Listen to! May

Long post ahead. Mostly random thoughts. Hope you enjoy, please do comment ♥

First off. People are always talking about the big entertainment labels in South Korea, but can we talk about Japanese Avex Group for a moment? One actual musical powerhouse that is. I still haven't had time to get familiar with all their artists, simply because there are so many of them! They're really advanced both musically and visually. Avex is the current label to names like Gackt, Ayumi Hamasaki and Namie Amuro, as well as the Japanese base for artists like BoA, 2NE1, After School, Super Junior and U-Kiss. They're launching new artists all the time, god damn it. So often that they don't even have time to all of them - Da-iCE switched to Universal Music Japan some time back because Avex didn't have time for them. That's not nice.

Anyway, here's one great Avex group, VIVIVID, which you should totally check out if your taste is even close to mine.

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To other great music. I'm starting with BTL's Too-G. Nice song. But are these the guys that-- no, they're not them. They just look, sound and feel the same. Even the name of the group and the song sound familiar. Get over your everyone-needs-to-be "hiphop" groaning, South Korea.

Last up is the new Berryz song, which I do like a lot. It's another song that shows the skill of empathy Tsunku has. I really hope Berryz are, indeed, proud, because at least I'm very proud & thankful of them.

What's your favourite song right now?

Listen to! March

I missed February, apologies.

Oh my, she’s so great, I’ve
fallen for her even as a girl,
I can see she’s so great. She’s
temperamental but I want to
see her I want to know her,
I want to dance with her.
━ Orange Caramel, Catallena

And a bonus song about how Mino hates ants. You're welcome.

CRUSH

I LOVE IT HOW YG AND THE WORLD IS FULL OF GORGEOUS MEN AND THEY PICKED AN AVERAGE LOOKING ONE FOR THIS BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY MATTERS.
I've always wanted to write a long deep analyzing blogpost concerning things like this and finally I'm getting to do it! Still, this is only how I see these things.

Well, clearly, it's a dystopia they're living in in Come Back Home. Have I told you I love dystopias? Even the song says: "Don’t leave me at the end of this cold earth" - There are only a few people left on earth and more and more are escaping the reality to "Virtual Paradise", where all is well. Love is pretty much everything that's left in the real world and the guy being an average looking druggie in my opinion highlights that the planet is no paradise any more. It's not the same as thousands of years ago when smoking hot Korean pop stars made you think everyone looks like a sex god. Seriously, all the comments I've already seen about the man being "fugly" and "not attractive enough" only remind me of the wicked beauty standards we have these days.

About the lip sync then? It's distracting and nothing new. But it's not like the girls can't lip sync, in Happy MV they clearly can, right? I think it's intended here because of the story MV, they're thinking the lyrics out loud or something, I think that would fit the picture. It still doesn't stop being distracting though!

I'm really pleased with this video overall. It's very 2NE1, but still something new. I can't even describe it, but I've never heard anything alike. And hey, a story MV built with a lot of thought that is understandable! It's great that story MVs are made but it's easier said than done to make one that actually works. Sometimes you have to watch the video multiple times to understand what's going on. Here I, at least, get what's going on and can just relax like watching a movie, now that I don't have to push myself to figure out the plot. My absolutely favourite scene is when the girls have entered the "Virtual Paradise" and they gone blow shit up. They always gone blow shit up! Plus, this is how CG is done. I don't even mind the postponement.

Happy I like as well. It might be my favourite song from the album, which is good overall, even though it doesn't have any songs that would actually fricking blow my mind. Still good, still very good. Other faves might be MTBD, Come Back Home (unplugged version), and of course Scream is still awesome.

Again a happy video for a sad song, huh? Yes, Happy is actually quite a horrible song. Well fine, at least we won't get that depressed. And it's pretty, very pretty! I'm just wondering when this was shot, because it should be quite a long while ago, if you think about how fast hair grows and winter comes, haha.

(Dara is stunning no matter what she does. She told she got inspired by chicken. Fine. Whatever. Goddes.)

Would say it's 4/5 album and 5/5 videos from 2NE1.