It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
do you like this girl’s video essay on h2h’s sudden success?
(from @7.25 for the main points. the rest is mainly lead on their reception up until that point, like it being pretty tepid compared to other SM GGs like Aespa and f(X).)
It’s fine. A lot of this is just marketing 101 and we’ve seen this pattern before, it’s nothing new. aespa also had a slow start and I remember very strongly at the time that the k-pop fan narrative was all about “this new SM group isn’t doing that well” and it took quite a few songs for them to really build. Even Girls Generation didn’t really rise to iconic status until “Gee” came out, which was a couple years after debut, a slower progression than Hearts2Hearts. And “American voices appeal to American audiences”, well, yes they do, and that’s why companies do it.
You never reviewed this song. Could you please review it for me here?
Yes, I did, here.
I don’t generally do separate reviews for different-language versions of songs that are otherwise musically identical to their original form, because the language something is sung in really means nothing to me. But even if I was going to review this song, I wouldn’t do it here, I’d save it for a future roundup bonus video or similar.
i was asking this robot nigga google gemini for kpop group bios and he started a hallucinating completely members of kiiikiii from a fictional agency. i called him out and then he started gaslighting me. then i got him to admit he made up the group. only after i showedd the wikipedia article did i get real info about kiiikiii. why do you think the robot is so confident in its delusions? what lesson should i take from this interaction?
i don’t have much choice for robot niggas to ask because gemini is 100% free and i already had a google account. the twitter grok one only let’s you ask 20 questions per day before asking you to pay and the microsoft copilot one sucks total ass.
It’s a common characteristic of AIs that they can be very confidently wrong. They’re especially bad with anything k-pop related because the k-pop world moves so fast that AI training data sometimes struggles to keep up. It’s getting a little better now that it can search the web in real time but it still fucks up all the time. The AI hallucination problem will never be fixed, because hallucination is an essential part of the machine-learning that AI is built from. So look forward to your AI neighbours being wrong in the future as well.
At the start of the video there seems to be some sort of feedback and the girl in blue reacts with discomfort (2nd from left).
1. What might’ve caused the feedback? From what I understand it’s when a mic is close to a speaker?
2. How loud would the feedback have to be to get that sort of reaction from the girl?Later on:-
@8:34 There seems to be more feedback, the girl talking (furthest right in dark purplish blue) shakes the mic. Would this behaviour actually get rid of the feedback?
1. It could be, or just something is up too loud. You don’t have to be near a speaker (although that will do it too), you just need to be in an environment where a sound can do a loop, from the microphone to the speaker and back again. Any sound system will do that if you crank it high enough.
2. Pretty loud. Feedback tends to “take off” in volume very quickly.
8:34, no, shaking the mic won’t do shit, although quickly pointing it in a different direction might, depending on if the source of the feedback is your mic or someone else’s. She’s probably trying to guesstimate the optimal direction to point it in to stop the feedback, but has no clearly so is just waving it anywhere. In this case it doesn’t matter what the girls do, the fault lies with the sound engineer. Since most of the feedback is bass feedback, a high-pass filter on the microphone channels would have quickly solved the problem here, or if the desk doesn’t have that then just cutting the bass a little on the vocals. But I can hear some treble threatening to take off too, I think the PA is just up too loud.
1. Have you gotten better at identifying Australian regional accents in recent months?
2. Why do you think you were bad at identifying them?
1. No.
2. Don’t know. Regional Australian accents aren’t formally taught in Australia, and when you watch Australian TV it’s mainly accents from the eastern states. It just never registered with me. Still doesn’t. It also doesn’t help that I have zero interest in identifying them, and no motivation or actual reason to.
1. which members of hearts2hearts do you know?
2. is canadian girl stella your new best friend?
1. none
2. don’t know her so no
nigga, you have one of these? {an “Oodie”, description below} what do you think of them? had you heard of them prior?
“An Oodie is an oversized, wearable blanket hoodie designed for lounging. Originating in Australia, it combines the warmth of a plush blanket with the functionality of an oversized hooded sweatshirt.
Key Features
Materials: Made with a soft microfleece exterior and a thick sherpa fleece lining on the inside.
Fit: Designed as a single “one-size-fits-most” (6XL equivalent) garment with elasticated cuffs and a huge front kangaroo pocket.
Designs: Known for bright colors, fun patterns, and pop-culture themes (ranging from avocados and garlic bread to licensed Disney, Marvel, or anime prints).While “The Oodie” is a specific brand name, the word is often used generically to describe any oversized wearable blanket hoodie (similar to brands like The Comfy).”
No. No opinion as never used. Seems practical idk. I hadn’t actually heard of this.
solo song by the shamisen player from Wagakki Band. What genre is this from?
Pop.
