Healthy porn for men - deconstructing dog-whistle concepts in k-pop

Recently, a producer of the idol TV show "Produce 101" came out and openly admitted what I'd already known and had been telling people for years - that the show (and by implication, all idol groups with a similar theme) is basically jack-off material, or "healthy porn for men" as he describes it.  Several people were shocked - could this be true?  How come they hadn't noticed?  More importantly, how to identify this "healthy porn"?  Come on a journey with Kpopalypse into the world of dog-whistle concepts!

Here's an activity that you can all do the next time you're feeling adventurous and like a bit of social shaming.  Or you can just imagine yourself doing this, if you're a pussy but enjoy living life vicariously through other people's snarky blogging.

Step 1: go to a place that meets the following criteria:

• Somewhere in public
• Has a computer with Internet access and a big screen in full view that people can easily watch over your shoulder
• Plenty of people of all ages milling about doing stuff but no people very familiar with k-pop anywhere around

Step 2: pick a YouTube video to watch.  If you're male, pick this video, or something with a very similar visual presentation, something that you believe is completely innocent.



If you're female, instead you can pick something along the lines of this:



Step 3: as you watch, occasionally look around at all the people watching YOU.  What do you think people will say?  How do you think they will react?

I do the above process fairly often at the radio station where I work, not as some kind of social experiment but just because it's part of my weekly routine to check out new k-pop.  If I put on something like pretty much anything with a group of girls dancing in it, regardless of the levels of flesh shown or where the video sits on the "cute/sexy" scale, over-the-shoulder commenters (of both genders) will always say stuff like "okay, I know why you like this group" with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more kind of tone.  People who are new to k-pop and slightly older/wiser than the average k-pop fan (demographically) haven't been desensitised to the constant sugar-rush of young men and women releasing cheesy videos every week and therefore they can detect what you can't - the dog-whistle.

I've discussed the power of the dog-whistle concept before, but a brief recap: a dog-whistle can only be heard by dogs, not by humans.  Likewise, the dog-whistle concept is one that has a certain meaning on the surface, but a completely different meaning just for a specific audience.  Let's quickly look at a western example before we get into the k-pop.



If you're a fan of classic Hollywood movies you'll know that women in them are getting spanked all the time.  Why?  Was there a massive sexual preference for spanking that swept through Hollywood at this time, that then mysteriously vanished a few decades later?  Doubtful, rates of people enjoying BDSM have never changed much.  Was it some sort of anti-female conspiracy to promote domestic violence and keep women in their place?  Maybe misogynistic scriptwriters were the reason in some cases, but it wasn't a very effective Hollywood conspiracy if Mae West was also allowed a long, active career in the very same system.  A much more likely reason for the proliferation of spanking is that you couldn't show sex on screen in Hollywood due to the Hollywood Code that regulated film production, but spanking was permissible because you could dress it up with moral values in the script.  Make the woman naughty, and later in the script punish her for misbehaving, then you can have a scene where she gets bent over by a man which is the closest thing to fucking that you could show on screen back then, but because according to the script the woman deserved it you could say "but we're just promoting good moral values" if anyone called you out on it.  The people who put these scenes in the films knew that the audience members were actually imagining the people on screen having sex instead.  Not many people get spanked in movies anymore, and it's because the sexual activities that people really want to see in films are more permissible now, so the need for a substitute is no longer required.



In k-pop however, not much is usually permissible.  EXID's "L.I.E" is a nice basic example to look at, to get started.  The video is overtly sexy by k-pop standards but also full of innuendo that's reasonably obvious:

• At the start of the video, a couple pull up to a hotel.  The receptionist gives them the key and smiles.  The date then changes from 6/8 to 6/9.  The insinuation is that the couple are checking into a love hotel.
• The key to the room is also "690".
• The lift control is phallic and gets "fingered".
• The two bells on the desk clearly represent boobs.
• The receptionist "beats her meat" in time to the song, presumably while thinking about the couple in the hotel room.

And that's not even a complete list, just the first one and a half minutes.  Before any of you accuse me of "reaching", we know that this is all deliberate because in a rare case of industry candour the director freely admitted to it.  The song has the girls looking hot and so he's given them a hot, sexually suggestive video to match, but he's also upped the ante with the extra messages which might slip under the radar of the very naive but make perfect sense to anyone with a bit of wisdom about sexual matters.  In k-pop idol territory showing too much flesh or sexual activity is a risk to their brand (will teenage girls want to buy beauty products that a female idol endorses if she acts slutty?) but moving these messages just under the radar of the very naive is enough to get the intended message over the line on the surface without dulling the intention for the dog-whistle's target audience.

This is a pretty basic example, because the overt message of the video and the underlying message are more or less in sync, the dog-whistle is just a slightly more extreme version of the same thing, implying actual sexual activity rather than just "sexiness".  However, many k-pop MVs are a lot more subtle than this, and the really advanced dog-whistle deployment comes when the overt message and the underlying message of the video are more contradictory.  Let's now look at such an advanced example.  Be warned - this is completely disturbing and may make you hate me, yourself, k-pop and/or life in general.



There's nothing overtly sexual about April's "Dream Candy" whatsoever, right?  On the surface it's just an everyday little-girl fantasy about gardens and unicorns or some stupid bullshit, and if that's all you saw when you looked at this, congratulations, your mind has been unsullied by the wicked ways of the world, and you would be well advised to retain your precious naivety and stop reading this post right now.

Actually, "Dream Candy" is under the surface as creepy as fucking shit, absolutely the worst of the worst of pedophile-pandering in k-pop.  It's also a perfect example of the kind of "healthy porn for men" that Produce 101's director was talking about.

Let's break it down.  Get that bucket handy.

• For a start, the girls might be wearing some baby-doll style dresses but boy did they get the 18+ makeup applied to their faces.  There's nothing innocent about that particular shade of ultra-glossy pink lipstick which whether you like it or not is straight out of porn where matching lip tone to labia tone is used to heighten sexual suggestion.
• From the second verse, the girls are wearing dirndls during their dance routines.  Dirndls are colloquially known as "German milkmaid outfits".  These are also standard porn attire (what - don't believe me?  Google search "dirndl porn" with Safesearch off if you dare!), especially in the modified form they appear in here, because unlike April's dresses a traditional dirndl doesn't rise above the kneecap.
• The rest of the time the girls are in either bed clothes or baby-doll dresses, creepily exaggerating their extreme youth (but still with adult makeup on!)  They also spend a fair bit of time in the video in bed, which I suppose should be expected for a song called "Dream Candy", but if that name alone doesn't ring alarm bells, your parents haven't taught you well enough about "stranger danger".  Don't accept "dream candy" from strangers, kids!
• Lots of blowing kisses and lovey-dovey eyes straight to camera all throughout the video, which would be fine and could easily be written off as platonic, if not for...
• ...how in one scene they're sneaking out of their bedroom via a fucking bedsheet-rope, which is what you do when you're a kid and you want to do something ill-advised late at night without your parents' permission, like meet some creepy uncle stalker fan.
• To top it all off there's the song's lyrics.  "Why not?  I want to know!" sing the April girls.  "Isn't this fun?  Can you believe it?"  Don't forget to "bring your heart, pounding with excitement".  Even if those translations are only half-right - ewwwwwwwww.

To someone as young and naive as the girls themselves probably are, none of this would register as an issue, and that's how stuff like this gets over the line with k-pop fans.  The reason why the average k-pop fan wouldn't even think to bat an eyelid at this video is because just like a dog whistle the true message isn't actually for them, so they can't detect it.  It also gets over the line with censors, the MV director can very easily claim "innocence" in the face of any arguments that something's not quite right with their video.  However anyone reasonably knowledgeable about the fucked up ways of the world can see the truth - this is a dog-whistle concept specifically targeting the kind of people that Chris Hansen likes to provide furniture for.  It's not as far-fetched as it seems - remember that the vast majority of k-pop girl group songs are written by older men in boardrooms.  Of course, there's nothing wrong with ignoring all that and just enjoying "Dream Candy" on a "it's a nice song with an attractive video" level, just like there's nothing wrong with enjoying the EXID video, and just to be clear I'm not saying that it's wrong to watch these videos or accusing anyone of liking either song of being dishonest or dirty or whatever.  I'm just saying that an underlying message exists specifically targeted towards a certain audience, and that while you might be enjoying the video in one way, there's a whole bunch of other people out there who are enjoying it in a completely different way.

