It’s time for QRIMOLE! Let’s take a look at more reader questions for Kpopalypse!

Thank you for all your answers! A quick reply to your replies before my question. I have a feeling noone noticed the Piri and Pick up the phone similarity because neither artists have rabid, huge fandoms. I’ve always had this inexplicable soft spot for jazz influenced songs which is probably why I like Mamamoo so much. Update to this story is that he did break it off in the end. The problem wasn’t us, we both love each other a lot. It’s the circumstances. When the break up happened he kept saying things like the future isn’t hopeless, and that there’s always tomorrow but for now we are ending. And then telling me not to live waiting for him.

I was (and still am) convinced there is a solution here, came up with some ideas and sent him a letter saying so 2 weeks after the break up. He said he needs to focus on rebuilding his life and find who he is, which I agree with. We both need time. But again, he gave me hope and then said not to live waiting for him. Why does he keep doing that? Going through a no contact period right now. I still think we deserve another chance. I’ve decided that I’m going to focus solely on myself for this time and see if I still feel that way at the end of it. But how do I even ‘find myself’? I know what I like and dislike, I have plans for my career, I have my friends and family whom I love a lot. I was already working towards learning some new skills like driving. How do I use this time to grow? I was already going to do those things while we were still together. How does one ‘find’ themselves? Am I just being obsessive and desparate by thinking we deserve another chance? I honestly think our connection was special, the circumstances sucked but there are ways around it. I don’t think I’m thinking this out of fear of never finding love again. But idk anymore…

I really think that he just wants to break it off while looking like as much of a “good person” as possible. Breakups are difficult for the party initiating the breakup too, because nobody wants to feel responsible for the other person’s unhappiness. I think that by telling you (what I think is) a bullshit line, he’s trying to ease you into the idea of not being with him gently and less painfully. Of course, he’s doing it the wrong way – it’s a lot less unpleasant to dive into cold water by just shoving yourself in there than by creeping in inch by inch.

“Finding yourself” really just means living and doing what you want to do, i.e not being co-dependent, which gives me the feeling that he might have felt a bit like he couldn’t be who he really is around you. However that’s his hang-up to deal with, I think perhaps he’s not dealing with it in the best way, because it’s entirely possible to “be yourself” and also be in a relationship, and the best relationships are exactly like this. Whatever though – he’s decided that it’s over and if I were you I’d give up all hope of getting back with such a wishy-washy dude. You may have had a good thing going for a while but you’ll have other things happening with others, they won’t feel quite the same, but they may be an improvement in other areas. Sometimes it takes dating a different person to really realise the shortcomings of the previous one.

Hi Kpopalypse! I’ve been going through something and I’ll try to explain it in this little box, but I’m brazilian and English isn’t my first language, so I’m sorry if any mistakes appear. I’m in my first year in high school and it’s soooo much pressure. I have to get perfect scores because I study in a private school and I wanna show my parents that I’m worth all the money they’re investing. Besides regular school shifts, I’m on a project called High School from Mizzou, and twice a week we have full english classes with an american teacher, so when we graduate we’ll have two different degrees: a Brazilian one and an American one. It’s a LOT of work and I’ve been feeling both physically and mentally ill and the year has just begun and I’m feeling weak. I have non-diagnosed anxiety issues and my head is like, on the edge of exploding. I’ve been so stressed that when my dad told me he was proud of me, I cried for half an hour lol So, what I wanted to ask is: do you have any advices for me? Reading your blog and your old posts makes me unwind at least for a while, so thank you for that!! By the way, how do you feel about Stellar’s music? They’re my ultimate group. Lots of love from Brazil! Keep going!

Stellar generally had good songs and you’ll find a lot of them in my favourites lists if you investigate past posts.

If you have non-diagnosed anxiety issues, they might not be as bad as you think. Honestly every teenager experiences some form of anxiety and stress, I know I sure did although maybe for different reasons to you. Anyone would get anxious with your workload and pressure to perform. Pressure to be perfect is a real drag, honestly the grades don’t matter all that much until your final year, however it’s understandable to want to do the right thing by your parents and do well. I wouldn’t suggest slacking off or working less (because good study habits are damn useful) but what I would suggest is that you need to find a way to manage it, i.e working smarter rather than harder. So if you want to learn English maybe a really cool way to do it would be to integrate it into your leisure activities, like reading this blog. With that in mind:

Don’t use “and” more than once in one sentence

“English”, “Brazilian” and “American” are nationalities so should be capitalised

“Advices” isn’t really a word, the plural of “advice” is just “advice”

I’m just being silly because I’m sure you’re not trying to be perfect while writing a question to some asshole k-pop blogger, and your English is great actually. My point is that work and play isn’t necessarily always separate, there’s a space where you can combine them and that’s how you can sometimes make learning easier and less stressful. That’s why so many university students write their thesis on k-pop. You probably won’t be able to reduce your workload anytime soon, but if you can integrate some fun, creative stuff into your work somehow while still keeping the integrity of it intact you might find that it makes your current predicament less stressful and it will also be more motivating. Good luck!

