It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
Whats the difference between these thick sturdy looking headset mics and these thin beige ones?
A microphone with a thicker head usually has a larger diaphragm inside it, which means you (usually) get better frequency response especially in the low end, whereas a thinner mic usually has a narrower spectrum of frequency, so you lose a little of the lows. Not that much of an issue for vocals because most singing isn’t all that broad spectrum anyway, and especially not important for k-pop where the vocalists are often either lipsyncing, or at best, singing along to their own voice on the backing track which is playing at the same time, so the audience actually hears a mesh between their live vocals and their (much better recorded) vocals on the recording. The reason why so many headset mics are beige/cream coloured is to match more closely to skin tone, so small beige mics which have worse sound quality but which are discreet and less likely to snag on something are used in situations where the performers’ looks and dancing are being prioritised, and the black thick microphones are used more often to send the message “gosh we’re getting serious about the music now, we don’t mime, you can trust us”. Not always though. Sometimes it’s just a case of they use whatever is available. Also keep in mind everything I just said is a generalisation, a lot depends on make and type of microphone, and also the use case it’s designed for. And technology is getting better all the time. You might find this page interesting.
plz explain what he means? thx.
In simple terms a label has artists on their roster making product and distributors then distribute the product and get it into stores (be they physical stores or online). A “360 deal” is a type of deal where the label rather than just controlling and taking a cut of your output as a musician, controls and takes a cut of any money-making activity related to your “brand” that you do whatsoever (so things like merch sales, if your YouTube channel goes viral, etc). Generally a 360 deal is terrible for artists because all those little income side-streams now also earn less.
Too difficult to know what his point is though from that small, fairly vague soundbite. “The distribution game has flipped.” Okay, but how? I’m sure he clarifies if there’s a longer video out there somewhere, but this soundbite tells me nothing.
since you’re probably more plugged into kpop fandom discourse than me, do you know what the general reception is to yoonchae in katseye from korean netizens? the generally prudish koreans from where i’m sitting seem to be pretty quiet about one of their “daughters” “slutting it up” in a group full of “foreign whores”. bear in mind that korea is they same country where womens’ belly buttons being seen on tv is considered obscene.
I don’t really pay attention to what netizens think and I suggest other people don’t either. Mind you sometimes I get their opinions rammed down my throat as if they’re relevant anyway. In the case of Yoonchae I have not heard a ripple from anybody, but based on past experience with other idols I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most people in Korea probably don’t give a single shit about Katseye but those that do probably find Yoonchae being in it to be a good thing just because she’s Korean and in a group that’s getting some international traction.
i assume that you’re more plugged into general kpop fan discourse than i am: what’s the general reception around kazuha? i generally only hear about chaewon. (i assume that sakura has retained her popularity from her iz*one and/or akb48 days.)
No idea. I’m honestly not that plugged in either. Most things I hear about her specifically are just about people admiring her dancing ability. I don’t track fan discourse closely as it really doesn’t interest me that much.
favourite bowie?
This one.
hi oppar! is there a backing track that im not hearing being used here? or is it some editing in post, and if so how can you tell? hopefully the lizness of the video makes the question more tolerable for you. thanks!
Thanks, I appreciate you pandering to my biases to make this question more tolerable. This is playback. Yes it’s Liz singing, but she sung it earlier and she’s miming to her own voice on the track. How do we know?
1. At 1:13 during the long sustained chorus note she takes the microphone away from her lips just a fraction too early, but you can still hear the note at full volume. Synchronisation of the endings of long sustained notes is one of the most common things that singers get wrong when trying to fake a live performance – you have to remember where the note ended when you sung it for real, and do it exactly the same way when you mime to your playback. Singers getting the timing for the start of notes right is second nature, but the exact ending of a long note is something that doesn’t come quite so naturally, as there’s often a bit of gray area there, especially in slower songs.
2. At 3:21 we actually get to hear Liz’ voice for real, when she says thank you to the audience at the end. Notice how much quieter her voice is compared to when she was “singing”, and also how the vocal effects from when she was singing are now gone. The lack of effects on her voice here is fine and logical enough – it’s standard practice for the better audio engineers to disengage vocal effects for between-song talk breaks, but what they don’t usually do is also wildly dip the microphone volume, because there is no logical reason to do that. Since Liz is saying thank you with the microphone right up to her lips, it should be coming through at a volume that’s a lot closer to what her volume was when singing. Unlike the first point this isn’t something I’d consider to be “hard evidence” of miming, but when you hear this big volume jump between talking and singing, it does point towards playback being more likely.
So a friend of mine, over the past year, decided to just branch out and do more things and go out to places more. Which is great since she’s taken me to some of these experiences too and I’m also a better person for it.
But now when I asked her how she finds these gatherings to go to, she laughed and said she doesn’t wanna give away her secrets….she tried to play it off as a joke, so I laughed too, and for the day that was that.
I genuinely wouldn’t really care about her gatekeeping most days, but I’m beginning to see how she’s scoring legitimate opportunities through just going around and being at these events. Sure, she’s pretty, so most people are willing to talk to her, but the opportunities she’s getting aren’t really contingent on looks as such. And tbh I want to network my way to a better job sometime soon before it’s too late.My question is how do I insert myself into these supposedly lucrative events and activities? Should I swallow my pride and get on social media more often to find them?
You’ve kind of answered your own question. Just do more networking in person and on socials. Using stuff like Facebook and LinkedIn might help, I hate those sites personally but can’t deny LinkedIn in particular has its use for networking and that’s why it’s popular, it’s pretty much a social network built with corporate networking specifically in mind. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if your friend just keeps an eagle eye out on socials and deliberately signs up to things that look like good networking opportunities. Do the same and you might get some results too.
your thoughts on her thoughts?
True. Self-care is important! What a shame about the thumbnail ruining the surprise in this video.
After your Pink Tape review, I remembered how much I liked Rum Pum Pum Pum back when it was released. As a Brazilian, I just wanted to ask if you noticed that the beat in that song contains Brazilian samba elements in it? It is more easily noticed in the timeframes 0:40 to 0:55 and 2:30 to 2:35.
Didn’t notice. I don’t exactly sit around listening to Brazilian samba, if I’m going to listen to any Brazilian music at all it’s most likely going to be punk or metal. But I can definitely hear it now that you’ve pointed it out.
which star transforms elements like hydrogen into heavier elements through nuclear fusion?
Cocona.
which sociological perspective focuses on macro-level analysis of society, emphasizing how various institutions and structures contribute to social stability and change?
Rainaism.
Because CBX are having such a tough time right now with SM, I think it’s super important we support them. Therefore, how attractive do you think each CBX member is, and could you please rank them based on how likely you would be to date them if a) you were a girl or b) you were gay? This is very important to boost the morale of the fandom. Thank you and peace out.
I think this post has all the answers that you need.
i was researching subwoofer placement for home theatre and this video came up.
@4:52
your thoughts? his arguments seem to centre on the very specific scenario of listening to music. i use home theatre mostly for immersion when playing games and to replicate the cinema experience when watching movies. if i do listen to music it’s just what’s on youtube, i’m not Mr FLAC file audio guy. i do have decent Audiotechnica headphones and an Onkyo AV receiver but again they’re for games and movies mainly.
Yeah he’s talking about the music listening experience specifically. If you want to know about “placement” generally though, regardless of what you use your speakers for – where you place a subwoofer doesn’t matter one bit, as long as it’s on a hard surface, ideally the floor, and that it’s close enough that you can hear it. That’s because bass frequencies are omnidirectional, they tend to pass through everything they hit, so no matter where you put the thing you’re going to get the same bass response more or less. Your other speakers’ placement that you’re pairing the subwoofers with can indeed make a difference, but the subwoofer itself, not so much. Just put it where it fits and make sure nothing can fuck with the vibration of it (so not on a pillow or something).
Are there examples of songs using dubstep effectively to improve the song?
None spring to mind.
idk what any of this means. plz explain in non-music scholar terms.
” but this song does get some huge, huge consolation prize points for not going half-time in the pre-chorus. Blackpink style arrangements are OVER in 2025, to the point where even Blackpink themselves doon’t do them anymore”
If you really want to hear “half time in the pre-chorus” done very clearly and obviously (by someone other than Blackpink), look no further than DKB’s “Irony”:
It’s a good example to use because the song has a straightforward rock style beat rather than something synthesised so it might be easier for someone not schooled in music to hear the difference. But hopefully you can hear that the song starts at mid-tempo, and then at 0:53 the drum hits happen at half the speed to what they were doing up until that point, that’s our half time pre-chorus section. At 1:08 the chorus starts, and at that point the slow part has ended and the song returns to its original speed.
