder, and my viewers freak out even more.

I’m with some Nine Muses fans.  They explain to me that they have a scheme to get Nine Muses famous and ensure their career lasts longer.  They take me into a factory where there are several machines.  They tell me that they are counterfeiting money and will send it to Nine Muses members in gift packages.

I ask them “Aren’t you worried about getting caught?”

One of the fans replies: “I just hope their manager lets them spend it and doesn’t take any off them.”

I am in an art gallery, who are displaying a Netizenbuzz art exhibition.  Various posts of hers are printed on posters in rooms.  In the very last room there’s a computer monitor on a wall which displays as a line graph the amount of times the phrase “I don’t visit that site” has been typed by me, on her site, per day.  The average is four times per day, occasionally dipping to twice per day.  I think about writing a blog response to this but give up halfway through as I decide that I can’t make the response funny or interesting enough to be worth publishing.

I’m watching some new GIFs of Sulli that have been released by Reddit/kpopfap, there are ten in total and the post says that they gradually get more extreme.  I skip straight to GIF #10 and start watching.  Sulli is in a private room at a club, with a few friends, they are all naked.  One of them is a girl with a penis who ejaculates on Sulli’s thighs.  The girl then takes a large champagne bottle and inserts it all the way up Sulli’s ass.  It slides in easily, and Sulli poops it out a few seconds later, just as easily.  Sulli is smiling happily straight to the camera the entire time.

Later an article is released saying that Sulli is the new CEO of SM Entertainment.  Her first action as the new CEO is to publicly release a list called “top ten idols who enjoy anal sex”.  Idols 1, 2 and 3 are all Sulli, the rest are all male idols who are on SM Entertainment.

I’m watching TV, there is an advertisement for the new series of Game Of Thrones.  Shannon Williams is in the ad, she’s playing a feature character.  In various footage she wears a chainmail vest and talks to some soldiers, she also rides on horseback.  There is then footage of her smiling as she stabs a horse violently in the neck.

Later, I’m driving Shannon Williams to her TV set so she can film the next upcoming episode.  I don’t know where to go, and Shannon is silent, she won’t give me directions.  I just end up driving in circles for a while and eventually stop in a green muddy field.  Shannon look at me like I’m stupid for being lost, but doesn’t say anything.

I’m watching a porn film called “IU vs BBC”.  Because it’s Korean it’s quite tame.  IU, fully clothed, bounces up and down on a bed, then she squirts some yoghurt onto a black dildo.  The dildo is shot just within frame so it looks like it theoretically could be a real penis with a guy attached, but it obviously isn’t as it’s clearly plastic and never moves.

I drive out to a place called “Koreatown”, on the outskirts, of Adelaide, Australia (which unfortunately doesn’t exist in reality).  I’m hoping to do some k-pop shopping there.  I go into a music shop that deals with k-pop, there is almost nobody here. There are DVDs of the groups Great Guys and ICIA but I decide not to buy them because I figure I can just download them at home.  However I do find Luna there, also browsing for music.

“I can take you to Utopia Town, it’s north of here.  Do you want to go?” asks Luna.

“Isn’t Utopia Town dangerous?  I heard there were floods up there.” I reply.

Luna shrugs.  “I don’t care, let’s go.”

Luna gets in my car and we drive north.  While I’m driving, Luna is watching videos on a tablet-type device.  She shows me the screen while I’m driving.

“Check this out, doesn’t Amber look great?” she asks.

I take a look at the screen.  It’s Amber in some kind of crime action movie.  She’s topless, her boobs are much bigger and fuller than I expected.  In the scene she’s threatening someone with a machete.  I’m not sure of the context of the scene as I have to concentrate on the road, but I nod.  “Amber looks quite good there”, I reply.

Luna nods to herself while smiling and continues to watch the scene as I keep driving.

I’m descending through a dungeon in a computer game, it’s a co-op game and I’m playing with a bunch of other k-pop fans.  I reach level 7, which has Egyptian-themed decor.  The floor is laid out in a long rectangle.  As we make our way around the room we get ambushed by various weird monsters and spike traps, but we soon learn how to navigate the floor safely, however what we can’t find is a way down to the next level.  We even try to cast a spell to skip a floor magically but it doesn’t work on this floor.  Eventually we notice a table with four different-coloured keys on it, but they all have odd shapes and none of them fit any doors on the floor.  After ages of running around in circles, the group is ready to give up, so I summon a cheat guide.  The cheat guide appears, a 3D animated holographic image of Raina.  She smiles and reads a scripted passage in a fake chirpy accent.

“Ignore the keys on the table, look instead for specks on the walls of different colours, these are keys that you need to combine.”  The holo-Raina reaches and picks up two tiny specks on the wall.  “Each speck represents a k-pop singer, for instance the orange one on the left represents Ailee and the green one represents Kyuhyun.”  She outstretches her hand so I can see the two specks clearly which are very small, then she closes her fist and opens it again.  Only the orange speck now remains in her hand.  “Don’t be fooled!  It will look like one speck has vanished but in fact they have both combined.  The game designers made it this way on purpose as a social comment, it’s symbolic of how two good singers tend to not work well together, so putting them on the same song is usually a mistake.  Combine all the keys and the doors will open, good luck!”

I close the cheat guide and sure enough the specks on the walls have been right in front of us the entire time.  We quickly combine them all and the entry to the next floor opens.

Just a quick announcement to all readers that I’ll be in KCON SYDNEY this weekend, as KCON organisers have kindly given me a media pass for this event. I’ll be taking photos of your faves on the red carpet (yes you read that right), experiencing all the Korean cultural stuff and things, and checking out the Friday night concert with EXO, Girl’s Day and others. A full report will be posted when I return!

If any readers are going to KCON as well and see me and feel like saying hello, please do – just look for the caonima with no hair who does not fit in AT ALL.  Happy k-popping!

Hey caonimas, it’s the blog post you’ve been waiting for – Kpopalypse’s report on KCON Sydney 2017!  Ever wondered what a KCON event is like?  Well, you probably won’t read a more blisteringly honest and detailed write-up of anything KCON than right here!

PRELUDE: HOW I ENDED UP GOING TO KCON

I was honestly torn about going to KCON.  On the one hand, it’s an important k-pop cultural event and I knew that readers would certainly appreciate the review.  On the other hand, I’m very poor at the moment and KCON couldn’t have come at a worse time for me financially, plus the lineup didn’t excite me all that much.  The fact that it’s such a sausage fest was the biggest disappointment, and even discounting that, the selection wasn’t terrific.  Girl’s Day haven’t released any good songs since 1932, WJSN are yet to make a single decent song and all the male groups on the list are sketchy at best.  It all seemed like a big case of “meh”.  My resolution: I’ll go, but only if I can somehow get free tickets.

So I asked the organisers for free tickets, and about a week later they got back to me said “sure, we’ll let you go and see the Friday night concert for free, and also do you want to cover the Friday red carpet event and the convention?”.   Unlike Twitter admins who are still umming and ahhing about granting blue-tick status to Kpopalypse on Twitter despite the fact that I’ve matured my blogging image considerably, KCON staff recognised the value and cultural relevance of Kpopalypse blog, and for this I am forever grateful.  Naturally I said yes to their kind offer, and you can thank them for any entertainment value you derive from the rest of this post.  I’m only sorry that you don’t get a review of the Saturday event as well, but I wasn’t about to look a gift caonima in the mouth.

GETTING TO KCON

The journey from Kpopalyspe HQ in Adelaide to KCON in Sydney’s Olympic Park started feeling like a weird Kpopalypse fanfiction once I boarded the Olympic Park train.  Olympic Park is the ghost town that Sydney built during the 2000 Sydney Olympics and now stands as a deserted monument to the uselessness and human folly of sporting activity and the colossal stupidity of any government that agrees to host an Olympic event in one of their cities.  There’s no direct route straight to Olympic Park on public transport, to get to Olympic Park one has to travel to inner-city scunge suburb Lidcombe (brothel three doors down from the post office, for your reference) and then catch a train from Lidcombe’s “platform zero” which both looked and sounded appropriately ominous.

Platform zero was tucked well away from all the other train platforms, and to add to the horror fanfiction atmosphere the train they used to carry people on the dedicated rail line to Olympic Park is the most rickety, creaking shit imaginable. To top it all off the train ride also gave me my first taste of k-pop insanity as I was trapped in a carriage with a girl who managed to talk for the entire train ride about all her favourite k-pop groups in one massive run-on sentence almost exactly like the one in my Ailee fanfiction.  I had no idea how realistic I made that story!

In Olympic Park there’s massive green fields and stadiums everywhere in all directions, for a city with such a highly condensed population and squeezed-in economised buildings that sell for stupidly over-inflated prices, it’s a ludicrous and jarring waste of space. Of course I had no idea where the fuck I was going but “follow the squealing fangirls” seemed like a viable navigational strategy and this led me in the direction of Qudos Bank Arena.

Qudos Bank Arena actually isn’t one of the larger stadiums in the area, it’s actually quite modest by Olympic Park standards and I’d estimate the capacity to be around 4000 if every available space in there was maxed out. However I wasn’t going into the arena itself just yet, my first task was to meet up at the information desk to get my media pass, and then go and visit the convention, so I started just aimlessly wandering around.  Some sneaky caonima spies had texted me earlier about how there was a massive queue for the convention, but I figured I could probably circumvent that somehow. I was right, as I just wandered straight into the convention space with no media pass and nobody stopped me.

After asking a bunch of security guards and venue staff who seemed to have no idea where anything was, I eventually found a small area by the SBS Popasia truck and bag check-in point where I met the very nice organiser who had greenlit my attendance and collected the media pass from her. The organiser crossed my name off a huge list – there were about thirty five people in the “press group” and I was told to wait with them. Then we were given some instructions and led around a bit, but the organiser had such a teeny tiny voice that I actually missed the large majority of what she was saying. However the crux of it seemed to be:

• Go to the convention

• Fuck around

• Meet at 5pm outside the convention to do the red carpet thing

• Go see the concert later

She probably said some other things too but I couldn’t quite hear them. There’s so much unnecessary vocalfaggotry in k-pop but here was one place where vocal coaching could have actually been useful for once, it’s hard to organise a large group of people if you have trouble acoustically projecting your voice.  Because of this acoustic impediment, I don’t know if she warned me about the fangirl stampedes. We’ve all seen them in GIFs but in real life a fangirl stampede is frightening, and I saw a few of them at KCON.

Here several fangirls are running directly towards me. They have realised that this particular fauna holding pen is the correct queue for something or other, and I happened to just be at the head of the zoned-off area at the time. Fortunately I’m completely safe as Kpopalypse is always OH&S compliant – there’s a large fangirl-proof metal barrier between me and them which is out of frame in this picture. Nevertheless I felt similar feelings to what the fictional marines in the “Alien” films must experience when they observe the face-huggers in glass enclosures, knowing that only some human engineering stands between them and certain doom.

As I strolled around I started getting quite a few questions from random strangers. Was this the line up for the high-touch? Was it the line up for the red carpet event? Where do I buy concert tickets? Can you take a photo of me and my friend against this EXO poster? As I don’t look like a typical k-pop fan, plus I was carrying a staff pass plus the passes for my radio station (which I thought might be helpful to have in case my press qualifications were called into question), people sort of assumed that I was responsible and knew what was going on. There seemed to be a bit of broad confusion about the general layout of the waiting lines, if there’s one thing that I would feed back to the organisers maybe better communication could have been an improvement as nobody seemed to know which queue was for what, and there seemed to be multiple queues for everything… or maybe there wasn’t?  I didn’t have to stand in any of them so it didn’t affect me directly, but I think if I was a regular ticket-goer I may have become frustrated.  I’d recommend either more signs at the entry to queues so people clearly know what they are for, and/or perhaps more people standing around specially deployed for the purpose of helping people and who have a good overview of the entire event to explain what’s happening to anyone lost, as most of the people with staff passes that I spoke to to try and get a bearing didn’t even know simple stuff like where the information desk was.  Also a sign posted at the train station saying “KCON this way” would have been a polite touch.  Hopefully they can improve on this aspect next year if the event returns to Sydney.

THE CONVENTION

The convention part of KCON was definitely the smallest convention of any type I’ve ever been to in terms of overall floor space, with the entire event happening inside one high-school gym sized room. Here’s what was on offer:

I can’t remember what these people are signing up for, I think it was a beauty consultation or something like that. No, I did not sign up, Kpopalypse already meets required standards, at least in my own mind, which is what matters most.

At the KCON Official Goods stall you could buy autographed CDs, but these were all sold out before I got there (except for Up10tion, who I guess were too nugu, and Girl’s Day who didn’t even have any for sale for god knows what reason).  There were also some KCON shirts and other random stuff. I’m not sure if there was any other group-specific merch, I did see quite a few people with EXO lightsticks but I’m pretty sure they brought those from home, because they weren’t all one consistent variety.

There was a small area with a dance class happening. I’m not sure what exactly they were learning to dance, but watching people try to perform the dances with varying degrees of success made it clear how difficult it was.  Vocalfagging may have no place in k-pop but dancefagging possibly might. I don’t really know, as unlike music where I know everything and possibly far too much, I know very little about dancing which is why I don’t really blog about it at all.

Here we get to the real crux of what KCON is actually about.  The Korean government, music and tourism industry sponsors hope that all this interest that you folks have in k-pop translates into a broader interest in Korean culture overall, and that maybe you’ll become so enamoured in all the Korean-ness that you’ll want to pack your bags and head to Korea and boost their local economy a bit.

There were lots of very nice brochures about Korean travel and tourism opportunities available, the one with the big “HALLYU” on the front was actually legit impressive with tons of large full-colour pictures of idols and celebrities inside, making the perceived link between idols and tourism crystal clear. I would have picked one up but the last copy was snaffled by one of the other press team and it’s not like I give a crap about any of the tourist information so I didn’t worry about procuring one for later use.

You could make your own Korean fan here. I’m not sure how a Korean fan differs from any other type of fan, although I saw people writing in Korean on their fans, so maybe a Korean fan is Korean if it has Hangul scribble on it. Interestingly, KCON staff would come up to me at approximately 15 minute intervals for the duration of the convention asking me if I would like a free fan, and the fans that they would offer me looked nothing like these fans.  I could have said to them “but wait… this isn’t a genuine Korean fan, is it?” but I kind of took pity on them so I just said no thank you.

It’s not all hard dance-practicing, fan-making work at KCON though, there’s also time for recreation, and there were a few games on offer.  Tuho was by far the most eye-catching one – Tuho is apparently a game where you throw sticks into holes, and… actually there didn’t seem to be a lot more to it than that.  This lady would give people sticks, they would throw them into some holes, then she would give the players some instant noodles as a prize  (you can see them just above the holes in the picture) and then the process repeats. There didn’t appear to be any relationship between demonstrated stick-throwing-in-hole-competency and instant-noodle eligibility – everyone’s a winner at Tuho, it seems.  Let’s all take a moment to think about Tuho lady and hope that she was paid appropriately for her back-breaking hours of stick-retrieval and carbohydrate dispensation.

There was also a stage at the convention, where things would happen. When I first got in there were some girls plugging away at a (singing) cover of Girls’ Generation’s “Into The New World” which is a great song in isolation but which in the context of a convention with all the “culture” and “travel” propaganda comes off a bit too much like Hillsong for comfort.  The two people pictured above are MCs who ran some competition thing where people answered trivia questions about the k-pop groups performing at KCON for prizes, which I sort of half paid attention to but not really. Then one of the MCs sang Jay Park’s “Joah” because there is a small sector of k-pop fans who actually believe that Jay Park’s music isn’t complete bullshit.  I’ve noticee that a lot of young, well-groomed Asian men I meet are really into Jay Park, I think they buy into that “ladies man” image he projects and hope that if they can emulate some of that shine, they might get to roll around on the bed with some girl like he does in his music videos.  I haven’t got the heart to tell them that the women in his videos are models and they’re only there because they’re getting paid, and that Jay Park just jerks it to Girl’s Day like the rest of us. Let them believe what they want to believe.

Oh, did you know that the Winter Olympics is coming up in Korea? It would be hard to fucking miss it with this bear and the white tiger or whatever pointing it out for you and wasting precious convention floor space.  Do you know that because you like k-pop, you therefore love everything about Korea unconditionally, so you’re supposed to give a shit?  What, you don’t care about some irrelevant sporting event and you’re just into k-pop for the actual music? SHAME ON YOU, GO REFLECT TSK TSK ETC

You could also get a free makeover, now that’s pretty cool and slightly more relevant to k-pop given how much makeup every k-pop idol has on their face at all times. I’m not sure if the sign saying “just like SBS PopAsia on Facebook” means that you just have to click “like” on their Facebook page, or if they’re also trying to say that SBS PopAsia staff all got makeovers too and you can look as hot as them after they had theirs.  The confusion when grammar and technology meet.

If you’re really lucky a free makeover will make you about half as hot as Jacques Peterson from SBS PopAsia and Arcadey blog fame, who is in the centre of this picture, seen here inside the SBS PopAsia soundproof both with fellow staff. It was good to finally meet him in person after years of corresponding on the Internet and missing each other at various events in the past. I was also supremely jealous that he got to spend a fair chunk of his time at the convention in a soundproofed area, I would have paid good money to be encased in safety glass away from spazzing fangirls for the duration of the convention.  Anyway Jacques is a totally awesome person and an erudite young professional who loves k-pop and has been following it at least as long as I have, you can trust him to serve you the tea, maybe you should follow him on Twitter.

This is a wall with pictures of the nine groups attending KCON. There’s also a red carpet in front of it which is out of frame. I don’t know why it’s there, but the press group including me got a group photo taken in front of it. The white tiger was in on the photo action too, I put my hat on the white tiger at the time, but I don’t know where the photo is or who took it. It might end up on the KCON site or something. A lot of fans also got their photos taken in front of this wall and were really excited by this photo opportunity HEY IT’S JUST A WALL WITH SOME PICTURES ON IT CALM DOWN GIRL FUCK

While the convention was going on, there was also soundchecking happening in the main arena for the concert later that night. These sneaky caonima fangirls are peering through the gap in the concert door, trying to get a glimpse of their biases on stage. Pentagon’s “Like This” was playing while this photo was taken, and although I heard vocals in the mix, I doubt that the guys in the group were actually on stage at that time, after all the vocals are in the backing track too in that usual vocal-cheaty k-pop way, so just because you hear vocals doesn’t mean anyone is actually singing. I don’t know if the fangirls were successful, but I thought it would be really funny if suddenly the door opened in their faces.

There was also food out in the main area and I didn’t take any photos of it because I feel like an Instagram cockbreath taking photos of food on my phone, but one area where the convention was a definite let-down was the culinary aspect.  The best food on offer was the chicken and rice with a little kimchi and veg in a bucket thing and that was barely a snack and cost $13, the pork bulgogi roll (wait, is that a thing) I didn’t have but it was tiny and the same price and the other food was pretty basic chips and stuff, and a chicken katsu burger which was a bun, a katsu and a bit of lettuce for once again $13.  I really was expecting a lot more here given that outside of k-pop music, food is really the only aspect of Korean culture that I actually give any fucks about at all.  Come on guys, the reputation of Korea is riding on those horrid oversalted French fries, I know it’s hard to feed a couple thousand people efficiently but a little bit more effort here would have been nice, especially given the admission price.  Do you want us to go to your country and waste all our money or not.  I had far better Korean food the next day in Sydney for the same price, when I went to a cool Korean place called “The Bab” that actually had posters of IU selling soju on the walls and for exactly $13 I got a beef bulgogi that was about three times the size plus five different side dishes.

THE RED CARPET EVENT

Part of the deal of the free pass was “take photos of the stars on the red carpet”.  Sounds pretty cool, right?

This is the audience area for the red carpet event. There’s two separate zones, with the front zone being for the press group and presumably also for people who paid a premium for VIP tickets. Then there’s the back area outside of the silver barricade for everyone else. The press were let into the audience area before anyone else so we could take up positions with camera gear. However there was a “no tripods” rule and also a “if more than one of you are from the same media, only one of you can attend the red carpet” rule. Everybody obeyed the first rule but I think a lot of people ignored the second rule because I didn’t see a lot of enforcement going on, which meant that things were still irritatingly crowded for no reason.

On the left side of the stage above you’ll see the Qudos Bank arena sign.  Here’s what the view looks like from that sign:

This is the area where the idols walk through to get to the stage. I set up position here, and waited… for over an hour. It was incredible how long KCON took to get their shit together for this event, given that all they had to do was move people into the venue and switch on a bunch of microphones, the actual concert itself was far better organised, time-wise.  Now while my position looks good and was fine for personal observation purposes, it’s actually crap for taking photos, at least with my equipment.  I was not realising that these idols would all be walking very briskly and that trying to get a decent photo of any of them with my crappy phone while they whizzed across the red carpet at fangirl-evading speed would be impossible. Idols clearly are used to moving very quickly through crowds for OH&S reasons and thus all my photos of idols walking looked like this:

No shit, that’s about the best one, too.  Due to my lack of decent camera equipment, every time the idols walked by, I watched at the red carpet corner to get a close look and then just moved to the stage to get better photos where you can actually see what they looked like. Anyway here they are, I hope you enjoy these super high quality photos:

Here’s SF9. Each group had some sort of introductory catchphrase, then got asked three generic questions, along the lines of “how does it feel being in Australia”, “what can we expect from your stage at KCON” and “do you have any message for the fans”.  The groups had the questions translated to them, but answered in English where possible. There’s no point telling you what the answers were because it’s all pretty much the same shit these groups always say, you’ve heard it all before.  Each group was also asked to pose facing forward, and facing both slightly left and right so people could take photos.

This is Pentagon. Pentagon receive the Kpopalypse award for “best English speakers at KCON” with multiple members seemingly being quite fluent.  I can’t remember which member did most of the talking but it’s clear that CUBE are big on English lessons and they got through the questions with the most ease out of any of the groups.

Victon on the other hand relied heavily on clunky translations but got the award for “spiffiest dressing” with some very suave purple and black suits that probably would have cost more than those VIP tickets some of you patrons bought.

When I was about 5 years old I remember boarding a jet airplane. At that age, the sound of the jet engine was terrifying and I thought my eardrums were going to burst, I had never heard anything that loud.  I had flashbacks to that moment when EXO walked up on the red carpet to the stage and the screaming all around me amped up to fever pitch.  Once again I was thankful for the strength of KCON’s steel barricades. Anyway EXO did the thing and the fangirls went ballistic on every word and gesture, however for unknown reasons EXO only answered one question instead of three. Later, I heard that there were rumours that EXO weren’t going to do the red carpet at all.

Girl’s Day were last up, and did their “every day Girl’s Day!” catchphrase. However instead of “what can we expect” from your stage, the second question was “can you show us some of the sexy poses you’ll use tonight”. Good looking out, KCON MCs. Girl’s Day happily obliged them, so here you are:

I can’t comment on the male groups as a heterosexual male (Ill leave that for Arcadey’s Twitter), but I now am obliged to throw down the real talk – how fappable are Girl’s Day, really? Having seen them now within jizzing distance as they walked up the red carpet I can now confirm to you the following rating which applies to both boob sizes AND general fapability:

Minah > >> | Yura > Hyeri > Sojin |

Minah is easily the hottest, no competition. The lack of her “cute” look in recent videos and photo shoots might be down to either surgery, excessive Photoshop, way too much makeup, or a combination of these three, but in person she’s still got a lot of what made her look great in videos like “Don’t Forget Me”. She also has definitely the best figure as far as what I look for – short, cute and rocking a kind of slutty Chrissie Amphlett look. Yura is more “generically” attractive in that Nana modelesque kind of way that sex creeps like Asian Junkie dig but that I don’t really give a fuck about, and she was the biggest hit with audience reaction too but I wasn’t keen on the clothing choices for her and she’s less my type even though I will admit she has appeal. Hyeri doesn’t look as good as in the early Girls’ Day videos, she’s definitely had face surgery that’s dulled some of the features I really liked about her into that Korean average kind of look. Sojin just looks kind of ordinary to me, half of the girls in the press group were hotter than her (especially there was one cutie who looked like Suhyun, damn) but then Sojin’s about 92 years old so I’ve got to cut her some slack, she does look astoundingly good considering her age, and healthy as well, whereas Hyeri kind of looked like her dress was holding her spine in place and if someone undid her she’d collapse into a small pile.  Sojin is probably the only person on the planet older than me and she does rock it well, I hope I look as good as Sojin when I get as old as her.

THE CONCERT

Here’s what the stage looked like when I first got to it.

The T-shaped thing is a really good layout, it means that no matter where you are on the floor, chances are that you’re going to get a good close look at your faves at some point. It also takes up a large volume of floor space which makes it easier for the venue to “look full” although it isn’t really. There were some opening acts performing, a couple groups of Australian teenagers doing cover dances to k-pop songs, and why not.  They were pretty good I thought.

Then we had some very brief MCing and the concert was on before I even knew it.  Here’s another picture of the stage just before the lights went down and SF9 came on:

As you can see, not exactly a full house.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a LOT of people (most are out of frame), but it wasn’t anywhere near sold out.  I think the high ticket prices and lineup might have kept a fair few people away.  More did filter in while the first few groups were doing their thing though, by the time EXO hit the stage the crowd was more respectable than it looks here.

So, here’s what you got:

SF9 – were on first.  They performed “Easy Love“, “Fanfare” and “Roar“.  After their first song they had a brief break where they talked to the audience, this was a pattern that was repeated with all the groups.  I actually really enjoyed SF9 and I thought they had the best songs of all the male groups, on average.  They also really put a lot into their dance routines, you could really see at the end of the first song when they started talking to the audience but were still completely out of breath from just one song’s worth of dancing.  However I can’t help but feel a bit ripped off getting only three songs.  Surely the other groups would do more…

Pentagon – performed “Like This“, “Can You Feel It” and “Gorilla“, the latter in particular with outstanding dancing and staging.  Usual audience chat (and after-first-song tiredness) and they also did some stupid “Pinata” thing with the audience which had nothing to do with a pinata as there was no pinata in sight, but it was basically just getting them to do some random shit by spinning a boomerang-shaped wheel on the big screen.  The random shit ended up being a dance competition thing but it wasn’t random at all because all the backing music for it was clearly prepared in advance.  Anyway yeah, three songs, thanks cunts.

There was an interlude where for a change of pace Chanyeol from EXO performed the Goblin OST duet “Stay With Me“.  His duet partner was Seola from WJSN (Cosmic Girls), who as far as I know was the only person from Saturday’s lineup to make an appearance at the Friday show (apart from SF9 who performed both nights).

Victon – performed “Unbelievable“, “Eyez Eyez” and I can’t remember the other song but it might’ve been “What Time Is It Now“.  I enjoyed Victon the least out of all the sets, the had the worst, cheesiest songs and also the lowest amount of audience rapport.  They also did the pinata thing and I can’t remember what it ended up on but I was only half paying attention, at this point I had noticed that the Suhyun girl from the press group had fucked off, presumably to get a better seat further to the action, as plenty were spare.  Or maybe I smelled funny.

Girl’s Day – performed “I’ll Be Yours“, “Something“, “Expectation” and “Ring My Bell“.  Definitely my favourites for the night just because “Something” and “Expectation” are both really good songs, but the other two worked quite well in context.  The old-school bass of “I’ll Be Yours” was a nice change from the synthetic sub-bass of almost everything else, and “Ring My Bell” while definitely a song I don’t like was a good pick for a fast-paced see-ya-later song.  Usual audience banter etc.  At one point Sojin actually said that she hoped the event would bring greater cultural exchange between Australia and Korea.  Calm down girl, don’t they pay you enough or what.

EXO – came out and did “Monster“… actually no they didn’t, that was SF9, who just fucking turned up and pretended to be EXO presumably just to fuck with people like me sitting way at the back who can’t see people’s faces.  Er, okay.  No, actually EXO did BTS’ “Fire“… no wait, no they didn’t… or did they?  Who the fuck actually did “Fire” that night?  I don’t even fucking know, all I know is that it probably wasn’t BTS.

EXO (for real this time) – came back on and did “Power“, “The Eve“, “Heaven“, “Tender Love” and “Ko Ko Bop“.  Predictably, the fans went nuts and everyone had a good time.  The song choice was a bit eclectic and this was good, better than hearing early crap feature tracks like “Growl” or “Wolf” which I honestly expected.  The songs they picked worked well for the night as EXO were just a little more downbeat than SF9 and Pentagon, and a little less cheesy than Victon.  I guess with so many members gone from the group since the early days they didn’t want to revisit early material.

I haven’t provided any photos here because they all look more or less like this:

I’m sure there’s like 2968 fancams already on YouTube by now anyway.  You all know what a k-pop concert looks like, I’m sure.

So how was it?  It has to be said that the whole event was efficient as fuck – as soon as one group was off, the next group was on literally seconds later, and the schedule ran super-tight.  The concert started a little bit before 8pm and everything was done and dusted by 10pm which is a little too fucking short for my liking given that we’ve got five groups performing, two of which have fairly extensive back-catalogues that weren’t even touched.  I couldn’t fault the staging at all, and there were no fuckups anywhere, one stray bit of feedback for a few seconds during EXO’s set was the only mistake I could find in the whole night’s proceedings.  All the groups were also well-presented and knew how to work the crowd, doing all that typical k-pop fake-ass audience engagement shit where they kind of look at you but not really.  EXO in particular were very careful to often spread themselves out at equal intervals across the entire T-area and main stage, so no matter where you were standing on the floor you got to get up close and personal with someone, their higher levels of experience doing live stages certainly came through here.  On top of this the sound quality was excellent, and the right volume – loud enough to get over the fangirls but not deafening.  You couldn’t fault the professionalism anywhere.

It’s worth mentioning that EXO’s Sehun and Suho did some of the MCing at one point, and SF9 members did MCing at other points.  There were also the night’s hosts which were two other guys from KCON.  They all did well and didn’t crap on too long, although the constant mentioning of Hotels Combined got a little bit much – okay, I get it that they’re the event’s main sponsors, but the audience also paid $200+ for tickets each and in some cases a lot more than that for VIP shit so maybe let’s just chill out on the constant promo, yeah?  “Combine your hands together… like Hotels Combined!”… they seriously said that, and that one got some groans even from the young usually-impervious-to-Kpopalypse-style-cynicism k-pop audience, which is when you know you’re pushing it just a little too far.

CONCLUSION

So – was it good?  Overall, yes.  Was I glad I went?  Yes.  Would I go again in 2018 with another media pass if they’d have me, to report on any improvements?  Yes.  Would I pay full price to go again?  Not likely, unless it was an absolutely amazing lineup.  Maybe if they brought T-ara out.

Positives:

• Great staging and sound quality
• Technically flawless
• Efficient concert stage management, no wasted time
• Groups mainly focused on better material
• Nice and friendly staff and organisers
• Minah’s boobs, seriously

Needs work:

• Too much confusion with queues and lines
• Rubbish catering especially for the price
• Too short, longer stages would be nice, or failing that at least cheaper tickets
• Can we get our shit together a little quicker for the red carpet please
• Why not combine your many ads into one ad… like Hotels Combined
• I know crazy fangirls pay the bills but a little more gender balance in the lineup next time please

Thanks for reading this write-up, and thanks for KCON for being good sports and agreeing to let me into their event!  It’s time for Kpopalypse to say goodbye, as well as Minah, so I’ll see you in the next post!

It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out this week’s new releases!

Scan-dol of the week – Yulhee (LaBoum)

BTS – DNA

What a big ball of nothing BTS have so far proved to be ever since the promising “War Of Hormone“.  Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good (or bad) by default.  Hitler had millions of followers at one point too, you know.  They thought they were all cool, after all there were so many of them, and their hands all went up together at the same time – how could they possibly be wrong?

Loona/Odd Eye Circle – Girl Front

Fuck dancing out in the desert.  At least it’s not the Australian desert, or Loona’s members would get eaten faster than they’d get added to the group at the snail’s pace they company are revealing them.

April – Take My Hand

This song might take a bit of adjusting to when listening because it’s actually good and you’re probably not used to that.

IU – Last Night Story

With all the boring slow rock in Korea, I didn’t know there were drummers who lived over there who could play this fast.  Don’t have a heart attack or over-strain your gaming hand, fuck.

IU – Sleepless Rainy Night

IU looks like she’s bored here, as well she might be.

Sechskies – Something Special

It’s a reggae-lite comeback, because when I think about reggae, I think about the fucking dick going in the pussy.

Sugarbowl – Crusin’

Yeah nah.  I’m good thanks.

Rania – Breathe Heavy

No longer “BP” Rania as the Black Person left (BP actually stood for “Black Pearl” – how tokenistic and cheesy, right?) but still with unusually decent songwriting this time around.  Their songwriter even made this slow bullshit work somehow, probably by having an actual melody and chords and not some semi-improvised blues-scale fucking wank.

BONUS SONGS

Neil & Justhis – Good

Toot toot I think I hear Thomas the Tank Engine except his name’s Neil and won’t stop fucking singing.

Sechskies – Smile

This song is clearly for later when the dick has already been in the pussy.

Lay – I Need U

Weird breakdown aside this is just dull.

Hazeblue – Time Travel

What do all these soft-ass Korean bands do.  Where do they play.  Is there really a demand for this type of gig?

Fanxy – Hug

Don’t pick your nose while riding on your skateboard you fucking grot.  Nobody wants your mobile boogers.

Crucial Star ft. Han-all – Study Abroad

You’ll wish you were travelling backwards in time too, to a few seconds before you pressed play on this bullshit song.

Monogram – The Child

This could have been good but the song isn’t there.

Masstige – Dama

This girl plays the piano to try and get the horrible Autotuned R&B voices insider her head to shut up, but remains tormented.  The saddest drama video of 2017.

Sunny 2 Morrow ft. Heyne – Single Rider

You’ll go blind looking at the sun like that.  Keep doing it so you can’t read sheet music anymore thanks.

Eunkwang – One Day

Another ballad like every Korean ballad ever.

Siwoo – Night Time

And here’s more.  Some songs are just shit and there’s nothing else to say.

Icepuff & H2adin – What Sub?

Not everything in bonus songs is shit though, sometimes it’s just stuff that I can’t play on the radio because I can’t find the music for it.  Not that this is exactly great or anything but at least it doesn’t sound like popping ten valiums at once unlike just about everything else here.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Sunnyhill – The Grasshopper Song

How much BPM can you handle?  Sunnyhill were great when they had some pace to their songs and weren’t being fucking boring as shit.  Why they transitioned into a crap ballad group just before disbanding I don’t know but this song here was cool as were most of their songs until that dude who was writing all their decent material flew the coop and then they started sucking incredibly.  Let’s all remember how awesome this group once were.

That’s all for this week’s roundup – more next week!

Clearly the person who left the above comment is not aware of the long-standing history of POSITIVITY on Kpopalypse blog.  It looks like certain people may need a reminder that Kpopalypse is all about POSITIVE thinking and good clean fun times, so that means it’s time for another POSITIVE post!

Is Han Seo Hee a new hero of k-pop worth stanning?  Kpopalypse says YES!  Here are all the reasons that you should welcome Han Seo Hee as the new saviour of k-pop.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee posts “controversial pictures”

Let’s take a look at this picture of Han Seo Hee which is apparently “controversial”.  What’s controversial about it?

Absolutely fucking nothing, that’s what.  Sure, if you’re 8 years old and haven’t worked out how to type “Asian bikini girls” into Google search yet, maybe this picture is blowing you away right now with its incredible shock value, but the rest of us folks have seen swimwear catalogues before.  If this picture is “controversial” in whatever kiddy la-la land k-pop fans live in, I’m all for more “controversy” and we should praise this girl for dragging k-pop’s snowflake element back into reality.  Of course that didn’t stop dumb k-pop websites labelling the picture as controversial anyway, but the biggest outrage about this photo if you ask me is the wasted space at the top and bottom of the image.  You could fit another five tits in there.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee is woke as fuck

Check out this super-reflective shit, taken from this article:

Clearly the words of a seriously erudite and woke individual.  Imagine actually trying to learn more about something that you’re interested in instead of leaving boring comments everywhere about how you know everything.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee cares about your health

This is Han Seo Hee showing you what brand of cigarettes she smokes.  Notice how she is holding the cigarette packet in an odd way, nobody actually holds cigarette packets like that normally, what’s the deal with that?  The fact is that she’s grabbing it from the rear so the health warning at the top of the packet is clearly visible when she holds it up to the webcam, that’s because she’s trying to get you to stop smoking.  She doesn’t want you to get suckered into smoking highly addictive tobacco like she did, especially when there’s marijuana available, which is far superior in every way.  Han Seo Hee is all about the benefits of marijuana and even got BigBang’s T.O.P hooked up one some fine-as-fuck weed to help him deal with his stressful idol lifestyle.  Marijuana is medicinal and has beneficial effects according to many reputable organisations, it can even help you stop smoking cigarettes so maybe you should stop being such a faggot bitch about “drugs” and follow Han Seo Hee’s clinically proven health advice.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee was kicked out of k-pop agencies for being cooler than you

Here is a picture of Han Seo Hee during her court appearance being harassed by the media, looking cool as a cucumber in a situation where most people shit their pants and whine “get that camera shit out of my face, man”.

Does she look like she gives a damn?  It would appear not.  Apparently this girl tried to get into JYP, and was also kicked out of pre-debut lineups of Gfriend and Gugudan, presumably for giving less fucks than a chastity belt.  Imagine her shooting JYP that same stare during auditions when he asked her to do the dances again.  What’s the matter Mr. Plastic Pants, didn’t you see it the first time, cunt?

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee fucked your idols, even though she hates idols

It’s no wonder that Han Seo Hee hates idols.  Can you imagine this girl in Gfriend, sharing the same dressing room as prissy library bitches like Eunha, dressing up in all that white frilly bullshit?  It’s enough to make anyone sensible go on a rice-cake rampage.  Still, she was nice enough to throw T.O.P some vag, even though not only is he an idol but his penis is apparently smaller than the lipstick she’s holding up.

It probably didn’t even touch the sides, but even though he was definitely not a Big Bang she was still nice enough to be a sport about it and wait a few weeks before publicly mocking him.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee is an attention whore

Han Seo Hee is a self-confessed attention-whore, and makes no bones about it – why should she?  Being an attention whore is not only a good thing, but if you’re trying to get into the entertainment business, it just makes good sense.  Idols like Suzy, IU and G-Dragon aren’t the most successful because they have the best songs (they don’t) or are the most talented (they aren’t), they’re the most successful because they’re great at capturing attention and then turning that attention into money – in other words, “attention-whoring” in the most literal sense possible.  Of course when confronted with “are you an attention whore” these very professional idols know the drill and would probably just say something weakly deflecting and nondescript that doesn’t ruffle the sensitive feathers of crybaby k-pop fanbases, but Han Seo Hee gives too few fucks for any of that shit so she is right out there.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee wants to get into k-pop and could make SPUNKMOP a reality

When I have enough money I’m going to fund SPUNKMOP, my new k-pop girl group.  SPUNKMOP can stand for many things but this week it stands for “Sexually Promiscuous Under-Numerated K-pop Models Of Perfection”.  I want it to be the most caonima-filled k-pop group ever, like the Spinal Tap-esque mockumentary group C.I.V.A, except C.I.V.A are just pretending whereas my girls will actually be a bunch of cunts in reality.  They can go up onstage at award ceremonies and spit on people, tell fans to fuck off at fansignings, pull other girls’ hair and start fights on variety shows, and generally act like complete girl-trash, which will be very hot and appeal to male submissives which seems to be about 95% of the male k-pop audience judging by all the “[insert bias here] please step on me” that I see on my Twitter feed.

Han Seo Hee’s newfound celebrity status and overt caonima attitude might be just the kick my group needs to get some media attention.  Okay, so I don’t have the money to fund this group yet but then I wasn’t planning on spending much anyway, lack of funds will make the girls nice and miserable and even more eager to lash out at the media, fans and anybody else who gets in their way.  If the group members aren’t all bitches when they join, they will be a few months afterward, or I’ll kick them out for not being cunty enough and Gfriend’s agency can have them.

Reason to stan – Han Seo Hee knows about your fapping and gives good fanservice

Han Seo Hee knows that we all love a good fap session and isn’t afraid to call out you thirsty caonimas.

Guilty as charged!  Please now enjoy the full Instagram livestream of this lovely young lady courtesy of elite caonima Az5he6ch, where he has bookmarked for us the most fappable moment.

Even if my own agency misses out, I shall expect Han Seo Hee’s k-pop debut fondly.  Please support her and show her lots of love!  Kpopalypse will return with more posts soon, and don’t forget to think POSITIVE thoughts!

Read on for all the juicy results of the 2017 Kpopalypse survey of caonima action!

A whopping 656 loyal readers completed the latest Kpopalypse survey!  Let’s get straight into the results!

Question 1: Hi! How are you? Answer in as much or as little detail as applicable.

Gosh, there were some troubled caonimas this time around.  I will do my best to address your concerns.

I’m good. After 2 years of living in a new city, after moving for a job, I finally stopped being a hermit. Got myself a girl who may or may not be my girlfriend, and I finally starting to develop a Social Circle. It’s awesome, I forgot what it’s like to have people in my life. I mean, I had friends before, but I only saw them via voice over Xbox, text message, or phone calls. My job is going well, and I just got back from spending a couple days in Korea, which were a blast. Right now, the main source of stress in my life is from my kinda girlfriend. The ambiguity of relationship status seems to be causing some tension, as well as the fact that because of our jobs, we don’t get to see each other very often. Hopefully we can find a way to bridge these gaps.

Relationships only need to be defined if the people in them want to define it.  Sometimes a relationship with no official title means less pressure, which is usually a good thing, however communication is also what keeps relationships alive.  If she’s the one who wants to keep things ambiguous, don’t push it – she’ll come around (or not) when (if) the time is right.  On the other hand if it’s you, you might want to ask yourself what you intend to be doing with your life in a few years and if you see this person in the picture or not.

hey!
a bit worried, since i’ve just turned 22 and i have never been in a relationship bc everytime someone likes me it produces a feeling of repulsion in me i can barely talk to them without feeling ill, so im trying to accept the fact that im probably dying alone.. but im too cute to die a virgin?? it’s hard. i tried quitting kpop to see if idols were the problem but it didnt work. also im on my last year of uni and i don’t have any goals or dreams so yeah
im kinda surprised you liked april’s take my hand
hope ur doing great

Take k-pop back up, it’s not the problem.  If you feel repulsed by someone who likes you, that could point to low self-esteem (“how could they like me if I’m such a bad person, there must be something wrong with them, yuck get them away from me”), or maybe it doesn’t.  Fuck I dunno.  I’m not a shrink, I’m just some guy.  Don’t worry though it’ll work out.  If I can get laid, you can.

Just lost my home, had my belongings stolen and lost friends whilst in college.

Giving me realization that people are cunts and I no longer give a fuck what they think nor say. I just go onto the next task.

Then you won’t give a fuck when I tell you that not giving a fuck is good, but that doesn’t mean all people are dicks.  There are nice people, they just take a bit of effort to find.

Take a coffee break instead of reading this one

I got attacked by a dog today and i now have scratches on my leg but he was happy after he jumped and barked at me so i got to pet him so it’s okay. And on my other leg I have scratches from kittens going at war on my knee so now I have matching battle scars. I just hope i don’t get blood poisoning and die but hey then i don’t need to read your blog anymore so maybe that wouldn’t be so bad anymore haaaaaa so funny to insult the person who made the survey haaaa so original i know thank you thank you.

It seems like your punishment for insulting me has already been administered so I won’t troll you further.  If you’re still alive to read this, thanks for doing the survey!

Sore. I went rock climbing (indoors, because I am too lazy to actually set up ropes and such) today, and my muscles are protesting. I’m getting stronger though! So this is good.

I’ve been a bit of a funk for the last few months — I’m just not doing my work. I mean, I’m doing the things they tell me to do at work, because those are easily broken into chunks and haven’t been my life for years, but I’m not working on finishing things from my dissertation. I think I’m scared to actully face it down. I know I need to let it go. But it is hard! You’d think that since I actually wrote a dissertation and graduated and all I’d be able to handle it. But I guess I’ve regressed?

Dissertations are tough but don’t worry help is here.

I’m hungover as shit and dont know why I thought filling in this survey would make me feel better

Me neither.  I don’t drink, but when my girlfriend is hungover she says eating fast food helps, try that next time.

I’m very stressed at the moment and feeling kind of lonely. Just started grad school at a college where I don’t know anyone and I’m feeling pretty isolated. It’s hard to make friends since it’s hard to interact with anyone outside of the classroom since they’re either 1. undergrads who I never see or 2. working. I’ve also been trying to keep in contact with my friends from undergrad but they’ve spread to the four winds all over the US so it’s hard to keep up.

Also, I am still working through a breakup with someone I dated for my entire undergraduate life and lived with. I sometimes wish we had never dated so that we could still be friends but he lives on the other side of the country now and I probably wouldn’t be welcome in talking to him. (Any advice on this btw? I miss him as a best friend and wish we’d never dated so we could still be in each others’ lives. I harbor no ill feelings towards him as the breakup was mainly initiated from my side; I was seeking independence as I’d been with him my entire collegiate career and wasn’t happy with feeling tied to him as I’d also fallen out of love with him at that point. But I was someone he hoped to marry and settle down with so by breaking up with him twice (we broke up when he graduated and moved away but then tried long distance for a couple months after a few months break) I probably messed him up pretty badly. I really miss him as a friend but don’t think he wants me back in his life despite him saying he’ll always be there for me if I need it. I lost a lot of my friends when we broke up since they were mainly his friends first and I came in to the picture a little late.)

Sorry. It’s a silly story to send to you but I needed to get it out. I haven’t really talked to anyone else about wanting to reach out and talk to him but I think that I should wait a while longer. If, later, I still feel like contacting him then do so but I believe it’s still too early to do so now and that I should let him have his space and heal now.

Anywho, hope you’re doing well yourself. Thanks for listening, mister. It feels good to get it off my chest.

I’d probably just cut ties completely.  I agree that he won’t want you back, at least not at this point.  Make sure he knows how to get in touch with you and say “the door is open if you ever want to resume a friendship”, and then leave it at that.  That’s your best chance of him coming around at some point in the future, which may or may not happen.  In the meantime, just move on with things.  You’ll eventually meet new people who will help you move on with it.

I had a dream about you last night, actually. Basically you got fucked by some female alien but she left before you could even cum cause she was unsatisfied by how small your junk was. Other than that, pretty okay.

This answer made me check my bedroom for hidden cameras.

Rant incoming, sorry in advance: Great if you don’t count trying to get over this guy, while secretly hoping he’ll come back to me even though I know it’s all just wishful thinking and we are not good for each other. Did I mention that we are both also seeing other people and every time I speak with him I have to fight the urge to tell him I wish we could have dated? Did I also mention that in a tipsy moment of weakness I confessed that I still had feelings and he thought it was cute at first, but then since I was not in my right mind I kept saying more stupid things and made it awkward by being a little too dramatic? And I thought being in my late 20’s this stuff would get easier.

Relationship drama getting easy doesn’t come with age.  It comes with fucking up a lot and surviving it and then looking back and thinking “well that was fucked, but I learned stuff”.

I’m good. My period was late, and I’d had unprotected sex for the first time, so I was FREAKING OUT that I might have gotten pregnant despite my IUD, and would have to get a fucking abortion in China (because I already live here). But THANK GOD, that sweet uterine lining starting flowing today, and I don’t have to tell a guy I’ve just started dating that he has to pay up for an abortion. Good day, man, good day.

Kpopalypse advocates safe sex for all caonimas!

Hi! Last time I answered here that I wanted to kill myself. I’m doing much better now.

Great to hear!  For those of you who answered that you wanted to die (quite a few of you), know that shit gets better if you stick it out.

I am Ziltoid the Omniscient. Bring me your finest coffee!

Better go get your planet smasher because idgaf

I’m really proud of myself. As a first year university student, I decided to step out of my shell this year. I ran for student council and won. Also finally had the hour long conversation with my parents to drop biology. I can’t believe that they actually accepted me taking a stand and choosing to not pursue medicine. I suppose that I was able to demonstrate my passion for political science and they’ve allowed me to pursue it now. However, Law school is now my “goal”. I’d love to actually go into politics, but I think I should wait to have that conversation with them. Baby steps. (my asian parents believe that politicians are either corrupt gangsters, or get killed off by corrupt gangsters).

Your Asian parents are correct!  Given the choice between those two options, just for self-preservation’s sake I’d recommend being a corrupt gangster.

Dearest oppar, I waited so long for this survey to come out so I can thank you kindly for helping out in your previous survey. I don’t know if you’ll remember this but I’ve asked you what can I do about finding a good university without losing large amounts of money (or if I should give a fuck about people whining at my decisions) and you advised me to find a university who can provide both education and scholarship. Now I’m attending a university I have always dreamed of thanks to you! So I’m grateful for what have you done for me and anyone who thinks you’re a selfish cunt can suck a llama’s dick! Will support you on Patreon very soon!

Glad I could help!  However students times are often hard times financially – while I do appreciate all Patreon donations very much, don’t put yourself out of pocket for necessities.  Wait until you get that high-flying corporate caonima job before subscribing to Kpopalypse!

I’m fine, but dying in college. I’m taking a full 19cr load because my dad thinks my courses are “weak” and thinks I don’t have enough work. I love all my classes, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just a LOT of work. I haven’t been sleeping properly since 2 months ago; I function optimally with 8 hrs of sleep but I just can’t sleep for more than 6 hrs and it’s frustrating me.

Hi, I’m doing great. And it’s all because of kpopalypse’s round ups. THANK YOU, they’re so fucking convenient, I don’t even have to access (trigger warning) ALLKPOP to find out what’s being released anymore. Ever since I stopped accessing that pile of shit, my sleep patterns have improved and my skin has gotten clearer. I can’t thank you enough

Glad to improve the quality of your life!

Recently moved into a new city for a new job, everything’s really cool but I still feel awful because my brain is broken. I’d probably be doing better if I told this to someone besides kpopalypse

I have reposted this here so now technically you have told this to a few thousand people per day for the next week.  Hopefully this helps you do better.

im about 6/10 good. And you? I’m sad cos my partner of 1 year is probably gonna move to the other side of the world to his home country in the coming months. Our relationship is great and I’m pretty sure he loves me back just as much, but he hates his job here and seems to want to go back. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Not much you can do about this unfortunately.  People have to live for themselves first and foremost.  I’d practice emotionally detaching yourself a little now, so that when the time comes it’ll be an easier transition.  Seems like you’re already partway there if you’re travelling at about 6/10 even though you know that this is a likely outcome.

Im doing pretty great. School started and since im a piece of shit that doesnt know how to vent i started smoking a lot (not A LOT lot, but its starting to get way too expensive) and ive began to smoke weed a lot. Whats kinda shitty is that ive always laughed at stoners but now im slowly becoming one. So now im in the process of cutting off all my stoner buddies and i started taking AP language lessions (english is not my 1st language). So id say that things are looking up.

While I’m not against people doing whatever substances of any type, the problem with smoking is that it tends to lead to not much else except more smoking.  Also yeah it’s expensive.  I don’t know how people afford to smoke.  All the homeless people I see smoke, being homeless must be a rich occupation if they can afford that shit and I can’t.

Sad af because Hoya left Infinite but that useless wooden log Sungyeol stayed. Also lowkey worried about climate change and the end of the world, but what else is new.

Spolier alert: the world won’t end in your lifetime.  But even if I’m wrong (which I’m not), there’s still even less you can do about that than Infinite’s lineup.

Hi oppar. How i feel is a mixed bag right now but I guess that’s just life, we can only try to be grateful with the good things and work to improve the bad things. The person I love is in pretty bad shape right now and it’s making me realise how powerless I am. Of course I can’t magically make everything okay for us, but I wish there was a way to know I’m making the right decisions / doing or saying the best things possible in the situation. I hope I can get through this and emerge as a stronger person.

Ultimately they have to take care of things themselves.  You can be there for them and that’s about all.  You can’t blame yourself for their misfortune any more than you can take credit for their success.  Just do what you’re able to do withint he realms of what’s possible and don’t beat yourself up over it if things don’t work out.

I’m pretty good, just unboxed my latest shipment of tropical shithouse and I’m proudly blasting it on my speakers. My neighbors came over to tell me that my music was shit and that I should listen to real music like jazz.

Tell them that AIDS doesn’t cure cancer.

Ready to jump off a bridge, im writing my senior thesis on kpop and i just realized its fucking annoying to write about academically. Your blog is the only thing giving me sustenance.

Honestly k-pop is a goldmine of writing, you just have to narrow your focus.  Don’t try to write about everything k-pop, pick a certain thing, or a question you want to answer, and hone in on it with the determination of Yoochun entering a women’s bathroom.  You can do it!

I am good, thank you.
I love the last answer to the next question, it’s hilarious. I’m going to assume that similar hilarious answer choices will be there in the rest of the survey?

Yes.  By the way, my questions mostly display with options in random order so I actually have no idea which answer tickled your funny bone, but I’m glad you were amused.

I’m fine, thanks. I feel like I’m a bit stuck and not making progress in my life but well, as Galadriel says in The Lord of the Rings (I know you don’t like it): “If you do not find a way, no one will”, so it’s really up to me to do something, and I probably should snap out of it, the sooner the better.

Anyway, could we please stop with this “readers assume that I don’t care” issue??? It’s the same pantomime every time!! So in summary: you care, we care, everyone cares, we are the AJs of care, let’s move on people!

On that note, how are you?

I’m glad that you cared enough to ask!  I’m feeling especially caring today.

Hurricane came through and blew out all the electricity in the neighborhood except for my house. Everyone hates me and I don’t give a damn.

That’s because you read my blog and your neighbours don’t.  All Kpopalypse readers will experience the good fortune of caonima.

THIS IS MY FIRST FREE TIME IN 4 WEEKS

And you’re spending it filling out my survey – I’m honoured!

Pretty okay. Well, not exactly. I’ve recently started identifying as a lesbian, but I haven’t really felt comfortable with the label. I feel like I’m closing myself off from hot dudes. Even though I don’t really give a shit about them, I feel like being a lesbian is too… final… for me. And what if I’m just a straight girl who wants attention?? Oppar, help!

You should identify as bisexual instead, at least until you figure shit out.  Double your options – it’s just the practical choice.

I’m OK. I spoke at a charity event today and I got some nice goodies out of that so thats great (It’s RU OK Day too, which is what the event was about). Still trying to get my life sorted out, not just realizing my shitty family solution and how their behaviours affect my way of thinking, but trying to do good at uni. TBH I’m happy that I’m in uni at all and I really like the industry I’m studying.

The ssm survey thing is balls and the government are all dumbcunts who can get fucked. I wanna ruin my fuckin life so why can’t I?

I dunno.  The Australian government are simultaneously gay and not gay enough at the same time.

I had an argument with my girlfriend and she mentioned how my family seemed better when it comes to…I don’t know how to describe it. Let’s just call it social behavior. I know that I’m different, but now it kind of feels like everyone in my family has viewed this as a problem but no one decided to let me know until…much later…indirectly. It’s especially telling when my dad told my girlfriend “He won’t listen to us, but he’ll listen to you” and my own brother felt the same way. I mean, fucking seriously! It pisses me off that no one is direct to me(or to each other) about anything. It makes it feel like my own family has thought about me in a certain way but I didn’t know about it until years later and now I don’t know how to feel. Really makes me want to tell everyone to piss off at this point because as much of an asshole I know I can be sometimes, this is a pretty big dick move on their part…

Not giving a fuck seems like an excellent solution.

I’m OK. My house flooded a few weeks ago (Houston) so that’s a huge pain in the ass but I had flood insurance, so at least I’m better off than lots of folks. I finally finished ripping out all the drywall earlier this week, and the house is on its way to drying out, which is nice. In the meantime my wife and I are staying with friends in an apartment, but I miss my kitchen and being able too cook and have dinner parties (my hobby). Oh well, win some, lose some, and I’m a pretty stable person emotionally so while the situation certainly sucks, I’m not breaking down in despair or anything. Hope things are going well for you!

There are companies that sell flood insurance in Houston, and they haven’t gone bust yet?

Holy shit dude, I had my first threesome ever. I never thought it would happen lol

All good things can happen to caonimas!

Hi! I just started university and I thought it’d be hell, but because I know what I wanna study and major in, it’s alright so far. I do have a shit ton of homework and essays but I’m weird because I like homework and essays anyways… I read kpopalypse partially because I relate to the “offensive” sense of humour the site has, but in turn, I also have difficulty making friends with people I can relate with in humour because everyone just gets offended over every small thing and it makes it so hard to tolerate someone and look past their sensitivity when nearly every conversation is a moral lesson on respecting people and being considerate about their feelings. I’m sure I’ll find someone who I can be friends with who has the same taste in humour, but damn it’s so annoying and lonely.

You may wish to consider a move to Australia!

Hi there! Good to be able to ramble about myself at you again. I’m not having the greatest day, honestly. I’ve been working on a writing project that I was hoping would get some attention, but my expectations were unrealistic. Meanwhile this morning I saw a glowing review of a deeply serious book by a guy who was a year behind me at college. I know I need to reflect deeply and come back as a better caonima, but I’m not there yet, and also feeling a lot of anxiety over a family trip coming up. I think I’m going to take the kids to the children’s museum today — they haven’t had school all week thanks to Irma. I hope you’re doing well. Cheers!

Did you know that only 20 people clicked my blog for the entirely of 2012, and at least ten of them were probably me?  Also anybody can write a review, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  Half of the time the person who writes the review and the person who the review is about are friends.  That’s the only way half of the shitty music I’ve done over the years ever got a good review!

hello, i’m fine, although a bit tired from all the shit my lecturer assigned to me. can i ask you something? do you have a good tip how to handle math? bcs on your university survival arcticle you didn’t talk specifically about any subject. thank you!

I’m actually pretty bad at math so I don’t know.  My university guide deliberately didn’t go into specific subjects.  But there’s a good math-related joke later in this survey that may help, expect it fondly.

I’m not doing very well. A little over a week ago, I was staying in a hotel out of town and all of a sudden I heard a piercing sound, my vision went partially blind, and the whole right side of my body went somewhat numb. I was alone at the time, which made it even scarier. Luckily, my family came back soon after and my mom took me to the hospital. I didn’t know what was going on, I threw up all over myself while I was getting a cat-scan, and then I got an almost unbearable migraine. It turns out I had what’s called a complex migraine. It can cause amnesia, and I had it pretty badly at first. I couldn’t even remember one of my dog’s names right away. My son tried to quiz me by asking me to name all my biases and the members of my favorite groups. I remembered all of my ultimate bias group, but for the others I had a lot of trouble. I just kept guessing the same two names repeatedly, without remembering that I had already said them. I’ve been a big fan of SNSD since 2010 and I couldn’t even name all of the members. My memory has gotten somewhat better now, but I’ve been crying a lot because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with and I’m scared my memory will never come back and that I have some kind of serious health problem I don’t know about. I hope you’re doing better than I am.

Wow that’s pretty messed up, and I’d never heard of this before but it seems scary.  I hope you’re improving more since you wrote this.  Although anyone will forgive you mixing up Yoona with other SNSD members.

Hello Kpopalypse Oppar~
I’m fine thank you, and how are you?

IATFB is running a secret spy organisation, and his target is you. His real name is not IATFB but in fact Dickinson P. Blue. He’s not Asian but actually a hairless bald 80 year old white man who lives in Idaho. He sells poisonous potatoes on the side, and uses this to catch his criminals.

He doesn’t with his fingers but with 30cm long nails – also torture method when he catches his criminals.

I’m just making you wary of him, he is a very dangerous spy lord.

Noted.

I’m writing on qrimole form and kpopalypse form on the same chrome window. I’m such a dedicated caonima.

This is true caonima double-action.  I’m impressed!

Why do you have to be such an asshole and begin every survey with this same damned boring question? Why do you care about how I am? Kpopalypse, get a life.

Depressed. Just came out of an 8yr relationship with my high school sweetheart. She was my other half throughout school and college but now that’s all over. I’ve been drowning my sorrows in booze and the superficial sweetness of kpop.

How do I escape this rut kpopalypse-hyung?

It’s a good time to start something new in your life.  Get yourself a new distraction, something you haven’t gotten around to doing but have always wanted to try.

I’m fine, but would have been better if you (or the creators of this survey script) hadn’t anticipated that people might cheat in mandatory text boxes by pressing the space bar a few times, and thus coded it so as not to recognize blank space bar input as a valid response.

It wouldn’t matter, some people just put in full stops or text emojis etc, there’s always a way around it.  Don’t underestimate the caonima sneakiness of readers!

I’m fine, except I’ve been experiencing bullying at my school and my parents and I are discussing possible transfer. My entire class except a few people hates me and they’ve basically ostracized me. I’ve also been ignored for leadership positions and any sort of important things because it always ended up becoming a popularity contest, with the most popular bitch winning. I’ve had to quit the school team I was on because of this sort of instance (and I’m their best player; they’re going to have their asses handed to them by every other team in our league.) I’ve lost a lot of human compassion for stuff in general because of this bullying because it’s just so numbing to me. I haven’t even done anything mean to people at this school, I’ve just been myself, participated in class and gotten stellar grades (rip stellar 2k17) but everyone seems to hate me. I mean, last night I cried myself to sleep for about 3 hours I’m just so angry with everyone. Kpop, and your blog especially, have certainly helped me through these struggles as an outlet from which I don’t have to think about these everyday issues I deal with. So thank you. And I really like your surveys so I’m looking forward to this

Bummer to hear.  I can certainly relate, which is why I made a post about how to handle bullies a while back, so read that if you haven’t.  Don’t worry, you’ll get the last laugh in life – statistically bullies tend to emerge from school worse off than everyone else.

I’m super nervous right now, I’m in third year of high school and I have a PHP programming exam right now and my anxiety is ruining everything even though I studied hard. I’m trying to relax by doing this survey hahaha, I hope it works. I realized this is the second time I do your surveys before a test(last time was for java programming and you helped a lot ❤ thx oppar).

My super Boram ESP powers tell me that you’ve already taken this exam and done well.

bored as fuck, too few posts, the weekly roundup does not feel enough…

I’d love to post more for you all but I’d need to cut my paid work hours to find the time, and I refuse to carry ads like other lesser k-pop sites.

Well, I guess I am fine. I made a new friend a while ago, which is great because I do not make friends easily. I showed her some kpop, and now she is a full-blown BTS-GOT7 fangirl, almost bordering on a Koreaboo level. I want to solve this problem, but I have no idea how. Do you have any advice oppar?

Get her to read Kpopalyspe blog.  Repeat as often as necessary.

Hello! Have a nice day. I’m fine. Check Hotline Miami 2 OST, fucking great music that killed my kpop enjoyment for some reason.

Actually I preferred the music to the first Hotline Miami, especially M O O N’s “Hydrogen” which should have been the in-game music for every single level.

kpopalypse oppar i think i am in need of your help. recently every time i reach out to my boyfriend he gives me shorter responses than im expecting and usually doesnt give me the time of day that he used to. of course i know he has a busy schedule and its difficult for him but at the same time i have needs too. how do i tell him that without coming across as selfish?

Paradoxical as it may seem, the best way for you to regain some focus on yourself here is to back way off.  Stop reaching out to him completely.  At first he won’t notice a change, but eventually he will.  Then he’ll be the one coming to you, wondering what’s up, or perhaps just missing you.  Now you’re in control.

i have to go to the dentist soon, and i need some advice: which kpop song is the best aural equivalent to a root canal with no novocaine?

Omfg, so there’s this girl… and honestly our relationship is so weird. She’s deeply in love with her teacher (we’re in high school), but starting since May of last year until now we’ve basically fallen into this ambiguous “friends with benefits” sort of relationship. We’ve hooked up a couple of times and she expresses her feelings for me a lot (especially when she’s high), but she’s also really “hot and cold” about it. I’m also one of her main confidants about her (admittedly very shitty) home life and about her issues with her teacher. If I’m being honest with myself, my wish to be a good “friend” (or whatever we are) and put up with her shit and help her how I can has led me to quite a bit of emotional turmoil. The other problem is that I really, really like her. Oh, and this relationship is lesbian af which basically a whole ‘nother problem in itself (her parents are homophobic as can be). I tell myself I’m not getting strung along because we’ve always been honest about the fact that we’re never going to be in a legit relationship… but am I getting strung along? Should I stop putting up with her shit?

Why not just enjoy the ride and see where it takes you?  It seems like a dangerous relationship to put any particular expectations into.  If you don’t have anything vested into it, then being “strung along” no longer applies and you can just enjoy yourself.

Great. I just fapped like an absolute madwoman to a Yugyeom fancam, so I’m kind of out of breath and I’m feeling a bit sore all over. And how are you? Who have YOU been rubbing one out to lately? Is that too impersonal?

I found some goth-ish girl doing Mei Overwatch porn and it was pretty good but I still ended up fapping to Georgina Gee.  If we could get Georgina Gee doing Mei Overwatch porn I think it could be a fapception.

Finding this survey just made my day as it allows me to escape my boring and depressing yet exhausting life for a bit. That also summarizes pretty well how I feel these days: bored, depressed, exhausted. Also I realized recently I might be a lesbian. Why do I still prefer male kpop groups though? Well aren’t a lot of gay guys into Lady Gaga and musicals? Maybe the likes of Big Bang and BTS are my version of Lady Gaga then, but of the opposite gender…? What, you don’t care about any of this? Well I guess you shouldn’t have asked then. But now that you’re already reading this: what’s your opinion as a seasoned writer on queer issues regarding my Lady-Gaga-theory?

All the gay guys I know think Lady Gaga is fucking shit.  In fact I’m probably more tolerant of her than any of them.  Also the gay guys I know who are into k-pop still like female groups more and have more female than male biases.  No, I don’t understand it either.

Fine, except I can’t seem to get the idea of four-part writing down. There are so many rules (open/closed spacing, doubling, parallel whatevers), and I always do terribly in writing these. What exactly is the point of having to do these?

There’s no fucking point, you won’t ever use the knowledge.  Four-part harmony writing is essentially useless in the modern music sphere where aspects such as parallel fifths (banned in this type of harmony writing) are actually the norm.  It’s only useful knowledge if you ever have to analyse compositional harmony.  One day I might go into this in depth but I’d need a k-pop related excuse to do so, just to keep my personal interest levels up.

I’m good! I just started school and I’m doing well so far. I failed really hard the first time I went so I’m nervous, but after my first two semesters of being back I managed to get a 4.0 GPA that I’m really proud of because I worked hard for it!!!! I’m scared because I’m taking statistics this semester, and I’m bad at math, so I’m worried about maintaining my GPA, but I’m trying not to think to hard about it. My teacher has a heavy accent though that’s hard to understand, but he seems like a genuinely good teacher, and all the other good ones are taken, so I have to stick with it. Otherwise, I am doing well! I also am trying hard to lose weight, and become prettier these days, using videos of t-ara for inspiration! I’ve lost 8 pounds so far! I was wondering if your gf would have any words of inspiration from girl to girl since she sounds so cool. That’s it!

I asked my girlfriend for you.  She laughed a lot and said “yeah right”.  I said “what, that’s it?”.  She said “pretty much”.  She then added “that’s a bit dumbass using k-pop for inspiration, it’s fucking shit”.  Don’t take her too serious though, she likes that goth bullshit.  Good luck on your weight loss journey, but it would probably be wise to stop before you get to Boram levels of weight loss.

Hey, oppar. You never put me in your posts, I’m so mad at you, but I still love you and read you!
My uni is starting finally, I will be living in a dorm and I’m worrying about it, what if its infested with gigantic bugs that will kill me at night. Also what if my dormmates will bully me, or feed me ricecakes against my will. Wish me luck, oppar.

Good luck!  Uni living is pretty poverty-stricken, if I were you I’d accept all the free rice cakes I could.  Also congratulations on being the last question answered!

Question 2: Why do some readers assume that I don’t care how they are, when I clearly do?

Kpopalypse cares about all caonimas, but if I had to endure idol life for my entire 20s like Qri I think I would probably give about as much of a fuck as her.

Question 3: What are the sexiest clothes for idols (male or female) to wear?

Kpopalypse blog isn’t afraid to tackle the big issues in k-pop fap.  Casual clothes came out as the clear winner.  Hip-hop clothes on the other hand were a definite no-go for fap purposes.

Question 4: Less than 24 hours after I made a post about how idols don’t get paid unless they run their own businesses, Hyolyn from Sistar decided to quit Starship Entertainment and start her own company. Coincidence?

It looks like even after Sistar’s disbandment, Dasom can be relied on to share important knowledge with her groupmates, and not just about anal sex.  Just as well for Hyolyn, let’s wish her all the best with her new company!

Question 5: Kpopalypse recently stopped writing for Asian Junkie. How do you feel about this change?

Not many of you actually gave a fuck about whether my crappy posts are on Asian Junkie or not.  I guess that’s as good an argument for no longer having them on there as any other.

Question 6: Here is a picture of AOA’s Yooa.

Why does Yooa have her arms folded?

Expensive plastic surgery costs seemed to be the most likely reason for Yooa’s disgruntlement, according to perceptive Kpopalypse readers.

Question 7: In an appeal case, it was stated that JYJ’s Yoochun was not guilty of rape because “it’s not possible for rape to occur in a small bathroom”. Using the slider below, indicate the minimum volume (in cubic cm) that a bathroom needs to be before rape is possible.

When all responses were averaged out, the answer to this question was 121.5 cubic centimetres.  That’s quite a small bathroom indeed!  Korea must have some very small, very rape-proof bathrooms.

Question 8: Which item below best describes the “edginess” level of Kpopalypse blog?

Many people call Kpopalypse “edgy”, but how edgy exactly is Kpopalypse blog?  After all, there are many objects in the world with different types of edges (just ask Kim Hyun Joong).  It was a close race, but Kpopalypse readers felt that the humble butter knife best encapsulated the edginess level of Kpopalypse blog.

Question 9: Recently, in order to broaden his appeal with today’s sensitive snowflake generation, Kpopalypse banned several naughty “slur” words, including “Allkpop”, “talent” and “slay”. What should be the next offensive term to be banned on Kpopalypse blog?

“Swag” was the clear winner.  I will consider removing this horrible slur word to make Kpopalypse a more politically correct blogging landscape.

Question 10: Does Kpopalypse really have ESP passed down to him through his family from Boram?

Sure, there weren’t any other options to choose from, but that’s only because my super Boram ESP powers told me that you didn’t want any other options.

Question 11: China will start banning VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) soon. Will T-ara still come first in every pointless k-pop poll ever?

The answer to this question was a resounding yes, so when you see T-ara come first yet again on the next pointless Internet poll, just know that Kpopalypse readers called it.

Question 12: Rate your enjoyment of the following fanfictions.

I know that most readers already think my fanfictions are shit.  However, are they more shit than the masterworks of the shit fanfiction genre, “Twilight” and “Fifty Shades Of Grey”?  Clearly not.  I will work harder to improve my shit fanfiction writing skills for the future.

Question 13: Despite posting about it saying he doesn’t give any fucks, Kpopalypse still gets a lot of questions about k-pop albums. Why are readers still interested in this?

As the drive for people to see Kpopalyspe write nice things about their biases is very high (for some unknown reason), I’m sure that I will continue to get many more questions about this incredibly boring topic!

Question 14: Observe the following video of Qri.

Rate the amount of Qri’s care-factor in the above video on a scale from 0 (Qri doesn’t care) to 10 (Qri cares).

The results for this were interesting, with a few readers finding sneaky caonima ways to break the slider and post results way outside of the specified zero to ten range.  As a result, Qri’s higest score was 69 and her lowest was -696,969, but a rough average for Qri’s care-factor in the above video was a humble 4.

Question 15: Which k-pop group will come back first?

I thought I’d give Kpopalypse readers a chance to express their optimistic side.  It was interesting to note that the technically-still-going-honest After School have sunk lower in the poll than many other groups who have officially disbanded.

Question 16: Soon Australia might be voting on the important social issue of marriage equality, which means legalising same-sex marriage. What are you feelings on this controversial topic?

Kpopalypse readership opinion on this hot topic roughly mirrored polling in Australia, where most people support same-sex marriage, or at least acknowledge that it is very gay.  Of course the government here is wasting $122 million with a postal vote anyway to formalise what we already know through free Internet surveys like mine.  I urge the Australian government to just hurry up and legalise this gay shit already and then they can spend the spare money on Kpopalypse’s Patreon where it will be put to much better use.  Remember Malcolm Turnbull, each dollar that you spend per month on Kpopalypse brings SPUNKMOP approximately 0.000002328% closer to happening.

Question 17: Check your k-pop privilege! How many privileges do you have? Tick all that apply.

As this question was multiple choice, the bars here represent percentage total out of 100%.  “I can access k-pop on the Internet privilege” therefore scored as the most common privilege, at 96.1%.  Some surveydoers wondered why I restricted them to ticking a maximum of eight options and they couldn’t tick all nine options.  This wasn’t a mistake – if you ticked all the other options and admitted that you had all these privileges, I knew that you weren’t lying about it, and therefore you didn’t get to also tick “lying in Kpopalypse surveys privilege”.  Whereas on the other hand if you did check “lying in Kpopalypse surveys privilege”, I made sure that you couldn’t tick at least one other box, therefore forcing you to potentially lie.

Question 18: What is the real reason that many Reddit/kpop users hate Kpopalypse?

Opinion was spread reasonably evenly but slightly slanted in favour of the idea that Reddit/kpop users feel threatened by an annoying know-it-all like Kpopalypse – after all, that’s their turf.

Question 19: What is the Jiyeon webcam scandal?

I hope this now clears up the issue for anybody curious.

Question 20: This is a picture of Shannon Williams with Korean rapper Sleepy.

Why is this picture here?

Actually it did relate to a later question.  Unfortunately it probably also biased the responses to this later question but oh well.

Question 21: Complaint corner! Complain about Kpopalypse in this space. If you don’t have any complaints, tell a joke instead. I’ll put the funniest complaint AND the funniest joke in the survey results. You can skip this question if you want to.

Oh boy, the complains and the jokes came in thick and fast!  As a result I’m going to feature my top FIVE favourite jokes and types of complaints!

COMPLAINTS

COMPLAINT #1 – PRACTICAL SITE STUFF

Actual complaint: I hate how your archives are organized, and I wish you had a cloud tag (unless I’m just to ditzy to find it).

I agree with you about the archives, unfortunately they are default and I can’t change them.  That’s why I have an index in the sidebar (click Eunjung).  I do also have a cloud tag, it’s underneath the picture of Lizzy.  Failing these, the search bar looks humble but is actually deceptively powerful, it will prioritise post headings and then look for keyword matches within blog posts.  Type in your favourite bias or group and it will list all the posts where that bias or group is mentioned.

If i want to binge read all your past weekly roundups, i can’t unless i click so many times my fingers are reduced to bloody stumps. Fix this.

If you go to the playlist index and click on the dates, it will take you to the specific roundup that matches that radio show.

i’m gonna complain about the fact that i wasted ten minutes on question 7 trying to work that fuckin slider to get to 5000 exactly which then i realized i could just get close & use the arrow keys. fuck that slider

Ahahahahaha

q15 and q24 sucks. Your blog is getting harder to manage at phone.

Yeah I know.  Not my fault that phones suck though.  Do the survey on a desktop if you can.

Change the website theme and font they are pathetic

I did, to please my readers.  Nothing keeps you lot happy, eh?

I NEED MORE POSTS FROM YOU, NOT AROUND 2 POSTS A WEEK BUT LIKE EVERYDAY SO I DON’T DIE FROM BOREDOM. I CAN’T LIVE WHEN MY BIASES DON’T HAVE A CONCERT EVERYDAY AND FIVE COMEBACKS A MONTH. FUCK.

You know, my life has been tough so far. I live in the southern hemisphere, where no idol goes. I’m trapped in FUCKING SCHOOL. I can’t stand clickbaits like AllKShit and Koreaboo-hoo, and fake-cheery-and-innocent-and-special-snowflake cunts like /r/kpop. You are a piece of my life like nobody else (except for my biases lol), so please… please. Keep writing more often. I get you have a life, but I need MORE POSTS.

>:'(

STEP UP YOUR GAME, KPOPCALYPSE.

Thanks.

Bye.

The problem is I work more than one job and am routinely busy as fuck.  I don’t get paid (much) for this shit and I spend many hours on it each and every week.  Right now I’ve doing these answers in my rare downtime and I could be molesting my girlfriend but I’m writing this response to you instead.  Maybe she should be complaining to you.

COMPLAINT #2 – ROUNDUP AND REVIEWS

You used to explain WHY the music sucked technically in layman’s terms that were interesting, but you don’t do that much anymore and I miss it. You just seem to take a lot of cheap shots now.

Actually I still do this at the same rate as always – one set of big posts per year.  It’s just that before Kpopalypse roundup didn’t exist and now it does, so in between those yearly dissections where I get quite specific, are all the Roundup posts where I usually don’t get very specific.  So yes in percentage terms, there is less music-explanation, but in overall terms you’re actually getting the same amount of explanation plus bonus snarky stuff (which I’ll extrapolate on later when/if those songs get in the top/bottom 30) because there’s just more content now.  If anything you get more technical explanation than before because readers may have noticed that the Honourable Mentions lists are become more like the end of year lists (longer reviews, more detail).  Also, if I went into technical details all the time it would be boring, because, as another complainer pointed out:

Only complaint I have is kind of not a complaint about you. Love the roundup series but it’s just so disappointing to read basically the same reviews week after week due to a stale (and shitty) music market.

…and that’s why I take cheap shots sometimes – if I can write something that amuses myself I’ll usually pick doing that over writing the 2967th technical explanation of the same fucking thing.  I don’t need to write why trop-house or Rhodes or ballads suck over and over again when I’ve already addressed each in separate quite long posts.

on the rare occasion that you actually like a song in your weekly roundup, I wish you’d talk just a bit more about why you like it, rather than your usual, “holy shit I actually like this song by these fucktards, who could have seen that coming?”

As for this reverse but related complaint, here’s a secret: if I like a song but give very sketchy or no details as to why, there’s a very good chance that I’m saving the big-ass essay on why I like it for the end-of-year list!

stop shitting on tropical shithouse, it’s the least shitty trendy bullshit to gain prominence in recent years. It’s way better than fucking dubstep or horn samples or trap.

Actually I completely agree, it could be worse!  Any trend is annoying when constantly recycled though.

While it doesn’t bother me too much, I feel like you should just not review songs that you clearly don’t give a fuck about. What keeps me reading this blog is the high-quality posts you have. I understand that you do these weekly one-sentence reviews of mostly shitty songs so people won’t ask you about them on ask.fm. But why not just ignore those questions about shitty songs?

Because it’s more fun to irritate people by writing one worthless line about that bullshit.  You can always skip the roundups if you hate them, or just watch the videos and ignore my text, which plenty of people do.

COMPLAINT #3 – KPOPALYPSE CHANGES THE WORLD

I don’t think this will qualify, but I LOVE complaining about you, because you are some sort of asshole onion; Like IU pretends to be a fox pretending to be a bear pretending to be a fox, you pretend to be an asshole who pretends to be a nice person who is really asshole, deep down inside.

You seem to think that anyone who cares about a social issue is doing so for a sense of self-righteousness, instead of a hope for self-preservation. You are basically a text-book example of the “argument to moderation”, in human form. Your views seem to be based on a misunderstanding of what the modern progressive movement is trying to achieve. You think that feminism was great in the 60-70’s (when you were a kid and teen) and it’s shit now, because you just don’t know anything about it, outside of the inane “rationalist skeptic” critiques you watch about it on Youtube. You think that freedom of speech is important, even when the protection of hate speech actively SILENCES oppressed groups. You don’t understand the nuances of racism, and unintentionally support it by agreeing to a position that helps racists keep on’ oppressing, because you don’t want to have to reevaluate your beliefs. There’s more, but I’m sure you stopped reading, watermelon watermelon, cantaloupe, cantaloupe.

You aren’t the worst, but moderates can be more infuriating, because y’all pretend to listen to reasoned arguments, even when your mind is made up. And yes, I know you probably don’t think I (try) to listen to them myself, since I sound like I’m talking down to you, but I know I’m not perfect or close to it, but you are using your platform to spread your beliefs, so I have to criticize you if I think you are hurting people.

I wasn’t alive in the 1960s, nobody is actually that old.  The other strawman stuff here is blatantly incorrect and isn’t worth addressing but that IU comment is fantastic and I really like the concept of “the asshole onion”.

You always talk about your obsession with 80s “heavy”-metal groups but have a disdain for REAL music like Chopin, Haydn, and Stravinsky. I’m actually pretty disgusted with your taste in music; it’s all wrong. Not to mention your apathy towards jazz standards. I bet you can’t even play a 251 on the plethora of shit guitars that you have (you must be compensating for something). It’s also maddening how your jealousy of other’s vocal techniques seemed to have completely forced yourself into disliking one of the most important genres of music: R&B. With all of your Nazi jokes, blackface apologies, and ugliness, it’s pretty clear why you wouldn’t like R&B anyways. You’re dismissed and cancelledt.

Remember that it’s very important to insult and belittle people when trying to make the world a better place where nobody is insulted or belittled.

WHy on Gods green earth do you fucking tolerate that libtard fuckhead IATFB aka AJ aka “Hi guys I’m a retarded PC SJW moron who makes stupid post about on my shitty blog about racism, cultural appropriation, and other faggy libtard shit”. Honestly the only reason I even looked up that shitty blog of his was because AKF quit blogging and I needed something else other then the great sanctum of caonima action and trufax and formerly Rainaism that is the Kpopalypse blog, and you didn’t outright have a bad opinion about it (though me visiting that shithole is in no way your fault make no mistake).
Anyway it just baffles the mind that that moron keeps making posts about cultural appropriation especially after your french berett post, and about blackface without even looking ant intent or context.
I guess what I’m trying to say is FUCK AJ and his shitty libtard blog and it wouldn’t hurt if youd shit on him a little harder and more frequently, CMON I know you want to, that libtard is like asking to bitch slapped with a healthy dose of reality and common sense.
Please please pretty please, I know you probably won’t give a single sorry solitary fuck about “my special needs” , and if I don’t like AJ I should probably stop reading his shitty blog, but still I know I’ll get a good laugh out of it if you’ll ever deside to go all caonima on his ass.

And then there’s people who want me to go in the other direction.  I don’t agree with IATFB or AKF all the time, or even most of the time, on some issues.  I don’t have to agree with 100% of how other people feel about issues in order to be friends, read their blog, or admit that they provide entertainment value and insight at times etc, if that was the case I’d have no friends at all and read nothing on the Internet ever.  In this Internet age everyone wants to live in an echo-chamber where they get complete reinforcement of their own viewpoints and we all agree with each other, but real life isn’t like that.  It’s okay to disagree.

COMPLAINT #4 – TITS, ASS, COCK, PUSSY

Once I was getting ready and while looking in the mirror I thought, ‘I wonder how Kpopalypse would rate my boobs.’ The annoying part is, I’ll never know, for I am not a kpop idol for Kpopalypse to judge, and as such it will be a question that haunts me, much like the ‘how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop’ question, or ‘Why isn’t Minah on Kpopalypse blog anywhere if she’s his fav in Girl’s Day’

I hope you enjoyed my KCON review which has much Minah content, including a picture of Minah waving at Kpopalypse!

Oppar’s determination to put fappable photos in the surveys is dropping. Caonimas faps matter! We all know how much you love BTS’s Jimin’s cock so stop being a faggot and post pictures of his glamourous bulge already.

Noted.

COMPLAINT #5 – FAUNA

You could show us your cat more, it would be better content than 80% of this website.

Can’t argue with this.

No Jaehyo, no Westies, no Shetland ponies:
what the heck kind of site are you running, Oppar?

Can’t argue with this either.  I will reflect.

Not enough cat posts.

I know.  I’m so sorry.

Kpopalypse’s cat does not MRS.

My other readers will beat you up after school, cunt.

Post YOUR FUCKING CAT DAMNIT

I know!  She’s better than me and I can’t deal with it, okay?  [runs off crying]

BEST FIVE JOKES

FIVE

How do you think the unthinkable?
With an itheberg
(IF I HAD TO READ THIS WITH MY OWN EYES YOU DO TOO)

FOUR

What’s the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants?

One’s a crusty bus station and the other’s a busty crustacean

THREE

A bra and a jumper cable walk into the bar. The jumper cable sits down, and the bra orders two drinks. The bartender says “I’m not serving you”. The bra asks “why not?”. The bartender says “you’re obviously off your tits and your mate looks like he’s gonna start something”

TWO

A tribal chief has three squaws, and receives a prophesy from a local wise woman. She says that his fertility will be greatly increased if he beds them on the hides of great animals, so he fetches his hunting gear and goes in search. He finds a nice lion, a gazelle, but then spots a hippo bathing in the mud. His tribe attack and defeat it, and he gives the hide to his best squaw. He beds all of them that night on the three different hides, and 9 months later he has 4 sons, 1 each from the gazelle and lion skins and 2 from the hippo.
And it just goes to show, the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the squaws on the other two hides.

ONE

You.

Question 22: What’s the most moronic, awkward mis-spelling of Kpopalypse you’ve seen on the Internet?

To make things even more confusing there were actually some YouTubers called “Kpopcalypse” (although they seem to have deleted all their videos now) and even someone who is apparently making a “Kpopcalypse” feature film (which looks fairly unlikely to get off the ground), so that probably explains why this option narrowly beat out the much funnier “Kpoopalypse”.

Question 23: Hopefully you’ve all been regularly clicking sidebar Sorn. We all know who the next sidebar girl is going to be, don’t we?

I won’t keep you in suspense long, you’ll all find out the answer in October 2017!

Question 24: What has been k-pop’s saddest event so far for 2017?

Choa robbing the k-pop world of fap-friendly AOA comebacks was the biggest sticking point for Kpopalypse readers so far this year.  However you were mostly okay with Gfriend’s agency gradually drowning them.

Question 25: This is a picture of Shannon Williams reaching for the alarm clock at the start of “Why Why“.

How “woke” is Shannon Williams?

Clearly Woke Queen of k-pop Shannon Williams is woke.  We may have to wait for Kpopalypse Interview to find out exactly how woke, but in the meantime we can safely assume that she’s more mature and less problematic than eugenics-loving racial scientist Asian Junkie.

Question 26: When will tropical shithouse stop being a thing in k-pop?

You’ve all picked the trend pattern by now – when the west is about to dump some bullshit overplayed sound for being too boring, that’s when k-pop starts latching on.

Question 27: Kpopalypse nearly has enough dreams for the next episode of “Kpopalypse dreams”! Are you looking forward to the next installment of this iconic series?

The fifth installment of Kpopalypse dreams did appear just a few days before the survey closed off, which sort of invalidated this question slightly for some of you, but since most people don’t really care about the series anyway I figured nobody would really give any fucks.  Trivia: the Kpopalypse fanfic The SHINee Ghost Train was originally a really long dream that was destined for the Kpopalypse dreams series before I added extra parts to it and gave it a life of its own.

Question 28: How often do you fap to k-pop idols?

It seems that 25% of you exercised your “lying in Kpopalypse surveys privilege”.

Question 29: We all know that they win #1 on the most fappable MV list every year, but how many times has Kpopalypse actually fapped to Apink?

Readers could vote between zero and 666 times.  The answer to this question, once all scores were averaged out, was 69 times.  Not even joking.

Readers were then offered this picture of Umji being problematic as a thank you for filling out the survey, and were then asked on final question:

Question 30: Any feedback about this survey, you can leave here if you wish. Thank you for participating!

Here’s a bunch of feedback related Umji and/or Frenchface:

how dare you include a picture of Umji engaging in cultural appropriation. How. Dare. You. I hope that a Frenchman shows up while you’re sleeping, and smothers you with his beret.

STOP FRENCHFACE IN KPOP!!!!!111!!

Honestly I though I’ve just wasted 15 minute of my life but I realized I’m gonna dead soon and you finish this survey with a picture of Umji so I guess I can live until the next survey comes along. Why tf do I even read your blog in the first place, probably because Asian Junkie getting to moral for my dark taste. Keep up the good work.

that was a shitty picture of umji you used you cancerous fuck

Umji is ugly and anyone who says she isn’t must be in denial.

I love Umji being problematic.

I fucking love umji. Thanks.

Umji, Tzuyu and other already rich kpop people will be fine after their contracts so people shit on them at any opportunity whilst said idols use inherited money to wipe away their tears

I’m triggered by the blatant frenchface in this article

Fucking Umji and her Frenchfafe

why is Umji problematic here? cause she’s wearing a beret? lol

Your picture of Umji needs more jpeg.

Umji is not only doing Frenchface in the above photo, but also whiteface. Her complexion matches the terrifying white of the Kpopalypse blog.

Man that Umji pic was so problematic my laptop froze for about an hour

Umji is cute

 

WHY THE FUCK IS UMJI IN A BERET? FUCKING CANCEROUS PIECE OF SHIT TRIGGERING ME LIKE THAT. TAKE THIS LINK DOWN.

#stopfrenchface2k17

Does Umji look better after the weight loss or not? Yep, that’s a stumper.

You forgot the “i” in Umji in before the image above.

Thank you for making me see the light about Umji’s less than acceptable behaviour as I’ve never seen that image before. And here we all thought she was the innocent one. I’m going to contact their agency to get her to film an apology video for all the oppressed and marginalized frenchmen and women in the world. Unnir must be held responsible for her actions and reflect. And I won’t be supporting her and her group anymore after this.

Umjis picture is the best reward ever.

I’m horrified by that picture of Umji, that photo filter ought to be destroyed. Otherwise, I’m good. Thanks for doing this!

And some questions you wanted answered, and other random responses:

You’re a cool cunt. Don’t stop what you’re doing because your blogposts are a pleasure and something to keep me motivated (your determination is what I am building towards like holy shit)

Thanks!  Kpopalypse will continue to show high determination levels!

Generally one of your more pleasant surveys, but Q.6 gave me a headache. Who even is that? When did Yooa join AoA? Why does she have a perfectly heartshaped bruise on her shoulder?

You think it gave you a headache, try making a survey about it…

I am curious on how you can actually name any member from BTS. Is it because searching for images of “Jimin” for fapping brings up endless photos of man meat instead of the cute chubby one or the motherfuckin top madam?

Yes, that’s exactly it.  Also you folks voted for Jimin a lot in my objectification surveys.

Hi again!

About the fact that you stopped writing for AJ, it almost makes no difference whatsoever. He published a (butchered) article of yours once in a blue moon, and anyway, I have been reading your articles on your blog for years now so, as you said, it really doesn’t affect me. Btw, Antikpopfangirl was nice to post about your survey!

About Reddit, I like your style and I don’t get why they keep accusing you of being “tryhard”. I don’t feel talked down at all when you explain something and the idea of you being mean or angry is just ridiculous (you are super nice!) so keep up the good work!

On another topic, if you remember, in the last survey I wrote about my cat, about infected wounds, terrible parents, and freaking out in general, well…everything went well. My parents were reasonable and we kept Rama with us for 20 days (yes, maybe I was over-zealous). During the ordeal Rama was super sweet, I had almost no problem at all with bandages or antibiotics, and now he is fine, the fur grew back, and he is beautiful as always. Recently he came back with a scratch but this time I was prepared: I abduct him for 3 days, put loads of betadine, and he was as good as new. I wanted to say thank you for your answer that time.

On the same note, my (new) veterinarian is very cute and I’d like to stop being a mess every time I take one of my cats for a checkup.
When Rama got hurt, I started crying in front of him, but in my defence, he talked for 10 minutes about the fact that he couldn’t visit him because he wasn’t an indoor cat before saying that what he meant was that he couldn’t treat Rama in that moment because he had to put him to sleep first (why didn’t you say so at the beginning?!).
Another fun fact: I was obsessing over the loss of fur on Rama’s front leg (I thought of a fungus, it happened to my other cats) so I decided to send a photo to the aforementioned veterinarian and he replied that they simply shaved the fur to take the blood test…well, let’s say it was embarrassing.

So my question is: how can I be a calm and collected and not at all anxious cat owner (like you)?

As always I hope you, your family, your girlfriend and Stiglitz are ok.

Thanks, we’re good!  It’s hard being a cat owner sometimes, as it kind of depends on the cat.  Before my current cat I had two cats and one of them got sick a lot, it was a great amount of stress.

My daughter died in 2014. She was a dancer and a singer.
I discovered Kpop and this site and i’m sure the distraction has saved my life.

Not sure why…it just is.

Thanks.

Glad to have helped!

Actually I have a concern. After reading your article on idols not getting paid, as a BABY I worry a lil since Daehyun bought a house for his parents in his hometown and he lives in his own flat now. Is there a case when the idol is not fucked up except for building his/her own company ?
Thank you

Some of the long-standing groups do make some money.  Just not very many of them!

Just need to say that as a Brazilian OMFG NORTHERN HEMISPHERE PRIVILEGE IS SUCH A BITCH WHY CAN’T I HAVE A SNOWY CHRISTMAS AT LEAST ONCE IT’S ALWAYS FUCKING 40 DEGREES OUTSIDE I WANNA DIE

I feel this.

Why are you letting Taylor Swift write you surveys now.

Sorry, the old Kpopalypse can’t come to the phone right now.

I really think if you cut down on the really irrelevant content that has really nothing with do with K-Pop’s latest happenings or reviews or commentary about the industry/fandom, your blog will be much better. The fanfics, dreams, and other stuff that have nothing to do with what’s actually in the K-Pop world just seems way too self-indulgent and pointless.

What is blogging if not self-indulgence?

I love these surveys. Keep them coming. I love your blog. It’s one of the only ways I can stay up to date with the world of kpop without losing my shit over all the dumb idiots out there on the other websites I have to share this hobby/obsession/music preference with (at least around here I only have to deal with one of them). And I’m even learning stuff in the meantime which I can use against my friends (or people who wrongly consider themselves to be part of that very exclusive group) every time any of them starts talking about stuff like how they only listen to “real music” that’s “real art” unlike “that capitalist anti-art called pop music”. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I’m not even being the least bit sarcastic over here.

Thanks for reading!

10/10 would complete again

You’ll get your chance in approximately six months when the next bi-yearly survey is due!  Thanks to all readers for participating in the survey!  Kpopalypse will return!

Some of you have been clicking on CLC’s Sorn for no reason… but have you missed anything?  Here’s a list of all the websites that were featured on the clickable sidebar Sorn over the past year, just in case you missed any of the fun.  Enjoy!

NICE ONE DAD

KALEIDOSCOPE

WOMEN LAUGHING ALONE WITH SALAD

BOOK TITLE GENERATOR

NARWHALE

SPACEPLAN

GOOGLE SHEEP VIEW

IS TRUMP YOUR FAULT

MANYGOLF

DUNGEON 404

QUICK DRAW

SOMETHING OPEN

LADY PARTS

BULLSHIT GENERATOR

THAT’S THE FINGER

RANDOM IDEA

UNCLEAR TEXT

ENDLESS HORSE

AMBIENT MIXER

ARE YOU OBSERVANT

TATATAA

DRUMS

CORRELATED

PULSATE

POLAR BEAR IN A SNOWSTORM

YOU ARE IN A FOREST

SEAL SPIN

WAY TO GO

SNAKE

NOOT

PIXELS FIGHTING

ZOOMQUILT

THE RESTART PAGE

HTTP STATUS CATS

FEED THE HEAD

REMOJI

FILL THE OCEANS

HYPNOTOAD

CLICKCLICKCLICK

FFFIDGET

STARBLAST

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY GENERATOR

SKRIBBL.IO

NOICE

THE DRAMA BUTTON

OMG LASER GUNS PEW PEW PEW

I BELIEVE POPPY

FLOPPY FROG

THE GOSTAK

TRUST

LITTLE ALCHEMY 2

SLEEVEFACE

DINOKIKI

RAINBOW DOG

SHORT TRIP

HAPPYLANDER

*

Previous Kpopalypse “no reason” sidebar girls:

2016: Umji (Gfriend)

2015: Suhyun (Akdong Musician)

2014: Eunkyo (F-ve Dolls)

Sidebar Sorn will soon be replaced with a new “no reason” sidebar girl, who will carry the torch of pointless clicking into the next 12 months!  Thanks for visiting!

Yes, it’s back – Kpopalypse roundup is here again!  Let’s take a look at some new releases!

Scan-dol of the week – Han Seo Hee

U-Know – Drop

I thought it might be something different due to that orchestral thing at the start but turns out that’s just a video intro and the actual song is the usual boy-group yolo lite.

Changmin (Max) – In A Different Life

Better than the other TVXQ-related effort this week though.  Let’s stop sending Koreans into the armed forces if this is what happens when they come back.

Dia – Seoraksan In October

This lesbian dog-whistle is really quite bold for Korea, pity about the song being some sub-Bob Dylan crap.

P.O – Menz Night

Is it true that people think this is “that Bruno Mars’ sound” these days?  A whole bunch of funk musicians who OD’ed in the 70s are turning in their graves.

Bolbbalgan4 – Some

It’s pretty obvious to me why this group are successful right now when all the thousands of other boring groups in Korea who sound just like them are not.  They’ve actually got their formula down pretty well now, and this song is decent.  Also a pretty girl with a blonde bob goes a long way, just ask FNC.  Most of the other coffee shop groups are fugly to the max.

Bolbbalgan4 – Fix Me

Their other song isn’t quite as good but the blonde bob is better here, I like the curls better than the straight, this is important.

B1A4 – Rollin’

We’re well into spring/autumn now but unfortunately we’re still going to get “tropical” comebacks from any group that hasn’t already had one yet.

Day6 – When You Love Someone

JYP seems determined to make Day6 Korea’s Coldplay.  Yawn.  Can we have some actual rock music from this group please?

Royal Pirates – Hasta La Vista

Oh jesus fucking christ.  Even the rock bands are going tropical shithouse now.

Idol School – High Five

This is basically the Ramones but with k-pop girls and acoustic guitars, complete with the same cringy lyrics.

K.will – Nonfiction

One of the feedbacks from my survey was that people wanted more technical discussion of songs but there’s really nothing to say about generic ballad #5982 that wasn’t already in my ballads post, so just go and read that each week if you really care about why I hate this bullshit music.

BONUS SONGS

Nada – Trippin’

Nada’s producers shove what would normally be a basic yolo rap song right over the edge and almost into Squarepusher territory, which is pretty fucking cool actually.

Paul Kim – The Road

He looks so sorry for himself.  Don’t you just want to slap him.

Los ft. Jay Park, G.Soul – Bad

Lots of focus on shiny new automotive vehicles in rap music videos usually mean that the song isn’t worth a shit.

Eric Nam, Cheeze – Perhaps Love

At least it’s short, although I’m sure the album version is twice as long as this.

Mackelli – Crush On You

This has so many layers of syrupy vocal that I just want to bash bricks up my ass.  I don’t understand the connection between those two things and I don’t care.

Ahn Seung Hun – Better Than Some

There has to be a fuckton of furries in Korea given how many videos like this keep cropping up.

Ants & Serri – Blue

These two have so much plastic surgery going on that I have trouble working out which shots are of them and which ones are of the kids.

Ovan – Clicher

Look at this woman celebrating and it wasn’t even a strike, she left one pin standing.  She must be pretty noob to get that excited over nine pins down, she’s clearly about as good at bowling as Ovan are at making music.

SVT Leaders – Change Up

Seventeen probably should take their own advice and “change up” their sound a bit from this boring crap.

Ogon – Let’s Fall Asleep Together

Oh come on.  That song title is doing my work for me.  Talk about taking the fun out of this.

Nasangdo – Get Up

I don’t understand what the fuck is going on in this video but the song isn’t bad… I guess.

Radio9 – Soundless

If only!

Mad Soul Child & Chung Chae Woong – Fate

This is a better ballad than most, actual contrast and dynamics go a long way.  Don’t ask me about the crappy MMORPG scenes though.  They always make MMORPGs look so exciting in the pre-rendered cutscenes but once you start playing it’s “collect ten severed walrus penises, go to guy with exclamation mark hovering over his head, repeat 57 times, go the next guy, collect 12 snail vaginas, repeat 39 times” etc, how fucking boring.  How do people play these for their whole lives.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Super Junior – Mr. Simple

Sure it’s an inferior retread of “Sorry Sorry” just like most Super Junior songs back then, but you have to hand it to whoever organised this choreography for giving that little intro part to Shindong.  There’s nothing like putting your best foot forward.

That’s all for Kpopalypse roundup for this week – more next week!

It’s the return of Kpopalypse’s question and answer series, QRIMOLE!  Read on as Kpopalypse tackles more questions from readers!

You mentioned that you can’t compose a song without arranging it however I’ve seen many idols credited as composers but not as arrangers. How is that possible?

If someone is credit as a composer of a song, and there is nobody credited as the arranger, then it is generally assumed the composer arranged the song, as arranging is part of the composition process.  Having said that, be aware that songwriting credits aren’t always an accurate reflection of who did what, for various reasons.

• In some groups there is one main songwriter but the group wants to split all the royalties equally, or between principal songwriters, therefore many members are credited with co-writing songs even though this isn’t the case in reality.  That way they get more equal royalty distribution.  This kind of “gentleman’s agreement” is common with groups on small labels where there’s not much money to go around and one person getting all the cash while the others do not can cause animosity.  A classic example of this is The Beatles where nearly everything was credited “Lennon/McCartney” despite the fact that some songs were very obviously 100% John Lennon and some were 100% Paul.
• Another alternative is that sometimes groups split royalty depending on perceived importance of the members’ imput.  The whole group might write a song but the royalties may be divvied up depending on who wrote the parts of the song that are considered more vital to the final product.  Yes this can get murky and cause fights.
• Sometimes it is decided for whatever reason that a certain person who was involved very minimally or even not at all should be paid for a song.  They may get their name added as a composer.  This is legal if all parties agree to it.
• Sometimes people are removed from songwriting credits for songs that they have wrote.  In most situations this is not legal and can be challenged in court but it happens.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some k-pop labels have a contract clause that states that any songs an idol writes under the company belong to the company.

Hi Oppaarr. Sorry this isn’t the kind of QRIMOLE question you’d like (I’m sure), but I feel like I need the advice from someone who may know more about these things than my friends whose advice hasn’t helped me.
It’s not a big deal, it’s just a crush, but it’s on one of my patients. Now I’m not a doctor so I don’t have much knowledge about him, but it’s still uncomfortable enough territory that I’m trying to snap out of it. I see him on an almost weekly basis and each time I see him I seem to crush harder and harder. I’ve become a teenager again!

I realize a lot of it is my own doing. I barely speak to him and when I do it’s very topical conversations about the weather, work etc. He’s honestly a lovely man, but I keep fantasizing/day dreaming about being with him and I realized I’ve falled for the IDEA of him.

I’ve tried time and again to remind myself of how different we are (beliefs alone are wildly different), but he comes into my workplace and flashes that boyish grin at me and I go right back to square one. It doesn’t help that my coworker keeps mocking me saying “He likes talking to YOU, doesn’t he?”

How do I get out of this? I’ve tried blocking him out of my mind, talking about this with friends, reminding myself of how different we are etc etc and it ain’t working. It affects me at work too, I get shaky hands (fight or flight, you’re so unnecessary sometimes) and it affects my concentration when I see him walk in.
Ottokae oppaarrrrr?

I’m not very clear on why getting involved with this person would be bad.  Different beliefs and interests isn’t that big a deal really (my girlfriend hates k-pop, we’ve been together 7.5 years now).  But okay, assuming that for whatever reason you really don’t want to go there…

You’re the one in control.  Even though it doesn’t seem like it, you are.  It’s fine to have all those crush feelings, but the conscious part of your brain is the gatekeeper of whatever is actually going to happen (or not) with this person, and what happens is actually more important than how you feel about what happens.  Don’t try to stop yourself from feeling the way that you’re feeling.  Instead, allow yourself to feel that way, but also acknowledge that you’re the one with the mater keys and that if you consciously don’t want to do something for whatever reasons, it won’t be happening no matter how many girl-crushes you have pulling your heart in the other direction.

This year a friend became a full-blown army overnight, with a twitter where she spams 24/7 and everything. How can I open her eyes to the reality of kpop and get her to shut up about her oppars and their accomplishments, especially to me, who has been a “real” kpop fan since 2010. Does it also seem to you too that being a fan of kpop (and especially BTS) has become a fad these past years and once this goes away, the quality of music will improve? Is there any hope for my friend?
(I linked some of your articles but she refused to read them.)

It’s her life, it shouldn’t affect you if she wants to like her favourite group.  I don’t think popularity is related to music quality.  It’s not inversely related either.  Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s good but it also doesn’t mean it isn’t good.  K-pop is a phase for many people.  Let her have her fun.  The “rational” articles by me and others will be there for later for her to discover, if she wants to read them.  I don’t write for the specific purpose of converting fangirls back to reality (although if they do come that way it’s nice), I write for the people already in reality so they know that there’s more than just fangirls!

Kpopalypse, which one you prefer:
1. Idol groups who works with many producers with very diverse taste, which somehow makes the group have no musical identity or idol groups who stick to few producers or even produce themselves but their songs sound same?
2. Groups who stick to what make them famous or groups who following trends that popular atm?
3. Live performance that sounds like idol eat their CD but choreo looks sloppy, perfect dance with lipsync, or whatever bigbang do most of time (mediocre live vocal, passable dance, but their stages are super interesting to watch)?
4. early 2010s (aka zanybros) box mvs, drama mv with passable acting, nature documentary mvs, mvs with soo many faux symbolism to troll fangirls, or sugar free mv?

1. Second option.
2. First option.
3. Last option.

I have several classmates who are passive aggressive-cuntfaces. They’re still hung up about something stupid I did to MYSELF 3 months ago.They’re fucking pesky insects, and even though they’ve already been told off by our Head Of Grade, they still somehow manage to be complete fuckheads.I was put into a group with two of those bitches for a project, and as per usual,they decided to be complete immature fuckwits and started complaining in their trying- to -be-subtle -but-not- really-way.Examples include: 1.”All those other groups are good!” and then they laughed 2.When I suggested an idea, they said they didn’t care,shrugged their shoulders, and then snickered. 3.When I asked them for ideas, one girl suggested one half-heartedly and when I asked the second girl she gave the exact same idea, AND THEN THEY LAUGHED.What the actual fuck?I’m seriously thinking of spamming them with incest and beastiality threads from Tumblr, also the “Offended?” page from Encyclopedia Dramatica and then add “fuck off and stop being passive-aggressive cunts”.They might get the message then,because I already typed it out in google slides where they can see it, and they didn’t get the message at all.Fucking hell,what is the fuckery I have to deal with?Please instruct a fellow caonima on how to deal with these types of people.

It’s easy to deal with passive-aggressive people.  Just stop caring.  You only need to worry about idiots if they are actually aggressive.  All that passive-aggressive playing around the edges of caonima type stuff can just be ignored.  Don’t do the whole Tumblr/ED thing, that’s a passive-aggressive retaliation and it means that now you’re playing the game that they want you to play.  Instead be completely straightforward in your dealings with these people.  People do this bullshit to rattle you, it’s a form of bullying.  Just like physical bullies pick on what they see as weak physical targets (the skinny weird kid or whatever), these passive-aggressive bullies see you as an emotionally weak target so they’re honing in on what makes you tick mentally.  Be direct with all questions and unmoved.  Prove that you’re unshakeable and stronger than them, and they’ll either escalate, or move on.

Just for fun, musically, Dreamcatcher or Minx?

They’re the same group and the songs are about the same quality, more or less.  They’re certainly all written with pop songwriting sensibilities.  Dreamcatcher has a veneer of (mostly) metal over it but strip that back and it’s really just pop music.

I read your post about delayed k-pop comebacks, and I wondered what could be the reason behind blackpink’s delayed comebacks? They haven’t had any physical releases yet, and the members themselves have complained about the lack of comebacks. Are they already at that well-estabilished level where they don’t need as many comebacks anymore despite having just debuted? Also sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language.

Blackpink have had physical releases in Japan (where the physical CD market still actually matters).  I’m sure YG will do what they always do which is wait for a bit and then do a double-comeback or some other attention-getting thing.  It’s silly to be concerned about things like this.  The music will come out when it’s ready.

Is SNSD’s “Chocolate Love” about interracial or scat?

Why can’t it just be about good old-fashioned anal sex.  Why does everything have to be about race or poo-eating for you Americans, hmmm?

(Yes the person who asked this was American.)

First of all thanks for keeping QRIMOLE going, it’s always a very insightful read!
There’s a track on the new BTS album that very directly addresses fan culture. However it’s a bit satirical in tone and presents fandom as something unhealthy. This has inevitably upset some fans who feel that they’re being mocked and devalued. Do you think there’s basis in people interpreting these as straight up mocking towards their fandom? How self-aware do you think these lyrics are in reality? Would be nice to hear your thoughts (if any), seeing as the relationship between crazed fans and idols is a heavily addressed topic on this site. Here’s a link with an English translation of the song in question.

I’d say it’s exceptionally self-aware, assuming that the group members actually wrote the lyrics to the song.  I don’t know if “satirical” is really the right word to describe them, but the lyrics are definitely very deliberately putting up a mirror to the fans, and yes it does present fandom as something unhealthy, which arguably it should.  BTS would know all about that – they’d be very well aware of the craziness of their fanbase, and surely it would frustrate them from time to time (even though it’s their bread and butter, obviously) just like it would frustrate anybody.  Singing a song like this may help them reconcile within themselves some of the effect they’re having on their own audience.

Hi Kpopalypse!

I noticed a lot of Kpop songs (probably the vast majority) don’t gradually fade in volume at the end. They just end (a lot of times abruptly). Why do you think it’s commonplace for Kpop producers to avoid using master volume automation at the end of their songs?

The only promoted song I can think of right now that has such automation is Teen Top’s “Supa Luv” and I was surprised it had that.

Also, I don’t know if that’s common with Western pop songs these days because I don’t listen to pop radio stations… Thanks!

Fade-outs used to be quite common in pop music singles but it’s been less and less the case over time.  Fade-outs do occur in k-pop but they’re very unpopular.  The reason why is that it’s very difficult to convincingly lipsync to a fade-out, as nobody actually ends a song that way in a live concert.  So for a song designed to be delivered as part of a televised appearance, how do you convincingly end the song?  As soon as that volume starts fading out it’s a giveaway – “we mimed this”.  K-pop favours sharp, definite endings.  If you’ve ever seen a mimed fade-out, damn it looks silly, especially when there’s singing during the fadeout:

But even when there isn’t, when do you stop dancing?  Here the MC talks over the top of the fading song audio to try and cover the awkwardness:

A clean finish just looks more professional for TV.

1. i found it super interesting that your boob posts views always high lol.
2. i remember read it somewhere (possibly in AJ but i forget who said it and on which article) that sound mixing of BTS albums aren’t as good as other “top-tier” groups. i don’t have any knowledge about music production but i noticed that BTS songs tend to sound louder than, let’s say, EXO or Bigbang. feel free to correct me and i’d like to hear your thoughts about it.

Boobs posts are always riding high in my rankings because people actually do find boobs super interesting.  Boobs are always a huge performer stats-wise, and constitute a large percentage of k-pop related web activity.  To demonstrate, here’s the top search terms that brought people to Kpopalypse today:

And here’s the same data, for the past seven days:

This is why all the moral grandstanding that k-pop fans do is so funny to me.  They can lie all they want in public but their web searches tell me exactly what they’re really into.

As for BTS I can assure you that there is really no meaningful difference whatsoever between production values of groups coming from ANY large or medium-sized agency.

Fucking hurry up and do guitar tabs for Dreamcatcher songs before MARMELLO does it you cunt.

Honestly, if she’s going to do it there’s no reason for me to bother.  I can’t compete with that!  I’d rather watch Marmello too!  Mind you she hasn’t provided tab so I could write it out, I suppose.

Also I’m not interested in doing anything before anyone else, whether it’s a guitar tab, a story or whatever.  It’s never been something that I pursue to get “exclusives” and “breaking news” etc, the few times that’s happened it’s just fallen into my lap, I don’t go out and make any sort of effort to be the first to cover anything.  The sites that do that kind of stuff are basically trash because they don’t bother to check facts or investigate anything properly, they just rush the article out as soon as they can for maximum traffic.  I’d always rather take my time and post about something when I’m ready to post about it, when/if I feel like it.

Kpopalypse hello! i read cancerous site (re: nb) while ago, and the thought lingers on my head.

It’s about Pristin Kyla. Eventhough ppl are being such a pretentious SJW that people shouldn’t call someone minor (or any people) fat, I do think that she’s fat.

No, I don’t mean gorgeously fat like Ailee, but a true fat. As a caonima, should I give no fuck and move on? Please answer this oppar.

She ain’t that fat, looks pretty healthy to me, and I tried to find the most weight-enhancing fancam possible.  Sure, she’s fat by k-pop standards, without a doubt, but you must remember that k-pop standards are insane.  Also you have to keep in mind that the camera adds weight, this is a well-known phenomenon, so someone with the tiniest amount of tubbiness that you’d barely even notice in real life can actually look quite chubby on camera.  For those upset by her figure don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll eventually take the peer pressure from fans on board and starve herself half to death while becoming a physical and mental wreck, like every other idol ever.

Hi Kpopalypse oppar. I really love your website and I think it’s really awesome. I know what I’m about to ask you about is super strange, but I know sometimes you give people advice, and it’s always seemed like great advice to me, and I was hoping you could help me out. I haven’t been able to talk about this with anyone, I don’t even think I’ve said it out loud. So if you could censor my question, I would appreciate it. I just need some advice. Okay… I am [censored].

Now, I’m going to explain the full situation, before any judgement happens (I’m disgusting, I know).  [lots of juicy details removed that honestly weren’t that disgusting imo]

I also just wanted to thank you for making qrimole, because just writing about this and acknowledging that this is an issue has freed me so much. Thank you.

– from a loyal caonima

Many people lose sight of this fact especially in these snowflake times, but it bears paying attention to the following: feelings and actions are not the same and don’t deserve to be treated with equal levels of gravity.  It’s okay to have feelings about all sort of things if you don’t actually act on them.  I might have feelings that I want to take a shit and mail it to Johnny Noh with a note saying “I wish to apply to write for your website here’s my draft proposal”, but if I don’t actually do this in reality, was any harm actually done?  Your actions are what shape your life, not your feelings.  That doesn’t mean feelings aren’t important, but there’s no reason to let them take over, you can make a conscious choice to acknowledge your feelings but without being a slave to them.  Your conscious decisions to act (or not) is where you exercise the final option.  Tell your therapist but only if you completely trust them not to tell your family.  Don’t worry about freaking out your therapist though, therapists have already heard everything you can imagine.

Oppar, I know that you don’t really like ‘ballads’ but there must be some that you like (or at least find decent/listenable). Please list at least 10 (I won’t push it further) korean ballads that you like (if that is not to strong a word). Also, I have started listening to korean mainstream music since January (and reading your blog since April-May), I am curious about your reviewing and recommending stuff only with MVs because I have often noticed that the best song on the album isn’t always the one with the MV. Thank you and have a pleasant day/night!

Okay here’s ten I like.

Did you know the last song here even came in at #1 in a Kpopalypse favourites list?  Now you do!

The reason why I don’t tend to focus on album tracks is partly because I don’t like most of them but also because I just don’t have time to listen to every song on every album ever.  It would take too much time and resources to do that so I’d rather assume that the labels are putting their best foot forward with the features (even if they’re sometimes not… but to be honest they usually are).

hi, oppar! I’ve been lurking in your blog for the past 1 year and I’ve really enjoyed the way you write. I have a question; why the hell does Wanna One’s Burn It Up sounds so cheap? Is it because of the production? It can’t be, right? Something about that song is just off. I mean, I know it’s a crap hype song but putting that aside it just sounds so half-assed. Something about the vocals sounds raw?? I guess the most apt word to describe it is raw. (like it’s not quite there yet. It’s like an unfinished demo instead of the intended final product). This is also my reaction towards Produce 101’s Never. It sounds like a demo instead of a full-blown single. Is it just me?

It might be the instrumental choices.  I notice that “Never” in particular uses a few sounds that feel a lot like patches on a $100 Casio keyboard.  However stuff like that is by design, it’s a conscious choice to sound a little “lo-fi” rather than any kind of lack of budget or production smarts, for the same reason that grunge bands used to record with the shittiest distortion pedals on purpose to dirty up the sound in ways that wouldn’t work on a heavy metal record.

It’s not really a “cheap production”, it’s just a “the sound of a cheap instrument”.

Hello, in your article „How to support your favourite k-pop idols (without supporting their shitty agencies)” you had mentioned crowdfunding briefly. What is your opinion about crowdfunding in k-pop? Do you think it is a good thing because it give groups from smaller agencies opportunities to release music in regular intervals without the risk that they get into debt to produce an album that could be a flop? Or do you think it is not good because it just extended the time of groups which would supposed to disband, but survived just because a small group of fans would sell their own grandmothers to get a signed album? Do you think Stellar would be already disbanded without makestar and maybe do not have/had fullfilled their slave contracts till the end?

Crowdfunding in k-pop is mainly for promotional purposes.  The real long-term benefit for the company is the connection to the fans, not the amount of money received.  It costs way more to make an MV for a feature track to promote an album than what even the most successful Makestar crowdfunding campaigns (i.e Stellar) gather.  Maybe for very nugu agencies it makes a difference.  Like, if someone gave my punk friends $4000 to make an album they could do a lot with that money, it’d be a big deal for them.  K-pop agencies that can already afford to spend years training idols, they already have a larger financial base, so a few thousand dollars is not so much of an impact.  It’s not nothing, but it’s not the career-saving thing that some people wish it was, or make it out to be.  That’s why the deals on Makestar are so good.

Hello Oppar! I have two questions, if you don’t mind!
1. Do broadway and other similar stage shows use Autotune/ vocal pitch correction during their live shows?
2. In some Kpop songs the vocals sound super flat! Are they purposely written this way, or is my hearing messed up? Here’s a small list for reference:
Wonder Girl’s “Nobody”
Vixx’s “Love Equation”
Miss a’s “Bad Girl, Good Girl”
Thank you for your time!

I’ve never seen a Broadway show so I can’t answer your first question accurately, but none of the stage shows that I have seen used it.  Mind you I’ve seen very few stage shows (at least ones that involve singing), in fact I can’t even remember the last time I saw one or what it was.

As for the second question, what you’re hearing isn’t your imagination and it’s also very deliberate.  All these songs (especially miss A) have places where the vocalists are sort of “bending up” to the note, they start the note a bit flat on purpose and then move up to the correct pitch.  It’s similar to what lead guitarists do when they bend strings.  This type of vocal style has its origins in the blues and it’s designed to make the vocals sound a bit “rawer” or “more soulful” or however you want to describe it.  Trust me, if the producers didn’t want it in there, it wouldn’t be in there.

Oppar!!

Why we rarely see any new releases with title songs made by Brave Bros, Shinsadong Tiger, etc (aka producers who super popular and produce many hit songs for many groups few years ago)? Is it simply because unlike you, i’m not someone who check every single releases every weeks or they rarely get works these days because there are many new producers out there or/and they can’t adapt to current trends, which make groups/agencies not using their songs as much as they do back then?

Shinsadong Tiger is still writing a bunch of stuff, pretty much everything Apink has been doing lately is a Tiger production.  I’m not sure what Bravesound has been up to, trying to get Brave Girls off the ground I guess.  Both of them have a wide catalog of hits so neither probably need to constantly push out new stuff anymore.  But yes also music trends change.  I haven’t seen either of these producers attempt “tropical shithouse” for example (although I could be wrong here, I don’t keep close track of which producer does what track).

wow, i don’t expect you would answer my questions!!! thanks oppar!!!

about the useless boyfriend : ugh i wish i’m meaner so i could directly say “fuck off” to him
blackface : sometimes i think about that too, that westerners love to shove their ideology to everyone and honestly, maybe because of my upbringing, i can’t be like that.

btw, any songs that you supposed to hate but somehow you like, despite it’s from genres you hate?

I’m weirdly really liking Bolbbalgan4’s newest songs.  They finally found a way to make coffee shop bullshit music work.

why u such a bitch

cus ur such a cunt

hello my dearest oppar!
how do I escape the hivemind..?
I know that I shouldn’t give a fuck about other peoples opinions, but I’m a bit sensitive and I’m going through puberty so I sometimes can’t help but get irrationally angry at people disagreeing with me. the worst case scenario is when a big amount of people think that something I enjoy is horrible, I change my mind about it. I know its fucking retarded, thats why I’m doing my best to change. do you have any tips so that I can enjoy music I like and fap to men and women I like instead of listening to braindead cunts on the internet?
my english may be a bit bad, I’m from turkey.

Your English is fine.  Humans are social creatures (even if we don’t want to admit it and/or prefer different levels of socialisation) and so it’s often hard for them to get behind actions and thoughts that deviate from the pack.  I wouldn’t go on about the hivemind so much if it wasn’t a fairly pervasive thing that exists.  A lot of my blogging is about exploring what I like and dislike in all realms of k-pop whether that agrees with the majority or not.  It’s hard for me to relate to being annoyed about others disagreeing with me because I’m just so used to it, I learned to follow my own path from an extremely early age.

I was wondering how newly-established entertainment companies attract trainees. I saw in a drama that songwriters/producers sometimes leave the agencies they’ve been working at and take some trainees from their former agency with them, but I’m guessing that doesn’t happen a lot.

Second, could you give me ideas on what kind of lectures a (second-year) music production and engineering student would follow? While I did learn a lot about song production through your blog I can not for the life of me imagine what university- level music education looks like in practice. It’s for the novel I’m writing.

Thanks, oppar. I’m still going to credit you when the book’s finished and send you a copy if you’d be interested.

I’m not really sure but I’m pretty sure that it’s a load of bullshit and lies probably!  Melanie from ChoColat went reasonably in-depth around this.

Second year in my music tech studies at University there weren’t actually that many lectures.  There were a few, but not a lot.  Mainly it was just practical projects.  We worked with ProTools a lot (yes it was around back then) to create recordings, did a lot of work with microphones and recording, and there were also some theoretical aspects like acoustics, physiology of sound, psychoacoustics and so forth.  We also got to grips with some old synthesisers like the VCS3 and the original Moog.

If the book is k-pop related I’ll review it for this blog!

Why are line distribution videos being used so often to bash companies?  Would you consider making a post about this topic?

Because people are fuckin’ stupid.  I’ve noticed this trend too.  I’ll consider writing more about it.

Isn’t nine muses Remember also tropical house with the toot toot??

No, not really even close.  The instrumental melody that comes in through the chorus is too smooth and non-percussive to really give the same effect, it’s also not exactly up front – it’s not taking the place of a vocal melody.  Counter-melodies in choruses have always been a thing in pop music, the tropical sound is a very specific type of sound where the toot-toot is the “lead” instrument rather than a “fill” instrument.  Also the song doesn’t really have the right type of rhythm that tropical house uses.

Hi kpopalypse! Thank you for your quality content. I’m someone who works in theatre (primarily) and wants to improve my vocals (Musically. Not theatre voice projection). I have an ok voice (not trained at all) when I’m singing with someone else or an instrument but find it very hard to remember tone, pitch etc. without something else. I also don’t have that much money to go for classes. Any tips or links to improve my vocals and be a decent singer? If you do happen to answer, thanks a ton!

Believe it or not most singers can’t remember pitch either.  The vast majority of them need to sing or have some kind of “reference” to themselves before they being singing a song.  In k-pop where people are singing over backing tracks with their own (or someone else’s) voice on them, it doesn’t matter – they can use the voice on the backing track as a reference.  In theatre you don’t really have that option but you can possibly find some other way to reference your voice.  If you can memorise the sound of just one pitch that will do, because then you can use relative pitch to find everything else.  When I sing I know what the lowest note I can comfortably sing is, and I sing that to myself – now I’ve got a reference point for everything else.

Hey there, I have a question about the privacy of celebrities/kpop stars. How does that work? Are there any laws, that define where the privacy of celebrities starts and their life as a person of public interest ends? Like, how is it okay for magazines like Dispatch (or Western paparazzi) to follow and take secret pictures of celebrities? What are the rules, when is it too much? For example I dont see a difference between paparazzi and sasaengs (or however you spell that). But there is on a legal level, I think? Maybe you can explain how that works on a general level (since I doubt you are a legal expert and laws differ from country to country), maybe there is some kind of general set of inofficial rules in the industry?

Thanks and have a nice day!

Forgetting about the legal aspect of it, the general modus operandi of the music press is “maximum content but without pissing off your subject so much that they would want to call the cops on you”.  Obviously with extreme examples like Hollywood paparazzi it goes way further, but the lower-tier non-paparazzi music press is generally quite respectful as far as that goes.  They know which side their bread is buttered on so they’ll generally be cool to handle in person.  Where they’re more likely to fuck up is by writing absolute asspaper articles later on that take a shit on you after they’ve been super-nice to your face, rather than anything behaviour-wise in your personal company.

The difference between paparazzi and saesangs is that if you’re an idol paparazzi don’t actually give that much of a fuck about you.  If anything paparazzi are quite blaze and nonchalant about seeing celebrities because they see celebrities all the time.  Paps are just in it for the cash – selling the pictures and video they take to news agencies, and getting that one perfect shot of your nipple hanging out or you kissing that person you’re “officially just friends” with or whatever it is that someone might pay a premium for.  Saesangs on the other hand are definitely NOT in it for the money and in fact most of them blow very, very large chunks of money just to BE a saesang, such as paying a premium for taxis that are willing to chase idols all over Seoul etc, they’re really more into it for the closeness with the idol.  The behaviour in terms of chasing and generally being a nuisance is similar but the motivations are very different.

I really like your advice you give to your caonimas about self confidence. May I also ask you for some of your wise words? Ever since I’ve started, I haven’t gained the confidence I always dreamed of in the past. People always tell me to be more active, more confident, more out going if I want to be successful. Which I want to be but I just can’t stop being so shy in front of other people. What should I do oppar, should I let it go and enjoy my own company or gain some courage to look at other people’s face?

Confidence isn’t the same thing as being outgoing.  I’m very confident, confident enough to go on a stage in front of 500 people and look audience members dead in the eye with no stagefright whatsoever, and yet I’m not very outgoing at all.  I’m not afraid or anything like that, I just give no fucks.  I don’t tend to get involved in social conversations because I don’t like talking about insipid bullshit just to be polite, if I’ve got something that I feel is relevant to say I’ll say it but otherwise I’d usually rather just be quiet than fill up the space with noise of my talking for no reason.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like people, I just like to pick and choose the kind of interactions that I have.  I can talk all day about a subject that I think is interesting, but I don’t want to talk about the weather or pretend to be nice to someone who I dislike if I don’t have to.

That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE!  The next episode will come by in another month, so if you have any questions, please put them in the Qrimole Question Box below!  If the box doesn’t appear, you can use the picture of Qri on the sidebar to open the question box as a separate web page.  Stay safe, caonimas!

Kpopalypse Plagiarism Fun Times is back to tackle the big issues in k-pop!  This time we’re taking a look at Seventeen’s plagiarism controversies!  Are Seventeen guilty of horrible plagiarism crimes?  Read on to find out!

Everyone wants to know the answer to this important question:

Before we get started, your ready reference of plagiarism-related trufax:

• Introduction to plagiarism
• Plagiarism explained a bit more because people kept fucking asking about it
• Plagiarism explained even more in a desperate last ditch attempt to shut people up (no such luck)

These links might be helpful if you’ve never read anything that I’ve written about plagiarism before or you’re struggling to understand any terminology.  Once you’ve read the posts linked above, continue as we discuss

SEVENTEEN

Before we get into the plagiarism, it’s probably important for you to get a picture of what I think of Seventeen in general.

What do I think of the songs?  “Don’t Wanna Cry” is typical trendy nonsense in 2017 and definitely isn’t great or even good, but is still probably slightly better than nowhere bullshit songs like “Smile Flower“, “Highlight“, “Adore U“, “Pretty U“, “Boomboom U“, “No U“, etc.  Seventeen’s songwriters stick to fairly basic well-established boy group songwriting conventions and while this stops anything they’re doing from being truly horrible, it also prevents any of it from being particularly exciting or interesting in any way.  It seems to me that Pledis are playing it musically as safe as possible with Seventeen, and giving all the weird oddball shit to their new girl group Pristin instead.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t say they have good songs with Pristin either, in fact on average for me Pristin’s songs are worse than Seventeen’s.  However Pristin if nothing else do actually stand out musically (albeit for the wrong reasons) whereas the only thing that stands out to me about Seventeen is they’re proof that the “Pledis is broke” meme is a bunch of bullshit and their agency is actually swimming in money.  I don’t hate them, but I also don’t see what all the fuss is about… I guess it’s because there’s thirteen of them (for now) and people find them cute or something?

So what do I think of the guys?  I don’t think of the guys, in fact I can’t even tell any of them apart, I don’t even know their names really.  I know one of them is called S.Coups and I think S.Coups is a really bizarre name for a guy to have so that’s kind of funny, hey expectant parents why not name your next baby S.Coups just for laughs and so you can get time off work for parent-teacher meetings when they inevitably get picked on in school for their stupid name.  Don’t ask me to tell you which one in the group S.Coups is though.  Seventeen are also a bit visually notable because they have that Visual Kei sort of thing where there’s that one guy on the group who sometimes looks like a girl, I don’t know if that’s S.Coups or one of the others though.  I always like it when boy groups have girlish members and vice versa just because of the reactions it always creates from people who can’t deal with it.  David Bowie wore a dress in the 1970s, we should all be used to pop musicians looking incredibly LGBITQABCXYZ by now, but people still get their tampons in a twist about it in the k-pop fandom on a daily basis which is hilarious.  If Seventeen are adding 0.1% to that general category of fandom butthurt then they’re alright by me.

Anyway now that you have a full picture of exactly how much bias you can expect in this article, let’s move onto the plagiarism accusation.

Seventeen plagiarism accusation #1: Seventeen’s “Don’t Wanna Cry” plagiarises The Chainsmokers and Coldplay’s “Something Just Like This”

So what are the similarities between these songs?

• The choruses of both have a very similar type of three-chord keyboard riff
• The melody in the chorus is pretty similar in both songs
• Both songs use a fairly similar keyboard synth sound

There’s also a lot of things which are not similar about these songs:

• The verses have nothing to do with each other, like, at all
• Seventeen have that bullshit trop sound which isn’t in the Coldplay song, Coldplay instead have that boring ponderous one-note guitar sound that they’ve used in everything they’ve ever written since 1996
• The Coldplay song drags on for a full extra 40 seconds because Coldplay can’t do anything quickly
• Coldplay generally are boring and can get fucked
• I don’t even know who The Chainsmokers are but they did a song with Coldplay so fuck ’em

However it doesn’t matter of the songs are mostly different, if part of it is similar enough to be called plagiarism, so is it?  I’ll try to write this out without actually using any music notation which might confuse non-music readers.  This still might be a bit confusing to some though but I’ll do my best to explain it without getting too deep into technical shit.

Firstly, that riff.  The Seventeen version of the chorus keyboard riff (first appearance at 1:00) has the basic harmony of VI – VII – i, which is expressed in the song as Bb – Bb/C – Dsus2.  The Chainsmokers/Coldplay version is in the same key but the chorus (first appearance 1:05) is D/B – D/C# – D and then back to D/C#, which is really vi-vii°-I-vii°.  They’re pretty similar, but Seventeen’s version is in D minor key where Coldplay use a D major key.

The rhythm of both parts is also different.  If we were to quantize the rhythm of both into sixteenths, so we can put them one on top of the other and compare rhythmic differences, here’s what we get:

I’m ignoring the two different keys here to highlight the difference rhythmically.  The hyphens denote silence and the fullstops are where the synthesisers in the Seventeen song do a weird stuttering staccato thing instead of playing the chord fully.  The Coldplay song doesn’t do any stuttering synth thing because it would probably be too much excitement for a group as boring as Coldplay to have something like that in their song.

So the riff is similar, but not the same.  What about the second issue, which is the chorus melody?

Seventeen sing F G A C G F, and then throw in a couple eh eh at the end.  Chainsmokers/Coldplay do D F# E E E D D, which is actually pretty different, and they actually come in deliberately a little late with the last couple of notes (the words “like this”) to stretch it out a bit more.  They also sing the chorus half as often, leaving more space for the riff to play which Chris Martin presumably uses to fetch Gwenyth Paltrow some wet wipes.  Superimposing the melody over the rhythm we already have, and once again ignoring the difference in key plus any sharps/flats (because they mess with the quantisation of Notepad) we have this:

So as you can see, even ignoring the fact that one song is in a major key and the other in a minor key, and thus pretending that the general melodic scale is intervallically the same which it isn’t, the songs aren’t objectively that similar even in their most similar portion.  However they do sound similar anyway, which is because of the similar phrasing and that similar keyboard patch which has been used.  There’s no doubt that Seventeen’s songwriters have at least used the Chainsmokers/Coldplay song as inspiration (pity them), and it’s a common practice for k-pop songwriters to do this with western songs, but it’s definitely not a direct copy.

So the big question, why the hell did Pledis just buckle and give part songwriting credit to The Chainsmokers and Coldplay anyway, instead of just saying “they’re not the same?”.

Well here’s Pledis’ official statement:

Basically it says this:

• Hi, we’re Pledis
• We know all you k-pop fans are a pack of wankers
• We couldn’t be fucked going to court
• We have tons of money and better ways to spend it than fighting about this
• Let’s just give a bit of the money to those rich American cunts, it’s not like we can’t afford to
• The kids in Seventeen are listed as co-writers anyway, cutting into their income a bit certainly doesn’t bother us
• We’d rather spend money than deal with fangirls
• Problem solved now stfu lol

That seems pretty clear and is actually quite sensible.  Don’t worry fans, Pledis only have the best interests of Seventeen at heart.  You can trust them.

Seventeen plagiarism accusation #2: Seventeen’s water guns plagiarise NCT’s water guns

But wait, there’s more!  Whenever there’s one lame copying accusation, there are always more close by.  Here’s some NCT members with some water guns.

Now here’s some Seventeen members, also with water guns.

Yes, someone seriously brought this up as plagiarism.  I guess it’s true that both groups of guys are holding water guns, but I’m not sure how you’re supposed to have a water fight when only one side has water guns.  Maybe what we need is water gun control so neither side can have water guns.  I’m sure it would never happen in crazy countries like the USA where you can buy water assault rifles from Walmart, but Korea might be able to make this important societal change happen.  I know, it’s a big restriction on personal freedom, but I think that if just one person is saved from an unwelcome soaking, it was worth it.

Seventeen plagiarism accusation #3: Seventeen’s school uniforms plagiarise EXO’s school uniforms

Readers are no doubt going to think I’m just making up these accusations randomly but people did actually complain about this.  I guess tough shit if both Seventeen and EXO members went to the same school.  By this logic, I should be able to sue anybody who went to school after I did… oh wait, I never actually wore my own school’s uniform.  Damn, what a missed opportunity to rake in some cash, if my teachers told me back in high school days that I could just sue anybody who wore the same uniform as me I’d be a millionaire by now.

Obviously these people reaching for ways to take Seventeen down are just clutching at straws because some other group is their bias group instead.  But that doesn’t mean everything is fake.  It wouldn’t be an episode of Kpopalypse Plagiarism Fun Times if this post now didn’t end with a case of actual plagiarism:

Completely trufaxual Seventeen plagiarism accusation from Kpopalypse: Seventeen’s salute plagiarises Hitler’s salute

Come on Seventeen, you should know better than that.  Both Seventeen and all readers should take the lead from the guy on the right hand side of the German image.  That guy isn’t going to go along with the crowd just because it’s trendy.  He doesn’t give a fuck about what’s cool or what his friends are into, he’s a true caonima and makes up his own mind.  If he made it out of wartime Germany and is still alive today and got a chance to read about k-pop online, he’d probably be reading Kpopalypse blog and not some trendy bullshit like your dumbass friends who are too scared to expose themselves to anything online which might rattle their cage of delusion or at least make them think differently.  Thanks for reading and supporting Kpopalypse blog, Kpopalypse will return soon with more posts!