It’s time for QRIMOLE, the question and answer series that meets required standards! Read on as Kpopalypse tackles long and tricky questions from readers!

Oppar, how do you stay patient and try not to die of shock from waiting or just the mere excitement when you’re waiting for something you’ve been looking forward to for a LONG ass fucking time? I’m a 19 year old girl and I’ve been a huge fan of The Dark Crystal (1982) since I was 14. It’s a fucking weird ass piece of shit movie and you should consider taking drugs while watching it to maximize its crackhead special effects. Anyway… So for more than 5 years now I have been a big fan. In 2017, when I was 17 lol, Netflix announced that they were going to make a prequel TV show for The Dark Crystal with all puppets and practical effects. JUST LIKE THE FUCKING ORIGINAL. I waited for some news for centuries and we just got a fucking teaser trailer with actual footage at the very end of May this year! HOLY SHIT… So it turns out that the show is coming out on August 30th. Now that I know this information, I am fucking dying of anticipation and I don’t think I’m gonna make it. This is literally the only thing stopping me from committing suicide. This TV show, Frozen 2, and the last Star Wars movie. What should I do to cope and healthily pass the time??? Help me oppar.

I saw The Dark Crystal when it came out… at the drive-in! My tiny mind at the time was blown away, I thought it was really profound and sad, and amazingly beautiful (although as an adult I find the film a bit tedious, but the puppetry and sets are still amazing). Who knows if they’ll capture the same spirit with the new TV show, but I’m glad that they’re going with puppetry and not CGI, that’s very promising and shows that they understand a large part of the appeal of the original movie. Having said that, I don’t really “look forward” to things, I wait until they happen and then I enjoy them at that time. However I won’t tell you my secret of achieving this, because if anticipating things happening in the future is keeping you from suicide, I would feel responsible for your death if you suddenly stopped anticipating those things and then killed yourself because of a lack of things to look forward to. Pass time with k-pop, works for me.

Would you please share some tips on how to keep calm all the time? Thank you.

Have lots of really bad things happen to you. Then when things happen that might worry you, they’ll worry you less because you’ll think to yourself “what’s the worst that can happen – well, I’ve already been there and done that, and I’m still here, so whatever this new thing is can’t really get to me too much, I’ve survived far worse”. Also works for me.

Hi oppar. How are you and your gf and your cat? How’s Australian weather too? Is it winter or already spring there?

Just wondering cuz it’s really really hot here haha. Anyway, I also wanna share this song: I first heard it around 2011/2012 and I find the melody so good and pleasing to my ears. I’m wondering maybe you could share the elements/components of the music of the song here (keys, tone, music type, etc). If not or you don’t want to, I’m sorry for bothering. Well, another point re the song is that since I don’t really focus on lyrics when I listen to music, I really really enjoyed listening to the song. Btw the song was not really mainstream here so it was not played as often as I wanted it too (I only heard it twice from 2011-2014), and internet was not accessible for me at that time, so I could only hope for someone to blast it again at their speakers for me to listen to it. Well the melody is sooo good all I could do at that time was hum it every once in a while. Good thing I’m somewhat good at my pitches and keys. Back to the point haha. When I heard and listen to the song again, I was 15. And I want to know the title of the song so bad for me to finally able to download it because internet cafe finally existed at my place. So I listened to the song and its lyrics…

The world just crumbled below my feet! The song’s talking about boobs and vagina and penis and the guy wanting to have sex with the girl he’s longingly looking at. The song elaborated and like clearly described sex. The “innocent”(HA?) 15 yr old me was really devastated. It was so uncomfortable listening to the song and being aware of its message. Well we don’t have sex education here and it’s taboo. No wonder I did not hear it often.. So yeah.. the lyrics doesn’t give any clue as to the song name/title. It really felt like a heartbreak like being turned off after knowing the person you’re crushing with. I was not disgusted, just uncomfortable with the song. I was not able to listen to the song again after. Now at the ripe age of 20, with the help of my mutuals in stan twitter, I was finally able to look up for the song and able to find it. I already know sex, I watch porn now and then, I masturbate, I’m sexually aware (haven’t had sex tho, just with myself haha) But then no sex education still (oh my poor backward country). Listening to the song again is a joy, argh the melody is an ear masterpiece for me. But somehow the uncomfort still lurks huhu. Well it is a great objectification song. “Your boobs’ so big like watermelons” hahahah yeah. Uhmm yeah. Hahaha (awkward laughing). Wow I will never be able to share this story like this ever here, being able to somewhat comfortable talking about sex and sharing that I am sexually aware and all. This is all for now, thank you for reading up to this point ?. Until then. Have a nice day ?.

It’s winter while I write this but will be spring by the time you read it, probably. It’s cold… well, by our standards anyway. I’m sick of it, I want it to warm up.

If you want to play it, the song’s chords:

| B – – – | C# – – – | D#m – – – | F# – A#m –

It sounds to me like it resolves to the F# so it’s in F# major. Annoying key for a song on almost any instrument but oh well. You could transpose it if you wanted (IV-V-vi-I-iii in whatever key).

Sex education – you’re not missing much, it’s quite boring. For those who live in countries without sex education, please watch and observe the following video.

I saw the above scene long before I encountered any sexual content in any of the music I was listening to! Really though, I learned a lot more from porn films than any form of sex ed, when I was eventually exposed to them. Even though porn films are ridiculous. Which just shows you how bad sex ed in schools is.