I discovered a few days ago that kpop production company Monotree has a YouTube channel. So far they have videos on Heejin – VIVID (oh my god yes!), CLC – Breakdown (meh), ONF – Complete (unfortunately not subbed), and ([G{}])I_-DLE – $$$/Dalla (one of my favorite tracks from last year, don’t judge me). They do two videos for each song – the first one discusses the hand-wavey idea/story behind the song and the second actually digs into the DAW session, which I find extremely interesting. I highly suggest you check them out. Anyways, I’m supposed to have a question so here it is: in the hand-wavey explanation video for $$$ () at around 3:40, the female composer (?) says she worked as a “top-liner” on the track. What does this mean, and how does it fit into the Kpopalypse reference of production/songwriting credits terminology? (She gives some sort of explanation but I don’t really get it – possibly the fault of the translation.)

I’ve never heard of this term either, but from the way they describe it, I know what it means. With what they’re describing, the producer creates the backing track and arranges it in a pop kind of way, then give it to the “top-liner” who then writes melody and lyrics that fit over the backing track. In the west they’d just call the “top-liner” a songwriter/lyricist and the other person a songwriter/arranger/producer. It’s good for songwriter/producers to have a “top-liner” at their disposal because there aren’t many producers who are really good at production but that also have a good sense of lyrics and melody. It’s quite common for independent western artists to have two songwriters with this type of relationship – one doing the tracks and arrangements, and the other fitting lyrics/melody on top.

Hi Kpopalypse oppa, Thank you so much for keeping the Qrimole section going. I’m sure it’s a lot of time and effort. It’s honestly one of my favourite sections. On to my question: I happened to chance upon Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, RV 315 ‘Summer’: 3. Presto” (Performed by Dmitry Sinkovsky; if that’s relevant idk). I’m not into classical music or a musician of any kind but for some reason this song was SO GOOD to me. Most other classical songs I’ve heard are such a snooze fest. Could you recommend more classical songs like this that are hella fun to listen to? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The individual is very relevant – the reason why you like his particular version is because he’s going at it a lot harder than most interpretations, with more staccato and faster tempo, he doesn’t let up the pace in the traditionally slower sections of the piece. A more normal interpretation of the same piece is more like this:

I reckon this violinist dude is a closet metalhead, he’s certainly arranged the song like one. You’d probably also enjoy Malmsteen who has a similar musical sensibility for his more classical-influenced songs.

I just watched the beginning of ITZY – DALLA DALLA, and wow does it read differently in light of all the talk about the secret taping of women coming recently.

The “molka” issue was a known issue in Korea and was controversial many years before all the Burning Sun stuff came to light, with many incidents in recent years where people were being busted for hidden camera porn, there were thousands of incidents of people being caught per year even seven years ago and it’s only gotten worse since. The video is a deliberate nod to that growing controversy, it’s JYP taking the high moral ground and saying “don’t expect that you can get away with that with my girls”, while also acknowledging the prurience of fans.

I know better then to trust reddit with this stuff so is this statement true? “The current trend of instrumental choruses/ no chorus/ lack of drop in Kpop songs.” Are they just talking out of there ass or did I just completely miss this so called trend?

and

Have you noticed this trend lately [same link as above]? Given how we know how much you dislike vocal warbling and prefer to let instrumental backings breath, do you enjoy this trend in kpop?

Actually in my opinion it’s having a drop that is the trend and the lack of a drop is just pop songwriting returning to normal. If you listen to songs from 20, 30, 40 years ago very very few of them have anything resembling a “drop”. I don’t mind drops as long as they add something to the song rather than take something away – whether that happens depends largely on the choice of instrumental.

However they’re onto something with the instrumental chorus. K-pop has always been overcrowded with vocals vocals vocals covering goddamn everything, the whole tropical house movement being taken up so strongly by k-pop songwriters is actually something that I see as a reaction to that, and tropical house songs tend to have largely instrumental choruses. Pity that those instrumentals are often quite shit, but that’s actually a separate issue to the lack of a chorus itself, as a no-singing chorus can certainly be good if done well (or bad if not). What we’re gradually starting to see in k-pop now is a shift away from the tropical sound (thank fuck) but the balance of instrumental vs vocal that is typical of that style still reflected in some newer songs, I see that as a very good thing. I think the presence of vocals is important, but constant vocals dominating a whole song with no let-up is tiresome so it’s good to have a break.

Hey I’m a relatively new-ish reader and I’ve noticed a few times you’ve mentioned that you’re not exactly a fan of J-pop and I was wondering if you could go into more specifics for me because I clearly have nothing better going on in my life. The above are all J-pop songs (obviously) but at the core I don’t think any are technically “bad” songs, in fact Sayonara Elegy has a pop-rock sound I would welcome more of and I would go as far as to say Fake It is a perfect pop song. Saisaki I understand how it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea but again, I think in terms of production at least it’s really good. I assume your dislike of J-pop is more complicated then just not the Japanese language so I was wondering what about J-pop songs is it that turns you off?

Anyways big fan of the blog, you give me something to do other than my uni work which I appreciate

I don’t usually include questions about j-shits and I didn’t include all your song links, but they all have the same problems anyway.

