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.