Hey oppar! The Lana ‘controversy’ (if it can even be called that lmao) is super fascinating to me in terms of learning more abt kpop fandom mentality. I rmb when the whole ‘my culture is not your prom dress’ thing was a really big deal. I’m Chinese-american, but moved abroad recently. it seemed like to me while a lot of Chinese/Asian-americans were quite offended, the few mainland Chinese citizens who cared were fine with it– even happy that westerners are embracing the culture. For me, it was a really interesting topic during our class, bc I was the only American and on top of that– Chinese as well. I didn’t really care much about it tbh, I thought the girl looked nice and fine and it was blown way out of proportion. At the same time, a lot of my expat classmates were very angry on my behalf, which I thought at the time was strange, considering none of them were Chinese in the first place, and def not Asian-American. I knew where the outrage of this controversy came from ofc since I’ve had those emotions before. It can be frustrating as a minority getting mocked for a part of your culture but when a white girl does it, it’s suddenly ‘exotic’ and ‘worldly’. So I can understand where a lot of the criticism came from, even if I thought it was pretty unwarranted. Anyways, leading back to the Lana ‘controversy’, I can see similar emotions bubbling up from Asian-Americans and Westerners for sure. How dare /she/ use her white privileges to try to become a kpop star? She’s such a koreaboo! How dare she try to enchance her features to make herself fit in more into a super xenophobic country? Her mediocre stage is just another example of white privilege! To me, a lot of the negativity directed at Lana seems to be a combination of that kind of energy I described before, and also some unwarranted ‘protection’ that I think kpop fans try to do to ‘defend’ their favorite groups or the integrity of them being a K-pop fan. International fans I think tend to hold up Kpop as a singular space where ‘Asian excellence is the focus’, and that’s why they’re fine with Chinese and Thai idols, idols of different nationalities (as long as they’re ethnically Asian), and even mixed Koreans lmao What do you think? Not just on Lana, but on this protective ‘white knight’ attitude a lot of K-pop fans have to persevere the integrity of K-pop as a ‘thriving Asian media’? I think it’s so fascinating the emotions K-pop fans develop in response to people like Lana. (Personally, I thought Lana’s song and stage was fine? It wasn’t great by any means and I thought there needed to be better mixing but it wasn’t horrible. Sorry again for how long this is!!)

The way people from ethnic group A always seem to “know what’s best” for ethnic group B is one of the most pervasive and dangerous strains of racism out there, because it hides itself under a blanket of supposed anti-racism when it’s in fact the exact opposite – extremely racist paternalism. The pose is “we’re just trying to address privilege!” but what’s really under the surface is “I want to be the one who decides what rules people from somewhere else should live by, because my perception of the cultural issues is superior and therefore the correct one, these other people need to be protected because they can’t make decisions for themselves, I need to do the thinking for them”. Lana is just the latest example but you’ll see this type of thinking happening over and over again, where people from completely outside of a particular race, culture, nationality, etc always seem to “know what’s best”, while the people who its actually affecting often have a completely different view which isn’t even considered. Americans are the best at doing this, as it’s the same type of shitty attitude when they think they’re helping other countries by bombing the shit out of them… mind you us Australians aren’t too far behind in the “we know how to fix everything just listen to what WE have to say” attitude, perhaps we are catching the bigotry from American TV.

You won’t see a single Korean living in Korea upset about Lana, the few Koreans who have any opinion at all pretty much find it flattering and endearing that a foreigner would even bother doing what Lana is doing, because it reflects positively on k-pop and Korea in general that someone from overseas would want to get involved to that level. 100% of the hate is coming from overseas, people who are mostly American or part-American (or influenced by “American thinkers” on social networking), and for whom this is frankly none of their fucking business anyway. The Lana hate is all about paternalism and racist fetishism. People from other countries just want their k-pop to remain “theirs”. Arguments about privilege and power don’t stack up, because the playing field is different – and once again, westerners need to be fucking reminded (constantly) that not everywhere in the world plays by their rules. If there’s any real privilege at work, it’s the privilege of western k-pop fans who feel like they know what’s best and should get to be the gatekeepers of who can enter the k-pop club.

The biggest irony is that the same people who are pouring hate on Lana were cheering on Rania’s Alex, which just shows you how incredibly racist the Lana hate is at its core. These people forget that in Korea Lana is actually just as much a racial minority as Alex, and both of them have the same very severe cultural stumbling blocks in their way. Good song or not, much like Alex, Lana is sadly almost guaranteed to fail and be pushed out of the system that she wants to be included in. The least people in other parts of the world can do is not be racist cunts about it when it inevitably happens, and hold back the hate for someone that they’ve never met. But then… it’s k-pop fans, who are mostly notorious race-fetishising xenophobes, so I’m not hopeful.

I know that you don’t care much about sales/chart part of kpop, but i watch the real-time korean chart to know what songs are popular in Korea. Of course, it’s full of boring ballads that only koreans love and there are few idols song. Only BTS, Twice, Mamamoo, Chungha, IZONE songs chart really well (i mean top 20) and other idols groups like Oh My Girl and G-IDLE perfomed well, but the majority of songs are ballad.

In the Golden Days of Kpop (2009-2012) basically all the top 10 was full of idol songs.

My question is: what do you think about the decrease of popularity of idol music in Korea, meanwhile the Kpop is espanding in the western markets?

You’ve kind of already answered your own question. I don’t care about it. You knew that, right? As long as the idol pop stuff doesn’t ever completely go away, so that way I can still write about it, then I’m cool with whatever else happens.

Oppar, Aseul – Sandcastles is written in 4/6?

Actually it’s 6/4 – six quarter-note beats to the bar. However it reverts to 4/4 at the breakdown at 1:29.

Do you believe that the content of the lyrics can drastically change the musical perception of a song? I’ve been listening this music from Brazil for some time but never thought about searching the meaning of the lyrics but now that I felt quite impressed by the language choice I kinda feel that I will never listen it again the same way.

If your answer is yes, do you know some k-pop example?

Well my answer is no, and no I don’t really know any k-pop example. Lyrics don’t generally change how I feel about a song all that much. Even with rap music, where the lyrics really are considered to be the main thing, it’s always still the backing track that I’m more interested in – I’ve got no time for a great rapper who raps over shitty beats.

Ok, I think I might need more of a primer on music rights. Today, there was some commotion in western pop because Scooter Braun is buying the company that owns Taylor Swift’s songs: I have so many questions that I don’t even know the right one to ask…

I thought that if an artist writes their own songs, they’re the ones that have the “majority” of the rights (and get the royalities) for it. So why did Swift’s label have the rights to her songs over her and why were they so easily acquired? Is there no room to protect, or at least respect, the artist in the pop industry? She also mentions something about giving Scooter Braun her “masters” and trusting him with it…had to google what a masters is and I sort of get it but I still don’t understand why an artist would give someone a masters (like what benefit this would give the artist?) and why Swift in particular is upset that she gave Braun her masters.

The biggest question I have is, what’s the big deal with him getting her songs? I get she has personal issues with him, but what could he possibly do with her songs that negatively impacts her as an artist or her songs? Is this Taylor getting made because of principle or is there a genuine concern when someone else acquires your song rights?

