Hey guys. I'm not dead. I just had my brain scattered everywhere and now I'm trying to get it back together. Hopefully it turns out okay. This post is going to be a little different than the ones I've been doing recently which is mostly review-esque posts. This is going to be a personal reflection on K-pop and my stance on that.
A little background. I started really enjoying K-pop around 2008-ish. Basically the moment when K-pop blew up all over the place with some pretty awesome music, I'd say. It's been 4 almost 5 years since that. K-pop went from being this music genre for teeny boppers to a mega corporation. Pop has never been an "organic" music in the first place, but recently it's been too formulated. Not just the music itself, but the whole damn thing. The look, the dance, everything. Even the fandoms seems unnatural.
Maybe it's also me. I haven't been listening to as much music as I used to. When I do my assignments, music distracts me now most of the time. When I'm on the road, I sometimes forget to bring my iPod. Music isn't that big necessity in my life anymore. It's sad, but apparently it just happened that way. Also a lot of the music I listen to now are English language songs, not Korean. If I do listen to Korean music, it's not the idol type. Clazziquai and Urban Zakapa is what I listen to nowadays, not Big Bang or Wonder Girls. Although I still like jamming to G-Dragon's "One of a Kind" and Kim Sunggyu's album is always good.
I'm not sure where this post is going. But basically I think I'm starting to lose it. I don't find K-pop charming anymore. I just find it annoying filled with wannabes. I know there are gems out there, but I'm not willing to dig through shit just to find a tiny crust of silver.
That's probably why I haven't really written a music First Take as often, and varied, as I used to. I do have one on the waiting list: a double First Take for two MVs of Infinite H. Someone requested that. Actually s/he asked for a full album review, but I don't usually listen to rap that squished with slower tempo pop. So sorry, to you who requested the album review. That won't come, but a First Take will. I'm just on this really weird haze right now. I haven't even finished School 2013 or continued Flower Boy Next Door for goodness sakes! I know I'm crazy.
Sorry this post is weird. I'll be surprised if anyone even finished it. But yeah. I'm on a this weird slow moment of life. And am considering not listening to idol music for good. Maybe not completely but yeah... This is weird. You don't have to read it.
Thanks for understanding. I'll try to write something worthwhile next week.
On the moment you writing this post, I was watching infinite ranking king again and again..Then,I'm accidentally found ur blog while searching for 'who is the most hateful in Infinite'(don't get me wrong, I'm totally infinite fans and sunggyu bias). When I go through ur post in 2012, I found that you are in love with Sunggyu, just like me!! I dunno why, but it seems I find someone that understand me. Now, I'd finished reading this new post. I'm understand you, how you feel.. Your enthusiasm towards kpop change a bit, I understand that because I felt that way too..I'm started drowning in kpop idol world in 2008 too, I just love them by myself. I'm not sharing with anybody because on that time I don't have close friends who is just crazy about kpop.It was started with FT Island and now ended with Infinite. But somehow, I'm not into this stuff anymore..Rather than listening kpop music 24 hrs, I realized currently only 1 kpop genre song left in my phone. Rest is just instrumental and classic music. While kpop keep rising and in climax, I keep going down. I dunno why, maybe this is the sign I'm an adult now? My taste gonna change? Are my passion towards music start fading away?
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I just tired with all this. I think there are no ends. Loving kpop is just be in love with fantasy. For example, I love Sunggyu so much, follow up his activity, waiting nervously for his second solo project, again and again watching his reality show, reading fanfics about him, try to guess his true behavior and many more. The more I spend my time for him, the more fantasy I would create. And at last, this hurt me back..How much I love him, there's a lot people love him more than I do and I don't get anything back. I think I want to stop everything but again I opened my lappy looking for him..It makes me frustrated..He even didn't know that I'm exist in this world..This is just a waste of time...And it is getting hurtful.
Sorry for long comment, I'm not asking for an answer. I just like to share how I feel right now with you^^...but I'm glad if u wanna add/reply/sharing more about ur feeling/etc towards my comment. TQ
Wow, thanks for the comment! It's okay if it's long. I tend to write long things too.