This type of dog-whistle message is very common in k-pop, I could put up here several more examples of exactly this type of thing in k-pop but you can also probably go and find your own.  Many groups and solo performers have been through a concept like this, or something similar to it.

IU certainly knows all about it, having been at the coalface of dealing with creepy baby-doll concepts for years.  It's helpful to finish off this post by looking at "Twenty-three", because here IU does a fair bit of deconstruction of her own.  People think I exaggerate IU's disdain for her old career path, but I don't - in reality, we know that she's sick of it and she hates it, because she told us.  IU with the help of her video director recently did something completely unprecedented in all of k-pop, and exposed k-pop's dishonest pedophile-pandering dog-whistle approach, turning it completely on its head.  Unfortunately, she did it in a way that k-pop's legions of dummies were largely too stupid to understand.



Do I really actually need to explain the meaning of IU's "Twenty-three"?  I would have hoped not, but since the song and the entire "Chat-shire" album was misunderstood by so many, and so many continue to bang on incorrectly about IU's "lolita concepts" or whatever, it's probably worth briefly highlighting a few key scenes, so you can understand how IU's deployment of the dog-whistle works in reverse.

• Before the song starts, IU reveals a birthday cake, with the name of the song "23" on it.  She blows out the candles, as it's her 23rd birthday.  The cake is cute, and decorated with girly pastel colours, but IU isn't happy, she doesn't smile or act cute, she can't bring herself to celebrate her career.  IU cautiously tastes the cake and then collapses into it, exhausted.
• At 1:00 IU is dancing with backup dancers, giving a huge, fake grin, then quickly becomes annoyed with the facade and shoves the microphone away.  The microphone transforms into "spilled milk", i.e something that there's "no use in crying over" because it's the path she's chosen, she's trapped.  The next time we see her singing, she's smiling less.
• Chasing the rabbit is a reference to the book Alice In Wonderland (written by Lewis Carroll, also a target of pedophile accusations) and as the video progresses IU goes deeper into a succession of "rabbit holes", implying again that her situation is one like Alice's in the book, something that she's trapped in until resolution.
• At 1:47 IU emerges from one such hole into a birthday party room, but the decor and table arrangement suggests a child's birthday party, not an adult's.  Instead of celebrating politely, she rips the party treats off the table and trashes everything, destroying the childlike image.  It's the only time she genuinely smiles in the entire video.
• The famous "baby" scene at 2:04 is exactly the opposite of what netizens idiotically pretended it was.  IU is on a high stool, and pet food bowls on the floor symbolise her servitude, that her position has been forced on her.  IU glares at the camera and does not smile.  She starts off sucking the bottle and holding the doll, playing the game of the infantilised pop star as she's told to, then gets quickly bored, trashing her doll and then eventually collapsing in her seat, exhausted once again, so "absolutely over it" that she can't keep up the facade for more than a few seconds.

On top of all that there's the lyrics.

I want to be a child forever,
No, I want to be a moist woman
Yes, I will live silently as death
No, I will turn everything inside out
Try to guess - which one?

IU's image historically through the early portion of her career has been that of a "child forever" (forced into baby-doll dresses and pandering to pedophiles) who "lives silently as death" (was not allowed to speak up about it).  However now she's the "moist woman turning everything inside out".  She then asks the listener sarcastically and rhetorically "am I still the child or am I an adult now?  Guess which one!" - the answer's obvious enough as it's the title of the song.

you cannot tell by my face
making a facial expression opposite to the heart is really simple

IU would know all about that.  Remember that the image IU was made to carry through her early career got so creepy that she was even disgustingly called the "Nation's Little Sister" at one point by Korean media and fans alike, a title she has since openly spoken out against.  In "Twenty-three" IU is rallying against the kind of attitude of the Produce 101 producer (and several other similar producers) who wants to create "healthy porn" with underage or dressed-underage girls, deconstructing the dog-whistle concepts so you can see them for what they really are.  I bet she can't watch April's "Dream Candy" without shuddering.  You don't have to go very deep to see the critique, and the fact that most netizens were completely incapable of doing even this tiny amount of thinking for themselves and accused IU of pedophilia (or whatever) instead shows just how incredibly stupid the average consumer of Korean pop culture can be.

Now you know everything you need to for "health improvement"!  Fortunately only smart people read Kpopalypse blog, so we definitely won't see any misrepresentation of my aims or intentions with this post on any forums or popular k-pop focused websites.  Isn't that a relief?

The Kpopalypse 2016 survey of caonima action – the results are in!

I'm far too lazy to repost the entire mammoth post here, but those of you who participated in and/or are interested in the results of the Kpopalyspe survey, click Qri for the results page!

Kpopalypse explains common song structures in k-pop

I'll post full results of the latest Kpopalypse survey later, but one of the big requests that is emerging is that people really want me to write a post about song structures in k-pop.  So, here it is!

Pop music is called pop music because it's designed to be popular, it's there to capture the hearts, minds and genitals of listeners who hopefully throw their money, time and adulation at the people involved.  Whether a given piece of pop music succeeds in the practical application of this design or fails is another matter, but regardless of the outcome it's the desire of every person writing pop music to write something that at least has the potential to be as popular as possible.  Thousands of pieces of popular music have been written over the last few hundreds of years, and in the interests of commercial and sexual success the better songs that struck a chord with the populace were duplicated with minor variations while the shittier songs were consigned to history's dustbin.  Through this evolutionary process of trial and error, certain pop songwriting conventions emerged, which can be summed up as follows:

• For a piece of music to be popular it must have a catchy bit that sticks in your head, this should probably be repeated a fair bit so it has ample opportunity to lodge itself in there
• There should be at least one other main section with a different kind of bit so listeners don't get too bored of hearing the same shit over and over
• The longer the piece is, the more extra sections are needed to maintain interest

Since most people who write songs want more people to listen to them rather than less people, these conventions are quite common across many genres. Classical music even had special funky names for them:

Binary form - A-B
Where A is the main theme, and B is an alternate theme.

Ternary form - A-B-A
Where A is the main theme, and B is an alternate theme, but then it goes back to A at the end.  Most nursery rhymes follow either binary or ternary form, or a similar variation A-A-B-A.

Rondo form - A-B-A-C-A
Where A is the main theme and the other letters are alternate sections.  Each time after an alternate section finishes, the song returns to the main theme of A.  There can be any amount of extra sections, so A-B-A-C-A-D-A is a possibility, repetition of alternate sections is okay too so you can have A-B-A-C-A-B-A etc.  A popular form for waltz dancing, where A was usually the catchy upbeat section with the big melody and rhythm that you'd dance to the most vigorously and the other sections were usually a bit lighter in tone so you could have a break and not wear yourself out.

Sonata form - A-A'-A
Where A is the "exposition" where the theme is established, A' is the "development" where the theme is altered heavily, often with the use of modulation (key change) and the final A is the "recapitulation" where the original theme returns, sometimes beefed up a bit with extra instruments or whatever but essentially sounding much like it did at the start of the piece.  A popular long-form classical-period structure.  Think of it as "jumbo ternary form" and each section within it would often also be subdivided into A-B-A ternary forms or similar.  So the final result might be something like A-B-A-A'-B'-A'-A-B-A (an oversimplification, but you get the idea).

Theme and variations - A-A'-A"-A"'-A"" etc
Like the sonata except the theme never returns in its original form, instead it just keeps getting changed in different ways throughout the duration of the piece.

All of the above structures have one thing in common, they all have a "catchy section" (A) and the other stuff that isn't the catchy section (A', B, etc) is there to progress the song in different ways, essentially telling a musical story of sorts (whether actual lyrics are present or not).