Massively oversimplifying here, but the very basics – composers own all the rights to their songs unless a contract that they signed stipulates that they do not. For instance if you write a song for SM Entertainment, as part of their agreement to take that song and get NCT or Red Velvet to sing it, they may get you to sign something that gives you a flat fee but hands all the rights over to SM, so you get your instant payout but they then get the money whenever that song is performed on the radio or TV or wherever (which is what’s called “royalties”). If you don’t sign the thing with SM, then on one hand you still own all the rights to your song, but on the other hand SM isn’t going to release it to the public under terms that aren’t favourable to them, because why would they – they’re a business trying to make money off your music after all. You could instead sign up to poky independent label Open Goatse Entertainment, who may take less or even none of your rights, but they also have less reach to get you on music shows, less ability to attract advertisers, less money to produce your big hit and so forth. Taylor Swift obviously singed a very shitty deal in the early days of her career (like very many young and naive artists do), which means that whoever owns her company gets a large chunk of the profits from her early material.

I imagine any new song that Taylor writes probably belongs to I Am Taylor Swift And I Own Everything Fuck You Productions and she gets 100% of the take or close to it, but whenever she goes on stage and plays any of her early hits, it’s now Scooter who gets the money, because he’s purchased the rights to those songs. Since Taylor obviously doesn’t like Scooter very much for whatever reason (I’m honestly not following any of that side of things), she naturally doesn’t like it that he’s profiting off her work. Imagine if every time you sung a song, your worst enemy got paid a dollar, that would be a shitty situation for you. It’s hard not to feel empathy for Taylor (especially after Scooter allegedly offered five-digit sums to any major sites that would write articles with an anti-Taylor spin, causing a flood of “look at Taylor being a drama queen” type articles mysteriously all appearing at the same time), and I’ve had similar situations happen to people who I personally know. Seeing the unfairness of such situations makes me want to raise awareness of these type of traps and is part of the reason why I write about k-pop and try to get interviews with relevant people (because nobody believes it if I say it, but they would believe it coming from, say, Shannon Williams or someone like that ahem).

June is over, so I’ll try to guess what’s currently in your Best and Worst lists! Best:

1)Nature – Dream About U

2)Oh My Girl – The Fifth Season

3)Macho King – Credit Utopia

4)Dreamcatcher – Over The Sky

5)Dreamcatcher – Piri

6)ACE – Under Cover

7)Eunjung – Desire

8)Target – Beautiful

9)Eyedi – & New

10)Jo Jung Min – Ready Q

11)High School – Baby You’re Mine

12)Rockit Girl – Little Cat

13)Pentagon – Spring Snow

14)Shafla – You’ve Changed

15)Dakyung Jung – Love Light

16)Hong Jin Young – Love Tonight

17)Tae Jin Ah – Like You Honey

18)Twice – Fancy

19)GFriend – Flower

20)Swervy – Red Lite

21)Dingo Freestyle – Hi-Lite Sign

22)Blackpink – Kill This Love

23)Kim Soon Chang – You And Me

24)Saturday – Wi-Fi

25)Han Damhee – Life Is

26)Blackpink – Don’t Know What To Do

27)Turboy ft. Turboy Friends – Flower

28)Yoyomi – A Road In My Dream

29)Kim Sawol – Bloody Wolf

30)Stray Kids – Side Effects Worst:

1)Linda Floresta – If You Want…

2)Stephanie – Man On The Dancefloor

3)Red Velvet – Sappy

4)Turboy – Bean Bean Bean

5)Hizy ft. Mckdaddy – Your Symbol

6)Hanhae – Aigoo

7)Yongyong – Se-kai-no

8)Boin – Milkyway

9)3YE – Do Ma Thang

10)Walwari – Oppa Is Cheating

11)Yonko – I’m OK

12)Midnight – Girl Group’s Flooded

13)Song Wonsub ft. Twisted – Sunrays

14)Jhnovr ft. Gun, King Sushi – Slot Machine

15)Gyepy – 2019

16)Vincent Blue – It’s Raining

17)Golden Child – Spring Again

18)Enob ft. Choilb – Deja Vu

19)N.Flying – Spring Memories

20)Lee Dong Woo, Song Kwang Sik – The Love In You

21)Eunha & Ravi – Blossom

22)Hynn – The Lonely Bloom Stands Alone

23)O.O.O – Love, Dust

24)Hanhae – Flashback

25)Peniel – B.O.D.

26)Tsun – Tired

27)Red Velvet – Zimzalabim

28)Produce 101 – X1-MA

29)Sumi Jo – I’m a Korean

30)Beijo – Meu Samba

Good guesses! Obviously going through the roundups and evaluating my statements makes figuring out the general aspect of these lists easy enough, but some of the differences may surprise you. Also note that my opinions on songs do sometimes change over time. Anyway you’ll have to wait another five months to find out how right you are, at this stage I don’t really know whether more than a few of these would actually make it on a list or not, because the next five months are bound to push a lot of my current faves out of contention. In the meantime, if I’m killed in a freak accident before the end of the year that totally wasn’t organised by any major k-pop labels or business interests, readers can use this as the official Kpopalypse 2019 list I suppose hahaha.

I recently watched this Wired video where a pianist/composer takes a song as simple as “Happy Birthday” and slowly arranges it in a way where it becomes more musically complex: While I thought the video was educational, I found that as the more complex components were added, the song became less recognizable. Some points I can hear elements of happy birthday and some not at all. Then I kind of started to feel that this exercise was a little pointless, until she mentioned that composers do this to get their creative juices flowing. But then did they really compose a new song when what they did was reinterpret an existing piece? I know all music has been done at some point or time by now, but at what point does a particular arrangement or rearrangement of notes or rhythm start to become derivative instead of original?