The Japanese are, always have been and probably always will be absolutely terrible at writing commercial pop and rock music. I’ve covered this many, many times before, far too many than I’ve ever wanted to. Why people continue to ask me about it, I have no idea. Their main failure is their complete inability to understand what makes a “pop hook” work, melodically. They just don’t have catchy melodies – ever. It’s far too complex to go into in depth even for Qrimole, a future music theory series post might need to be devoted to this – only problem is I’m not Jpopalypse so I really don’t want to waste precious hours of my time writing about J-crap which isn’t even relevant to this blog when I could be writing about something more worthwhile, like literally anything at all.

Don’t mistake this for anti-Japanese sentiment – not at all. The Japanese are great at really weird experimental music and have some of the best in the world. They’re also really good at heavy metal – X Japan is the only good Visual Kei group, but some of their other more extreme metal is quite good across the board. Just keep them as far the fuck away from commercial pop and rock music as humanly possible and all is well.

Hi Kpopalypse, So I’ve been following you for a while now and I’ve enjoyed your content and blog. I have a question that I know you’ve spoken about and reference all the time on your blog. I’m asking you this since this is something I’ve been mulling over a long time and I’d really like to get your perspective (so not necessarily as a critique of your blog). Post Christchurch, I came across this video on reddit: If you do get through it to respond to my question, OMG thanks a lot. It’s really long and preachy and I had a hard time sitting through a lot of it. Up till now, I didn’t really care much about the fact that the internet is rife with sexist, racial and homophobic slurs as one, I’m a largely conventional, privileged person and two, most of the kind of slurs used on the internet are not contextual to my culture. I’ve never used slurs (even ironically). Especially not sexist and homophobic since the former I’ve had personal experience with and the latter, I have very close friends who are from the LGBT community and I understand what the use of these slurs (even ironically) means for them. However, I consume a lot of edgy shit on the internet. I don’t really create content like it but man dark (especially suicidal) humor really makes me feel better after a huge bout of depression and anxiety. I think in a lot of ways this has also made me desensitized to that kind of humor (especially with memes). Also since I am removed from the realties of racial discrimination (and to a large extent gender and sexuality), I have found it easier to consume such content without getting triggered to a previous experience or memory. In real life, I know I would very clearly speak up against someone who does engage in problematic humor since it does actually sound jarring and wrong. I’m having a hard time reconciling with the fact that what I think is ironic, harmless humor on the internet, actually has far reaching consequences (as the video explained in context of the alt-right). This is also shit that I’ve seen happening in my country in a different cultural context and the far right gaining the majority (and rape, murders etc. are extremely frequent in my country. Please pray for me since I am a minority in this shit hole of a country). I recognize the fact that your content on this blog does actually speak up against bullying, prostitution, sexism etc. and I recognize how you do it. I also love that by pissing off people who are so hell bent on semantics and keyboard activism, you’re showing how there are way larger issues in real life that people are oblivious to and are much more problematic. I’d also venture to say that coming across your blog three (or four years) back made me personally recognize the problems with social media “activism” and hive/ mob activism with no fact checking + a lack of actually doing something IRL + sanitized content and language. As the video stated though, a lot of people on the alt-right use language (slurs) the way you do to desensitize people. Why do you, in context of all this, feel it’s ok to joke about problematic things (rape, homophobia, racism etc.)? Do you feel like in some part you’re perpetuating this culture? Additionally, a lot of people have extremely personal tragic experiences with sexism, homophobia, racism etc. Do you feel like the language you employ is disrespectful to these communities? That was a LONG ass wall of text. Thanks for reading through it! And if you respond, thanks for that too! I would like to say that I don’t want or expect your response to be in “agreement” to my perspective (which I think comes across in subtext despite the conflict I’m having). I’d like to hear from you precisely because of the differences we have in perspective.

Firstly, I don’t agree with the linked video. While I definitely understand the overall concerns that the videomaker has, what I don’t agree with at all is their methodology, and the logic behind the “stochastic pyramid”. I think that’s absolute bullshit and I think that the above video is actually doing real damage to the cause that they claim to stand for. To explain why, let’s take a closer look at what this pyramid is all about:

So the videomaker’s argument is that one step on the pyramid can potentially lead to the next step up and so forth, kind of like the “gateway drug” theory. It makes no sense because while some people may indeed express some or many of these things, there’s no clear causal link between any of them. For instance you can commit a “cultural microaggression” quite easily without actually having the attitudes and beliefs that make that microaggression offensive to some people. For instance my mother would say things like “the Chinese are quite smart and hard-working, aren’t they” when watching a Chinese musician or athlete on TV, which some Chinese people might see as a racist stereotype and therefore a microaggression of some kind – but my mother wasn’t anti-Chinese, in fact she was part-Chinese and was very proud of her Chinese ancestry (and reminded me of this at every opportunity, like, you wouldn’t believe). Another example, someone who was a neo-Nazi might engage in violence or verbal hatred of other races with ever having engaged in any “microaggressions” at all – all of their activities are, I suppose, “macroaggressions”. So if you can skip steps on the pyramid, does the fucking pyramid even make any sense? Can it be even said to exist in any real sense? You can use a similar pyramid like this to “prove” that heavy metal causes serial killers, or that taking a headache pill causes crack cocaine addiction, or that computer courses for senior citizens cause hacking attempts against the Pentagon, or anything else you want to prove. Its so much complete fucking bullshit.