Pop music uses similar ideas, but differently:

Chorus - the catchy bit, roughly analogous to A in the above classical examples.  The bit with the big melody that you remember, that gets played a lot during the piece.  If the pop song is a good one, this is the bit that gets stuck in your head later.  This "stuck in your head" bit is also known as the "hook", because it's the part that hooks you into the piece.

Verse - the other main section, that in a pop song tends to have different lyrics each time.  If in a song with lyrics, the verse is used to "tell the story" of the song, while the chorus drives home the "main point".

Pre-chorus - sometimes the chorus has a little section that builds anticipation before it starts.  Essentially the pre-chorus is the second part of the verse, it's not catchy like a chorus but it lets you know that something catchy is on the way.

Intro - a short section to introduce the piece before anything else happens.  Usually not repeated.

Outro - a section tacked onto the end that has nothing much to do with the rest of the piece.  Sometimes the intro reappears as the outro.

Bridge - an extra section, usually quite different to everything else.  Sometimes includes a rap, an instrumental solo, etc.  Tends to only happen once per song.

Breakdown - same as the bridge, the term "breakdown" is commonly used when the bridge also has a tempo or rhythm change (a drop to half-speed is common).

Refrain - some songs don't have choruses but just repeat the verse a lot.  The refrain is the final part of each verse, which essentially has a chorus-like function because it provides each verse's "punchline".  This is common in blues songs where the final four bars of each group of twelve bars in a twelve bar blues pattern becomes the refrain, but k-pop doesn't tend to bother with this even when the songs are blues-based - instead they'll just go through the whole 12 bars again with a different melody and call it a chorus.

Riff - a mainly instrumental section that breaks up other sections, basically a bookend to a verse or chorus to space things out so it's not just fucking vocals vocals vocals all the time with no gap.  Singers need a rest sometimes, as do your ears.

Chorus+, Riff+, etc - there's no official name for it but this refers to a part where an important element has been changed to push it to a climactic level, yet the passage is still identifiable as the chorus or the riff or whatever it is.  This usually happens right at the end of the piece.  A key shift, a change in the vocal part or a slightly altering to the instrumentation are common ways of achieving this effect.

Let's now look at some k-pop songs and examine some of the most common structures, so we can see how multiple songs treat the same structural ideas.

STRUCTURE 1: V-C-V-C-B-C (standard three chorus)

Intro - 0:12
Riff - 0:28
Verse 1 - 0:42
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:57
Chorus - 1:12
Riff - 1:27
Verse 2 - 1:43
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:57
Chorus - 2:13
Riff - 2:28
Bridge/breakdown (rhythm change, rap) - 2:42
Chorus - 2:57
Chorus+ (melodic change) - 3:12
Riff - 3:28

T-ara's "Roly Poly" has a common structure with most of the elements that you would see in any k-pop song.  You can summarise this structure as verse-chorus-verse-chorus-something else-chorus, and this is by far the most common type of structure in k-pop.  Let's look at a few more examples.

Intro - 0:14
Verse 1 - 0:32
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:49
Chorus - 1:06
Riff - 1:23
Verse 2 - 1:32
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:49
Chorus - 2:06
Riff - 2:23
Breakdown (new section, rhythm/tempo changes) - 2:49
Bridge (guitar solo) - 3:06
Chorus - 3:15
Chorus+ (another rhythm/tempo change but this time over the chorus melody) - 3:32
Riff - 3:49
Outro (video version only) - 4:03

GFriend's "Rough" is a newer song but as you can see the structure is very similar to "Roly Poly" - two verses, three choruses and some different stuff after the second chorus.  Most k-pop songs follow this structure or something very close to it.

Intro - 0:03
Verse 1 - 0:11
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:26
Chorus - 0:42
Riff - 1:11
Verse 2 - 1:19
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:33
Chorus - 1:49
Breakdown (rhythm change, rap) - 2:18
Riff - 2:33
Bridge (new melody) - 2:40
Chorus - 2:57
Outro (video version only) - 3:31

Fiestar's "Apple Pie" also doesn't break the rules to any large degree.  It's a song very sonically similar to mid-period Girls' Generation and the structure takes no chances.

Intro - 0:03
Verse 1 - 0:21
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:36
Chorus - 0:54
Verse 2 - 1:27
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:42
Chorus - 2:00
Breakdown (rhythm change, new melody) - 2:31
Chorus+ - (key change and semi-"acapella" section) - 2:57
Outro - 2:58

Lovelyz' "Ah-Choo" also plays by the book with the same strict structure.  As you may be noticing, if anything different happens at all, it's between the second and third chorus.

STRUCTURE 2: V-C-V-C (two chorus)

Riff/intro - 0:07
Verse 1 - 0:30
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:49
Chorus - 1:08
Verse 2 - 1:27
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:47
Chorus - 2:06
Riff/outro - 2:26

EvoL's "Get Up" has a cut-down two-chorus structure, the third chorus (and thus the need for a bridge/breakdown to connect them to everything else) are absent.  This is a structure commonly seen in k-pop where brevity is important - verse-chorus-verse-chorus.

Intro - 0:00
Verse 1 - 0:15
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:44
Chorus - 1:08
Verse 2 - 1:38
Pre-chorus 2 - 2:07
Chorus - 2:46

Badkiz' "Ear Attack" has an identical structure.  Note that the second verse is longer than the first verse, this is common in "two verse two chorus" songs.  As there's no third chorus at all, the second verse is elongated, and sometimes the second chorus is elongated as well.

Intro - 0:24
Verse 1 - 0:39
Pre-chorus 1 - 1:08
Chorus - 1:30
Verse 2 - 2:00
Breakdown - 2:30
Pre-chorus 2 - 2:46
Chorus - 3:08

Pocket Girls' "Bbang Bbang" is similar although the songwriter here made the choice to stick a breakdown in the middle of the second verse to extend it out rather than just repeat the same material for longer.

STRUCTURE 3: C-stuff-C (bookend chorus)

Chorus (intro) - 0:24
Verse 1 - 0:43
Chorus - 1:01
Verse 2 - 1:29
Chorus - 1:47
Breakdown (acapella) - 2:13
Chorus - 2:43
Bridge (rap) - 3:02
Chorus (outro) - 3:26

Oh My Girl's "Closer" has a shortened form of the chorus functioning also as the intro and outro.  This was a popular convention of pop music in the 1960s, however it's noticeably rarer in pop these days, however k-pop's ongoing fascination with all things retro means that it still gets used quite a bit.  Also in k-pop the chorus is really important and the "bookend chorus" structure highlights the chorus by leading with it, so it's seen in a lot of the really sugary end of popular k-pop idol songs.

Chorus (instrumental) - 0:19
Verse 1 - 0:33
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:48
Chorus - 1:01
Chorus (instrumental) - 1:30
Verse 2 - 1:44
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:58
Chorus - 2:12
Bridge - 2:41 (new section)
Chorus+ (acapella section) - 2:54
Chorus+ (key change) - 3:08

Orange Caramel's "Magic Girl" has the backing instruments playing the chorus melody right at the start of the song, establishing exactly what the chorus is before the singers even get to sing it.  This was a common technique that was employed by 80s songwriters Stock Aitken and Waterman, so it's fitting that it also winds up in Orange Caramel's SAW tribute.

Intro - 0:18
Chorus - 0:33
Verse 1 - 0:48
Pre-chorus 1 - 1:18
Bridge (rap) - 1:48
Verse 2 - 2:03
Pre-chorus 2 - 2:19
Breakdown - 2:49
Chorus - 3:05

Sistar's "How Dare You" is an exceptionally unusual song for k-pop and in fact all pop music in general because it showcases the chorus at the start and end of the song - and nowhere else.

Riff (intro) - 0:00
Chorus - 0:14
Verse 1 - 0:29
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:44
Chorus - 0:59
Riff - 1:14
Verse 2 - 1:29
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:44
Chorus - 1:58
Riff - 2:13
Breakdown - 2:28
Verse 3 - 2:43
Pre-chorus 3 - 2:57
Chorus - 3:12
Riff (outro) - 3:27

In Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry" the riff is as iconic and catchy as the actual chorus, and both are established before anything else happens.  Note that "Sorry Sorry" also has three full verses, this is common in western pop but less common in k-pop where songwriters usually try to keep song length down.

