It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
How much of the success of IVE and Le Sserafim do you think was helped by having members in Iz*one?
I’m reading about this girl Han Chowon, from Lightsum and she seems to been screwed over her whole career. She was supposed to be have been part of Iz*one but the Mnet voting manipulation kept her out of the group. (The other girl who got cheated was Gaeun from After School, but that probably made Pledis happy, since they hate women.) All of the girls from Iz*one who remained in Korea seem to have had pretty significant careers.
Right now Lightsum seems to have been such a huge flop that Cube minimised their further investment in the group significantly.
It’s significant, and that’s 100% of the reason why Iz*one existed. Have a big TV show that makes people fall in love with the idols, start a group up from it and have them release a few songs to solidify that feeling, then disband the group and farm each girl out back to their respective agencies to do other stuff, retaining that history and parasocial connection. When Iz*one disbanded everyone loudly complained that it was too soon, but disbanding them earlier than people wanted while they still had top-tier fame was always the point. You were supposed to be upset, and then think “well, at least she’ll do something with her agency soon let’s keep an eye on her” so when IVE debuts or whatever, you’re paying extra attention and already have a reason to be invested and slightly teary-eyed in the new group. Worked like a charm.
The way Qri throws her head to the side, where Yena does not, reminds me of how T-ara talked about being assigned to watch porn as homework for onstage facial expressions+angles.
Here’s another instance where Lee Boram from Seeya {from 1:19} looks pretty out of place compared to the others, who aren’t 2nd gen idols or idols at all.
Have you noticed if post-2nd gen idols still do this head move? And are there other widespread things today in performances that have definitely carried over from porn? I’d imagine with changing sensibilities, the type of source material being pulled from would change.
I watched both videos a few times each and I’m still not sure what head movement you’re referring to. Maybe this means I’ve watched too much porn and I’m totally desensitised, or maybe it means I haven’t watched enough porn and I need to update my porn collection.
I think that if I were to pick something that really makes me think it was dragged from porn movies, it’s the “bedroom eyes” that we get from a lot of k-pop idols. Jennie is really good at it, which is why she gets so much hate. This relates to the “good sexy vs bad sexy” conversation from the previous month’s QRIMOLE, which I thought was a fantastic observation actually.
what overlaps do you share with her?
“TWICE’s JIHYO shares long list of her food preferences with her fans, ranking 50+ foods in her recent bubble update”
Okay let’s take a look.
LIKES
· Abalone Porridge – anything porridge is a dislike for me
· Budae Jjigae – not into ham or sausages, this is a no as well
. Bukchang Dong Soft Tofu Stew – haven’t tried but I do like tofu in most contexts, giving this a cautious like
· Butter Rice Cakes – rice cakes are a nope, aside from T-ara scandal PTSD I just don’t like the texture of them
· Chapaghetti – never tried
. Fried Rice – like
· Garaetteok – haven’t tried, reminds me of Cheungfun, which I don’t like because of the texture once again
· Gamjatang – dislike, not a big pork eater
· Gopchang – never tried
· Hamburger – depends how it’s done, when hamburgers are bad it’s usually because the buns or condiments are cheap McDonalds tier rubbish, the meat is usually fine so I’ll give this a like
· Honey Combo – don’t know what this is
. Hot Pot – depends what you put in it but generally like because why would you put in there something you hated
. Japanese Curry – dislike
· Kalguksu – never tried
· Kimchi Jjigae – dislike
. Marinated Pork Stir Fried – dislike
· Matcha – dislike, I mean it’s not terrible but WAY overhyped, an ordinary peach oolong or jasmine tea kicks its ass
· Neoguri – never tried
. Old School Korean Style Fried Chicken – not sure what is meant by this but I like fried chicken in all its forms except the Colonel, you can check out my own Korean Fried Chicken recipe here
. Pad Thai – like
· Pasta – like, eating it right now while answering this
· Pho – not my go-to from Vietnamese restaurants, prefer the Bun Bowl, but still like
. Raw Spotted Shrimp – this is an Australian site, we don’t use the s-word here at kpopalypse.com
. Sandwiches from Door to Door – I don’t know what Door to Door is but I dislike sandwiches in general so this is a nope
· Samgyeopsal (with salted seafood) – like, although I’d skip the salted seafood
· Sausage – dislike
· Seaweed Porridge – dislike
· Shabu Shabu – like
. Soy Sauce Marinated Crab – never tried
· Sukiyaki – like
· Sushi – generally like although sushi can be great or dogshit depending on where you get it
· Uni – unsure what this is
· Xiaolongbao – like
DISLIKES
· Avocado – like, I’m convinced most people who dislike avocado just got served overripe or underripe ones and that turned them off. Avocado has to be at a very specific ripeness level or it tastes like crap
· Bulgogi – like
· Cilantro – dislike
· Coke – dislike
· Crustaceans – like
· Dubai Choco Cookies – dislike, another overhyped food. Anyone curious about Dubai chocolate, don’t bother. Go for the superior Turkish version “Angel Hair” which combines Dubai Chocolate techniques with Turkish Delight, it’s a winner even if you don’t like Turkish Delight normally.
