The girls immediately directed me to 'Heartbreaker,' the new single from the now blonde and increasingly feminine-looking G-Dragon (of Big Bang fame, of course). I wasn't too impressed at first, but the song is really growing on me. It has a great baseline...probably because it's an exact copy of Flo Rida's 'Right Round.' I've always thought that a lot of K-pop songs sound like re-packaged versions of American pop songs, but this is the most obvious to date and he's actually in the midst of a lawsuit because it. Plagiarism and piracy is a huge problem in this country (and most of Asia) so it wouldn't be a bad thing, in my opinion, if they started to enforce copyright laws here.
Lawsuit aside, it's a great track for the T-mill at the gym. Check it out:
The other big news in K-pop right now is Jae Bum's departure from 2PM. 2 PM is one of several 9-13 member, same-gender pop groups that are big right now. You would think having that many members is excessive, but watch the dancing in Super Junior's 'Sorry' video, and become a believer, as I have.
Anyway, last week one of my students rushed into my classroom in a panic and begged to use my computer. Since it was clearly an emergency, I let her, and the tragic, shocking news was confirmed: Park Jae Bum, the leading member of 2PM, was leaving the group and moving back to the U.S. I don't know the full story on this one, but apparently he wrote some not-so-nice things about Korea on his Myspace page two years back, and the record company thought it would be best if he left. Middle and high school girls across the country were devastated. I mean, what are they are going to do with only 8 members! You think I'm exaggerating, as I have a tendency to do, but there were clips on the news of hundreds of girls dressed in black with signs that said "Let Jae Bum come back!" If I can find any pictures, I'll post them. It's madness.
Last but not least, I attended my first ever K-pop concert this past Saturday. A friend of mine, knowing of my obsession, told me about a FREE concert where 2NE1, Girls Generation, Super Junior AND Big Bang would be playing. It sounded to good to be true. So Vicky (another K-pop aficionado) and I downloaded our free tickets and headed over to World Cup Stadium for the 6th Annual Asia Song Festival. The crowd was mostly families and middle school girls, and Vicky and I screamed just as loud as they did, if not more. [I'm feeling more and more losery as I write this...]
Along with the best of K-pop, they had artists from Vietnam, Japan, China, Indonesia, Taiwan and a chic from Ukraine who made Britney Spears look classy. I don't know how representative of Asian pop this concert was, but K-pop is definitely at the top of the scene. J-pop is stuck in the 80's and Chinese pop is just...bad. The girl from Indonesia was quite talented but she kept shouting commands at the audience ("stomp! no...like this!") who didn't understand her because she was speaking in English. Doesn't she now they just read and write English in Korea, not speak it? Vicky pointed out that it reminded her of her classes: a sea of blank faces staring back at you when you give directions.
Although Big Bang was my main motivation to go, it was Super Junior who stole the show. Big Bang played a really short set because they were missing a member (I found out Monday from my students that Dae Sun was in a car accident and injured his nose) and G-Dragon had another gig to play, so they dashed off after two songs. I still want to see a full-on Big Bang concert before I leave the country because I definitely didn't get my fix.
But like I said, Super Junior 'brought it,' with three hit songs, including the showstopper 'Sorry, Sorry.' I screamed so loud that my throat was sore the next day. Sadly I really am a middle school girl at heart. The weird thing was, Vicky and I jumped up and started dancing along, only to realize everyone around us was still seated. Apparently in Korea you don't stand up and dance along at concerts, you just wave your glow stick around.
A few pics:
We were NOT close to the stage at all
We <3 K-pop!
Girls Generation
Alright, I feel like I need to go and do something intellectual or at least semi-productive now.
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