Riff - 0:07
Verse 1 - 0:24
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:39
Chorus - 0:54
Riff - 1:09
Verse 2 - 1:23
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:38
Chorus - 1:53
Riff - 2:08
Breakdown/bridge - 2:23
Chorus+ (slightly changed melody) - 2:43
Riff - 2:57
Riff+ (extra sound layer) - 3:12

Another riff-oriented song, in Orange Caramel's "My Copycat" the saxophone riff effectively is the chorus, it's far more catchy and interesting than the song's actual chorus vocals.  Therefore, the riff is established before anything else and is used more often, giving this song the feel of a "bookend chorus" structure even though it technically isn't.

ADVANCED POP STRUCTURES

Okay, so that's the basics.  Let's tackle some more eclectic choices and see how they fit into typical song structure conventions (or not).

Drum riff (verse 1) - 0:00
Drum and sitar riff (pre-chorus 1) - 0:14
Chorus - 0:36
Sitar riff - 1:03
Sitar riff+ (added effects) - 1:17
Drum riff (verse 2) - 1:31
Drum and sitar riff (pre-chorus 2) - 1:45
Chorus - 2:07
Chorus and sitar riff combined (chorus+) - 2:34

What happens when a song is instrumental, or quasi-instrumental, i.e driven by vocal samples and effects?  Instrumental songs still have structure, and they often still have a chorus too.  Hitchhiker's "$10" doesn't sound like typical pop fare but still has identifiable verse and chorus sections.  This is essentially a "two chorus" structure, and it might sound weird but the building blocks of the song aren't any different to anything else in this post.

Intro - 0:00
Riff - 0:13
Verse 1 - 0:48
Pre-chorus 1 - 1:05
Riff - 1:23
Verse 2 - 1:56
Pre-chorus 2 - 2:13
Chorus+riff - 2:31
Riff+ (extra melodic elements) - 3:05

The "deferred chorus" structure teases the chorus by either going straight to verse 2 after verse 1, or making the first chorus a "mini-chorus" or a chorus that's missing something significant.  In the ultra-glossy end of k-pop the chorus is everything, so a deferred chorus is very rare for idol groups because they want you to hear that hook as soon as possible.  Delaying the chorus is more common in slightly less commercial genres where the chorus has less importance and/or the audience has more patience to wait before hearing a chorus.  Sugardonut's "Imagine, Close Your Eyes" has a big anthemic keyboard riff but adds the chorus melody to it only once in the entire song, after we've already heard two full verses.

Intro - 0:36
Verse A - 0:51
Pre-chorus - 1:07
Bridge A (rap) - 1:27
Chorus - 1:41
Verse B 1 (same harmony, completely different melody to Verse A) - 1:57
Pre-chorus - 2:27
Riff - 2:48
Chorus - 3:02
Verse B 2 - 3:17
Breakdown (tempo change, new melody/harmony) - 3:33
Bridge B ("why you hating") - 3:51
Chorus - 4:05

Delaying the chorus payoff in a more commercial idol song is rarely done mainly because it doesn't always work quite so well.  T-ara N4's "Countryside Diary" has its moments but overall sounds extremely awkward to my ear and it's probably because the pre-chours never leads directly to the chorus but always builds up to something else instead.

Intro - 0:32
Chorus A - 0:54
Verse A - 1:13
Chorus A - 1:43
Riff - 2:05
Chorus B - 2:11 (new chorus, "I Got A Boy")
Verse B (new melody, different from verse A) - 2:25
Chorus A+ (faster version of Chorus A at 0:54) - 2:53
Verse C (new melody, different from verse A and B) - 3:07
Chorus A+ - 3:20
Breakdown (new section, tempo change) - 3:35
Chorus B - 4:04
Bridge (new melody/harmony) - 4:19
Chorus B - 4:32
Chorus B+ (Chorus A+ and Chorus B together) - 4:46

Girls' Generation's "I Got A Boy" is certainly a different structure for k-pop as well (and a fucking irritating listen overall, if you're me) but it's not the completely random beast that it appears to be, either.  The sections at the start of the song and the sections right at the end all have a specific musical relationship to each other, which is proven at the last chorus where the first chorus is overlaid onto the second "I Got A Boy" chorus and it fits perfectly.  This type of twin chorus doesn't really have much of a precedent in k-pop.

Intro - 0:10
Chorus B - 0:12
Verse 1 - 0:27
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:39
Chorus A - 0:53
Chorus B - 1:12
Verse 2 - 1:26
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:39
Chorus A - 1:53
Chorus B - 2:13
Bridge - 2:26
Chorus A+ (first part only)- 2:30
Chorus B+ (last part only) - 2:43
Chorus A+ - 2:50
Outro - 3:10

However believe it or not, Girls' Generation have done it before.  Who would have thought there was a connection between "I Got A Boy" and "Oh"?  The structural connection is the use of two different choruses that are established separately and then come together as the piece progresses.  In the song's climax, the catchiest part of Chorus A is tacked onto the finale of Chorus B.

Intro - 0:00
Verse 1 - 0:09
Pre-chorus 1 - 0:25
Chorus - 0:42
Riff - 0:58
Verse 2 - 1:09
Pre-chorus 2 - 1:25
Chorus - 1:42
Breakdown - 1:58
Chorus B - 2:26
Chorus A+ - 2:42

Stellar's "Vibrato" follows a fairly standard structure at first, until it lets the cat out of the vagina-bag with a completely different second chorus after the breakdown.  Then the first chorus returns, but adding elements from the second chorus.

Chorus A - 0:18
Verse 1 - 0:33
Pre-chorus - 1:00
Chorus A - 1:14
Chorus B - 1:29
Verse 2 - 1:41
Pre-chorus - 2:08
Chorus A - 2:22
Chorus B - 2:36
Bridge (new instrumentation and vocals) - 2:49
Bridge+ (new vocal elements) - 3:17
Bridge++ (more new vocal elements) - 3:30

CL's "The Baddest Female" also brings in completely different elements after the initial run through two verses and two choruses, but apart from the use of the word "Unnie" never makes any musical link between where the song starts and where it ends.

These are only some examples among many, there's lots of other examples I could find and pull apart, but the important thing to remember is this...

Just because a song has a certain structure, doesn't inherently make it a good or bad song.  Whether simple or more complicated structures are "better" is really just a matter of subjective opinion and what you as a listener prefer to listen to, plus song structure may not be the full story of why you like or hate a song anyway.  Songwriters try to make all song structures "work" with the material but whether they succeed depends largely on the individual who is listening.  Please don't use this post to be an insufferable cuntface on forums and websites, it is not supposed to be a "proof that your faves are best" post, it's merely a tool to enable those not-so-musically-trained to be conscious of structural elements as they listen to their favourite (or not-so-favourite) songs, which might then help them to understand why they personally like or dislike something, or what kind of musical preferences they have.  Although I have my own well-documented opinions on all of the songs in this post, yours may vary for whatever reason and this is fine.  Enjoy listening to k-pop and not being a stupid bitch.  Kpopalypse will return with more posts soon!

The Kpopalypse 2016 survey of caonima action

It's that time again - time for Kpopalypse to survey his readers!

If you feel like you're one of those who give a shit, feel free to click on the Qri below to be taken to the survey page!  Or if not, then don't!  Yay!

Kpopalypse Nugu Alert Episode 21: Staz Of Man, Jaywon Jung, Sims

Kpopalypse is back to explore unknown Korean artists in another episode of the most unpopular eclectic series in k-pop blogging history, Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!

Read on and be entertained as Kpopalypse explores the depths of YouTube to find more music that you've probably never heard of!