@4:14 Prince is having Socratic questioning thoughts on the topic of how can be 100% certain if he’s straight he’s never done any gay sexual activities. now i turn that line of questioning onto you, how do you know that you’re 100% straight if you’ve never sucked a dick before?
I’m not even sure that 100% straight is a thing. I’m not sure 100% gay is a thing either. I think we’re all somewhere in the middle, with some of us way on one end or the other but a lot of people on various points in the space in between, somewhere along it. I mean I might seem 100% straight but I’d suck a dick for the right price, I should add a dick-sucking hookup tier to my Ko-fi but that’s probably against the rules to solicit prostitution through it I guess. On the other hand Chuu might seem 100% gay but she is still willing to cosplay as straight in recent music videos and someone even gayer than her would probably find that intolerable.
Sorry for my rant and question but should I listen to my parents wanting me to study a post-university program just to make sure I may have a better job? Honestly, I feel so stucked right now because on one hand I do want to change my job, but what if my effort ends up not doing that much different? Or should I try to learn a different language course for better change? Job market sucks so much these days.
No idea, I don’t know what the job market is like for you, and I’m probably not an expert in your particular field either. But why not do the post-Uni program part-time if you can and then you can keep your current shitty job for the moolah, most Unis have options like that that you can explore. But ultimately it’s always worth remembering what Frank Zappa said:
I saw this question on reddit, I’m curious about what your thoughts on this are considering you graduated with a music degree (I only assume you studied music history and such too)
How did guitar, drum, and bass become the most common instrument that bands used worldwide?
I think the common denominator here is that all of these instruments are either damn loud, or easily amplifiable. The invention of electric bass was probably the most important development for music in the 20th century. Drums are somewhat harder to amplify but they’re also damn loud acoustically, but the idea that you could plug in a bass and suddenly you could literally shake a room without needing an entire Wagnerian orchestra and your ability to do so was only limited by the size of the speaker, that was huge. In the pre-rock days, swing jazz bands could get drowned out easily by their own rowdy audiences, so the evolution to rock was a way to play to bigger crowds without having to insist that they all fucking shut up during the performance (as with classical music). Of course the first sound systems were pretty pathetic (I’ve visited the room in the ABC building in Adelaide where they have stored the PA system that The Beatles used when they played my city in 1964, it’s laughable by today’s standards) but it was still way better than just relying on a room with a hard floor to do the sound projection. This by the way is why old churches usually have hard floors and new churches usually don’t. So the short answer is that these instruments were the most practical “room fillers”.
is this h2h song about tennis?
It is if you want it to be.
@2:45 would you bang the squirrel lady?
Didn’t click the link, didn’t include it here either, let’s not spread the virus. You lost me at “squirrel”. No.
1. You been to any of the places In the trailer?
2. A film that you’d be interested in seeing?
1. I didn’t recognise anywhere specific.
2. Possibly, idk. Not wildly interested, I’ll probably forget about it, but if my partner finds it one day during a random movie scrolling excursion we may end up watching it. I don’t specifically seek out Australian movies to watch in particular. Most Australians don’t tend to particularly love Australian cinema and there’s only a very small handful of films from here that your average Australian even knows about.
Do you think the way kpop approaches new trends and genres is because now a lot of the progenitors of said trends and genres are now working with these kpop companies?
As an example, KimJ produced for a lot of the hyperpop rap scene in the early 2020s most notable example 2Hollis. Then he produced that same sound for kpop groups like JustB and kindie artists like the Deep and Effie. The Deep and Effie went on to make songs for girl groups like ILLIT and KiiiKiii. You can see how unlike in 2nd gen days where the musical trend would come years late and by people who was not involved in its rise and fall in the western sphere and thus they can experiment uninhibited by how its ‘supposed’ to sound the main people driving the biggest songs of the genre are the ones who helped start it in the west to begin with which is why is it less personal to the group and dare i say doesn’t have much of the ‘kpop magic?
Some other examples:
-Gnarly was an Alice Longao Gyu demo. Started kpop or at least katseyepop hyperpop
-Antifragile was a Isabella Lovestory demo. Started up again Latin kpop flirtings and maybe the Brazilian funk trend
-Cortis’ first album (HYBE loves doing this) was partially produced by artists like Teezo Touchdown who has made rage songs before now is the new genre for rapping kpop boys
-Jump started the whole eurodance techno thing going on and that was produced by Diplo who helped bring back that sound in the early 2010s
-Hell you can even add Sweetune producing Can’t Go Back for Odd Youth. In this wave of 2nd gen nostalgia you have one of the main producers doing a pitch perfect unmessed with example of the sound.
Basically do you think now that the people who helped along trends in the west are now creating and selling songs unchanged to kpop artists are the reason why Kpop trends move quicker and don’t necessarily have that kpop gold that kpopified versions of genres used to have?