If you’re still not convinced, Contrapoints does a really good explanation of “catastrophising” when she explains the thought patterns of incels in her video, watch from 13:12:

This is essentially the same type of pyramid in reverse, it’s just a different subject and we’re traveling down instead of up. As she demonstrates, it all seems to make sense in context, just because we’re moving from one thing to another more extreme thing on the same topic so the brain sort of goes “yeah okay so there must be a connection”, but when you remove all the illogical connecting stuff and leave the top and the bottom parts intact, you can see how nonsensical it really is, because the complete lack of any genuine connection from one end to the other then becomes apparent. Likewise, the stochastic pyramid is the same – my mother wasn’t ever likely to commit genocide just because she didn’t immediately burn the golliwog I brought home from school one day, even though I still got an F for it in home economics class.

Now that of course isn’t to say that there aren’t people who engage in these things with a deliberate attempt to hurt others, but I think it’s a vastly different thing and to lump it all under one “pyramid” and say “oh noes this leads to genocide” – come on, now. I see this as a deliberate attempt by the videomaker to frame conversation that he doesn’t agree with as more bad than it really is, and essentially is an attempt to “shut down” people who aren’t completely on board with his ideas that microaggressions are bad etc and lump them all into the “potentially genocidal” bracket. Sure, he kind of says that that’s not what he’s doing, but that in fact is exactly what he’s doing. The giveaway is lumping in a fairly generic commentator like Joe Rogan (who is exceedingly popular and has views which, like it or not, are honestly quite mainstream) with Lauren Southern (who believes some pretty fringe radical shit like that the white race is dying out and blah blah). Just because someone has views that you disagree with doesn’t mean that they’re Hitler.

As for my jokes: there’s a difference between joking about rape (let’s just use rape as an example, but it could be any of the taboo topics you listed), and thinking that rape is funny. To make this crystal clear, here’s what I definitely don’t think is funny:

rape

Now here’s a bunch of shit that I do think is fucking hilarious:

making rapists, wife-beaters, revenge-porn spreaders etc look stupid

making the people who stan confessed rapists and other scum look silly

picking on the media who won’t tackle the issue of rape directly, or who callously misrepresent the people involved

lampooning censorship around the word “rape”, which just serves to cover up and hide something that should be discussed openly

highlighting society’s secret obsession with rape and how puritanical (and often religious) culture directly feeds into this obsession, while simultaneously denying it and claiming fraudulent moral high ground by claiming it as a “taboo” topic

I personally know too many rape survivors to think that rape is funny. My rape jokes aren’t “ha ha ha, you got raped lol” type stuff. Anyone who looks at my blog posts and can actually read can immediately tell this is true. Is my language sometimes disrespectful? HELL YES! But look at the targets – by using a joke about rape to lampoon the rapists, who am I really disrespecting? The rape victims? I don’t fucking think so. I think I treat rape victims with far MORE respect than almost any other media out there in k-pop, because I attack the real enemy, I ridicule the targets that deserve it the most, and I don’t condescendingly assume every rape victim is a poor wilting flower, a perpetual victim who will just curl into a ball and die if they even hear the word ‘rape’ one more time, instead I credit them with the intelligence to determine context correctly, and the strength of character to stand on their own two feet and laugh with me at the criminal scum that infest the world of k-pop, and at all the other silliness in k-pop, even if I’m using rape as a conduit. Hell, if people can survive an actual rape – they surely can survive one of my crappy jokes, even if the language isn’t language that they would personally express.

Likewise, the supposed “homophobic” content on my blog is no different. I’m very, very obviously pro-gay, there’s tons of pro-gay content all over my posts if people actually care to read. I try not to do it in a boring sermonistic way, I try and keep it funny and entertaining – but it’s in there. Anyone who thinks that I’m homophobic just because they read the word “faggot” occasionally is either not paying attention, or is deliberately ignoring the context in which I use that word, when I choose to deploy it and why. However I don’t give much of a shit if people do think that I’m homophobic anyway. I know that they’re wrong, the fact that they don’t also know that they’re wrong isn’t my concern, so I don’t make any huge effort to convince people (and am only addressing it here, because you asked). Also I believe in reclaiming language. Gay people have done a fantastic job with reclaiming the word “queer” – in the 1970s “queer” was a huge insult but these days my city has a “queer film festival” and yes that’s exactly what they call it. That’s a great example of a word that has been successfully reclaimed to the point where the power it used to have to offend its original target has been stripped almost completely away, because those people just started saying “yes, I’m queer, so what? Call me queer all you like – I don’t care”. It’s a shame that the word “faggot” hasn’t undergone the same transformation but there’s no reason why it (and countless other supposedly offensive “slurs”) also can’t. If you try and silence something, you just give it more power to offend, you make it more taboo and naughtier. On the other hand if you proudly speak it out, and – crucially – let others do the same, you gradually strip that power away. Nobody is ever going to bother to insult you using a word that they know doesn’t even bother you even if they say it. This is all a very pro-gay, pro-minority, anti-bullying, anti-violence, anti-hatred position – and people like the original videomaker trying to lump people like me who enjoy the occasional meme and bad language in with the homophobes and racists just because I don’t believe in their code of silence are in my opinion part of the problem, not the solution.

Reminded me of kpopalypse dreams. The day when a physical kpop album (probably exo because of their concept) is sent to outer space isn’t too far.