If the taxpayer isn’t paying anything, then I don’t see the issue?
Me neither. Like I give a fuck what happens to some building that I’ll never visit in a country I don’t live in. Bulldoze the whole shit or leave it standing, I don’t care. Other people’s renovations aren’t my problem.
Your thoughts on her thoughts? I gotta agree, there is definitely a clear pattern of discrimination here.
Yes most likely. Not that I would know much, I don’t really watch or follow other streamers, certainly not the big ones anyway.
why is this seen as socially acceptable? a man gets molested and almost raped on stream by 2 women.
reminds me of how seemingly every other month we hear about a female teacher exploiting a male minor student. I remember South Park did an episode on it where Ike, Kyle kindergartener brother, was involved with his teacher and the nobody took it seriously. The adult characters including the police would react with “NICE”, “Where were the teachers like that when I was growing up?”
UPDATE:
@6:36 the streamer assistant who was sexually assaulted by two female streamers/influencers. they were banned from Twitch for only about a day.Ppl questioned why Said didn’t open up about this earlier, he brought up a previous scenario where he had been molested by a woman and nobody took it seriously. ppl just laughed at him and called him gay.
the linked youtuber even shares his own anecdote of being raped by woman. he confronts her and she fires back “who’s going to believe you?”.
the double standards are crazy.
since there was no real question asked here:
good look for her? (@0:46)
No clue whatsoever where you’re getting the “seen as socially acceptable” thing from. Seen as socially acceptable by who? All I see is a bunch of people complaining about it, and about Twitch’s response. Maybe Twitch thinks it’s fine policy-wise but I’m pretty sure nobody else does.
Gyubin looks okay here but there’s something about fanchant videos which is just wrong. If you need to coach an audience into chanting, it must mean that your song sucks. Whatever happened to audiences making up their own chants because they like your song? Oh wait, people don’t have songs good enough for fanchants to organically happen so they gotta try and force it…
A member of my extended family is a loud chatterbox of a religious fundie in the sort of smooth way where they seem really polite while acting like relentless pests trying to convert you and drip feeding you really hateful ideas in tiny doses. I’ve not talked to him in years, going so far as to avoid my auntie because he lives with her and she’s obsessed with him. I feel bad for being so dismissive towards an old woman, but every phone call with her is all about him and what he’s been up to, and she always, without fail, asks why I haven’t come to see him and his pregnant wife. I feel she’s starting to doubt my excuses by now because you can only say “I’m busy” so many times.
Another family member recently told me that his wife’s due date is not far and that, if I am invited to any baby-related events, I should go to keep the peace instead of trying to get out of it by lying. But the latter is so tempting. This man has tried to convert me to his very specific denomination of christianity multiple times. I’ve been around him and his church friends. It’s impossible to befriend them. They will not stop pestering you to be exactly like them because they’re trying to earn their ticket to heaven. They don’t have friends, they have stepping stones to god. And since being christian in my country means putting a giant cross around your neck and only invoking your religion as justification for hatred, while also not going to church, not reading the Bible, and indulging in every vice you can possibly think of, people like my family member and his friends are seen as weird even here. I think I might have whined the situation on QRIMOLE a few years ago but I was too much of a milksop at the time to put your advice to the test. Sorry :///
If this man were a normal person I’d do my best to support him even if idc about baby stuff. But he isn’t and I don’t trust him not to put me on the spot and try his tactics on me on what’s supposed to be the most important day of his life, and I don’t trust myself not to retaliate with snark. I’ve no patience for religion, I’m closeted, I have gender identity issues, I’m an atheist. So here’s my question. How would you approach this if you were a meek neurotic gay like me? Should I keep avoiding my auntie and my family member? If you were invited, would you attend any baby events?
Well if it were me I’d cut communication completely. At the very least I’d be brutally honest with my aunt about why I’m not getting involved. “Look, he’s a cunt who keeps trying to convert me to his dumb fucking religion and I’m sick of it”, say that, but nicely. Beats lying in my opinion, which will only prolong the situation, and it definitely beats attending. Life is way too short to do bullshit that you don’t like with people that you don’t enjoy being around and who don’t respect you. If you’re still going to these things in a few months time, it’s your own fault, you’re doing it to yourself. I urge you to cut the umbilical cord. Might cause a few tears now but standing up for your principles will mean a better quality of life in the long term.
thoughts? Win 10 support ended support on Oct 14th and a whole bunch of PCs are unable to upgrade to Win 11. talk about shooting yourselves in the foot. i think Valve could really come through with SteamOS and secure a marketshare if they play their cards right.
According to multiple analyses of Windows device compatibility, approximately 400 million personal computers worldwide that are currently running Windows 10 will not be officially upgradable to Windows 11 due to failing hardware requirements like unsupported CPUs (pre-8th-gen Intel or pre-Ryzen 2000 AMD), lack of TPM 2.0, or Secure Boot issues. This estimate stems from reports indicating that around 40-55% of active Windows 10 PCs (totaling roughly 1 billion devices in use) do not meet Microsoft’s minimum specs.
Just because Windows doesn’t offer support doesn’t mean you can’t keep using Windows 10. Third parties will come up with something probably, with so many people on the old systems they’d be crazy not to, it’s a huge money pit just waiting for someone to step in. There are people who still use older Windows systems anyway. The last time I got an x-ray was only a couple years ago and the X-ray software was running on a Windows XP machine.
I’m K and I run a blog similar to yours but on tumblr. It’s not a total kpopalypse ripoff and it’s in fact quite different but somehow the formatting is similar enough for folks to get it confused with your blog despite running on an entirely different domain and system. I don’t want to be rude so what is the best response to people calling my blog stuff like “kpopalypse wannabe”?
Hmmm not sure. I’d say “tell them to fuck off” but then that’d probably just make people confuse you with me even more. I think blogging in the sense that I do it is pretty much dead in 2025 and anybody starting now, or recently, has missed the boat and is inevitably going to be compared to the tiny amount of k-pop blogs that still exist and are active (and all of which are probably declining in traffic at this point). So it might just be a sign of the times. Maybe post lots of sport content instead as it’s pretty well documented that I hate sport, that should help. Other than that, I got nothing.
I often see music of certain kpop groups and idols called experimental, but who do you consider to be doing or having done truly experimental music? And if so, who’s doing it right?
Truly experimental music doesn’t exist in k-pop. When I talk about groups being experimental (which is rare) I’m talking about it within the field of pop music which is a pretty narrow window of experimentation. I mean I’d consider a true music experiment something more like this:
With everything going on in the world right now, why isn’t there more protest music out? We don’t even have ‘We Love the World’ type of music coming out.
It’s out there but that shit doesn’t sell so it doesn’t get the big marketing push. A lot of it is super cringe anyway and honestly if you heard it, you wouldn’t want to hear it again.
Merzbow using AI, you think this is on character for him or nah?
I met Merzbow and he is a dude with a strange vibe that I found impossible to pin down. Maybe this was the language barrier though, not sure, as he didn’t speak much English, but both me and my girlfriend at the time agreed that he emanated some very strange vibes. Wouldn’t put anything past him, if I read somewhere people found bodies in his basement I’d just be like “well, that checks out”. But honestly, while I don’t really like it, I forgive any obscure small artist for using AI because these little artists usually have no budget to speak of for high-tech productions and for a lot of them it’s either an AI video or some other incredibly shit looking video or no video at all, those are the only options they’ve got. And Merzbow, in the grand scheme of things, is a small artist, there’s no big money in noise music even for those who are well known. It’s when the likes of Blackpink do AI shit, groups that have the clear budget to do better, that’s when it really sucks.
What is the earliest recorded song that you really like?
Probably something by Django. The first shredder!
Hi Kpopalypse oppar, I sent in a question about (a thing redacted by Kpopalypse at reader request) … I thought about it and hashed out some of my complicated feelings about the issue and decided that the best thing I can do is (stuff redacted by Kpopalypse at reader request). So please don’t publish it, or this (for reasons redacted by Kpopalypse at reader request)!
This is just a PSA that any of you can redact questions if you have second thoughts about them between when you ask them and when QRIMOLE goes live at the end of the month. One of the reasons why I think that once per month is about the right publishing frequency for QRIMOLE.
For the asker, I think the conclusion that you came to on your own seems sensible – good luck!