· Dumplings – generally like
· Dwaeji Gukbap – never tried but sounds terrible
· King Crab – I don’t know if I’ve had king crab or not, how do I know if it was a king crab?
· Mackerel Sushi – dislike
· Oysters – dislike
· Pizza – depends what type of pizza we’re talking about but veering towards dislike as I never eat this except for socially
· Samgyetang – never tried
· Sansho Pepper – dislike
· Seasoned Chicken – like
· Shiso – never tried
· Snow Crab – don’t know what this is
. Spicy Stir Fried Squid – dislike
· Tteok Galbi – like
· Yuzu – never had in raw form, it’s okay in drinks, cautious like
Conclusion – Jihyo’s culinary taste is as sketchy as her music taste.
Your thoughts on his claim, that big label USA music designed to be inoffensive muzak to be streamed, so no actually goes to their concerts?
Agreed. One reason why I talk about how I like music that’s very ‘extreme’ in a certain direction is that extremity tends to generate a more extreme response. Stuff like Post Malone is the opposite of that, but if course if you can get your song into a location where it’s streamed a lot you’ll do well with royalties even if it’s bland crap nobody cares about.
in theory wouldn’t it be far easier for homosexuals to covertly date in the kpop idol world? like maybe parasocial fans are far less likely to question people of the same sex hanging with each other?
Yes.
Lots of gay in my books for a reason. I never set out to be an “LGBT writer”, the reason why there’s so much gay in the books isn’t personal branding, it’s because LGBT in k-pop is very common behind closed doors and so not having the gay in there simply wouldn’t feel realistic to me.
Why are people so up in arms about how sexual Katseye are? One of the reasons I hear is that they’re marketed towards children and it’s not right but like shouldn’t parents be doing their jobs?? It was the same shit people threw at Britney Spears. I can understand if underage members in the group ar being sexualised and people have a problem with that (I have a problem with that too). But why does it seem like everyone is playing moral police for Katseye?
Britney was popular, Katseye are popular. I think that’s really all there is to it. Katseye’s sexualisation levels are pretty normal by the standards of western pop, in fact I’d even say they’re slightly on the tame side. But most of your ultra racy artists are not as popular as Katseye are.
i’m a bit confused about what the difference between playing sounds in the middle vs on the sides here. since most setups just have two speakers, a sound in the middle will be produced equally from a left and right speaker anyway, which is the same as playing those instruments on the side but not the middle? i do hear a difference in the vocals in the chorus of the blackpink example, but it sounds more like a depth difference than a side-to-side difference to me
This is a great question. The answer is, when you’re doubling tracks and panning them, how you do it determines where the result sounds like it sits. Let’s say that I record a guitar track into a DAW, and decide that I want a second track of guitar, so I can pan them hard left and right, but the band has only one guitar player. If I copy-paste the guitar track into a second empty track so now I have two tracks, and pan one hard left and the other hard right, when I play them back, they’ll just sound like one track in the center, just a little louder than before. However if instead of copy-pasting, I get the guitarist to record all his parts again, and pan the two parts hard left and right, now they will sound like they occupy the sides of the mix. That’s because in the first case the frequencies are literally identical, but in the second case there’s subtle differences as the waveform of a human playing an instrument doesn’t come out the same way twice. You can even add a third track in the center for extra fatness, but that often isn’t done because it can obscure the vocal and that’s usually where you want the vocal to sit.