My Super Boram ESP powers work even when I’m asleep!

Have you ever seen this fucking slick house oppar? Would you have the courage to live in a place like that?



P.S.1: I wonder how they get water, especially for the flushable toilet!

P.S.2: English is not my native language, so I wonder why they have 2 beds? And in the case both are occupied, wouldn’t really be awkward to fuck in a open ambience like that?

P.S.3: Got a hint about what’s that red spot next to Kratos’s left eye?

I used to live in a student residence that was smaller than this, plus it didn’t have the cool outdoor area!

Don’t see why they wouldn’t have mains water? Just because a house is small doesn’t mean you can’t make a pipe travel to it.

Two beds because you don’t wanna sleep together every damn night. Also it’s good to have guests crash, or if you just wanna bum out in a different area.

I reckon that’s a birthmark on the guy’s face.

I noticed that you’re following exactly 69 accounts on twitter. Is this just a coincidence or is it for conceptual continuity?

Not a coincidence, I try to keep my follower count at 69 at all times. Which means that whenever I follow someone I got to throw someone else out. It’s good to keep it at an arbitrary number, my feed is pretty busy and I wouldn’t want it getting any busier.

Will those circle of fifths chord progressions ever leave K-pop? They say pop music can be summed up as I – V – vi – IV. But with K-pop (especially in girl groups) it’s always ii – V – I(sometimes iii) – IV(sometimes vi), or i – iv – VII – III, or a full descending minor circle of fifths. It becomes glaringly apparent how much this is used in Lovelyz’ instrumental album where most songs include these progressions and tend to sound the same.

The circle of fifths were such a big part of the k-pop sound about 20 years ago, I think there’ll always be songs that throw back to it, especially from girl groups trying to hit that nostalgia button.

When will “five word k-pop song reviews” come back? Also, I’m typing ythus with greasy fingers so sorry

When I feel like it.

After jyj left tvxq, those 10 year slave contracts became illegal. And now look at this.

How does sm get away with so much? We’d think that exo members would be some of the richest boys in their country, but being stuck with sm means that together they get only 10%. And the staff members at sm are probably underpaid. Where do you think that 90% goes?

To SM. Remember that doesn’t meant they see a lot of profit – SM have lots of expenses. It’s true that in almost any other country a group like EXO would earn more, but it’s also true that EXO benefited from SM’s infrastructure to get going in the first place. Any group that debuts on SM these days is a “sure thing” and the relatively minimal financial reward is a tradeoff – to make that “sure thing” happen, the label has to spend a lot of money.

Of course they get away with all sorts of interesting things, which I certainly wouldn’t know anything about ahem.

At the age of 16 , do you think it’s too late for someone to start learning how to play the piano ?

Any age is fine to start learning music. You probably won’t be a concert pianist if you start at 16, but you can stil get pretty fucking good if you practice. If you’re at that age and are thinking about it, don’t delay it further, it gets only harder as you get older, mainly because of time constraints.

Caonima, what could musically improve this sad fuck vegan’s song? Also, thoughts?

Some tribal style drums – maybe if they skinned some of those cows to make drum skins like our ancestors used to do, that would have worked – knee and shin bones make good timpani style beaters and would certainly help the visual animal-snuff-porn theme along. Also a few more meaty guitar riffs would go a long way. I mean, I’ve got no beef with the guy – be vegan if you want to, folks – but the vegan obsession with “if people only realised what they were doing to animals, they’d stop eating them”… yeah nah. Maybe in isolated cases it does, but most people are too pragmatic for veganism, and it’s actually kind of impossible to be truly vegan really. For instance grain and seed harvesting kills more animals than dairy farming. Also there’s growing evidence that plants are actually sentient in weird ways, but vegans don’t want to hear that because what the fuck are they gonna eat then. The best you can hope for is “harm minimisation”, so you might as well eat a little bit of meat every now and then, fuck it. You won’t regret the taste.

Please make a dark joke about Xiumin’s enlistment.

Sorry I got nothing.

Thoughts on this song? It remind me a lot of Yoona’s When The Wind Blows, so I’m sure you’ll like it too.

Another useless J-shit that is so utterly average that I’m not even going to bother to link it for readers. All future questions about J-shits for QRIMOLE will be ignored. Let’s just listen to Yoona instead. This exceptionally rare live footage of her lipsyncing singing “When The Wind Blows” is like watching those insane Russian building climbers.

I’ll let you decide which one of these two videos has you more on-edge, waiting for a seemingly inevitable fuck-up that miraculously never happens.

Hi Kpopalypse oppar! I had occasionally read some of your posts before and I enjoyed them before but just recently went on a posts reading binge and loved it! Really liked your reviews (even though I do disagree with you on certain non-music issues but that’s ok) and your explain posts, especially the dog-whistle one…but now I keep overanalyzing scenes from both boy and girl group MVs and not really coming to a conclusion. Still fun nevertheless. My question needs some background so here goes:

There’s a guy who had been harassing girls in my class for the past 2 years. He started with one of my friends. At first he used to chat with her in a friendly way about homework, projects etc. He used to also send flirtyish messages to her, but she used to not take them seriously. Then one day he said he liked her and asked her to be his girlfriend. She refused, and instead wanted to remain friends. That’s when he started to spam her with messages. Angry ones calling her nasty names for being rejected, and then seemingly calming down an hour later and being apologetic. He would not take no for an answer, and continued this cycle of sending insulting and apologetic messages for at least 3-4 months. I told her to screenshot those messages and report it to authorities, but she refused because, and I quote, “did not want to create trouble” and was more concerned about her harasser’s future job prospects (he’s one of the more gifted students in the class). I was shocked and urged her to rethink her decision. She stood firm, so I dropped the issue (but continued judging her). After some time, he stopped. We thought he moved on, but imagine my surprise when another one of my friends came to me with the same thing happening to her as well. Even she refused to report him out of concern for his future.