This episode of Nugu Alert is all about film noir.  What's film noir?  Well, you could look it up on Wikipedia if you wanted, but Kpopalypse is a lot slightly cooler than Wikipedia, so why not keep reading this blog as I condescendingly write about it for all you knuckleheads?  Film noir (literally "black film") is a cinematic style that hit its stride in the 1940s (but was arguably in existence much earlier) where film directors would explore darker themes than the norm for the time - and this thematic darkness was accompanied by a similar darkness in the visual palette.  A lot of the early film noirs look a bit fucking pussified by today's high-tech standards, but the modern "lots of darkness and menace, everywhere, all the time" look that is standard for today's Hollywood action blockbusters, science-fiction and horror films is very noir-inspired.

Film noir style is often used in music videos.  Lots of faces cast in shadow, strong use of silhouettes, and light often used as a physical entity to obscure the action just as much as to illuminate it are all visual trademarks of the noir style.






That's fine if you're History or T-ara, two groups with agencies that have money in the bank, but not everyone in k-pop is so fortunate.  Proper film noir effects aren't cheap - you either need very good lighting technicians, very good cinematographic tricks, or ideally both, but what happens when you don't have either?  Let's look at some Korean nugus and how their music video directors solved (or didn't solve) the "film noir on a budget" problem.

The usual rules for Kpopalypse Nugu Alert apply here:

• No music videos with over 20,000 views
• Maybe Korea cares, but the average western k-pop blog reader sure doesn't (yet)
• Kpopalypse thinks you should check this shit out, just because

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Staz of Man - Staz Coming Now

Film noir is of course very appealing to Korean rappers who always want to look as badass as possible, except when they need to make ballads for cash.  However, it's hard to get film noir style right - the wrong type of lighting, contrast or post-processing means that rather than getting a cool "dark look", everything instead just "looks too dark".  Hip-hop posse Staz Of Man try within their various limitations for a film noir look to complement their actually quite rocking debut song, with varying degrees of success.  The scenes of the guys rapping here look quite good with some effective rear spotlighting shining off the hair and leather jackets and there's even a bit of CGI which works in context and isn't too over-the-top, but things get a lot muddier for the interior drama scenes.  The contrast is so maladjusted that the brightly glowing computer screens where Staz Of Man plan their mysterious operation to save hip-hop from Raina's cardigans are dimmer than their surrounding furniture, and proceedings get so murky that at one stage a bright white cat walks across the frame and is barely even visible at all.  Still, most of this video's few English watchers probably didn't notice details like this, as they would have been too busy laughing at the hilarious melodramatic narration that occurs before each verse as a female computer operator pep-talks each rapper with sexy catchphrases like "go pyro on their asses".

YouTube views at time of writing: 1715
Notable attribute: nobody could work out how to turn the angle grinder on safely at 1:38 so they CGI'ed in fake sparks despite having all the equipment right there to create sparks in real life
Nugu Alert Rating: extreme

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Jaywon Jung - Again

Jaywon Jung isn't really all that nugu in the grand scheme, he's a session guitar player and singer who does a lot of backing track recordings for other artists (if you're interested check out his Sketchbook appearance where his extensive resume is discussed) but he's probably still fairly nugu to most k-pop fans.  He's here in this episode to show that film noir isn't just for rappers, and Jaywon Jung's cruisy and somewhat dull Carpenters-esque song is a lot lighter and breezier than the standard hip-hop fare.  However the video sure isn't much lighter, with the ultra high-contrast figures of the street dance performers placed against the almost complete pitch-blackness of everything else.  Every now and then the performers are allowed to fade into the blackness a bit and this is used to cheat a little and give the impression of a "one-shot" video as well as add some of the usual trademark scuzzy obscuring film-noir effects, like double-image blur and massive amounts of bloom on everything.  This is good because it's nice to get some contrast going, as the interpretive dancing or whatever the fuck it's meant to be that's going on here is pretty boring and certainly benefits from the visual help.

YouTube views at time of writing: 14545
Notable attribute: Kangin's wobbly camera rig deftly turns at the last minute to avoid a pole at 1:49
Nugu Alert Rating: high

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Sims - 24/7

Ever since my interview with ex-MBK rapper Naino from Nutaz (previously featured on Nugu Alert), I've been watching his hip-hop crew Crimp closely.  I'm not sure when Sims entered into the Crimp fold but he doesn't disappoint, rapping over a rocking beat which is probably one of the best hip-hop tracks this year (not that that's saying much).  The video also displays some nice budget-noir effects, with are mainly just cinematographic - careful street-light and zoom positioning compensates for the fact that these guys don't really have much going on in the way of light kits.  There are a few static VCR-style effects to break up the visual proceedings however, but I guess that's as far as the budget went on this one.  Sims hasn't taken Korea or the rest of the world by storm yet (perhaps it's his completely unwebsearchable name that's giving him issues) but clearly, these folks could use our help.  Everyone do your part as nugu fans and make sure to share and spread this one, I want this guy to get fame and an offer of a place on a future season of Show Me The Money just so he can brag in an interview with me later about how he turned it down.

YouTube views at time of writing: 61
Notable attribute: synchronisation of the middle finger, the word "fuck" and the higher than usual bassnote at 0:44 probably the greatest moment in Korean hip-hop to date
Nugu Alert Rating: off the chart

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That's it for another episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!  Kpopalyspe will return at an undisclosed time in the future with more nugus!

Things Kpopalypse dislikes in music: k-pop ballads

It's well known that Kpopalypse doesn't like k-pop ballads, but why?  What is it about ballads that makes them suck so much?  Are there any good ballads?  If so, what makes a good ballad good, and a bad ballad bad?  Can ballads be bad meaning good?  Read on as Kpopalypse explores the trufax about k-pop ballads!

Remember that time called the Golden Age of k-pop, when international fans (including me) flocked to the style in droves?  Remember that time when songs like "Sorry Sorry", "Lucifer", "Roly Poly", "Gee" and "Oh!" rode the charts high?  What did all those songs have in common, besides that they were great?  Well they weren't ballads for a start.  Somewhere along the line between then and now, k-pop performed the ultimate bait-and-switch, capturing the hearts of a global audience with fantastic songs and then cruelly flipping the musical focus from upbeat rocking dance-pop to soppy turgid kindergarden-grade slop for sentimental emotionally stunted fuckheads and parents of pre-teens with ADHD.  K-pop was so good back in 2011 that fans believed there was a realistic chance that it may have escalated to become the dominant pop music form around the globe, but in 2016 even the most naive optimist can see that any hope of k-pop penetrating beyond Asian communities in a meaningful way is now completely dead in the water, and it's entirely the fault of the music quality.  The ballad trend in k-pop is strangling everything that's good about the genre and it needs to die, or k-pop itself will die, slithering back into the Asian restaurant background music void from whence it came.

But - what's wrong with k-pop ballads?  How can they be done better?  Let's take a look at some examples of k-pop ballads, both good and bad, to see what we can learn.

BALLAD PROBLEM #1 - EXCESSIVE SOFT LAYERING

When I go out and buy toilet paper (because sadly I don't get sent it for free by haters, but I'm working on that), I always buy the cheapest stuff by volume that I can find, so I'm always bringing home different brands depending on what's on special.  The other day, I brought home some 'luxury' brand that was 4-ply thinking that it would be ultra-soft, but it actually was a bit like wiping my ass with cardboard.  The problem with it was the same as the problem with a lot of k-pop ballads - too many layers absorbs plenty of shit, but isn't very pleasant to experience.

Below is an example of a generic, shitty, boring k-pop ballad.  I could have picked one of thousands of other songs almost identical to it in k-pop that get released yearly, but I chose this one just because it sprang to mind, and because it's by a huge k-pop company and features some big names, thereby illustrating that not even the very best talent either on the stage or behind the scenes can save a bad song from itself.




The song actually starts off acceptable, but when that backing kicks in at 0:53, we know straight away that we've waded deep into in restaurant music territory and we're not getting out for the rest of the song's running time.  The obvious problem with it is that there's just too many soft layers.  Here's all the musical layers in this song and when they are introduced.

