I know I am way late to the game on this, but this is why we love Sunmi. This bitch can't be bothered. She sort of half-heartedly does the choreo in the group parts, but when it's her turn to do a solo she's like "fuck this noise" and just slumps around with her arms crossed.
"Yeah, I'll sit down early if I fucking want to" -Sunmi to the cameraman
A lot of kpop girl group music videos are basically identical. You could swap out the four to nine hot girls for a different four to nine hot girls and end up with at least 90% of modern MV releases.
For example, both Brave Girls and whatever the Produce 101 clusterfuck is called (IOI?) just realized videos with essentially the same concept, which in turn is a thinly veiled rehash of the TWICE Cheer Up tactic, which in turn is a rip-off of this: differentiate your eight thousand members by having them each hang out in a different clichéd setting. That way you can watch the video and be like "damn, the tennis player/nurse/Audrey Hepburn knockoff is sexy," instead of saying "damn, the third girl with long dark hair -- no, not that one, the one wearing pink -- no, the OTHER one wearing pink -- is sexy.")
So what is an embittered management company to do? What concepts can they use without incurring the wrath of random internet bloggers?
Vampires.
"Twilight ruined vampires!" you shout at me from behind your laptop screens. "Shut up, dumb tweens!" I respond. The vampire concept can still be good (and sexy) if done right, and it would be cool if some of the squeaky clean new-generation groups used vampires to sex up their images (yeah, I know, TWICE had zombies. But zombies are not sexy).
The OG vampire/death imagery video is 4Minute's (may they rest in peace) iconic Volume Up, which is not only one of their best songs but also produced an extremely gothtastic and visually lush video. Featuring ominous whispering, snakes, light choking, human skulls, red-eyed Hyuna, church-running, some truly wild costuming, a sexy tango sequence, and people materializing from and vanishing into black smoke, it's one of kpop's most visually and aurally satisfying moments.
Next, Sunmi went pure vampire with a markedly-creative-for-2014 vision in blood red and stark black and white. It also features the surprisingly cool effect of having guest rapper Lena Ahn (may her career rest in peace) teleport to and fro while wearing thigh-highs. On the one hand, we get it, you're a vampire, super speed, whatever. On the other hand ... SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!!!!!! Plus, Sunmi looks hot sucking blood from some poor dude and grinding up on a couch. It's well-styled, well-shot, and sexy without slipping too far into camp.
Our third contender in the kpop vampire-off is Choa's solo debut.
It's a somewhat boring ballad, which already kicks it pretty far back into second place. The death blow is the distinct lack of Choa in the actual video. But what makes up for the lack of AOA's reigning queen of sexyface is how straight-up dark this video is. It's pretty hard to take Choa's soulful crooning seriously when the actress in the video is straight up dragging some girl around by a neck chain while her eyes glow red. And at the end of the video (spoiler alert) she kills herself from guilt, I guess, by going out in to the sun AND BURNING UP INTO ASH! Don't even try to tell me this is some heartfelt meditation on lost love. This video is a horror movie, no doubt about it. There is body dragging. There is Catholic imagery. There is vampire suicide. What more can you ask for from a music video?
So next time you've got a special effects team, a bunch of creepy angel statues, and an actor who's better at lying around corpse-like than making actual facial expressions, try a vampire concept.
Kpop, to a degree infinitely greater than Western pop, is prone to appending informative introductions to their songs. And every now and then, these first ten to fifteen seconds of a song are so unbelievably ridiculous or catchy (or ridiculously catchy) that they far overshadow the remainder. Here are a few of my favourites:
Hey, remember when After School was a thing? Well, this music video is notable primarily for its extensive, extremely tasteful use of stripper poles. But the song is notable primarily for the fact that the man whispering "get funky, get down, get down, COME ON, get down, get down" is interrupted after a mere ten seconds by a bloodcurdling female scream. I can only assume that Nana fell off her pole, causing the unholy noise that makes this intro so memorable.
Did you know that no matter where you go (Korean I can't understand because I'm uneducated) the pretty girls are ... AOA? Yes! Uh-HAH! You know! (I know!) You know! (I know!) But you would not know were it not for Jimin's instantly iconic introduction.
There is no greater offender in the realm of unintentionally hilarious song introductions than the Brave Brothers. Complete with a stage-whispered "are you ready?" and weird use of AutoTune, this is Bravesound at its best and most incongruous.
This most mortifying of music videos is foreshadowed by the deeply mortifying call to arms "Everybody, I said EVERYBODY, report to the dance floor. Miss Hyuna is back." It makes Hyuna sound like she's some knockoff version of Ciara circa 2004.
Finally, the self-congratulatoriness of a JYP intro is combined with the awkwardness of a Bravesound intro, creating this masterpiece of a lovechild. Here, we get our usual Stock Male Whisperer (who I have to assume is a Brave Brother?) introducing this collaboration like it's going to solve world hunger and end racism forever. It's the first collaboration! Can you even believe it? Really makes you think about how much the world was missing out on before JYP and Bravesound joined forces on February 16th in the year of our Lord 2014 to inform us that finally it was "time to ... leggo".