Having been fortunate enough to see around ~11 kpop artists in person (both groups/soloists, not like 11 idols total which could apply to just that one time I saw Loona in Chicago and we accidentally cheered Vivi so hard Kim Lip left,) I feel compelled to say that while stage presence is solely lacking in the majority of performances, it’s not completely absent. Of what I’d consider “stage presence” (based mostly on what idols decided to do during less choreographed sections or how they rile up the crowd during breaks,) I’d say that CL has a lot of it, the rest of 2NE1 all has a fair amount (surprising to me since I only hear about CL,) IU has a fair amount, and Dreamcatcher and Mamamoo have a little bit each but plenty to make their concert experience have “something extra” compared to other groups (and I’m pretty convinced it wasn’t just lighting/choreography/fancy planned interactions contributing, since other groups have that in varying degrees.)
I’m thinking about making a video review of my experiences at kpop concerts – not to be like “these idols are worth/not worth seeing” (which is ultimately highly subjective) but just review my experiences of how these performances and songs land in-person, and maybe how it affects my perspective of “idol as a job.” I’m also not a huge non-kpop concertgoer in day to day life, so idk if I’m qualified to do such a thing. But I have a lot of experience in live theatre and classical music. Any tips on what I should or shouldn’t include in such a video?
This is pretty much the conclusion I came to in my post about stage presence from years back. It’s not totally absent but it’s so fucking rare that it might as well be, as in most cases stage presence is actually discouraged and even considered detrimental because these idols are being trained for television, not the stage. What works best for television is often barely even visible on stage, and what works best on a stage is often just annoying for a television camera crew to deal with. The exceptions are when idols do get proper stage training but it’s only the idols who frequently tour who do that, and then only some of them. Even then, they have to overcome the challenge that songs often feature dance routines that are optimised for the screen that they are kind of obliged to recreate on the stage where it will usually look like crap.
I’d highly recommend that before you start making any videos, that you go and see some rock concerts with rock performers who are specifically known for having a commanding stage presence. Try to get seats or a standing position that isn’t right up the front so you can assess how well these performers manage to project themselves to where you are situated. This’ll give you something to contrast your k-pop live experiences with.
hey oppar, new reader here, but I’ve been reading way too many of your posts from over the years, love the content, and love your cat!!!
Idk if it’s WordPress being a shitty with their search function, or you’ve posted that much over the years, but what got you initially into kpop and reviewing it? I don’t know how old you are (assuming like 30s-40s?) and I haven’t met many people into kpop above 25, but I love when I do as it doesn’t make me feel ancient either.
Hi there, new reader! You’re in luck, I made this video the other day:
(follow up about this question about going to see a Bibi concert and if there’d be less insipid talking than at a girl group concert)
Update: a lot of yapping happened! Towards the end Bibi spent like 20 ish mins walking around the audience asking if anyone had interesting jobs. A girl in the front row said she was a stripper. Bibi thought she said Sherpa and asked the girl if she had been to Nepal.
A girl said she was a landlord and the crowd gasped. Landlord girl gave Bibi a labubu.
I went with my elderly father. He said she had a good voice for jazz and that her songs sounded like The Girl from Ipanema.
I thought that her poopy early “smooth R&B” catalogue sounded way better live. Also her ass looked great in the tight stage outfits. Objectification survey submitters are sleeping on Bibi for sure!
Kpop fans can’t handle reading a song review over half a sentence long without complaining about too many words, but paradoxically their tolerance and patience for yapping at live shows is astounding. It proves that it really isn’t about the music for most people when an artist can spend half their show talking shit and the audience laps it up and doesn’t yell out “play some fuckin’ music” because it’s still giving them the real thing that they’re there for – the parasocial connection. I remember in the 90s hair-metal band Warrant (of “Cherry Pie” fame) toured Australia and were torn to shreds in the Australian music press for talking way too much between songs, apparently there were several talk breaks including a 15 minute bit where the singer recounted the story of losing his virginity or whatever, and only about eight songs. By k-pop standards, that wouldn’t be considered unusual, I guess Warrant paved the way.
*this is crossposted from the ask.oppar page, you mentioned to ask in QRIMOLE for a more technical response- please do! I’ve also included your answer from the ask.oppar page*
Orignal question:
“Hi kpopalypse! I bought a new phone and was downloading my music from spotify, and I noticed that there was an option for a quality setting higher than what there used to be called “lossless” which seemed to take up a bit more space than the usual quality. I only really listen to music with airpods and I’m by no means an audiophile, so I assume I wouldn’t be able to even notice the difference between standard quality and lossless quality, but I was curious what kind of things you’d be listening for to distinguish between the lossless and other quality levels, and what kind of equipment you might need to notice these things. (I know I could probably google this but I kinda just wanted to hear your opinion :D) Thanks!”
Original Kpopalypse answer:
“you wouldn’t even notice the difference in 99% of pop music. where it becomes more obvious is in music with a higher dynamic range, such as classical. drop this question into QRIMOLE if you’re interested in the why and the technical side of this.”
So MP3 compression and other “lossy” compression algorithms work by exploiting something called “audio masking”. The concept of audio masking is easy to understand: loud sounds mask quiet sounds. If you’re listening to birds singing and then a gunshot goes off right near your ear, while that gunshot is going off, you can’t hear the birds at that time because the gunshot is so much louder. However that doesn’t mean that the birdsong has vanished – the birdsong is still there (we’re assuming that the birds are kookaburras who are not afraid of humans or distracted by human activity and are just continuing to sing unbothered by gunshots), and just as loud as before, and your ear is still picking up the birds too, you just don’t really notice it.
Audio masking is a psychoacoustic phenomenon, which means it’s something that happens within the brain, not in the physical world outside the brain. (I’ll probably copy-paste this answer here when my music theory series eventually covers psychoacoustics.) Lossy compression algorithms basically say (if they could talk): “okay, since you can’t hear the birds while the gunshot is being heard, why don’t we just remove the birds completely during that time, and bring them back when you can hear them again?” This is how algorithmic compression actually compresses – by chopping out information that it assumes your brain can’t hear anyway. So applying this to a purely musical context, if a song has a big snare drum happening and a quiet keyboard waaaay in the background, the compression will chop out the quiet keyboard when the big snare drum hits.
So this works pretty well in pop music, where there are very few instruments, and all those instruments have low dynamic range – i.e they are mostly at “digital zero” or very loud, most of the time. Sounds at digital zero (i.e maximum loudness), the algorithm knows to definitely keep those, and most pop music has about 2dB of dynamic range at most. I was told that the first ever music to be commercially released in an MP3 compressed format was Michael Jackson, and that type of music is perfect for lossy compression – vocals up the front, big synthetic beats, very forward in-your-face production elements. Your favourite k-pop dance songs have similar production style and would perform similarly well under lossy MP3 conditions. Where lossy compression falls apart more is in classical music. When there’s a 52-piece symphony orchestra with a much more detailed soundscape, and where the volume variance is much wider and more complicated, and different instruments are constantly moving up and down in volume, and digital zero is avoided the vast majority of the time, the algorithm struggles to know what to chop out and what to keep. The audible result is… not great, and it’s far more noticeable that a lossy compression was used, whereas with the Michael Jackson record you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell.
Is there a thing as “sound of generation” in music? I’m currently 32 and start to feel old, since new music sounds… too GenZ for me?
Like even k-pop – I’m all in for music produced between 2007 and 2017, but newer and newer releases make me puzzle more often than genuinely enjoy it. And I’m not sure music is to blame.
It works backwards as well: I “kinda” enjoy japanese 1980s city-pop, yet unable to bear it longer than 30-40 minutes uniterrupted.
Music production, like most other human activity, is subject to trends. Certain things go in and out of style as the public discovers, enjoys, and then gets sick of certain sounds. In the 1980s gated reverb was big, in the 1990s more subtle effects became popular, the hard-Autotuned vocal style that was huge and everywhere in 2005 is nowhere to be heard in 2025 outside of very specific genres, flanger was huge in the 1970s but by 1980 it was less common, pop songs in the 1950s were very short, in the 1970s and 1980s they got longer, now in the 2020s they’re shorter again, and so on. But pinning these things down to a specific generation of whatever might be trickier, especially as some sounds can get rediscovered and then the cycle starts again. For instance in the early 1980s city pop disco was very popular, then by 1990 it had pretty much died, then it had a brief revival in the mid-1990s where it was rebranded as “acid jazz” (but it was really just disco), then it died again, then it became huge again when T-ara’s “Roly Poly” became the #1 most relevant song in the universe, then it died again, now it’s being revived again by people who think “city pop” is a genre when it’s actually just 80s disco rebranded yet again… and it’ll die in a few years too. And then come back, probably with yet another new label. And die again. Etc etc. To look at another genre, people have been saying “punk is dead” ever since about a week after The Sex Pistols came out, and they’re still staying it, but punk has never really died and its popularity has just waxed and waned.