• Piano (0:00)
• String pads behind the piano (0:00)
• Main vocal + effects including reverb and Autotune/synthesised vibrato (0:16)
• Drums (0:53)
• Bass guitar (0:53)
• More prominent strings (0:53)
• Plucked acoustic guitar (0:53 but only really noticeable from 1:20)
• Harmony vocals (1:26)
• More prominent acoustic guitar (1:26)
• Harmonica (1:31)
• More strings (2:00)
• Counterpoint string melody (2:04)
• Strummed acoustic guitar (2:04)
• Harmony backing vocal pads and call/response parts (2:17)
• Overdubbed money note (3:00)

That's 15 layers of crap, and that's just what I noticed in a quick first listen, there's probably even more in there if you want to go deep with headphone listening.  You could be forgiven for not even noticing at least half of it, it's all introduced gradually in a very subtle way, even the big money note sort of fades in smoothly rather than suddenly appearing.  However, while lots of layers brought in gently might be appropriate for restaurant or elevator background music that nobody really listens to anyway, it just adds to the boredom factor for anyone who likes a bit of focused listening for any reason other than sleep.  Nothing sticks out or is interesting, or engaging, or exciting, or even particularly relaxing, because to be relaxed you have to have some kind of tension there first for the relaxation factor to actually mean anything.  In this way, the song actually punishes you for paying attention to it, so it's best not to even focus on it.  It's music designed specifically to be ignored.  That's why so many ballad songs come with drama-themed music videos, so you can focus your primary attention on the story.



Here's a much better ballad.  The main reason for this one working well at least as far as the arrangement is concerned, is that the layering is sparser, even though they're working with a simulated mini-orchestra so there's probably an equal amount of individual instruments at play.  Also each layer has places where it cuts through, and all the different instruments take turns at being in the forefront and donating their individual character to the song's backings.  It doesn't all blend into one boring background mush, and at certain times the lead instrument competes directly with the vocals for volume (examples: 0:46, 1:27).  Even though this song is just as slow, the overall effect is more interesting to the ear, and I can even stay awake through it if I really try.

BALLAD PROBLEM #2 - BORING INSTRUMENTAL CHOICES

Shitty ballads can come from anywhere, from any label, from any artist, even from any songwriter (because songwriters are often commissioned to write pieces in certain formats), and the average k-pop album is full of garbage like the above song from Fly To The Sky.  The commitment to soft inoffensive multi-layered boredom is just as prevalent in the above song, but that's not the only aspect making it suck - the choices of instrument textures are also deliberately dull.  Notice how something other than a snare drum is marking beats two and four, that's because a snare drum might actually jump you out of your semi-slumber and excite you a bit, and we can't have that.  Only the blandest, most generic and uninteresting backing instrument choices will do for the bulk of Korea's shitty ballads.  Imagine how this song would sound if they distorted the bass guitar a little bit, someone might have a fucking heart attack unless they buried it in the mix super-low.



Puer Kim's ballad isn't the greatest thing ever in the world of ballads, but the daring production choices do lift it above the rack.  The electro-backings commonly associated with dubstep are utilised in a way that is pretty much forbidden in that style - in other words, there's lots of ambience here.  Big large bouncy noises all come with a few seconds of room echo, and there's all that small stuff churning away in the background as well that you might not even notice on first listen because of the dominance of the song's larger assets.  This song has more in common with Einstürzende Neubauten than SM The Ballad, and if there's one thing that Einstürzende Neubauten were very good at, it was changing up their instrument selection into something different at every opportunity.  The result is a song that really sticks out and is easily noticed, just like Puer Kim's amazing talents.

BALLAD PROBLEM #3 - VOCALFAGGOTRY

The only thing that's ever allowed to stick out in your average shitful k-pop ballad on the other hand is the vocals, which are usually mixed nauseatingly present with tons of added effects and of course everything and I mean everything is Autotuned and electronically adjusted to sound "perfect", whether you can hear the software working or not.  Vocal pitch-correction is so prevalent and the tech works so well now that it can be done on the fly and completely seamlessly with a simple stomp-box, you've got about as much chance of finding a k-pop song without pitch corrected vocals as you have of finding k-pop album art that hasn't been Photoshopped.  This correction is only more prevalent in ballads where the songwriters know that vocalfags are hanging on every note, and all you people vocalfagging and comparing vocalist A and B and writing up stuff in your forums and threads look pretty silly in the eyes of anyone actually involved in music production on any meaningful level.  In commercial pop music in 2016, only the most absolute lowest-rung Z-grade desperate nugus too poor to afford to rent proper studio gear would record without pitch-correction.  If your favourite idols can afford a music video at all, they can afford Autotune.



Ignoring the fact that everything is fake (and I really do stress that everything is fake, yes really), the big drawcard for k-pop vocalfaggots is the "money note", that big extended note that all k-pop ballads just have to have so they can show you how great the singer is (in the above song at 2:25 if you want to skip straight there and start masturbating furiously).  Because that's the point of most of these shitty ballad songs of course - to showcase the singer rather than provide the listener with a song that's actually any good.  That's why the songs are so shitty - the people writing them don't care - it's purely there a basic template to showcase the singer and nothing more.  Money in k-pop doesn't come from music sales, it comes from brand power, brand power comes from star power and star power comes from you falling in love with the properties of your favourite star, such as "ohmigosh he held that note for such a long time and did perfect vibrato, what a dreamboat, he can dissect my uterus".  A good song isn't a requirement for this to happen.  Sure, if a good song happens anyway by chance, great - but it's not actually the primary objective, and it's a lot harder to write a really good song than it is to just write a shitty generic ballad backing track and say to the girl in the studio "okay - here's your lyrics, here's your notes, just do what you normally do over the top, don't forget the money note and we'll fix it all in the mix later, don't worry you'll sound great".



The above song is one of my favourite k-pop ballads and it's partly because Bom isn't a good enough singer to wreck the song with any showing off.  It's a well-known fact amongst k-pop's armies of vocalfaggots but not so much among most regular k-pop fans - despite being the "primary vocal" of 2NE1, Bom really can't sing that well at all.  I won't go into the reasons why because I don't care and neither should you, but Bom was probably picked as 2NE1's "vocal" because of her unique vocal sound rather than her ability to actually apply that sound.  The result of Bom's very "untrained" vocals is that engineers have to use a different approach to normal to get any results at all - pitch-correction can make a good singer sound better and a bad singer sound good but it can't make Flavor Flav sound like opera.  Bom can't just read off a chartsheet and get it right or even anywhere close, she needs people to coach and write songs specifically around her limitations.  Watch the following video, which I've used in blogs before:
 



G-Dragon and T.O.P want Bom's voice on their track, and why not - she has the extreme rarity of sounding unique in the world of k-pop where all singers are schooled to sound pretty much identical.  They concede at 2:50 that it's hard to get results out of Bom, but when they do get them, it makes the track sound great.  They struggle on all night trying to get that "perfect Bom take" where she actually sings the fucking thing that she's supposed to, but they eventually give up - in the end it's just too hard.  How do you teach someone to sing something new when they don't have the musical language to conceptualise and understand exactly what it is that you want them to do?  Bom's weakness is also her greatest strength - she sounds unique and interesting even on ballad material precisely because she's just not capable of doing it right.

BALLAD PROBLEM #4 - INSIPID MUSICAL MESSAGES

As if the music itself being crap isn't enough reason to hate k-pop ballads, here's a bonus reason.  K-pop's turgid ballads really have to go to the next level and make sure that they are not interesting or engaging in any way by not just having garbage music but by filling the lyrical content with the most idiotic, vacuous words and visual messages imaginable.



Getting together and/or breaking up with your boyfriend or girlfriend might seem like a big fucking deal when you're 11 years old and you've never really had much experience with matters of the heart, but after a while you realise that breakups are just part of life's rodeo, and that it takes a few rides on the merry-go-round of dickheads before you meet that special someone who you can share your mutual ambivalence with for the rest of your life.  However many people don't ever make that step into emotional maturity, and go through their entire life believing in tooth fairies, Santa Claus, organised religion and the extreme emotional vanity that k-pop ballads encourage by playing up every single relationship issue for maximum drama points like it's some big fucking deal.  Who gives a fuck if Jonghyun hung up on Taeyeon, I'd hang up on that bitch sooner if she started singing this shit down the phone.