If you look at the very last example, this is the sort of thing that film composers often do when they have a “theme and variations” – the main theme will be used as a building block for all sorts of other things. An example of this technique is the theme tune from “The Simpsons”, where a really simple melody is built on and manipulated in different ways. It’s composition of a sort to do this type of rearrangement, and yes it’s a useful technical exercise esepcially for someone interested in writing for opera or film composition, but of course you need to start off with something, and it’s conceptualising that initial something which I think is actually the greater art.

so, not really a questions, but I didn’t know where else to put this: I just wanna say that I love the kpopalypse radio show, I appreciate it so much. I know you get a lot of praise for your blog (which I think is also great!), but I specifically wanted to thank you for making the last hour of my 9-5 on a Monday bearable. My job is such an incredibly mundane, boring, and frustrating job (don’t worry it’s just a casual thing I picked up while studying that I’ll move on from soon) and without internet so I can’t just listen to spotify or whatever and you can only listen to so many podcasts in a day, so being able to listen to kpop as a way to count down the last hour before home time is my saviour. It was also great when I used to be stuck at the bus stop after TAFE with nothing better to listen to. One time I had a really shitty day at TAFE and my request came on while I was at the bus stop feeling like crying and it made my day so much better. Oh! I thought of a question: Why is Adelaide radio such utter crap? The only listenable stations are 88.7 coast fm and 92.7 fresh, both of which like ThreeD are community stations. Mix/hit107/nova all play the same 10 songs on repeat that aren’t even good songs or if they are you get sick of hearing them, then they spend most of their time talking about bullshit or doing competitions! Do you have any answers?

Glad you’re enjoying the radio show! The popularity of the blog far outstrips the radio show, but the radio aspect definitely does have its fans. I get “recognised” in my home town a fair bit, not by face but by voice, sometimes I’m at the supermarket checkout and the person behind the till is like “I know your voice… but not your face… who are you?”. It’s really cool and flattering when people like what I’m doing there. Interestingly, the show also has a fair degree of haters, and I’ve received hate messages on email, SMS and so forth, many people don’t really like it, as Three D Radio is considered “alternative/progressive” and k-pop is quite commercial (or at least the idol end of it certainly is) so it’s kind of seen as “the corporate enemy” by a few folks (probably even including a few of the staff there, so feel free to show support when they do regular surveys etc). There’s definitely some truth in that perception, but it’s also true that the so-called “alternative” scene in Australia is similarly compromised by corporations, and my show doesn’t just focus on the idol end, I try and insert some different stuff here and there, independent rock bands, extreme nugus and so forth, the playlist post will verify for anyone curious as to what I play (spoiler alert – similar to roundup).

A small history of Three D Radio is broken down in my Radiothon post (2019 Radiothon coming soon for the three of you reading this who participate) and there you’ll find your answer to why most radio in Adelaide sucks dicks – but to save you the click, it’s because commercial radio has playlists that aren’t actually dictated by the DJs, but by sponsors and the music industry major label A&R teams who provide “services” to stations in exchange for airplay. It’s actually really rare in radio DJing to be able to play whatever music you want. There aren’t too many radio stations like Three D Radio across the globe, which is a great shame.

If Lisa did the New Zealand shooting, Blackpink stans would be like “she didn’t know bullets hurt people”.

Trufax!

I would say dogwhistle but they weren’t even subtle about it? I hate you but you did the world good pointing out pedophilia in kpop early on. I would have been one of the naive kids ranting on Twitter how this isn’t sexualization lol

Awww shucks, thanks. It’s always nice when people who hate me admit that I do good things. It’s almost like that under the surface cuntiness I actually genuinely give a shit about the welfare of people in this industry and their fans, even to the point where I do a post per month answering questions to clarify any misunderstandings and answer tough questions, whereas all those other sites with the squeaky clean image who pretend to be nice are just exploiting young people for web traffic and milking you for ad revenue and monetised content. Imagine that.

Actually I don’t think the Baskin Robbins commercial is as extreme as it could have been. I’ve seen more blatant examples, including one for a company that I used to work for (no names) that actually nearly made me physically ill and was partly what motivated me to walk away from a pretty well-paying position at the time. Funnily enough, it also involved children and ice cream…

Related:

do you know about the whole Baskin robbins ad controversy, where this 11yo model named Ella Gross (who is said to be jennie’s lookalike) starred in the commercial?

here’s the ad k-netz successfully petitioned for the ad to be taken down because to them it was pandering to Chris Hansens. a lot of non-koreans are baffled because to their eyes, there’s nothing creepy about the ad. altho this isn’t really your concern as a music blogger, i think this is an interesting discussion because it forces people to stop and consider that “dog whistles” do exist, and rethink what they accept (14yo kpop debutees being given the exact same presentation) and what they rally against (they draw the line when the girl is 11 years old… but in my opinion, same difference ?) do you think k-netz are more adept at detecting dog whistles since they witness it everywhere in Kpop, or are they overreacting? personally I wouldn’t think the ad was inappropriate, but given the whole controversy I can see why Chris Hansen would rewatch it. at the same time by banning the ad, it will only ensure that more people become curious to watch the ad, and probably raise demand for more ads like these to happen in the future, even if only for the sake of views and clicks. I guess what I’m really asking is, how can people help make these industries less creepy?

I think that because Koreans live in such a hyper-objectified world, where physical presentation is seen as so much more important, they pick up on some stuff that westerners might not pick up on as readily.

It’s a good point that you raise about the possible baiting effects of banning content, because it’s proven to work with other types of content – Ice-T’s “Body Count” album didn’t sell all that well in Australia initially, but when the LA riots exploded and the song “Cop Killer” was suddenly being cast as a scapegoat for the violence, it started selling like crazy just before the label chickened out and removed that song from the album. “Outrage promotion” works. As a result, I don’t really know how to answer your larger question, but I think that it’s generally better to shun and ignore content that you might not like rather than get outraged over it where other people can see it. The stuff that I find really objectionable out there in the music industry, I do my best to stay as quiet about as possible, just so nobody else finds out about it and says “well, actually I really like Beyonce…”

Do you watch SuperBand on JTBC? Way better than Produce X 101 (it’s not really hard…)

No. Gosh that question was easy. I don’t watch Produce 101 either. I don’t want any of these shows. Fuck them all.

Hello oppar. I haven’t asked a question in awhile, but something has been looming over me recently. About a year ago, my dad decided that he would stop making fun of k-pop and asked me to recommend him some songs, so I – like any rational human worth their salt – showed him T-ara. Of course he liked it, and you can find him singing along to “Number Nine,” “Sexy Love,” and “Roly Poly” at any given time (he also likes “Black Swan” by Rainbow, which I consider something of a success, since that song is wholly underappreciated). Anyways, even though he makes fun of k-pop a lot less now – which never really bothered me much to begin with beyond the fact that it was obnoxious – there has been a nasty side effect to this whole ordeal. My dad really wants to fuck T-ara. And it is incredibly annoying to hear him to talk about it. The conversation will go like this: My dad, mockingly: So, what are the latest daily updates on T-ara?