I remember being very shocked reading your best of dark ages kpop song list and seing tears by So Chan Wee because this is probably THE kpop vocalfagging 101 song that everybody uses to prove their voice and how well they can sing. What exactly makes the song works so well for you even if you have to listen to a lot of vocalfagging?
When I talk about how I don’t like the obsession with vocals in k-pop I’m talking specifically about two symbiotic elements which feed off each other. One is the abuse of vocal interest. People caring more about what high notes are hit than about the actual song. When the girls who sung the Kpop Demon Hunters song performed it live for a TV show, they detuned the song, lowering the backing track slightly so it would be easier to sing over. This is a completely normal practice, a lot of bands do this, including bands I’ve been in, we’ll change the songs so they’re as comfortable for the vocalists to do a good performance of as possible and they don’t hurt themselves by repeatedly singing at the very tippy-top of their range. Ludicrously, in the case of KDH some people complained about this, and this is what happens when a dumb-as-shit fandom or music culture cares more about showing off singing ability than about what the singing is actually for, which is the delivery a good song. That’s because, for these soulless, morally bereft fans, music doesn’t matter, they only care about the prestige that their faves get by being able to sing a high note.
The flip side of this coin is composers and producers who recognise this interest and pander to it, rather than just concentrating on what they should be doing which is writing a good song. They’ll write songs with showoffy high notes to please the vocal-obsessed idiots, or get the few vocalists in k-pop who can actually sing to do endless wailing showoffy overdubs (or Autotune the ones who can’t). That doesn’t mean however that every song with a high note is written for this reason, sometimes the climactic big note is appropriate, but too often it’s just thrown into a song because the producers felt that they had to have one in there somewhere and didn’t have any better ideas. But in the case of “Tears” the high-flying vocal really works, it matches the energy in the instrumental, it doesn’t sound out of place, like they just threw it in there to show off how well she could sing. The singing serves the song, rather than the song serving the singing.
Does anyone even expect them to be able to sing live? For all our sanity, we’re better off with the machine switched on.
What groups have you seen live?
Too many to list. No, seriously. This November QRIMOLE wouldn’t come out until February next year if I had to list all the groups.
May come off as invasive but what do you actually do for a living? How much do the books and the site actually contribute to your income vs… y’know, your job? Bullshit some percentages out.
Answered in part, here.
Income split – website/books make less than 1%. The books aren’t really income as they barely even pay for themselves. A friend asked me if I was going to buy a new car with the book money after my first book launched and I said “maybe a nice remote controlled one” but to be real, once I factor in manufacture cost, copyrighting, buying ISBNs etc and especially paying my book cover artist (contrary to many people’s first impressions the book art is by a real person, not an AI), I couldn’t even afford the remote controlled car. The money I get from site donations mainly goes into making more books, and website hosting fees… I’m very thankful to all people who donate or buy books, not because it makes me money but because it prevents me from losing money! I’m not exactly rich to say the least so the small contributions that I get make a big, big difference to my world. Thank you to all readers who have done this! Even if you only ever gave me one dollar that one time, know that your contribution definitely helped.
As an older than the average k-pop fan, or person in general, I’ve noticed how the world is gravitating towards the “old” things again. Vinyl, cameras, etc. I’ve been seeing in the last few weeks an interest in dedicated mp3 players, and not from the FiiO/portable DAC folks. The kids wanting their iPods and their Zunes… ok who am I kidding nobody wants a Zune, then or now. I’m not ready to go back to the days of maintaining my own digital media, organizing files, hoping the metadata transfers cleanly over to a player… As much as I hate streaming because it doesn’t support my favorite artists enough, and I DON’T want to give specific artists streams even if I like their songs, it’s easier. Still, for my money, music never sounded better than when it was the cd era. I know everyone touts how good vinyl sounds, but cds for me were just the gold standard. My question to you is: what do you think of this new trend towards dedicated players? 2nd question I guess: what to you is the hierarchy of music quality in terms of cassette, cd, vinyl?
One more question I’m sorry, and then I’ll leave you alone: Is AsianJunkie actually okay? I’m guessing they’re taking a hiatus but I do hope they’re well, mentally and physically.
I think the reason that a lot of old stuff is coming back into fashion, besides retro-fetishism, is that the old stuff doesn’t track you or try to monetise you up the ass, and lets you actually just simply own the stuff you bought and simply play it.
CDs > vinyl > cassette. CD is objectively the best consumer format for music that has ever existed in terms of sonic quality. More modern formats than CD such as fancy lossless/high bitrate MP3 never improved on the quality and actually made it slightly worse (see here for more detail on why). Vinyl collects dust like crazy, isn’t durable and can’t reproduce the ultra-low bass of modern pop without the needle flying right out of the groove. Casettes are noisy, fragile and prone to mechanical failure, and the art that came with them was pointlessly small (and to think people complained about CD art being small). Analog purism is a wank, “ah but it’s analog” arguments don’t stack up when these audiophile idiots can’t tell if digital was used in the mastering process or not anyway. The big artwork size of vinyl is a plus, but k-pop proved in the 2010s that when you have a very durable plastic disc you can make the physical art out of damn near anything and any size you want.
No idea what’s going on with Asian Junkie. He’s said that he’s alright and seemed amused that people were worried about him. Who knows if he’ll get back into writing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t. I’d like to think that he’s enjoying his post k-pop writing phase and is spending his sportbux on something to enhance the quality of all our lives.
Your thoughts on his thoughts?
Agree in part. Young people should be allowed to experience the real world more. His observation about Andrew Tate is spot on. However I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with computer games and online porn. Seventy years ago exactly the same arguments were being made against television in people’s loungerooms and Playboy magazine. Dopamine is fine, like any other drug just don’t go overboard. You can play computer games for hours and it’s fine but if you start doing it all day every day to the point where other parts of your life start to crumble, there’s a problem. If you watch smut online a little or even a lot you’re not going to have any ill effects but if you let it control you negatively by ruining your finances or relationships because of it, there’s a problem. Consume whatever you want, just be sensible about it, and if you feel yourself slipping into bad patterns because of it then just cut down a bit on your consumption. Yes computer games and porn are unhealthy if you do them too much. So is exercise. So is drinking water. Do anything too much and it will mess you up. By the way you can get great results from a boring day job by gamifying it, and I’ve definitely learned a few things that have enhanced my sex life by listening to pornstars (for instance, did you know that antihistamines interfere with erectile function, and male pornstars avoid them for this reason? Now you know).
Based on your experience, do you consider it normal for small gigs to take forever to start, more so when multiple bands are performing? Also, do bands feel more sense of urgency when performing in city bars rather than small towns where “it’s more chill”?
This month I went to a metal gig the first time, which started 40 minutes late. Bands performing for 10-15 minutes held up the time with 20-plus-minute soundchecks. I was annoyed at this point, and walked the fuck out when someone brought in a synthesizer.
I am guessing the bigger appeal of small venues is for performers and audiences to kill time eating, chatting, and getting drunk rather than the performances themselves. (I’m from the Philippines, so our culture’s chronic lateness might be exacerbating it, plus we rarely have bigger concerts for artists/bands that aren’t pop, or has-beens from the 80s and 90s)
Sadly, small gigs being disorganised as fuck is completely normal because most people who play small shows play out very rarely and don’t have a professional’s attitude. I don’t get to play on shows where there are also support acts often these days, but when I do, I can always tell the people who are destined for bigger things versus those who will always remain hobbyists. People serious about music may or may not play better than me, but what they will do is show up on time, set up quickly, tune and soundcheck as quick as they can, and pack down at light speed after the show is over to make room for whoever is on next. They don’t spend ten minutes fucking around with their amp trying to get “the right sound”, they sorted their favourite amp settings out earlier that week in the rehearsal room. They don’t drag out soundcheck because while amateurs consider soundcheck a nice novelty, pros get sick of the necessity of soundcheck and will only do it for as long as absolutely required. They don’t wander off to have a beer after the show while leaving their shit still on the stage when the next band is waiting to go on. They don’t take apart their drum kit or complex guitar pedal array piece by piece on the fucking stage while obstructing the next band, they move that shit off the stage quicksmart first and then pull it all apart. Chronic lateness/disorganisation is a problem music-industry wide but only at the small amateur levels, work with any roadcrew for a big artist and it’s a well-oiled machine.