It's just about the only topic k-pop ballads ever cover, and it makes me grateful that I don't understand Korean language because I'm sure I would cringe even harder than I already do at garbage music like this.  If you're a girl and you ever hear any guy say to you any of the shit in the above song, make sure you've got one hand on that mace can.



Sunny Hill have a better stab at breakup lyrics, that comes across a lot more sincere and realistic than your average k-pop ballad.  Cleverly, the song's words are paired with a music video which highlights the hidden layer of meaning in the lyrics.  The core message here throughout both the words and visuals is that belief in an idealised perfect love, like belief in an orthodox religion, requires a disconnect between what happens inside the heads of the true believer and the often completely contradictory situations that are actually happening in the real world, and that's why the behaviour of people who are very devoted or devout is often completely opposed to their own stated moral values.  The song is very much the opposite of the SM The Ballad songs, because rather than idealising romance in an insipid, corny way, it's putting romance into a greater context, the type of context that would probably be too much for the average k-pop fan with a bedroom wall full of idol group posters.

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Of course, this is all just the way I look at it.  If you are able to extract some tiny semblance of enjoyment out of the bulk of k-pop's awful disgusting ballads, more power to you, and never let it be said that you're not well catered-for in this genre.  Also, you're banned from touching the MP3 player settings or any acoustic guitars at my next housewarming party.

Tiffany's guide to Korean culture and lifestyle

Ohmigosh, hi everybody it's Tiffany here!  I'm so happy to be here!  Kpopalypse always gets questions about Korean culture but he doesn't live in Korea, so he asked me to write something about my favourite country in the world for you who are thinking of coming to Korea!  This is absolutely unexpected and exciting and humbling all at the same time!  Let's learn all about Korea!

 

GEOGRAPHY

Korea is a nice country full of wonderful people.  It's located on the eastern coast of the Asian continent.

It's the peninsula thing a little to the left of the green island.  Aren't green islands pretty?

Korea is divided into North and South.  North Korea is a dictatorship where people have no freedom, and little food, so they can't eat what they want at any time.  South Korea is a democracy where people do have lots of freedom, and lots of food, so people can eat what they want at any time, unless it's against SM's dieting rules.

HISTORY

I don't know much about Korean history because I'm busy being a k-pop star so I asked the girls from AOA but they didn't know either.  They said that our president is busy rewriting the history books so they didn't want to comment on history and get it wrong and upset their sensitive fanbase, but once the books are all rewritten they're going to learn what's in them and let you know all about it.

WORKING LIFE

Koreans work longer hours than anybody else in the developed world!  However don't be fooled - Korean workers actually have the lowest productivity of all OECD countries, and it's probably because they're so busy building up their own businesses on the side.

Smart office attire could mean a worker cares about her presentation in the workplace, but it could also mean she's practicing clothes-making so she can start her own business and leave you in the lurch. Don't be too trusting of co-workers!

TRAVEL

It's fun to travel in Korea to see important sights that will fill you with Korean pride, however the roads are very dangerous, public transport is safer!  When using public transport, it's best to travel light!

Stylish!

A small travel bag like the one shown above will ensure that you cause a minimum of inconvenience to other travellers!

LEISURE

When it's party time, Koreans definitely like to have a drink, and the favourite alcoholic drink of choice in Korea is soju, depicted below.

The soju is somewhere on this shelf, I think - sorry I was a bit tipsy when I took this photo.

Soju is about 20% alcohol by volume so be careful and drink responsibly!

The other common Korean leisure pastime is prostitution, which is unfortunately very popular and makes up 4% of Korea's GDP.

Prostitutes can be identified by a general lack of clothing, low moral values and a tendency to abscond with other people's money to feather their own nest.  Avoid!

To make your time in Korea enjoyable, don't associate with prostitutes or you may end up with diseases, broken friendships or strained business partnerships.

PATRIOTISM

It's important for Koreans to love their country but people who post about it on the Internet are probably just showing off.

Say it, don't spray it.

Love your country on the inside instead, where it matters the most.

Go go Korea!  Can you feel the Korean patriotism emanating from this picture?

ENTERTAINMENT

Don't forget to listen to Girls' Generation (少女時代) while you're in Korea!  Here are our albums that you should listen to!

Girls' Generation - Girls' Generation

Girls' Generation - Girls & Peace

Girls' Generation - Love & Peace

Thank you for reading this guide!  Please watch over us fondly!

The Kpopalypse 2016 bias list

I have no fucking idea why so many people care about my biases in k-pop, but it seems that plenty of you do because I get asked questions about this shit all the time even though my bias lists are publicly available to all.  Nevertheless, I'll freely admit that the landscape of hot women in k-pop has changed somewhat since my last bias list post 18 months ago, and therefore a revisit of this important topic may be relevant, so that means it's time for an update!  Who is on the Kpopalypse bias list for 2016?

While my bias list has changed a little, it hasn't changed all that much.  I especially don't feel the need to update it every time a new girl group emerges... new groups tend to take a few years for me to find someone in them who actually makes an impression, generally because a lot of the debuting girls don't have much character to their faces at such a young age, so don't expect any inclusions from recently-debuted groups here.  The "your mum" jokes that I drop here and there in blogs and my ask.fm are something that I do because they have a grain of truth to them - if you're about the same age as most of the debuting idols, I'm far more likely to bias your mother than the average girl in a k-pop group.

Of course that doesn't mean that I don't have biases, so let's get right down to it and list them for your entertainment!  Unlike previous bias lists, this one will be completely video-centric, and restricted to videos from live performances, TV and fancams, rather than official MVs (where it's easier to fake certain elements).  Note that only current k-pop idols are listed here - people who cease to work in the field of k-pop are no longer eligible for inclusion.  Let's take it away with:

THE KPOPALYPSE 2016 BIAS LIST

1. Raina (After School/Orange Caramel)

Raina's #1 position in this list has never really been under any serious threat, and the only thing that could bump her off the list is if she stopped participating in k-pop.  Not much fear of that yet however - sure, Orange Caramel and After School have both been about as active as Qri's mole-removing cream over the last 18 months, however Raina herself has still been busy, collaborating with every shitty Korean rapper in sight doing incredibly pathetic soft-ass hip-hop ballads.



Just as well for me because crappy music usually means less sudden movements on stage and therefore makes perving at Raina a lot easier.  Several caonimas have observed that I tend to like "chipmunk" faces in k-pop idols, and this is certainly true of Raina.  Another advantage that Raina possesses for bias-list purposes is that in 2016 she still looks like Raina, something that definitely can't be said of many stars in the ever-transforming world of female k-pop idols.

2. Eunjung (T-ara)

Eunjung continues to look ridiculously attractive.  The long hair she's been rocking over the last 18 months definitely doesn't suit her, but that's the sort of shit that can be easily overlooked in the face of some sexy pirate cosplay, a recurring Eunjung theme.



Eunjung's general cuteness and wider frame compared to most Korean idols (compare her shoulder span to anyone else on stage here) are what keeps her high on the Kpopalypse bias list, she seems like an idol that I could fuck without having to stop every 30 seconds to ask if I had broken a pelvic bone.

3. Hong Jin Young

Trot singer Hong Jin Young comes in at #3 and marks the first list-shuffing for 2016.  Delight are hotly rumoured to have imploded, signalling previous #3 bias Jaewon's probable departure from k-pop, and the Three Caonimas are no more - both f(x)'s Sulli and Berry Good's Subin have left k-pop completely, whereas Minx's Ji-u is still active but somehow doesn't look very Sulli-ish anymore.  This leaves room for advancement as Hong Jin Young moves up two places on this list.



Hong Jin Young's facial features scream out plastic surgery louder than just about any k-pop idol I've ever seen, but unlike a lot of other examples in the k-pop realm, the surgeon definitely did a good job here.  Plastic surgery detractors always say "it doesn't matter how nipped and tucked you are, your kids will still look ugly", but I was going to pull out and do a Seungri anyway.