Me: I don’t know, they haven’t been doing much lately because their contract as a group ran out.

My dad: *talks at length about how he would “reinvigorate” them, i.e. he’s basically saying he would fuck them so hard they would want to make music again*

At this point my soul leaves my body. My dad talks about T-ara like male idols/actors coming out of the army talk about the girl groups that “gave them strength”. If someone, somewhere in the world were to actually fuck Hyomin so good that she wanted to get the girls together and sign to Banana Culture, I would not object to this in the slightest. However, that person will not be my dad, and I would like him to quit talking about it immediately. I find myself not bopping to some of my favorite songs anymore, because they remind me of all the times my dad talked about how he wants to fuck T-ara. I’d really like to tell him to just shut up and stop being inappropriate around his kid, but he’s kind of… emotionally immature and has an ego stretched so thin that he cannot take ANY direct criticism (perceived or real) from his children, at all. Zilch. Zero. He’ll throw a fit. The problem is that my dad has a mental framework with which he defines the idea of “family” (with him as the center patriarch who provides for the family, my mother as the maternal secondary partner, and the kids as obedient narcissistic reflections of himself). This is the best model we (me, my mom, and my therapist) have to explain his behavior as of yet. Anyways, anything that errs from his framework (perceived or real – often perceived) causes a problem. He’ll either “retry” and wait for us to respond in the way he wants, or – especially if he feels slighted or criticized – he’ll get angry. The first response is – I’d say – usually related to wanting validation. For example, if we go out to dinner, he’ll ask me if he’s the best-dressed/handsomest/nicest-looking person there, and if I say something like “idk man ask ur wife if ur hot not ur daughter kthx,” he’ll push and push until I tell him that he’s the best-dressed/handsomest/nicest-looking person there. Of course, this makes me feel like a fucking NPC. He asks me a question with a designated answer in mind, and will continue pointing and clicking until I reciprocate. I am not a fan of this, but I can deal with it. The real cuntmole stuff happens when I step out of bounds of my role as the “obedient child.” This can be anything, really; once I looked at him wrong and he like, didn’t talk to me for a week. He is incapable of registering sarcasm, irony, dryness, and he can’t read blank or more subtle expressions (he needs larger expressions, you know, like BIG smile, Happy Cheerfulness!). Sarcasm, irony, dryness, and RBF are all cornerstones of my personality, so I have to repress them all to keep him happy. When I was younger, I wasn’t as equipped to fake my personality, so I triggered him far more often. Now I act the NPC role a lot better, and there’s far less conflict, but on the whole it is pretty oppressive. Another problem: my dad used to travel for business every week, but ever since he got assigned to my home city, I now have to fake it 7 days a week. Which diminishes my capacity, because my emotional labor reserves aren’t huge. Perhaps a better metaphor than “NPC” for this kind of thing is that my dad treats me like fans treat their favorite idols. If I look “wrong” or “not happy enough,” it’s basically a “Jennie is lazy” or “Krystal is a bitch” or “Yeri is rude” situation. Just like fans have a framework of how their idol should act in order to fulfill their emotional needs, my dad has a framework of how I should act in order to fulfill his emotional need. Imagine being in a parasocial relationship with your own kid – well, he managed. Anyways, that long paragraph explains why I can’t just tell him to fuck off. I wouldn’t want to destabilize my family like that and I’m kind of traumatized from all the emotional abuse I had to cope with when I was like 12-13. I also kind of need the financial support to go to college and everything, and independence just isn’t really an option in this situation. So, my questions are: 1.) How can I either get my dad to stop talking about how much he wants to fuck T-ara, or how can I cope with my dad constantly talking about how good he would fuck T-ara?

2.) My mom (who is actually a therapist) and my regular therapist both say that if I can understand why my dad acts the way he does, I might be able to deal with it better. But, you know, I’ve spent years analyzing this and I have two therapists who agree with my conclusions, but I don’t feel much better about it. How do I come to terms with feeling like an NPC/idol/object? sry 4 the rant Oppa,, gamsahabnida 4 reading

Given that he wants to fuck T-ara, and given the kind of web searches that I receive on a daily basis, there’s no doubt that he’s probably stumbled across this blog at least once, and there’s actually a reasonable chance that he’s reading this right now. So to the dad, if you’re reading, hopefully you’ve seen yourself in the mirror here and perhaps you should go and reflect and return with a more mature image. Here’s a video so you stay glued to this page for a while even though you’re about to be totally annoyed at the advice I’m going to give your daughter.

For YOU though, keep in mind this – your mother/therapist is correct in one important sense – you now have the tools you need to know how to handle him. Once you know how someone works and what their weaknesses are, you can use it to your benefit. You’re a lot smarter than your dad (clearly) so you should be able to manipulate the situation accordingly, you could have some real fun with this. So I’d suggest use the situation to your advantage, until he changes his ways. Sure he’d like to fuck T-ara… so why hasn’t he? How did he fail at life so hard? He’s clearly insecure, so why not every time he brings up the topic, interview him at length about his complete failure to achieve his T-ara fucking dreams and how this reflects very poorly on his masculinity, and it won’t be long before he refuses to bring up the subject ever again. However failing that, maybe you can find a nice boarding school, at least then you’ll be surrounded by people who also want to fuck T-ara but who are at least in your own age group.

I am not a music expert but I feel like shinee electric bside of their album tsol ep 2 is quite similar to twice breakthrough if you don’t mind can you pinpoint which sections have similarity and if a mashup of these songs are created what aspects of the songs should be removed and what will be fit in the songs well

I hate all mashups so I refuse to help with this because it might inspire someone to do a mashup and then I would have to remove myself from society for the good of all humanity as punishment for inspiring such a foul, immoral act.

Hi, oppar, how you doing?

I was looking for some good albums to listen, but everyone I know says most k-pop albums are shit and only the feature tracks are good. Could you recommend me good stuff. My musical taste is very ecletic, so you can recommend any genre. Have a nice day ✌(‘ω’).

I spend a lot of time shitting on Japanese music, and rightly so, because so much of it is utter bullshit, so to prove that it’s not just racism or whatever and that good musical things do actually come from Japan from time to time (just not in the realm of pop music), why not listen to Mono’s album “Hymn To The Immortal Wind”.

You’re welcome.

Hi Kpopalypse! Recently, I realized that I might have synesthesia; more specifically, I see stuff when I listen to music. I don’t know how common or legitimate my condition really is. I’ve talked to my family members, who have very similar musical training and experience as me, and it seems like I’m the crazy one. But I’ve thought about how many of my music teachers and peers would always say stuff about describing a piece or song with a certain color. I don’t know if what I consider “synesthesia” is just something everyone has to a certain extent (as demonstrated by my musical peers) or if I really have some kind of condition.

More specifically, I visualize textures and shapes, usually based on the different instruments I hear. Colors for me are not as common or vivid, but they do happen sometimes for certain songs. Anyway, just wanted to ask you if you have anything like this or whether you think this kind of “synesthesia” is legitimate. Thanks!

Not something that I or anyone I know has experienced. The describing a piece as a colour thing is more of a “creative exercise” for most people rather than then actually physically seeing a colour or having a hard pre-ordained association between some music and colour. Although back when I was learning guitar I came across a perfect pitch course that used colour association to help people remember pitches. I have no idea how that’s actually supposed to work, but I’d say there’s some precedent for what you’re experiencing, even if it’s not that common.

What do you think of this song?

Meh.

Hi kpopalypse, From reading your roundup posts it seems like you can figure out if you like a song or not pretty quickly and easily. I wish I had a music taste as defined as that, but for me it’s hard to figure out if I think a song is actually good; not to mention finding out what about the song is good/bad. I’m starting to think that if I hear ANY song enough times I will start to “like” it even if upon first listen I think it is utter crap. Do you have any tips on being able to identify the goodness of a song and figuring out one’s music taste?

Well my tips wouldn’t necessarily apply to anybody else because we all have different taste.

As for figuring out one’s own taste, listen to a lot of different stuff… and I mean really different. With the songs you like, try to work out why you like them. Also with the songs you don’t, what’s actually bothering you about the song? Try to ignore any accompanying visuals, or who made it, and all the baggage, what you think of them as people etc… that will help. I think a lot of people who listen to music don’t really listen to music, they consume the “entertainment entity” which is part music but greater parts something else.

Isn’t 2019 kpop really meh ? Is there an explanation about that ? The industry/producers (and everyone) are obviously tired of tropical house but at the same time don’t really find a new trend to really capitalize on. It seems they are just sitting on the fence uninspired, mid-water. What do you think there is behind Mina’s extreme anxiety ? Is it a lie ? An unexpected pregnancy as some people say ? Isn’t that strange from JYPE (or any kpop agency) to be so “direct” and “explicit” regarding their idol health ? Also, as it is decade’s last year, will you do some kind of recap / best list / worst list not only of 2019 but of the full ten years ? Thank you for your answers and keep up the good work !

In 2019 k-pop so far hasn’t been that different to previous years in terms of quality. Roughly the same ratio of good to bad etc… but what I’d say is that a lot of the groups who have had good songs in past years aren’t delivering consistently right now.

Anxiety is common and I’m amazed it isn’t even more common among idols. I have no reason to believe that they’re lying about Mina, although I suppose it’s possible that they could be. Mina isn’t the only recent case where that’s been an issue and has been publicly stated, AOA’s Choa comes to mind.

Plenty of people have been asking for a “ten years recap” but I haven’t decided if I’ll do this. If I do decide to go ahead with it, it certainly won’t be just yet… have to wait for the decade to finish first! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Have I been hallucinating or do the ghosts in Eunji-man deliberately try to avoid Eunji’s teeth?

You might too if you were a ghost trapped in a maze with a hungry Eunji.

Hey oppar, So I assume you’ve heard about BTS (and Stray Kids and Suju) performing in Saudi Arabia. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it? My personal reaction was just a disappointed-but-not-surprised head shake. Also, DKDKTV (or at least one half) got into that controversy with a journalist because they were talking about BTS in a way that wasn’t openly praising their every move and that made ARMYs angry, so they sent death threats and tried to notify bighit or… something.

Someone brought up the point on my time line that bighit (and by extension, BTS) is partially responsible for the deplorable fan behaviour because of their encouragement to ARMYs to snuff out all dissenting opinions when it comes to BTS (like asking them to make some sort of list of antis so they could pursue action of some sort against them. Even if they didn’t do anything with the names, it still sends a message). I wonder how much responsibility kpop idols (and by extension, their owners) have when it comes to the actions of their fans. BTS (or possibly bighit employees posting as BTS on weverse) have called out fans before for posting “unflattering” pictures and such, so when it comes to BTS they certainly aren’t afraid to reprimand the fans. However if the fandom decides to go and be dicks to someone with an actual opinion apart from the hive mind, I guess it just isn’t really in BTS’ (read: bighit’s) best interest to stop them. In fact, it’s probably beneficial in a lot of ways. In the case of DKDKTV though, d’you think they should’ve handled it in a different way, or possibly not say anything at all? Just because they’ve mentioned before that they shouldn’t piss off ARMY since their channel is geared towards BTS content. He also swore at people in the live chat. A lot. Which I kind of understand, but it ain’t a good look. PS. How’s Stiglitz?

Saudi Arabia never cops any flak for anything in any real way, and probably never will, at least not before their oil reserves run out. I remember how the media got everyone to hate on Iraq after 9/11 for “WMDs oh so dangerous” when almost all of the 9/11 pilots were Saudi Arabians armed with $2 box cutters, that sure was swept neatly under the rug at the time. Part of the reason why Donald Trump collected a few votes along the way to the White House was he was actually willing to criticise Saudi Arabia, notice how that talk all immediately stopped the moment he was elected. Clearly someone tapped him on the shoulder shortly after he got into office and said “here’s how the world really works”. BTS is going to Saudi Arabia, they’ll perform, there might be a little outcry in the press and Twitter will surely kick off, but nobody important will make any big fuss because everybody wants that oil money. In fact so do I, I’m not above it – if I get over $50k in donations per month from the crown prince for this blog I’ll rename it “Yemenpocalypse” for a month and make sidebar Yooa wear a burka, fuck it.

I’m not following the DKDKTV thing but I’m fine with them just being themselves, so what if they get some hate, you’re going to get that as a YouTuber no matter what you do. The only YouTube celebrity that everyone unconditionally loves is Stiglitz.

A later question:

Hey,

I was the caonima that dropped two questions about BTS going to Saudi Arabia + fandom and how accountable the company is for their behaviour. I realised those questions are probably better relayed to Hollee since BTS is kind of her thing (you’re doing another Q&A with her right? Hopefully). So you can disregard those questions if you’re tired of talking and hearing about BTS 🙂 I know I am lol.

All good. I deliberately haven’t answered the “accountability” aspect of your question here fully. I’ll bring this one up with AustralianSana for our next chat and we’ll both chime in then about the above.

Since you have a lot of knowledge about musical theory and also an ear for analysing song structures and how it was produced, would you ever consider songwriting and/or producing?

I’ve already done plenty of both, just not in Korea. No links because of reasons stated many times in previous QRIMOLEs. No, I’m not interested in being part of the Korean system, although I’d be a hands-off “consultant” producer if someone was willing to drop some serious, serious dollars.

Hi Mr. Kpopalypse, It’s that fanfic guy again, but I have a different question for you this time: what’s your view on marriage? I recently re-watched a 2009 stand-up comedy of Dayo Wong (a famous Hong Kong stand-up comedian), which he dedicated a small portion discussing what most marriages failed – because there are no penalties for those who failed to kept their promises. He then had a simulated marriage with one of the female audience. It’s like your normal marriage process, but there would be severe penalties if either side broke their promises – struck by lightning for the ladies, and struck by lightning + stabbed three times for the gentlemen.* (Note: it’s actually modeled after the oaths of enlistment of the Hong Kong Triads.) Then I read a lot of news report about the divorce of Song Hye-kyo and Song Joong-ki (much to the dismay of those Descendants of the Sun fangirls). After that, I can’t help but to think if someone decided to play such a game to them the night before they officially get married, would that stopped that tragedy from happening at the first place? You don’t have to worry about the currency – I explicitly said it would be in US dollars 😉 But to ensure you won’t get the first 2.5 billion dollars then change your name and leave Australia, you would only get your 5 billion after your rescue 🙂 *For those who understands Cantonese, you might want to pay it a visit, it’s hilarious as hell.

I don’t like marriage, it’s stupid and I feel like the security of the “lock-in contract” stops people from making an effort in their relationships. Not saying that’s the case for all people, I know some marriages that work well, but I think that lazier minds benefit from a bit of insecurity in their relationship, it makes them try harder. People ask me about gay marriage a lot, I say I’m against it, and quickly add that I’m against straight marriage too. Marriage was really just a system that was written into various religions to protect property rights for the upper classes, the whole “romantic” aspect of it is fairly new. I don’t have an opinion on the two actors however because I don’t care about Korean actors and am not following any of that kind of thing.

For the hypothetical (continued from last QRIMOLE), I’m willing to be talked down to 10% upfront, so 500 million US$. No less – I might be consenting to a kidnapping here, but I’m not a doormat!

Hi Oppar! I have this problem due to my new job, and sometimes I feel like want to give up. I really need piece of thought from other perspectives. This new job is the first job after my two-years internship in my uni. The new job in consultant, seems fine to me based on the job description, but it turns out that my supervisor detect that I have attitude problems just after my first week. It shocks me, feeling that I don’t do anything wrong. After she told me few things I did (going out from the office without telling my supervisor, complaining about my office laptop, and so on), I feel so ashamed and guilty because when I did that, I don’t even thought about its consequences. Personally, I feel more relaxed that my supervisor able to convey her thoughts assertively, but at the same time, I feel that my adaptation skill is lowest, I can’t manage to mingle with others at the office, even though I tries like bringing snacks, casually going to conversation, but none of that seems to be working. I tried to discuss this problem with my coworker in uni, and she told me that she felt the same thing, actually, she (and actually few people I worked with back there) feel uneasy and annoyed by me. However, there’s no one want to complain about it blatantly. Lastly, her supervisor (a psychologist, who often interacts with me) told her that I’m probably suffering from Asperger. The developmental disorder that infer communication and social skill, that after I tried an online screening test, I got the score that I am “Asperger likely”. Most of the items also relatable with my current condition. I don’t want to take the blame or justify my behaviors with the disorder (even though it’s not officially diagnosed with certain assessment), it’s terrifying knowing that maybe all the time I spent with my past schoolmates, friends, and family, have been hurt by me and I never have a chance to give them nice memories because simply I don’t sensitive enough to aware of their feelings. Do you have any advice what should I do to make me more comfortable with the new office? How to make myself stronger and more aware of surroundings? Right now I just following steps from career self-help website and approaching a psychologist to ensure the diagnosis. Thank you Oppar!

I’m not any sort of psychologist and can’t give you any thoughts on whether your diagnosis is accurate, but often I feel like people are overdiagnosed for symptoms which are just normal aspects of being in a shitty or awkward situation. It’s hard for anybody in any job when you’re new and haven’t quite figured out how things work, either on-the-job or socially. I would resist the temptation for self-diagnosis and stick with it, see if things improve – but I also wouldn’t make too much special effort to be social beyond your normal parameters, especially because trying “too hard” might be freaking out your co-workers who may sense the unnaturalness of the situation. It’s smart business acumen to not neglect the social side of work, but it should also be remembered that you’re being paid to do a job first and foremost and that you’re not under any obligation to be anyone other than yourself, after all they presumably hired you for you. If things don’t pan out then start searching for another job, and you might find in a new position that the problem isn’t so much with yourself as you might think. If exactly the same pattern repeats in another job then I guess maybe time to see a doctor and get diagnosed for real.

Hi kpopalypse

The other day i was in reddit and saw a post about a group called “z-girls” the music was meh but the weird thing about them is that:they target kpop audiences, follow the kpop song “structure”, have a pretty kpop video but they dont call themselves a kpop group, acording to some reddit users at the begining they used to be marketed as kpop groups “z-girls and z-boys” but now they call themselves “zpop” whatever that means and they are the only groups under that new concept. Do you think the company behind them can be called a culture vulture?