From a performer’s perspective, it’s generally better to play in as big a venue as possible (if you can fill it). More money, more people get to see you, looks better for promo purposes to play somewhere large, also usually better infrastructure and security at bigger venues for performers than at your local pub or whatever. Although some scenes (e.g punk) often say they like smaller venues because it’s more intimate and a closer connection to the fans… that’s usually bullshit, they’d play larger venues if they could fill them. However from an audience’s perspective, the reverse is true – a smaller venue is better. Less crowds, tickets are cheaper (or it’s even free), more chance to see the band up close, sound quality is often better (larger venues have larger sound systems but due to acoustic issues in large venues it’s harder to make it sound good for everybody regardless of viewing position), a more conducive environment to meeting the performers as well if you’re into that.
most unique chord progression u heard in k-pop?
Couldn’t tell you off the top of my head, but it’s probably some song I don’t even like. Unique <> good.
Are there remixes that are as good or better than the original? Every remix I’ve ever heard has been a mess, having no idea what made the original worked and often thinking more complex = better.
No they’re pretty much all either dogshit, or so similar to the original it’s a case of “why did I bother”. Probably the closest thing to a “good remix” I’ve heard is Illit’s English version of “Tick Tack” which is actually great and far better than the original but it’s pretty much a different song in a lot of ways.
I give you two pills, one is red, the other is blue.
Taking the red pill means you can only listen to death metal.
Taking the blue pill means you can only listen to black metal.
Choose wisely.
I’d go for black metal. While I like less groups in the style, I think the better black metal songs are more musically interesting and compelling than the better death metal songs.
What do you think about this cover of “No Celestial” by Le Sserafim, it’s a hardcore/metallic one.
Also, does the production bother you in anyway? I know that K-pop vocals are usually polished to high hell but the backing track is not that “synthetic” sounding IMO.
I like the original more, it’s got a bit more contrast going on. By having it pure metal all the way through it’s just not that interesting, everything just feels kind of flattened out. “No Celestial” was already pretty rocking in its original form anyway and didn’t need a metal cover. There are plenty of other k-pop songs which would benefit a lot more from this type of treatment done right, including other songs by Le Sserafim.
Is groove metal just a slower version of thrash metal?
Not exactly. Groove metal is metal that takes riff ideas from both thrash and the harder end of rap music, basically. So rather than the complicated riffs of normal thrash you get simpler riffs with a more consistent rhythm that often loop around and repeat much like the way samples in a rap song do.
Do you think hearts2hearts will take on the same success of their predecessors aespa and Snsd?
Well, they’ll likely be at least as popular as aespa given enough time as long as something catastrophic doesn’t come along to fuck things up. As big as SNSD, I don’t know, SNSD were a lot bigger in their heyday than aespa is now, they were literally THE untouchable girl group for a while. Other massive groups of the day like T-ara, Sistar, 4minute, 2NE1 never managed more than a very distant second place. Whereas aespa is only just now getting to the point where they’re realistically competing with Blackpink and even that’s a maybe. It’s not the total domination of the Korean girl idol market that SNSD had 15 years ago.
I’m just gonna ask this that I thought of from up my ass and I want to hear your opinion cause why the hell not. Would a hot fat girl with a banger like “Mosquito fighters” catch your interests, or a feminine fat guy with a banger like “Mega Punch“. I’m asking this because I’m fucking bored. (from your gay caonima)
Both of the songs you’ve mentioned are great so whoever does them is going to catch my interest just on a ‘human being with great music’ level.
Just putting it out there that as a gay coanima you’re in quite a lot of company, my latest survey is wrapping up very soon (do it if you haven’t, there’s still a little bit of time left but not much) but preliminary results indicate that Kpopalypse readership is still majority BADING
what sort of questions would’ve you’ve asked these specific women?
Cut it out Jeff Benjamin, I’m not going to write your interview questions for you!
(Please link my site more from Billboard though, thank you uwu heart shape)
If you could bring back one disbanded girl group, who would it be?
Orange Caramel.
My nibling is 11years old, 2 years piano, 1 year guitar. Taught themselves We Will Rock You. Do you have any song recommendations for the kid? Intro metal guitar songs?
Thanks.(brothers/ sisters=siblings, nieces/nephews =niblings, in case this an american word)
Never heard “nibling” before in my life. People just making up any old shit now.
Learn AC/DC “Back In Black“. AC/DC songs in general are great for learning guitarists and their rhythms are tight as fuck. One of the best learning foundations in rock you can get.
Does he exhibit the traits of a caonima? Also, his video editing is fucking batshit crazy, proceed with caution when watching.
Completely unwatchable. If he’s pissing off the ARMYs then he’s alright by me because they truly deserve it, but I can’t watch more than ten seconds of this. There’s a reason why my own videos have a soft voice and very slow editing.
i just started college and am about 2 weeks from turning 18. a few days ago i started talking to this guy on twitter who said he’d pay me to degrade him, and i’ve been bored lately so i said what the hell, sure. he just bought me a concealer off my amazon wishlist (around $16) and i sent him 3 feet pics and talked to him for about 15 minutes. i have absolutely no clue how to feel about this. i wouldn’t say i feel disgusted, im just so confused about how i ended up here. if you were me, would you demand more payment/ purchases? what would your going rate be for something of this sort? am i completely fucked? am i engaging in some sort of child prostitution or is it irrelevant since i’m basically 18? my main goal is to have him buy me a dune lego set that costs $130, should i risk a video call for that?
This question was asked just after the previous QRIMOLE came out, so this person is 18 now. I’d still strongly caution against this though regardless. Don’t kid yourself – what you are doing is basically sex work (of a type) and sex work is not something you just want to casually fall into, because there can be incredibly serious repercussions for your career, for your family life, and most of all your personal safety. You don’t want to be out there camming it with some stranger with no protections or safeguards and no plan, it can bite you on the ass in a big way, people get harmed doing this type of work all the time. I’m not saying sex work should never be done ever by anybody (I would be a total hypocrite to tell you this given how much I stan JAV stars) but sex workers sacrifice a lot for their chosen career path, and if all you want is a fucking Lego set you’re probably way better off just getting a job in retail or hospitality and saving up the $130 the boring way, it won’t even take that long.
I’ve been noticing an increase in misandry in fanbases/communities primarily consisting of women/left wingers. What about you? I believe misandry is an issue as it results in issues such as toxic masculinity and also affects women in some sort of ways. In Internet spaces for pop music and kpop, I have seen people shaming men for enjoying a group or a musician. There are fans of boy group members who would infantilise grown men and call them names like “babygirl” but couldn’t stand a man being insecure, nervous or reserved (e.g. calling them manchildren). There is also a rise in kpop fans supporting far radical Korean feminist movements (6B4T and Megalia, like they literally commit crimes like rape and murder to those who oppose them and men) although they are disliked by Koreans (mainly Korean women in general). The male Korean incels are also a “barf”. Whenever a female idol does some problematic stuff, fans are like “What about <male idol>? You’re quick to blame her because youre misogynistic”. In Monster High (I dont like Monster High anymore because the characters looked like humans with body paint instead of monsters apart from exceptions like Skelita, Manny, Cupid, Mouscedes) but I used to like it when I was like 9 because I was amazed by the idea of monsters being students and fighting evil when I saw the Ghouls Rule movie. I had no idea that it was made to sell toys) , there is a male character named Gillington who has narcissistic parents and is afraid to stand up against them. As a guy who was raised in an abusive family (and still am living with them since i couldnt get money because they didnt want me to get a job) and couldnt stand up when they use physical or psychological violence since I came from a corrupt country there are no CPS, it hurts me to see fans blaming him for not standing up when his parents don’t like his girlfriend when there is a mean girl with a boyfriend and abusive parents in the main character roster who doesn’t stand up for him but nobody calls out her behaviour (she gets called a girlboss). For manosphere people, this comment is not for you. If you’re wondering, I think there needs to be a distinction between men’s liberation movements and manosphere movements and I think manosphere movements have hijacked the male lib movement in general and hurt its reputation.
I’m so disconnected from most fan spaces that I don’t really notice currents like this much. Basically I think too much fuss is made of it all, the sexes have been complaining about each other (and themselves) since forever. I think about this really simply:
- Some men are shit, some are nice. Often I feel like more are shit than nice, but it may just be that the loudest ones that attract the most attention tend to be the most shit.
- Some women are shit, some are nice. Often I feel like more are shit than nice, but it may just be that the loudest ones that attract the most attention tend to be the most shit.