4. Puer Kim

Puer Kim gets to move up in this list as well, and it's not difficult to gauge the enduring appeal of k-pop's Tura Santana who even has the below interviewer speculating on her "femme fatale" nature (watch below from 11:03).



The interview also has about 57 different euphemisms for Puer's amazing rack:

• "first impressions" = tits
• "blessing from god" = tits
• "it's a characteristic that makes me, me" = tits
• "my mother said I was sexy ever since I was young" = she grew tits before everyone else

Puer Kim has been quiet on the k-pop scene lately, maybe it's just because she's sick of talking about the twins in every interview.

5. Qri (T-ara)

F-ve Dolls'/DIA's Seunghee has now exited the realm of k-pop and is therefore ineligible, meanwhile Sunny has been demoted and Qri moves up.  Why is it so?  The answer is better technology.



As the video says "we do not approach Qri from the basis of tools, we approach Qri from the basis of engineering principles".



"You cannot achieve anything, in any business, in the absence of high-caliber people (like Qri)".  Qri's 2.0 manufacturing meets required standards.

6. Sunny (Girls' Generation)

Sunny's 2.0 upgrade however hasn't been as effective, as it mainly focused on her face which really didn't need any improvement and thus the result is a small retrograde step.



Not that the rest of her needs much improvement either however.  Even trashy Korean media thickears Dispatch were still able to determine the "best moment" in the above video.

7. Park Jimin (15&)

I went searching for a bunch of hot videos of Park Jimin but all I found that was any good was this "shipping" compilation where she's paired off with some guy from GOT7.



Oh and this other one where the whole of BTS are low-key drooling over her.  As they should.  But yeah, she's not big on the fanservice as usual, life remains tough for Park Jimin appreciators.  I would pay her good money to see her donning the outfits in the second half of Pocket Girls' "Bbang Bbang", but it'll probably never happen unless a variety show makes her do it as an ironic joke (make it happen, Saturday Night Live).

8. Minkyung (Davichi)

Crayon Pop's Way has been removed from the bias list completely for health and safety reasons, whereas After School/Orange Caramel's Lizzy has physically wasted away to the point where her bias position has suffered.  Maybe she really is "naturally skinny" or whatever, but it's interfering with my fap.  This means that Davichi's Minkyung moves up.



Some quick "research" of Minkyung revealed that she doesn't even sing much anymore but just appears in endorsement after endorsement.  Everyone was happy that Davichi left MBK but what the fuck have they even done since?  CJE&M just seem to be sitting on their hands and collecting the cosmetic company money, at least MBK made them put out a song occasionally.  Mind you as long as I still get my Davichi POV porn I don't think I care whether they put out another song or not.

9. IU

IU hates you and would probably kill all of you if it were legal.  She might have gotten a little of the angst out of her system with "chat-shire" but IU still has to be a performing seal for nerds, witness her bringing the baby-doll aegyo for a bunch of hard and sweaty FPS players in the below video.



The poor woman.  She's in hell.

10. Hyoeun (Stellar)

For my money, Stellar is "Hyoeun and the three other girls".  That's because I actually went out with Hyoeun for a while.



Okay, so it wasn't really Hyoeun, but damn she certainly looked like her, imagine a slightly shorter Hyoeun with bigger boobs.  We met over the counter many years ago when I was working a government job.  She started very obviously flirting with me (i.e so obvious that even my relatively inexperienced self at the time could tell) so I asked her out and she said "well, you know where I live, my address is right on your computer screen, why not come over?".  So after work I turned up at her doorstep, which gave her quite a shock.  I asked her why she seemed surprised - she said "I know I invited you but I didn't actually expect you to come", and I was like "well, it would have seemed a bit rude not to have".  She let me in anyway.  We talked for a long time, she wasn't just attractive but had a great sense of humour as dark as my own, and it didn't take long for the relationship to progress.



On one of our first meetings, she confessed to me that she was a prostitute and a heroin addict.  I said "okay".  She said "I hope you don't hate me".  I didn't, I gave her a hug instead, while she cried on my shoulder.  Having already been active in the music business for a few years at this point, I'd met plenty of both before, so this news didn't really concern me that much.  I was more upset about the Leonard Cohen CD that she had on repeat which nearly had me reaching for the drugs myself, despite the fact that I didn't take them (and still don't).



She was a nice girl but her addiction was always in the background, making things weird.  One time after an enjoyable bedroom session, she said "I'm going to do something now, which involves this teaspoon - you can watch if you like, but if you don't want to see it, I understand".  I declined the opportunity to be a spectator, but in retrospect I should have said yes - I hadn't seen many drug casualties at that point in my life and didn't know how important it was to not let people shoot up alone.  Another time I left her house and accidentally left $150 on her bed just because it fell out of my pocket.  When I remembered the money, I raced back to get it, thinking to myself that as a prostitute by trade she's going to take it the wrong way, thinking that I left the cash there deliberately and that I was dropping the hint that I'm just another one of her clients to her.  I went back to her house, picked up the money and she wasn't offended at all but said "that's a shame, I would have happily spent that".



One time I was at her place and her ex-boyfriend rang up.  I'm not sure what he was saying to her but it was an argument of some kind and she was in tears.  After about five minutes of her sobbing while he yelled at her I decided that I'd had enough of listening to him tear strips off her self-esteem and I hung up the phone on him.  It probably wasn't the right thing to do, but her mood improved straight away.  The week after, we broke up - she told me that she was getting back together with her ex.  I was bummed out but we mutually agreed that it was fun while it lasted and perhaps we'd see each other again one day.



A couple of months later, the phone rings - it's her.  She's crying and says that she'll be moving to Queensland with her ex to start a new life.  She says that she hopes to kick drugs completely over there, but that she's still addicted for now, and so is he, but that they plan to make a fresh start.  I told her that this sounds great and why is she crying?  She told me that she just wanted me to know.  I never saw her again... until Stellar debuted.  I'm glad she's doing well health-wise, although she probably makes less money now.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS BECAUSE PEOPLE WANTED ME TO EXPAND THIS LIST TO 20 GIRLS

11. Lizzy (After School/Orange Caramel)

Despite looking like a cancer patient these days her cute face still gets her over the line.

12. Gain (Brown Eyed Girls)

I can watch JAV all day and I'm like "just fantasy, meh" but when I watch Gain's videos I slowly feel like I'm being brainwashed into becoming a rapist.

13. Yooa (Oh My Girl)

Depending on the styling, makeup and lights, she can look like a fairy from the boob kingdom, or E.T - but I'd still phone home all over her face.

14. Chanmi (AOA)

I'll take Chanmi's "would give you a quick handjob behind the bike shed" vibe over the rest of AOA's perfect, primped supermodels any day.

15. KittiB

The girl rapped about her own tits.  That's got to be worth something.

16. Choa (AOA)

Impressive weight gain has advanced Choa to the upper echelons of AOA fap.  If she's been padding it's with hamburgers and chocolate cake - the right way.

17. Hyomin (T-ara)

One day as a teenager my mum asked me "have you met a nice girl yet?" and I replied "why would I want a nice girl?"  She laughed - she thought I was joking.  It wasn't until a decade later when I dated ten Hyomins in a row that she understood.

18. Yezi (Fiestar)

Check her out in the "Apple Pie" video where all the other girls grin wide-eyed but Yezi refuses to do more than a slight smirk because she doesn't want to blow her newfound "fierce" image.  Any girl who hates aegyo is probably on my level.

19. Jiyeon (T-ara)

The hypnotising power of the cyclopoean eyebeams compels me to reserve a position here for Jiyeon.

20. Rainook (Bloomy)

Yes I know her real name is Jiyun but "Rainook" is more accurate - a perfect cross between AS/OC's Raina and Rainbow's Jisook.  Spam her over at Asian Junkie to confuse IATFB's penis.

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That's it for the Kpopalypse bias list!  I'll leave you with this clip of Rainook so you can observe her some more.  Until next time, caonimas!