Do you think these strategies will become more common in the future?

Do you remember a similar case?

thanks lad

I’m aware of Z-Girls and Z-Boys and they’ve featured in roundup before. What anybody looking at something like this needs to recognise is that k-pop itself is, and always has been, a wholesale copy of western pop. So to see pop outside of Korea “copying it back” is just the chickens coming home to roost. There was great controversy in the 1960s with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and many other similar groups were dubbed in the USA as the “British Invasion” as they were essentially reinterpreting the sounds of 1950s American rock and blues and reselling it back to America, but of course these groups inspired a ton of American groups too, who picked up the new “British sound” and reinterpreted it yet again. All of these things go in cycles and with the world more geographically open and cross-cultural than ever, you’re going to see more and more of this. It’s not a bad thing, in fact cultural cross-pollentation is always good for any music scene, and several genres of music that exist today wouldn’t have even gotten started without this type of free cross-cultural activity (hip-hop being a prime example). This is why complaints about supposed “appropriation” are in fact incredibly racist and must always be opposed, cultural appropriation should be supported. There’s other things about Z-whatever that I’m not so keen on, like the songs so far, and the stupid crypto scheme backing them, but that’s a separate issue.

Speaking of which:

Recently, someone released a smartphone app called Renaissance. Basically, you listen to music through Spotify (and maybe Youtube, i never test it), and the app give to you virtual tokens (1 stream = 0.05 token). In this app, there are a lot of reward like merchandising (t-shirt or hat), vinyl or concert ticket and you pay through these tokens. For example, a concert ticket for Ariana Grande concert for 3500 streams (only her songs) + 1200 tokens.

Is it a good idea? Probably it will extend to kpop stuff, we should wait because it’s an app very young.

You would use it?

No, I hate crypto nerdcoin bullshit, it was the entire reason I swapped my “short questions” format from ask.fm to Curious Cat. People respond to incentives, and nerdcoin incentivised ask.fm to become filled with spambots that ask random low-quality questions to mine cryptocurrency. Completely the opposite of the “ask.fm will have better quality questions!” hype.

Hello again Mr. Kpopalypse oppar sir, Thank you for the response, it was greatly appreciated and I’ve reflected though I’m not sure I’ve come back with the best image. BUT I have decided to put off dying before 25 now, at least I’m going to do my best not to die before then especially after hearing about your friend which I hope it doesn’t sound empty when I say I’m sorry for your loss. But I’ll do my best to live no matter how far I may fall or no matter how many times my emotions betray me  But as for the idol thing, I understand. It’s sometimes hard to empathise with them as human when their company has them on lockdown and exploit them for all their worth through their image and whatnot or when some of their fans literally idolize them. I know most fandoms are guilty of this but the recent Twitter huntdown and persecution of people like that Billboard writer by BTS’s fans is what I think of right now since I delved into that out of sheer curiosity but it’s scary—it really is cult like. I’ve said that one of the members could murder someone and be 100% guilty and these fans would say, “Nooo oppa is innocent. That girl accidentally fell into the knife while he was cutting tomatoes…” or some bs like that. It baffles me but I hope to explore it more in my research and blog though now I kinda worry about being attacked by ARMYs. How have you not been mobbed by them yet? lol Speaking of my blog, I am trying my bestest to begin writing posts for the future blog but even when I sat down to write the first one, I got pretty bad anxiety. I get confused on what to write, if this sounds right, if I sound “smart” or not to dry, or if I’m being unique etc etc. Basically, a lot of self-doubt and overthinking so I’ve only got one article down and that’s only the introduction! But before this gets too long though, I just wanted to thank you again. I was expecting more of a “wow, you’re such an idiot cunt” answer if I’m honest, haha. But your answer nearly made me cry like the stupid crybaby I am. I still have a lot of issues going on with the comparison thing being at the heart of it, but I know one day I’ll become the best me that I can be (I hope) and a part of that reason will be because some cunt on the internet took his time to offer some inspiring words to a stranger like me. P.S. I fondly await any and all Dreamcatcher content as I heard they’re coming to Australia but please don’t break the bank. P.S.S Though I may not be able to translate your posts for a good while since I’m slow and Korean is hard, what should be the first post you’d recommend for translation? Tbh I had my eye on that condescending guide for fans who only know BTS since it seems appropriate rn but a fanfic might be fun too.

I haven’t had any serious run-ins with Armys yet, not really sure how I’ve dodged the bullet so far because I “cover” BTS just as much as anyone else and I’ve made no secret of the fact that I feel that they haven’t done a really good song in 5 years. Even my fanfictions and (incredibly) association with #1 BTS Armys Most Wanted AustralianSana have gone under their radar so far. I wondered if they just don’t want to fuck with me because I’m such a known cunt and I will roast them utterly without remorse if they cross me, but then that hasn’t stopped them from fucking with anybody else. They’ll find out about me one day I guess!

If you (or anyone) are going to do translations, slowly and accurately is the best way. I’m happy for you to translate anything at all, but if I were you I’d pick a post that would do the most good. Maybe “Chocolate Love“, or the interview with Chocolat’s Melanie, or if you’re really bold for some important social change, the Super 55 post (the impact of which would be easily measurable).

I’m trying to get media passes to Dreamcatcher. Will see how I go with that, but even if I’m successful, it’s the transport and accommodation which are the real expenses, not the ticket. I’m a bit poor at the moment thanks to my finances still recovering from Blackpink being in my area, but I’d hate to not go and leave you guys without a review, so it’s very likely that I’ll make it there. The regular Sunday stream time will probably coincide with my hotel stay so I’ll even try and do a livestream from the hotel room, hopefully their wi-fi holds up.

We’re all gonna die one day. There’s no rush to get there, so take your time. I’m an old fuck and none of my younger readers are allowed to die before I do, I will not permit it. If you young folks are living correctly, on my tombstone it’s going to say “FIRST!” However I understand dark thoughts, having suffered from undiagnosed depression myself for many years, so to cheer you up here’s an important reaction video. Hopefully this helps you get through the tough days until your life improves (which it will).

That’s all for QRIMOLE! This series will return in a month, in the meantime don’t forget to stan Kyla the math peacemaker.

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!