I think that k-pop has settled into a point where it’ll be usually a couple years behind trends elsewhere, and I don’t see that changing. The reason why is that the pitching process to k-pop labels is complicated and long (something Azodi talks about in my interview with him) and it can actually take a couple years for a k-pop song to wind its way through the system, by which time trends have usually changed a little. There will always be exceptions though – AAA-list artists can move slightly quicker if they choose due to having instant access to pretty much any producer they want at any time, and in-house producers can keep up with trends quicker than outsourced producers, which is why YG in particular has managed to stay on top of trends a bit faster than other labels. But the really good k-pop songs mostly didn’t come from someone being very current with a trend anyway, the true “k-pop gold” has always lied elsewhere.
hello oppar, i’ve seen in the news that your shithead pm “albanese” has been sent to the timeout corner after saying he’d rail kylie minogue thricefold after saying he was freshly married. if you had the misfortune of becoming the next pm, which k-broad would you shag, marry and date and then be thrust into the fires of msm hell for it?
I hadn’t heard about this, but honestly this just makes me like him. Obviously his mistake was giving any answer at all, but if he didn’t play the game people would have criticised him for being a boring cunt, so he was placed in a no-win situation. At least he played.
However Kpopalypse is not after your vote so just go here and it’s the #1 for whatever year we’re in for all three until I do a new one of these posts, and then you can check again.
Since you’re an Aussie, you probably know who they are, 5 Seconds O’ Summer.
1. Honest to god thoughts on this song?
2. They’re a boyband, but they play instruments, so in the same vein as Day6 and Xdinary Heroes and all those other idol bands.
3. In one concert, in response to a fan, I recall them saying they would collab with Stray Kids and/or Enhypen because they got Aussies in their line-up. Do you think that it would result in music that is at the very least listenable?
Yes, very well aware of them. Don’t listen to them, don’t really care about them, couldn’t even tell you a single song of theirs. I am not westernpopalypse and ESPECIALLY not Australianpopalypse, why do you think I write about k-pop instead, it’s because all the pop in my country sucks so much ass that I couldn’t even be bothered paying attention to it at all. This song isn’t great, isn’t horrible, is too short to even give a fuck about really. If they did a k-collab I’d review it, odds of it being decent are the same as the odds of any k-pop collab being decent, in other words not fantastic.
What is your opinion on Nigerian Nicholas form &team also known as Nicholas Adeyinka
This question is either wrong or too meta for me to understand.
Can you review/opinons on…
Don’t ask for k-pop reviews in QRIMOLE, it’s a waste of a question. I do enough of that elsewhere! B-tracks will make it into album reviews, one day. Nugus will make it into Nugu Alert if they’re worthy.
In a recent roundup you said that NEXZ’ Loco had a good beat but randomness chucked on top of it. I realised that said beat was pretty similar to this song by indopop girl group No Na and it also has a lot of the same problems. Is it because of the chanting and sing talking? I doubt it would be improved with singing because it’s pretty melody less but there has to be a way to go over this kind of beat without sounding stupid right?
What a shit song, wasted a few minutes of my life there. This is even more nothingy than the NEXZ song, it’s literally just a beat and a bunch of yap. Next time you hear a shit song and think “gosh this reminds me of some other shit song I know of which also sucks dicks why don’t I ask Kpopalypse about it” perhaps stop and consider that maybe I’d like to hear something good instead hahaha.
But to answer your question yeah some melody would have helped, harmony would have helped even more. Where are the chord progressions?
This is such a specific topic to bring up. Kpop elitism over idol name pronunciation is something you’ve personally come across?
Not personally, no. But then, I don’t tend to have verbal discussions with k-pop fans where such an issue would even come up in the first place.
when are you coming back to instagram?
Highly unlikely unless social media laws change in Australia, or Instagram loosens its account creation so you no longer need a phone number to sign up. Both unlikely to happen. I am completely banned from there and as soon as I make an account and give it my phone number I get instabanned again. That shitty site is hardly worth getting a new phone number for, I can live with one less lies-spreading planet-destroying social network in my life.
These are the idols I think are the hottest in my favorite groups you tell me if you agree or disagree and why. TWICE – Momo EXID – Hani ITZY – Yeji KARA – Gyuri BESTie Dahye Sistar – Dasom NMIXX – Haewon Red Velvet – Seulgi STAYC – Yoon. Also if you want give me a list form your favorite groups of who you think are the hottest in the main groups you like
Disagree on all of these. I’m not getting the bias compendium started up again if that’s what you’re wondering, but I’ll throw you a bone and tell you Hyeyeong still the hottest one in BESTie and some of the other answers you can find here.