I was done. To me they looked absolutely pathetic the way they were letting this guy walk all over them, AND being concerned about his fucking future as well. I said as such to them, and refused to talk to them about it again and he moved on to doing the same shit to other girls. Eventually one of his friends confronted his cause of rumors flying around and he confessed (and also got recorded). His friends made his stand in front of class and apologize to the girls he harassed. One of my friends was not paying attention so when asked to repeat, HE REFUSED. And that’s the end of it. I’ve read about you not caring about what crimes or anything your favorites did, and that you enjoy the music anyway. So my questions are:

1.Can that thinking be applied here as well? Should this asshole be punished for his actions or not?

2.Is intelligence/creativity more important that morality or is it vice versa? Thanks for letting me rant! Say hi to your cat on my behalf as well! Stay healthy and happy oppar!

Really, unless he’s crossing the line into something that is a criminal offense, it’s up to the girls how they want to deal with it. What he’s doing is certainly dickish and he’s definitely an asshole, but if someone was harassing me I know I’d want to deal with it in my own way and I wouldn’t want some third party who isn’t even involved taking matters into their own hands, even if they meant well. If the girls specifically enlist your assistance or seek your advice, then that’s different. Until then, let them deal with it how they choose and just let them know that you care about what happens to them. It’s bad enough that they’ve already got one person in their life who won’t listen to them or respect their decisions – don’t make yourself the second one. That’s a bit like asking “is a char-grilled rib-eye steak better than a pan-fried barramundi”, there’s no correct answer to this but obviously both are valuable, but there’s also a degree of subjectivity with appreciating each one. Sorry, that vegan post before got me really thinking about meat and now it’s nearly dinner at the time of writing and I’m hungry.

Thoughts on these songs?

Georgia have the best one by far but I don’t really like any of them. Didn’t know Bananarama were even still releasing new stuff, that fact alone is quite impressive even if the song isn’t.

Hi Kpopalypse, hope you are well. Would you have any idea what the “magic powder” is in this clip at 01:31:

The spoon they’re dishing it out with made me initially think of the spoons that come with sherbet, but they seem to be specifically avoiding tasting it, so I guess that’s not it. No idea, I’ll throw this one open to readers!

Howdy kpopalypse, got any tips for a caonima looking to audition for a kpop company? And hopefully not “don’t audition lmfao”, I’m wondering if you have an idea of what a kpop audition judge looks for in a potential idol, especially since you say idols don’t have to be great at all at singing. I’m as pretty as an idol (i’m so sorry if i sound stuck up, but that’s the most straightforward way to say it) but have minimal singing and dancing ability.

There’s no harm in auditioning, it’s a good learning experience, I’d recommend it. It’s signing contracts that you might want to be wary of.

Some real advice. Idol companies want specialists, not all-rounders. Don’t try and do everything, pick one thing and be really outstandingly good at it. Given that you’re attractive (with no evidence to base it on, I’ll take your claim at face value) I’d suggest dancing over singing. I’m not saying that dancing is easier, but for an attractive person you want the focus to be on your visuals, not what comes out of your mouth, so a dance routine is going to put your best foot forward. Be pretty, smile a lot, don’t speak unless spoken to, be nice to everybody you meet and keep your wits about you (and your parents close by, if that applies). Good luck. You’ll need it (especially if you win).

I just realized that my biases are usually your biases and your fav songs are my fav songs. So I was wondering what your zodiac sign is. Can you tell me? And nobody can find your age through your zodiac sign. Or if you don’t know your sign, you can tell me the month of your birth. Also feel free to point out any grammatical mistakes that I made.

If you go by traditional western zodiac, I’m a Taurus. However if you go by the new scientifically-correct zodiac that has 13 zodiac signs, I’m an Aries. Don’t start a sentence with “and”, “or” or “also”.

Do you ever have that one person/fan in a kpop group that you think outshines the most but when you talk about it people will get mad at you why is that?

Never had this experience, but then I don’t tend to talk about this kind of thing with people I know anyway, because I don’t really give that much of a fuck, and neither does anyone else, so they don’t ask and I don’t tell.

The guys I like never liked me back, and I never liked any of the guys that liked me. Now, I am not saying those guys should have liked me, they didn’t and it’s fine. I also did not start disliking the other guys after they asked me out, I just never seen them that way since the beginning. I always tried to be respectful. But I’m 25 now and find it so weird. Men have been attracted to me, and I to them, but never with the same person at the same time. I was always so jealous of friends in school, they liked a guy and it turns out he likes them back, or a guy they secretly liked asked them out, how does this even happen??? I am extremely confused.

Yeah I dunno. It’s the eternal struggle until things match up. Meeting people is just playing a percentages game a lot of the time, that’s why dating apps are so popular, because they weed out a lot of the options that you wouldn’t consider in the first place, however those apps also bring with them a host of other problems. If I were you I wouldn’t think about it too hard, there’s no grand design, it’s just a biology party and sometimes the cells interact and more often they don’t and you move on.

You mentioned it earlier, but I would seriously be interested in a post discussing different kinds of breakdowns, why some are good/bad, etc. because too often I hear otherwise good, if not amazing, songs that have absolutely terrible breakdowns which stick out like a sore thumb (examples: Face, Flashback, Last Men – literally why is there a dubstep breakdown that would have been awful even in 2012 IN A SONG FROM 20FUCKING17 yes I’m still mad, Sorry For My English, Siren, Valkyrie). The fact that the rest of the songs are so good makes the subpar breakdown look even worse in comparison.

Yeah it’s on the list of things to write a post about one day. Mind you I think that we’re in an interesting phase with breakdowns right now so I’m going to let it ride out a little before I post about it.

Hey oppar! So I’m 17 and about to finish high school, and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life up until like a week ago. I suddenly got the urge to go to college for graphic design, and now I really want to do it, but I don’t know if I should. I know that I’m supposed to choose what I like to do, but I also don’t wanna starve to death if it turns out there’s no jobs and stuff. Do you know if there’s a lot of demand for graphic designers? Do you have some advice? Thanks!!! have a good day

There are a lot of graphic designers. I think it’s something that’s hard to get employment in, especially with advances in computing meaning that the tools for effective graphic design are in the hands of almost anybody. I’m not saying don’t learn it, but I’d say that if you are gonna learn it 1. get really fucking good at it and 2. have a Plan B.

Kpopalypse Oppar, I do not think that “classy sexy” is about being “rapey rapey” in the video. It is about mature ladies that show sexiness that are appropriate with their age and do not reek desperateness. In my observation, there are often a lot of cases where girl groups go all sexy concept after several failing cute comebacks. BEG had a mature concept from the start of their debut. They are even at first faceless singers. The ladies did the mature concept from the start of their debut. So, when they release the “rapey” video Abracadabra, people felt that they show the “classy sexy” appeal. It is not forced at all, they are in their comfort zone, the “mature” concept”, albeit with added “rapeyness”. Compared to like AoA, when they release Miniskirt after they release several failing cutesy songs, their sexy concept seems so desperate. They are somewhat being forced to mature in a very short period of time. That is why they could not have the “classy sexy” appeal. In conclusion, I am not against these desperate measures (obviously the company and girls needed the money), but I could understand a significant amount of general population were surprised with the brand new concept. I just wanted to share my perspective to you.

Wait – my post explaining the hidden meaning of “classy sexy” was five fucking years ago – it’s taken this long for someone to finally disagree with it? Clearly it’s a pretty piss-poor post of mine to have such a slow-burning reaction with my readers, I clearly need to reflect and return with a classier and sexier image of myself. Other than that I’m not even quite sure what you’re asking me, or even if you’re asking me anything at all, so let’s just watch this video of Gain dancing sexy for Shindong (who else).

Hi, I don’t know if you’ve answered this before, but do you think Project Luhan and/or Ailee’s vocal fan camp will effectively reduce the toxic fandom problems?

We live in hope!

How many versions of Time for the Moon Night will GFriend give us before moving on to their next sound?

As many as you people will buy.

So I came across this song on yt I loved the music but then realized that the lyrics were seriously fucked up. (Scroll down a bit, the lyrics are in a comment) Then I couldn’t listen to it. Can you listen to a song in which you can clearly understand the horrible lyrics? I used to think that the content of lyrics doesn’t matter to me. And often in metal, I can’t even say what they are singing about. So I never had this kind of dilemma until now. It bothered me tbh because the song is too good.

Actually although I agree that they’re pretty poor, I didn’t care about the words that much, what brings the song down for me is the dragging, depressing vocal melody. Take away the vocals and the song improves greatly!

Generally bad lyrics are not a deal-breaker for me. I prefer lyrics that I like over lyrics that I don’t like, but bad lyrics won’t make me stop listening to a song, and good lyrics won’t make me start. Small exception for rap music where it could be argued that lyrics have a more elevated musical role – but even then, what makes a good or bad lyric “poetically” and what makes a good or bad lyric “flow-wise” aren’t always the same thing and don’t always completely impact everything else. For me a even in rap a good beat usually wins out.

Oppaaar so I asked you the last time about how to make a good rap beat. So my friend used the one I made for this small competition and it was fucking disappointing really. I’ll admit I’m not that good of a beat-maker but my friend has hella flow and great lyrics, and he shoulda really placed but man the winners are all shit. I don’t know if you know of this song but RM had a song called “Awakening” and it didn’t have any beat whatsoever, the 3rd place winner had exactly the same type of song. The 2nd place winner had this yolo swag shit with a funeral ass pace beat. The 1st place winner basically did a fucking musical by sing-rapping over a piano and funeral pace, not to mention barely hear-able, drums. Also all of them had the same theme to their raps: I’m the fucking best. Seriously, I mean the 1st and 3rd placer even had very similar hooks along the lines of “I don’t need no fucking test because I’m the fucking best”. How fucking original. What’s most frustrating is the winners actually are relatives of the fucking organizer. Wtf right. If you were gonna award your fucking nephews in the first place maybe you should’ve just straight up given them the money, not do this shitty rigged competition and boost their fragile egos ffs not to mention disappoint and frustrate serious rappers I’m more pressed than my friend lol but yeah he was also very frustrated, he didn’t need the money really but it was still 300usd if you win. Also there was this rapper who admittedly has a nu-school beat, but damn he had the rugged man flow, pity they didn’t allow any video taking, maybe to hide the fact that the competition was rigged as fuck. Also oppar would you be okay with me sending you some of the rap beats or even song tracks I made for critique? Hehe my friend was happy with what I made but I want to make myself better. Also my friend is asking me to make his beats for him and all the money he earns from competitions or gigs, he will share half with me. We had a notarized contract and everything. So it would be really nice if I can improve.

Yeah I don’t like RM’s “Awakening” at all.

Shame about the competition but know that all music competitions are some rigged bullshit somewhere along the line. I strongly recommend never entering any of them. Professional musicians don’t waste their time in music competitions, they are there for naive Z-tier performers to play crab-bucket with and get exploited at every step.

Send all the beats you want, you’ve got my email address. Obviously my opinion is only one person’s and is going to be biased to what I like etc.

Hi Mr. Kpopalypse,

I’m not sure if you have already answered a question similar to mine in the past, but whatever, I care now that it pertains to me lmao.

Anyway, I’m a Korean-American high schooler in a pretty high-income suburban area, and it seems like the “Korean wave” is really hitting hard here these days. I have a handful of friends and several acquaintances who are now really, really into K-Pop and of course, they are trying to learn Hangul and speak the language and suddenly they “saranghae” K-bbq and kimchi and whatnot. I want to ask you why in the world am I getting so annoyed by these people? Even my own annoyance seems kinda irrational to me, and I have a feeling it may stem from some of my own realizations that these “acquaintances” or friends have started to approach me more and talk to me now that they recognized I’m Korean or something, like I didn’t matter until my ethnicity was suddenly relevant to them? I don’t know if I’m being sort of delusional thinking this way since my friends have always been good to me; I never thought that they were “using” me, but I still can’t help it that I am getting more annoyed these days ever since K-Pop has gotten so big. And I hate that I’m getting annoyed because after all, shouldn’t I be appreciative of the fact that these people are becoming more conscious of Korean “culture,” especially as someone who has experienced microaggression in the past specifically because of my cultural differences?

Now that I think about it, much of my “Koreaboo” friends are Asian-Americans themselves, and sometimes I will wonder why they don’t put as much effort into learning their own mother tongue as much as they are invested in Korean culture and language. It’s almost as if they’re into it just because it’s trendy, but I find it so much more valuable and significant to be able to communicate with their own parents and family (but that’s a whole other story).

I probably need a fresh perspective from someone who is not Korean, not American, and is familiar with K-Pop, so I have decided to ask you. So how can I stop being such a petty bitch? Please, if you must, just tell me that I’m being irrational because I would love to appreciate the Korean wave as much as the next person but I just can’t.

Thanks so much for your time!

Most of the people I know personally who are into k-pop are Asian, but aren’t Korean, so they’re “Asian-Australians” or whatever. I don’t know if the racial/cultural thing is part of the appeal or not, or if so how much that translates, but I think there’s at least a little bit of maybe not pride but certainly enjoyment in “this comes from Asia instead of the west”, just because where I live so much of everything cultural is western culture and if you’ve got strong ties to your Asian heritage that can get a bit alienating. Australian leisure culture for young adults is all about sport, sport, more fucking sport, the pub, alcoholism, sport, drugs, stupid weather, AC/DC, 200 other bands that sound like AC/DC and more sport – in that kind of context k-pop is honestly refreshing and different, it’s probably a real breath of fresh air for young people who feel a bit out of place in other aspects of commonly accepted culture here. I don’t think the specific country has that much to do with it – if it was Vietnamese pop that had successfully marketed itself and was exploding all over the globe they’d probably be into that instead with equal fervour. Yes, the trend aspect is a factor, but it’s not the only factor. I find it hard to be annoyed about, especially given that in some way I’m kind of part of it, and I also feel like mainstream Australian leisure pursuits don’t have a lot to offer me, so who am I to judge anyone else for their interests? As long as they’re having a good time with it and they’re not hurting themselves or others by being hyper-delusional (which of course, some definitely are – but same goes for anyone pursuing any interest) then I don’t think it’s anything to get upset about, or even anything that’s even anyone else’s fucking business for that matter. Tolerance is a virtue, there’s plenty of people out there preaching tolerance in a really intolerant manner and that doesn’t impress me, especially in these Internet days where anybody can make a loud noise online and pretend to be the most morally upstanding person ever while simultaneously being a cunt to everyone else around them – virtue-signalling can’t replace actual virtues.

That’s all for QRIMOLE! This series will return in a month, in the meantime don’t accept drinks from k-pop stars in strange clubs, even if you’ve known them for a while and they seem like nice guys who would “never do that”!

Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!