(This doesn’t work quite the same way with a DI (direct input) electronic instrument, as in those cases the computer often will give you exactly the same waveforms every time. So in those cases to get the same effect you need to change one of the two signals a little somehow, so there’s some difference there. Changing the effects processing slightly can work, as can recording one pass DI and the other through a microphone, there’s other ways too. Just know that’s a thing.)
Hello Kpopalypse, I have 5 questions for you.
1. Could you please rank all of Taylor Swift’s discography according to your personal preference? It’s around 280 songs. I’m really curious for your opinions.
2. I’ve really got into JPOP recently and I think I like it a lot more than kpop. I don’t understand why JPOP isn’t bigger all around the world. Can you please review this particular song?
3. I read the first page of your first book but I became really confused. In the first scene, Hana has a paper airplane behind her ear, and she says, “this teacher is so dumb, she doesn’t instantly recognise harassment when she sees it and she’s possibly going to think that’s my plane.’ How did the air plane get there, though? I think Hana is lying about not putting it there herself, but then your writing is kind of bad because that doesn’t make sense, because she’s also annoyed at the teacher… Why do you keep writing books if you’re not very good at it?
4. Why are you Australian? These days people move to different countries so I’m not sure what your excuse is. I think it’s a bit cringe to be Australian.
5. I’m a massive BTS fan and I don’t like the way you write about their music. SWIM is SOTY, and my most played song of all time is BUTTER.
1. have u worked with those clear wedge monitors before? anything special?
2. what’s the rectangular part on the left half of the face of the wedges?
Do you hear some similarities between this and ASEPA’s Whiplash?
Not particularly. They’re both upbeat dance/pop songs with an electronic synthesised sound and female pop vocals. So yes they’re similar on that sense, but they don’t sound any more similar than any other two upbeat dance/pop songs with an electronic synthesised sound and female pop vocals.
please rank the cats from your least to most fave, thank you.
I only detected two cats. Orange > Grey but both mrcs
This is Minami from Rescene. Would you consider asking a Japanese kpop to sing an anime theme song to be low key racism?
No. There’s a point where looking for racism in every little thing is racism itself, because if people are that racially obsessed that they filter everything through the lens of race, than that in itself is sometimes far more racist than just not worrying about it.
Example: Avril Lavigne got huge racism accusations for her song “Hello Kitty” and if you’re the kind of person who sees everything through the lens of race when you should just take a step back and touch some grass, then yes this probably does seem racist. But she made the song in collaboration with lots of Japanese people (many visible in the video) and the Japanese loved this thing when it came out, they considered it flattering that she would even bother (I personally think it’s balls but that’s another conversation). People who are not involved in something injecting racism into a situation that’s not inherently racist is one of the worst and most insidious kinds of racism, because it takes people who were previously just getting along fine and doing totally fine non-racist stuff and living their happy non-racist utopia and uses their actions as a totem to create and spread needless racial division. It’s literally sending humanity backwards into more racism, and all under the cover of “oh I just care because I’m so anti-racist”. Let’s save the anti-racist outrage for things that are actually racist, otherwise it becomes “boy who cried wolf” territory over nothingburgers and people stoop even listening.
Any of these clips gen AI? Bird seems like something out of a fantasy novel.
All real. I’ve seen some of the source videos of these clips before. Kookaburras are real, they even come to Kpopalypse’s house sometimes to throw down on various content.
Do you also think the way that I think in that 4Minute’s earlier songs were plagued by being absolute autotune jerkoffs. Autotune is gonna be used regardless it’s kpop but I mean when they did that stylistic thing and just cranked the meter up to “let’s just fuck around and see what sticks”. The biggest example of this to me is Muzik
The answer to the next question will clarify my stance on Autotune more:
