SM Teasers May Be Better Than the Actual Song

Seriously. what's up with that? The audio on the Girls' Generation "Run Devil Run" teaser could've been a totally legit song. Not that the song itself wasn't good. Just saying that the beat for the teaser would've made for a more badass song.

Shouldn't There Be Some Sort of Age Limit for This Industry?

Okay, so here's this group called GP Basic. These girls are like around the age of middle schoolers.

What I'm wondering is why are these girls entered into such a vigorous music industry at such a young age? There's a price for being a KPop idol. I've seen some of the older idol groups suffer greatly from stress and overworking themselves. Leeteuk, the leader of Super Junior who's 27-ish right now, was recently admitted to the hospital for exhaustion. Now, I'm not saying that the company that owns these girls are working them that hard but if they are then I don't know what to say. Is being in the music industry that appealing that young girls would sell themselves like that for fame? I dunno. This is just my opinion. Hopefully the fame won't destroy them.

Japanese Guys Be Pervin' More Than Korean Guys?

I'd say that Japanese guys are the most perverted kinds of Asians there are. I mean, if you compare the Girls' Generation videos for Japan and South Korea there's obviously a lot of differences. The most noticeable difference between the Japanese and Korean versions of the music videos? The way the girls dress. Take the original music video for "Gee."

The girls were dressed in colorful skinny jeans and tank tops. Now take a look at the Japanese version of "Gee."

The outfits are a lot less innocent as the girls begin wearing belly button bearing shirts. I guess when expanding to the Japanese market, the girls had to appeal to the demographic more. There shouldn't be much of a surprise about the Japanese guys being pervs. I'm pretty sure a lot of them are reading their yaoi or pornographic manga. Whatever.

Tumblr is for the Elites?

It always bugs me whenever I mention Tumblr to people and my friends tell me to shush because it's supposed to be a secret or it's meant only for the elites. Forreal, people? That's ridiculous. You act like Tumblr is some sort of secret society. I even had one friend tell me to unlink my Tumblr from my Facebook because no one on Facebook should know about it. It just totally bugs me every time she tells me that she's sad I didn't unlink it.

Shampoo (and Conditioner)!

After School just had a comeback with their new single "Shampoo." Interesting name for a song. Actually, more interesting is the analogy used in the song. Shampoo used to describe love. Hmmm...

The song itself is pretty nice. What I was more impressed with was the work that After School put into learning new skills to promote their singles. For their song "Bang!" they learned a drumline routine.

For "Shampoo," they learned tap dancing.

Honestly, this group is amazing to go through so much work to promote themselves. My favorite member Park Kahi, the first solo tap dancer, is basically 30-something years old and leader of After School. She works extremely hard to take care of the other members and to not disappoint her fans with a weak performance. Amazing lady!

I'm in D-d-d-danger!

Korean girl group f(x) just recently released their new single "Pinocchio (Danger)" a year after their last single NU ABO. Man, it's been a while. Honestly, I love how SM Entertainment is a South Korean based music company who welcomes people of other nationalities into their groups. Actually, not just SM is doing that. Victoria and Amber of f(x) are both Chinese. In YG, Sandara and I think Minzy of 2NE1 are Filipino. JYP has Fei and Jia of MissA who are both Chinese. Now I'm just waiting for one of these companies to debut a Vietnamese person. Haha. Honestly, the Vietnamese music industry is having a hard time catching up with the South Korean and Japanese music industry. Apparently, part of the problem lies with the communist government? Many Vietnamese songs either speak against the communist government or they're based on the Catholic faith (which isn't supported in Vietnam). I really wished that that wasn't the case, though. More freedom in Vietnamese music would yield better songs and maybe stuff from my own culture that I would actually listen to. While I wait for that day to come, I guess I'll just listen to KPop and JRock. Haha.

Okay, totally off topic now. I looked up the lyrics for "Pinocchio (Danger)" and it's rather... Disjointed? Something about the girl creating the guy to be her ideal type and then everything he is is a lie (hence the Pinocchio). Then like... I dunno! All I know is that I really like the beat. This song, like SNSD's "Run Devil Run" and SHINee's "Juliette," this song is a "spinoff" of an American song.

Ah, well. I loved the f(x) music video. The playful colors and patterns matched the Pinocchio theme perfectly. Plus, I loved a lot of their outfits (especially Krystal's)! :D

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is Gettin' Good

Not quite sure how many episodes of the series there's supposed to be, but right now I'm on episode 52. I'm watching the dubbed episodes just because I don't really like listening to Japanese voice actors, especially for Ed and Al. I think their voice actors are girls.

The plot for the anime remake is ten times better. The series is definitely more intense. There's a lot of plot twists, especially with the carrying out of Mustang's coup d'etat. Ahhh! So exciting! Too bad it'll be a while before the next 13 dubbed episodes will be released. I could easily watch the subbed ones just for the plot, but ehhh. I really don't want to. There's also the manga, but I don't have a lot of time these days to sit down and read comic books. Dang. I'm actually not quite sure if the manga is complete yet. I think it is. Last time I heard, Hiromu Arakawa was working on a new manga series called Silver Spoon or something like that so she must be done with Fullmetal Alchemist. Unless she's working on both series at once.

Maybe it's a good thing that I ran out of dubbed episodes to watch. It'll give me more reason to concentrate on my schoolwork. There's less than 5 weeks left of school so I better kick it up a notch and finish strong!

Gaga Fragrance Has a Secret Ingredient?

According to my friend Phillip (who is a dedicated Lady Gaga fan) just informed me that the soon to be released Lady Gaga fragrance is to have drops of her blood in each bottle. Um, say what? I'm sorry, but I honestly don't want to be spraying your blood on me. That's just weird. At this point, I can't tell if Gaga is crazy or genius. Obviously, that fragrance is going to sell to the super crazed fans like my friend. I'm sure that they're going to be paying a high premium for this product. Seriously. This is just... Ahhh!

Lady Gaga Plagiarism Claims

In the KPop world, there has been some speculation about Lady Gaga's new song "Born This Way" being a plagiarized from SNSD's song "Be Happy."

http://www.dkpopnews.net/2011/03/news-did-lady-gaga-plagiarize-snsds.html

As of write now, the composer of "Be Happy," E-Tribe, is not taking any serious action based on the claims.

http://www.dkpopnews.net/2011/03/news-no-immediate-action-for-now-but-e.html

Honestly, I think people could be overreacting. Both songs are great. It's hard to be original in anything these days. Humans have existed for millions of years so everything has probably already been said and done. I don't mind that the songs have the same kind of beat. The only thing I'm iffy about is the fact that not only do the beats kinda match but also the messages in the both songs. I dunno. I'm just on the line about this controversy. We'll have to see what happens next.

A Whole Drama in a 16-Minute Video

Well... SM, you have great storylines for your music videos and all but this is stretching it a bit far. In fact, this isn't even a music video anymore. It's more like a short film. If SM really wanted to make more money, they could have made a whole drama series based on this "music video" and aired it on SBS or something. Seriously.

Aw shoot.

It's been a while since I posted anything. I totally forgot about this blog. Okay. Let's do one on... Super Junior M's comeback! (Super Junior M is a subgroup of Super Junior. The M stands for Mandarin as this is a subgroup aimed towards the Chinese population instead of the Korean population. Super Junior was originally a 13-member group and sometimes these members will embark on side projects in subgroups usually aimed at certain types of music. There's also Super Junior H (Happy), KRY (Kyuhyun Ryeowook Yesung; the best singers of the group, they make up the ballad subgroup), and T (Trot). The concept is also used in some other bands in South Korea.)

Honestly, it took a while for me to get used to the song. The intense use of autotune or voice morphing or whatever was kinda bleh at first but after a while it matches the rough tone and beat of the rest of the song. The video itself was not as spectacular as SM's other music videos. This one was just singing and dancing. Usually, SM Entertainment is known for their concept music videos with storylines. This is one of their best examples.

Ah well. The song is still pretty good. And the boys are still smoking hot. ^^ Donghae! ~ ♥

Is Hiromu Arakawa For or Against the Existence of God?

For those of you who don't know, Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime series about two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who decided to play God one day and bring their dead mother back from the dead. During the process, Alphonse's body is lost and Edward loses his right arm. Ed sacrifices his left leg in order to bond his little brother's soul to a suit of armor. The pair then goes on a journey to search for the Philosopher Stone, a substance so powerful that one can perform any alchemic reaction without using the law of equivalent exchange.

http://www.justdubs.net/list/series/86

Symbols from the Christian religion occur constantly throughout the series. The homunculi, artificially created humans that play as the antagonist in the series, are all named after the 7 deadly sins. There's mention of being resurrected from the dead and the performance of miracles. However, a majority of the characters shun religion and follow the scientific practice of alchemy instead. The alchemy creates power for the characters and allows they to be creators and destroyers to a certain extent. This is where Hiromu Arakawa could be against religion. She could be stating that humans should carve their own path and not worry about higher powers. Even so, there's no such thing as a successful human transmutation or bringing back of the dead. Along with that, Ed and Al often run across problems that can't be solved using alchemy. Either these are bad coincidences or Hiromu Arakawa believes that there is a deity that can prevent certain things from happening. So is Hiromu Arakawa supporting or going against religion?

My Thoughts on the The Red Pyramid Thus Far...

Honestly, as childish as the book is, I actually enjoy it. Yeah, ok. I'm almost 20 and I'm reading a book aimed at 9- to 12-year-old kids. But really, Rick Riordan does a fantastic job with his writing. The Percy Jackson series was good and I'm anxious to read the next installment of The Lost Hero series. Despite how "unscholastic" his writing is with the sarcasm and street language, Riordan's books are great memory devices for those learning about Greek / Roman gods. I've learned more about Greek mythology reading Percy Jackson than I did reading Edith Hamilton's Mythology. Now The Red Pyramid is helping me learn about my Egyptian mythology (which is good because I need it for my art history class). Rick Riordan is an awesome writer and I hope he keeps writing great books.

Let's Go Back to Boy Bands and Girl Bands

As lame as it sounds, I actually miss the boy and girl bands of the 90's. I don't even know why the concept became extinct in America. South Korea just took the idea and really flew with it. Maybe going back to girl and boy bands will actually crank out some good songs again. Songs that actually make sense and don't talk about drugs, sex, and alcohol. I mean, the boy and girl bands produced the songs of my youth. They made me feel all lovey dovey and good inside. That's what I'm getting from KPop, but I wished I could get it from American pop again just so I don't have to go through and find translations for all the songs I listen to. Hmmm... Nostaglia...

The World Doesn't Revolve Around Lady Gaga

Nothing irritates me more than going through artists' YouTube videos and finding comparisons to Lady Gaga. I despise ignorant Americans who think that America invented everything. You go to videos for artists like BoA and 2NE1 and I guarantee you that you will find at least 10 comments comparing their works to Lady Gaga's.

BoA - Hurricane Venus


Is the song style even remotely like any of Lady Gaga's single? The sound is harsher for "Hurricane Venus" than it is for "Telephone" or "Paparazzi" or "Pokerface." Although the "strange" style of the music video is kind of like Gaga's, it's hard to even compare Gaga's talent to BoA. As far as I know, Lady Gaga can't even dance as well as BoA. And for those who say that BoA copied Lady Gaga's style, BoA's career started 9 years before Gaga. She established herself as a singer at the age of 13 and released not only Korean albums but also Japanese and English albums. She can also sing in Madarin Chinese. BoA doesn't need to copy anyone.

Now, I'm not saying that I hate Lady Gaga. She can write catchy songs and sing. I just hate how people always compare her to everyone and think that she's 100% original. I'm sure she got her inspiration from somewhere. Just know that artists shouldn't be compared but rather critiqued based on his or her own qualities and not based on the qualities of others.

American Mainstream Music

I'm not a huge fan of American mainstream music these days. Honestly, what's all this "I'm on a boat" or "I wanna be a freakin' millionaire" crap anyways? There are very few American artists that I actually listen to. There's Marie Digby, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Charice, and David Archuleta but usually they're not the "popular" choice at parties and stuff.

Mainstream KPop is a different story. If you can't tell, I'm addicted to that stuff. B2ST, Super Junior, Taeyang, SNSD, SHINee and f(x) are my faves. Yes, I admit that I do have to look up the lyrics to a lot of the songs that I listen to. Still, their lyrics are better than what the American lyricists are pumping out these days: drugs, sex, and alcohol. Just sayin'. Along with that, Koreans actually do a good job of choosing people who have true talent. Sure, in the albums some of the singers' voices are synthesized but they can actually sing well live. That's more than I can say for some American artists (like Ke$ha).

This proves my point:

As compared to:

Yeah, man. Eat that, Ke$ha! They can sing AND dance.

PS - Ke$ha did sing a demo for "Run Devil Run," but she didn't officially own the rights to the song. SM did. I still like the SNSD version better, though. It's not because I'm prejudiced against Ke$ha but because the lyrics for the SNSD version were better. Just thought I'd throw that out there.