- Almost nobody is always shit or always nice, but there’s definitely a sliding scale of some sort at play and we’re all somewhere on it
- Try to spend time with nice people and not shitheads, where possible, and also try to reflect the qualities you’d like to see in others
To this day I dunno WTF you mean when you bang on about “Newjeansification”?
Is it a particularly distinct song style? Previous trends were clear as day like Tropical House and Dubstep because the songs in those styles had very obvious common traits that stood out (eg farting trumpets; WUB WUB WUB sound).
If visually cosmetic aspects like how and where MVs are shot; what clothing fashion choice worn; how the marketing campaigns are conducted; etc are considerations then I’d probably notice them even less. Dramatic visual differences I’m likely to notice like the abandonment of 2010’s SM sparkly box sets for shooting MVs in mundane, IRL locations like underground parking lots and building basements.
I’m talking about the music. Yes there are visual and marketing elements too, but my beef with it is purely musical. I won’t answer here as an entire post on this topic is planned.
Hi Kpopalypse! Hope you are doing well. I was curious about the Australian climate. I live in a very snowy, cold place and many people here struggle with seasonal-affective disorder in the winter. Do you/aussies experience similar problems in summer? Also, for the gay music feature, Model/Actriz have strong bading energy, and your countryman Alex Lahey is a notable lesbian.
Where I live the desert is a pretty short drive north so we get desert style weather. Summers are intensely hot and dry, my town regularly breaks “world’s hottest city” records. Like the desert, it doesn’t snow in winter but winters are still unpleasant and cold due to the biting wind. I don’t know if “seasonal affective disorder” is the right term for it, more like “seasonal affective panic”, summer here is more like “everyone get in the bunker and pray for the cool change”, it’s difficult for people to cope with. People who make poor decisions die in the heat here all the time. I’ve had Americans and Canadians tell me the weather here is not that different to southern California and Texas. Other places in Australia have slightly different climate (there are tropical areas, and cooler places like Tasmania), but the climate where I live is typical of about 90% of the country.
LOTS OF “WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS NON K-POP STUFF” QUESTIONS
Here we go. Oh boy.
10 years ago, Carly Rae Jepsen of Call Me Maybe fame released an album called Emotion, which some people refer to as the best pop album of all time. Idk about all that, but I’ve heard Run Away With Me used as an example of “perfect mixing” which could be accurate.
This is decently good but I’m not going to throw my Absolute First Album in the Han river for it. The mixing is fine, nothing wrong with it, but then it’s actually a rarity to come across a high-budget pop album with bad mixing, in general. Pop music fans who don’t have musical knowledge and audio production knowledge tend to conflate mixing, mastering, and timbral choices. When they talk about ‘mastering’ they usually mean mixing. When they talk about ‘mixing’ they often are responding more to instrument and arrangement choices (what instrument goes where, and when).
Adéla of Katseye formation show fame makes music now, and it’s a lot better than Katseye’s. SexOnTheBeat is my favorite, as it looks sexy, SOUNDS sexy, and makes actual commentary on the music industry and sexuality.
A striking video matched with excellent sound design and a cool message… I like everything about this except the actual song. That boring monotone melody really is being carried hard by everything else about this.
Do you like this song?
Do you think their Winx cosplays are better or worse than Katseye’s here
This Turkish girl group, Manifest, actually might be evidence that even the (in my opinion quite tame) K-pop style outfits and dances might not be exportable everywhere. They seem very K-pop esque to me but they’ve been facing a lot of backlash from some misogynist Turkish politicians who think their crop tops are corrupting the youth or something and their dancing is too attractive. They were actually arrested after a concert and are now under investigation, banned from leaving the country and had to cancel their sold out tour. I did see one article though that suggested maybe all this is because they chanted opposition slogans once and the government is just using this weird “violation of public morals” to defame them. Sounds like typical authoritarianism to me but of course I also support them being as sexy as they want to on stage.
Their own song is just average. Not as tragic as various other k-pop inspired groups, I’ll give them that. It’s not bad but I wouldn’t listen to it unless I had to for a question like this one.
I don’t even fuckin’ know what Winx is. This is not an invitation to tell me what Winx is, I’d like to live the rest of my life not knowing, thank you.
I don’t know enough about Turkish politics to throw down on the rest of what’s here, but I hope the girls get to do their thing again.
You might not like this one. Charli XCX (famous) is credited with being one of the pioneers of hyperpop, and Vroom Vroom, produced by the late SOPHIE, is one of her first songs that really embraced this abrasive, weird sound.
Pretty awful. Like a crap version of Peaches, who has already done everything that this track does ten years before, and much better. “Hyperpop” is not a genre. This is just pop music that doesn’t know what it’s doing.
You like Doechii, so even though this is pretty different from Denial is a River, you might like it.
I dislike the beat choice on this specific track, but she can rap better than most new rappers these days and it makes listening to this more tolerable than if it was (insert your rap bias here). Doechii is someone who has great talent but not always great taste. Having said that I’m yet to have time to dig through all her songs. One day.
Would you say that Cupcakke has ended Yukika, Haseul and whoever else is still doing city pop songs in the big 25?
Pretty weak song, disappointing but I appreciate Cupcakke’s troll game. City pop is not a genre by the way. Just remining you all because every time I say this it really annoys some folks, which is funny to me.
i have not observed this blog in a long ass time as my music taste has changed entirely. i would just like to throw my hat in the ring for a suggestion for weekly LGBT music feature: this is jane remover, she`s a trans artist from new jersey (my state :00) & this is maybe one of the most batshit electronic tracks i`ve ever heard, hope u enjoy
I did consider Jane Remover for the LGBT feature but ultimately I just don’t really like their music that much, which is an essential part of that feature, it’s not meant to be a feature of just random LGBT artists, rather it’s “random LGBT artist that I’ve actually listened to or would listen to”. So putting them here in QRIMOLE instead because if nothing else they are interesting and trying to do something a bit different so they might be of interest to caonimas. Definitely worth a look just to see what you think of them.
So for some reason I’ve been listening to this song off Taylor Swift’s new album and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s overwritten? Like there’s too many words in any given line and she’s trying hard to fit the syllables in so she has to sing speak faster than she should so it feels crowded? I think? Anyway is there a musical term for this phenomenon or is it all in my head.
I think that’s her showing her country music roots, where the songs are traditionally quite wordy and tend to be very focused on telling a story, which is a bit different to a lot of pop music where conveying a feeling is often more important. It’s probably the only element still left of her debut country music sound.
Who in kpop would pull this off?????
Literally anybody because most groups already have one of these slightly R&Bish slightly NewJeansy songs in their catalogue at this point. Nothing unique here whatsoever.
Thoughts on death grips? Industrial hip hop group that does lots of metal/punk adjacent stuff aswell
They’re okay I guess but never really got into them. I don’t think industrial music and hip hop is a combination that works. They do it probably about as well as anyone is probably ever going to, which isn’t saying a lot.
What do you think of Masayoshi Takanaka? I don’t know shit about guitar playing. How good is he?
Decent as far as playing goes. He’s definitely been superceded technique wise, and I don’t really like his music either. I’m not really wild about jazz fusion as a style generally, I only find it interesting as a vehicle for appreciating technique, the songs themselves do nothing for me. But his playing functions fine and does what it’s supposed to do.
Do you think this song can be classified as another Crazy In Love clone? I get the same vibe since came out like two weeks ago
Yes it is. Only had to listen to about two seconds’ worth to work that out.
I know you hate questions about what you think of non-kpop music
Oh great, so you won’t ask one then, that’s terrific
but here I go anyways!
-_-
What do you think of Jade’s “Angel of my Dreams” and do you think this style/production could work in kpop with a group like ARTMS?
I think it sounds like a mess quite frankly.
When it comes to song allocation, all k-pop idol groups are really the same group, pretty much, the only meaningful difference between most of them is gender (because gender often changes the vocal ranges, which then changes how instruments fit in around the vocals). So a question like “could it work with a k-pop group like x”, well you can put any idol group in spot x and it wouldn’t change the answer to the question all that much because they’re all interchangeable in that sense. All I’ll say is that Jade’s song is very vocally driven (one reason why I dislike it) and so it sounds like it would suit a singer more than an idol because most idols have minimal vocal chops, just enough to get by, and would have to Autotune themselves up the ass to get anywhere. For best results you’d really want an Ejae or an Ailee tackling something like this rather than an idol group.