DeleteI have a feeling it's because we're maturing though. I don't involve myself in the fantasy anymore. Not because it's hurtful, but because it's a waste of time. Maybe because I'm in my last year of college I don't really have time to do things like that.
Also, my music taste is different. That's natural for anyone. People develop and we can't blame ourselves for it. Although the machination of K-pop idol music is just ridiculous now, more than ever before. But maybe that's just me.
i'm started drowning in kpop idol world in 2007 when i was in high school, and know i feel the same, exactly the same with you guys (and love Sunggyu too !) :O
Deletei still enjoy kpop like Beast, Bigbang/GD, 2ne1, infinite (leader solo and H),kwill, busker busker, leessang. im not into SM / JYP artist anymore :(
i like the way you explain it, your changed feeling about Kpop, its a little bit fustrated for me because i have no one to share this feeling and then you came up with this well written post.
nowdays i prefer (rock)korean music like Kris Leone - Into The Skies (there's a "Sunggyu style" feel)
ps : sorry for my broken english
I think this is inevitable for most of us. I'm still at the high point of my kpop obsession, and though I recognize some of the completely valid statements you make on the genre as it is today, I'm still mostly willing to wade through the crap to find the good stuff. It helps, that I'm still only at the tip of the iceberg, having only started following the idol world for half a year, and now I'm delving into the non-idols with the help of my family, and even my husband.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I know that this will probably die in the future (as many other music genres have for me already). It makes me sad to predict this - but I'm hoping to at least amass a good collection of songs that 10 years from now will be nostalgic pieces for me. In the meantime, I keep treading on.
Too bad, but I understand why you would say that. For me, K-pop is still very relevant and I actually feel that K-pop has, in some ways, developed for the better over the years. There is a mass of very similar music coming from different groups that eventually tires you out, but that is kinda the thing about pop music overall. Whatever is popular is recycled over and over again. However, to avoid that problem, I try to try out different artists. I just don't just don't focus on K-pop, but try out K-pop indie music or listen to older music that you hear in movies, for instance. In that way I have enough variety to always keep coming back.
ReplyDeleteI myself have more or less stopped listening to American pop, pretty much for the same reason you stopped listening to K-pop. I guess it just tired me out. I do listen to older stuff, but not so much the mainstream American music anymore. I predict this might happen to me in the future with K-pop too, but I hope I'll still have that nostagic feeling about K-pop (just like Rosie above mentioned) as something I really loved once. Because while I don't care for much about current American pop music, I still have a certain fondness for the songs that I used to really love.
So what I'm trying to say is that our tastes change over time and it's probably not so much because of the music, but rather because we mature or develop other interests. For me, music is a very important part of my life and I hope it will always stay that way even when my taste in genres changes.
I completely understand you. After the Kris incident, and after the Baekhyun incident, I just think that Kpop isn't that much fun any more. I still enjoy looking at pictures of Park Jiyeon and I still enjoy B1A4 (because I think that B1A4 is an underrated group that should stay underrated because they create, yes, CREATE beautiful music on their own), just seeing those other new groups makes me sigh. There's too much kpop and there's too much stuff happening all in one place and it's tiring. I've been tired ever since I entered the EXO fandom, and now that I'm slowly slipping away, I can finally heave a sigh of relief. I can breathe now. As I listen to the Arctic Monkeys or Paramore (both Western bands), I smile because for the first time in a lot of years I can understand the lyrics. Staying away from Kpop for a while is like breathing the fresh air of the country side. For me, that is.
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ReplyDeleteBefore, I love kpop when I was in my teenage years but now that I'm already an adult I find obsessing with idols really annoying ( kpop or american artists) and find myself ridiculous. Like the other one who made a comment said I realized that I can't listen to those music that I don't understand anymore and I opted for songs that I can feel it's message that would inspire me cause I can already understand it word by word except for those trashy english songs.
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