WARNING: Be very careful watching this if you have light sensitivities. I get ocular migraines sometimes and I had to look away for most of it. Ouch.
Station #29
Triple T is Hyoyeon (SNSD), Min (missA) and Jo Kwon (2AM). JYP produced the track.
Seeing the teaser announcements for this was a trip.
JYP on an SM track?!
I wish the MV wasn't such a mess of filters that we could actually see them dancing properly.
Dancing on ALL THE TABLES!
Thrilled to see SPICA back in action after their company being a sh*tshow.
I don't think it's the type of thing that'll be a hit, but I personally love it.
Vocals!
Considered not posting this at all, but it's a good opportunity to mention the fragmentation tally. I assume this group is yet another of those erotic performance troupes... so that's their thing. But (heh) the response to this is pretty clear. It makes people uncomfortable. They might pin it on being really sexual or what the women are wearing. And maybe that's really what it is for some folks. But just imagine this same video if you could almost always see their faces and expressions? What if you could actually see the choreography? Wouldn't that improve the way you felt about it? Less voyeuristic and more an appreciation of the full performance.
There's like 15 seconds worth of this video with direct camera angles at their faces. 15 seconds of them as people. The other 3 minutes is a parade of hyper-sexualized body parts. I don't know what it feels like to be sexually attracted to women, but I would guess that someone who does know would prefer way more substance than this. It's basically soft-core porn masquerading as a pop act... poorly.
And knowing some of the dark industry stuff about sponsors and that kind of thing makes me further uncomfortable that I'm watching an advertisement to buy these women for their 'services'.
/ramble-rant
The team consists of seven young members named CHENLE, RENJUN, JAEMIN, JISUNG, JENO, MARK, and HAECHAN and aged between 14 and 17 with an average age of 15.6!
I have no idea if I should be considering each of these NCT iterations as debuts.
These guys debuted and were active last year with 'Fantasy', but this is their first MV and they'll be participating in music shows for the first time. So I'm calling that a debut.
This is finally CL's OFFICIAL official debut in the US.
Exhibit A for why I prefer not understanding Kpop lyrics. Lol.
My initial reaction was "derivative"... which probably sounds snooty.
I have some conflicted feelings. The relaxed vibe of the track is really nice. I think that works. But the lyrics are entirely about getting high and drinking, which I suppose there's nothing wrong with... it's just so common and tired in American music right now.
Also some potential issues with casting almost entirely black men for the video and essentially using them as props to show how cool CL is. Appropriation issues come up a lot with CL and YG in general. This certainly isn't helping things.
The dudes trampolining (?) up that wall she's sitting on was neat. Most everything else feels like pandering to particular demographics in a rather cringe-y way. MRJ expressed a lot of my concerns in his review.
I've been rooting for CL hard since she debuted. Fantastic performer. I just think everything she did with 2NE1 early on was vastly superior to all the stuff she's done recently. I wish she could bring something vibrant and distinctly 'Kpop' to the US market, instead of something like this safe, corporate, cliche-filled creation.
This is Suga from BTS. He just released a mixtape [Soundcloud].
Apparently the name is 'D Town Suga'... backwards. D Town referring to Daegu.
Interesting solo project.
My favorite track on the mixtape is the collab with SURAN. Pretty cool.
HYPE!
This is what I wanted from IOI, post-Produce101. But we got some relatively low energy cutesy stuff. BUT NOW THERE'S THIS!
Is it cheating a bit by building almost the entire song on the Salt N Pepa / Linda Lindell hook? Yes.
Do I care? No.
Is it the kind of repetitive I usually don't like? Yes.
Do I like it anyway? Yesssssssss.
Chungha's (black hair) choreo looks great as well.
It's a shame a few of the other members have already moved onto their groups and aren't involved here...
At long last, YG's new girl group.
Whistle is interesting. Definitely feels like 2NE1 for the new generation... more than I thought it would.
Boombayah got a little too much Frankenstein treatment for me.