Thought this might be interesting re: TripleS and money -> The CEO was interviewed and he claims that the artists get a share of the NFT sale money with no debt leveraged against it. Idk if it’s any meaningful amount… but at least he’s upfront about the fact that most artists in the industry don’t get paid
Apparently caonimas have informed me that the girls make significant bank off of this NFT grift the label have got going on. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Hey thanks for not asking a question which is just in essence “what do I think of some random non k-pop artist”, I appreciate it. This asker continues…
On another note, I know you probably have a bunch of LGBT artists queued until the end of the year for roundup, but
Wait I take that back
have you heard of Hayley Kiyoko? Formative artist in my personal gay awakening… and also I like her music. Attaching a few links
Girls Like Girls aka the one that made her famous-ish
Curious aka my personal favorite
“Girls Like Girls” is truly awful, so maudlin and boring. Video is excellent however, I can see why that went viral but the song itself is beyond tedious. “Curious” is somewhat better and listenable enough but I wouldn’t listen to it by choice.
As a general rule – if your favourite LGBT artists are not making it into the LGBT feature and you’re wondering why, and they’re reasonably high-profile artists, the chances are pretty good that it’s because I just don’t like their music.
Do you like Zara Larson
No.
Have you ever heard of Kilo Kish??
No.
Wait, this song sounds more like “One & One” by T-Ara instead of that TVXQ one. It’s very fast but it’s J-pop.
You people will never learn to not link j-pop here.
The person who submitted rin song shouldve sent this instead
what do you think about it? :3 and also this please good sir please make my 10 y o self happy by telling her she had a good taste. Please
Both songs suck but the second one (the one I’ve embedded) sucks slightly less, it reminds me of some of the less-good songs on Muse Dash, the first song you sent I removed the link completely because it was such an abomination. I’m Kpopalypse not Jpopalypse I’m not sure what you’re expecting. Go find Jpopalypse and ask them about it, I’m sure the Japanese-blogger equivalent of me is out there somewhere and actually gives a shit. Also if you’re ten years old where are your parents, do they know you visit this site? Responsible parenting is dead in the year of our lord 2025. Anyway speaking of Muse Dash…
LOTS OF GAMING QUESTIONS
I got a lot of these this month, way more than usual for some reason. Just separating them out for readability because while I don’t mind answering these I think only a certain percentage of my readership cares about gaming. If anything, getting a lot of gaming questions has taught me that even though I do play games a fair bit I’m way less deep into gaming than I thought.
The overclocking mod story is neat, but guys with this particular quad core CPU were whiny bitches for many years.
Practically every time a new AAA game came out from like 2015 to 2020 you would go on the Steam forum and there’d be threads whining about this one particular CPU from 2018 not being supported. “My Core 2 Quad is still perfectly powerful. but your game EXE requires newer CPU instruction sets that I don’t have support for, patch them out!” a lot of times they would be accommodated, but it reaches a point of being absurdity, surely? People are just compiling game EXEs with whatever version of Visual Studio that they have. You’re running really old PC hardware and expecting games designed for an entirely newer console generation to work on them.
PS good look for her?
Don’t really care about the overclocking thing, I’m not a “power user”. While my machine is reasonably decent and capable of being overclocked (it has some built in stuff to make it easier… or something?), I’ve never tried it. I play mostly 10 year old games that hardly tax the machine at all, and most good Wonho games have ultra-low system requirements too.
Chuu – she rocks it. That’s the sort of look that probably wouldn’t work for anybody else but her.
Again, I’m not a power user, and I’m not a console gamer either, and this diatribe mainly seems relevant for that discussion. I don’t think that the games I actually play have changed much, or will change much. Also, AI doesn’t infinitely scale. Look at how Moore’s Law has died and HD capacity growth has been barely more than stagnant for the last decade despite the techbros of 20 years ago insisting this would never happen. AI has similar hurdles to overcome and the superintelligent AI mega-game he’s talking about is on the other side of those hurdles. We might get a “baby’s first version” soon though. There’s no doubt AI is improving but it’s definitely overhyped by those with an interest in trying to make a buck off it.
your thoughts on these thoughts?
i do agree with the general notion that gaming industry pundits trying to pass off ppl who play only casual games on mobile or 1 hour a week as gamers is purely for political spin. saying “50% of our players are women” looks good on paper to bodies who grant loans or grants on the basis of demographic cosmetic demographic box ticking.
But they are gamers. Quite literally. Doesn’t matter that Candy Crush isn’t something some people consider “serious gaming” or whatever. It’s still gaming. It’s no less or more valid than any shitty game I play. Importantly from the industry’s perspective, games like Candy Crush still make money just like any other game makes money. This is just gamers being snobs because they think Call Of Duty or whatever is somehow more “evolved” than casual games, kind of like gamer’s eugenics.
this game looks peak, man. zillion $ price aside, but it’s just a waiting game for a save.
why do you refuse to play games like this? you’re missing out on SO MUCH cuz of your weird “first person” only stance.
The thing that drew me into gaming, and that I like about it the most, probably more than any other reason, is immersion. The idea of escaping reality and being inside another world. The very first first-person games that I ever played (Elite and Mercenary on the Commodore 64), I loved them and instantly warmed to that type of format, for this reason. Third-person perspective isn’t as good, it partially kills that immersion, because it’s saying “here’s a character that you can control, but we’re not going to let you really feel what it’s like to be them, no – instead we’ll sit you just a little bit behind and/or above them and keep a safe distance so you don’t feel too immersed” – bleugh. It makes sense in something like Infinity Nikki where the entire point of game is to look pretty in clothes so of course you want to see how you look in the clothes, because essentially you’re playing doll dress-ups, but for anything else… given a choice between first and third person, first person is always the better choice. Also, seeing your own character in your own field of 3D view blocks your vision. How stupid for me to not be able to see what’s directly in front of me because I’m in the way.
What do you think of these observed trends?
wow, interesting. according to this data set 85% of ppl buying remasters and remakes didn’t play the originals. first 4ish mins of video
reminds me of the the data set from last year that said 67% of PC gamers spent their time playing games that were at least 6 years old.
i remember articles saying that Gen Z were buying old consoles + software and playing those.
There’s enough games out there these days, more choice than ever, so there’s no reason why a lot of people would choose the new stuff given that it’s generally more expensive and harder to run on older computers. A lot of gamers are poor. CEOs and managers don’t tend to game, they don’t have time, gaming is an occupation of the working and middle classes. One of the reasons the original Starcraft blew up so damn huge was it had super low system requirements even for the day. There were other RTS games back then that were better in almost every way, but they required relatively beefy machines. One of the reasons indie games are blowing up now is just that they’re cheaper. $20 is an easier sell to your parents or significant other than $90.
What’s so bad about Car Mechanic Simulator? I thought it was genetic for Germans to enjoy gamified simulations of mundane, everyday jobs and/or activities?
I’m only half-German. I’m also Chinese, which means that I also enjoy money, so I’m not going to do a gamified mundane job if it isn’t monetised in my favour. If the game paid out Steam dollars for every oil change I did, I’d probably play, but I’m not changing your oil for free! My time is more valuable than that.
do you reckon he’s burning a bunch of bridges professionally by publicly calling out a big company like EA?
for context @6:39 to 10:41:
they scrapped the campaign that the studio he was put in charge and subsequently closed it straight after he left. they had been working on it for `~2 years. the released game’s campaign was built in ~1 year from scratch by 3 studios crunching + collabing remotely over different time zones. the delivered campaign seems to have been met with poor reception compared to the game’s PvP MP and User-Generated Content creation/play mode “Portal”.
I wouldn’t know. No idea whether game companies get vindictive like k-pop agencies do and would force some kind of repercussions, either manually or just organically through reputational loss. I have no inside info on anything much outside my fairly narrow fields, and the machinations of AAA games companies is definitely not in my wheelhouse.
thoughts on the next gen Xbox potentially just being a PC with a simplified GUI on top? (none is confirmed, so take with a grain of salt.) i think it’s cool, giving console players access to the vast back catalogue of games on PC.
This part is what i’m potentially excited about, assuming it works in reverse too: providing PC players with access to the back catalogue of Xbox games. a lot of notable games from previous gens that never came to PC finally being available.
“Furthermore, thanks to new silicon from AMD (already approved all the way up to CFO Amy Hood and CEO Satya Nadella), the new Xbox will also run all games currently available on the Xbox Series X|S library. This means all the OG Xbox back-compatible games, all the Xbox 360 back-compatible games, all the Xbox One back-compatible games, and all the current and future Xbox Series X|S games. These games will run natively on the new Xbox and launch seamlessly via the Xbox launcher’s library.”
I don’t play consoles and there’s not a single game on console that I’ve seen in the last 20 years and thought “gosh I wish I could get this on PC”. I couldn’t even tell you the name of one single Xbox-exclusive game. So I don’t have strong feelings about this. It won’t change my world.
your thoughts on his thoughts + his attitude? (i’ve linked 2 articles – 1 2)
I would guess that most game devs think like this. Nobody is actively trying to make games that are shit. People get into it in the first place because they love games. It’s just that market pressures and financial realities and a whole bunch of other stuff can take over sometimes, and people who got into game dev for idealistic reasons might get forced into situations where they are being made to do things that they think suck.
AND SOMEONE FOUND A WAY TO COVER BOTH TYPES OF QUESTION WITHIN ONE QUESTION
I know this isn’t K-Pop, but I don’t know anything about music, and you’re the only one I know who does, so I can only really ask here.
In Honkai Star Rail, there’s a boss theme that plays that’s received a lot of positive attention. The in-game version is slightly different from the one released by Hoyoverse officially. Quite a lot of people prefer the in-game version, and I was wondering why. Could you explain what you think, without in-game context, since my thought was that people prefer the sequence in-game with the actual boss itself because the song was written to play at different stages of the boss fight?
Well I haven’t played Hongki Star Rail so I guess I’m the perfect person to do this without giving in-game context. I think the in-game version is better, it has a more orchestrated sound, I like the extra choir parts the’ve thrown in, it’s a bit longer overall and also there’s something really weird happening in the treble frequencies of the other version (although perhaps that’s just a bad audio transfer, but since it looks like an official dev account you’d hope that wasn’t the case). Having said that I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I “like” either song and in fact having something like this break out during the game would annoy me a lot. If I ever play this game I’ll be sure to do it with the music off.
NOT QUESTIONS
you know how ppl have icon links to their social media profiles? i was on a gaming lady content creator’s Rumble video channel and there a an icon i’d never seen before, a T with a square on it. i hovered over it and was a Truthsocial account, i.e. Trump’s social media network.
well it’s good to have back ups, i guess?
i mean, you still probably still have gab account from like a decade ago that you could dig up.
Truthsocial was region blocking territories outside of USA when it was brand new. so i couldn’t even look at it out of curiosity. i shrugged, moved on and never thought about it again.
Yes I did and still do have a Gab account, I haven’t logged into it for a few years now. I can’t even remember why I made it, probably just to annoy some people. It didn’t work, I got zero engagement on that site, significantly more people use BlueSky.
This is not really a question so JAV of the Month for November is LULU-389.
Video about the AWS (Amazon Web Services) down time recently. The idea of having basically EVERYTHING, no matter how mundane, in the house having online connectivity seems like madness. A TV connecting to the internet so that you can run TV streaming apps? Cool. The example brought up in the aforementioned video of a mattress though? Absurd.
Seemingly every other week Louis Rossmann has a video about some perfectly good device that’s been bricked by companies because they discontinued a service. There was a recent one about running shoes. SHOES connecting to the internet!
There were Norwegian smart house installations which had the deal altered and asked for users to pay for a subscription service or something to get functionality back because a new company took over maintaining the services (I’m not 100% on the details). Louis Rossmann put up a cash bounty for someone to provide a firmware hack to restore functionality, bypassing the new company altogether.
Louis Rossman is great. This is not a question, so JAV of the Month is also START-421.
I’ve been reading your blog for so long you kind of feel like an old friend. A kind if a mentor figure, really, since I’ve been reading your writing since I was a teenager and you’ve genuinely taught me some very useful things. It’s hard to find people out there who are as true to themselves as you are, oppar. I’m still working on it. It’s hard to feel like an outcast, and it’s hard to face other people’s judgement, but you are one of the influences that makes me want to try and be more confident and not just conform. So I guess this is just more of a small message of gratitude. Cheers!
Thanks for reading, glad I’ve helped you out! I will continue to do what I do regardless of how it is perceived elsewhere. JAV of the Month is also REBD-977.
Hello! I am the reader who submitted the Robert Christgau question last month and I could not agree with you more on the criticism that was directed towards him.
I’m an avid reader and an aspiring musician, therefore it shouldn’t be surprising that I voraciously consume album/music reviews. Though these sites have definitely expanded my vocabulary, none of them have expanded my musical knowledge—and that’s what frustrates me the most. NOBODY can tell me why they like or dislike an album/song, they spend 80% of the review writing about the musicians personal life, the events that led to the making of the album and the lyrical content. Speaking about anything BUT THE MUSIC is something that I find often in Pitchfork’s, Rolling Stone’s and Robert Christgau’s reviews.
If I’m disillusioned by music journalists who’s job IS TO review the contents of an album, I completely LOATHE music forums and any “comment section” that talks about music. The comment section to platforms like Youtube, Tik Tok, RateYourMusic and ALBUMOFTHEYEAR ESPECIALLY all raise my blood pressure. Now listen, I’m not fully musically inclined myself. I’m only 20, when it comes to music pedagogy I still have a lot to learn. But it’s so obvious when somebody is just parroting musical technobabble that they read off the internet, the most obvious example that comes to mind is when someone says “the mixing shit”, these people can never elaborate what about the “mix” is shit because they themselves don’t know what mixing is.
Now I’m not saying that in order to have an opinion on something you must express it in the most highfalutin academic language possible. Pedantry and exclusively praising technical wank is far more grating. But it’s vexing trying to find communities that are meant for music aficionados when almost every one of these “communities” is filled with dilettantes who vociferously display their musical ineptness.
Now I know this isn’t a question, so I dont have high hopes of it appearing on November’s QRIMOLE but I truly do hope you read this. I want to thank you, truly nobody else has ever made me feel so seen. Nobody I ever met in my life (or will probably ever meet) likes music as much as I do, everyone either aimlessly consumes it or uses it as something to keep in the background. Of course then you have everyone in the online music space who seems to be suffering from a severe case of the Dunning-Krueger effect.
Though our musical tastes clash, your posts about music theory I do appreciate a lot and they help me expand/quench my thirst for musical knowledge (the mixing one being my favourite). I wish you a lot of prosperity, happiness and resilience.
Frank Zappa said something once along the lines of “music criticism is people who can’t write, writing articles about people who can’t think, for the benefit of people who can’t read”. He also says that most people who have actual musical knowledge don’t tend to cover rock and pop music at all, which is absolutely true. I’ve actually never read reviews like my own where I can talk about the music on a theoretical level, at any theoretical level from basic to advanced, but also am willing to use the language required to make my opinions understandable rather than show off my knowledge, which is what I see other more “theory-based” music reviews doing. I suppose this is why I get all those goddamn song review questions, and yeah I do actively dislike them but I do understand why you all keep sending them, so everyone don’t feel like you have to stop (but if you do think up better questions folks, please ask those instead LOL). It’s flattering, it’s just also very time and energy consuming. Although it is worth it in the rare, rare instances when good music is recommended.
I’ve decided that I probably won’t even do a set-in-stone “feature” within roundups for 2026, fuck it. But I will still randomly introduce you all to new (and old) music as I see fit. Since you all like music, here’s a bizarre gift from me to you and every other person reading this – since I’ve had to put up with all your recommendations, here’s my recommendation that I will now either delight or punish you all with.
I think Cardiacs are incredible. Possibly the best band you’ve never heard of (unless you already have, in which case lucky you). Listen to this. It’s like the missing link between progressive rock and something like Devo or XTC, but even that description sells it short. It sounds completely bonkers, but it’s also incredibly infectious. Everything’s pretty complex but it never sounds like it’s forgetting to be a song in the way that a lot of prog rock does. Within the chaos it always comes back to something memorable and catchy. The melodic style defintiely scratches my musical itch.
They’re also the masters of the “change-up”, they definitely paved the way for the likes of Mr Bungle, Naked City and of course NMIXX (lol) in R.E.S which has one of the most bonkers instrumental breaks I’ve ever heard.
Cardiacs started off with more members but had many line-up changes, some due to the health of various members but also probably I assume because being in such a weird band likely doesn’t pay the bills. As a result later line-ups lost the keys, sax and percussion and have a more rock-based lineup, but still maintain their signature arrangement insanity and unique melodic ideas.
Even when their songs start relatively normal they quickly degenerate into something I can only describe as “Cardiacs sound”. Sadly frontman Tim Smith had serious health issues and had to stop performing in 2008, he died in 2020. The band does continue on without him and released new music recently.
I’ll leave you with this cover of “Tarred and Feathered” by some metal guys. Oh and you didn’t ask a question so JAV of the Month is MIDA-290. Bye folks!
That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!
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!
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