Board 8 > Who likes Kpop here

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been listening to some recently and... idk, most of it isn't stuff I like, but some of it is pretty fuckin great. I only really have liked songs by three groups (AOA, BESTie, and Dal Shabet) but I also haven't listened to too much outside of those three.

Here's a few of my favorites in no particular order:

Dal Shabet - Someone Like U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAiGYFWk0Hs

AOA - Confused
https://youtu.be/R1-BTf3_Mys?t=18

AOA - Heart Attack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4alAfL1OcZg

BESTie - I Need You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CrdiDkHFjk

And then there's some HMs from those groups that I won't link to in an attempt to keep the size of this OP down:
AOA - Joa YO!, Under the Streetlights
BESTie - Like a Star, Love Options, Excuse Me
Dal Shabet - Joker

Any good girl group recommendations? I like a lot of the melodic stuff, generally less electronic pop but obviously some of that is still good too. A pattern throughout most of my favorites that I'm seeing is that a lot of them have a bit of other styles I like in them (Confused has some funk, Someone Like U sounds like some 80s stuff, a few of them I could see being in a Persona OST which is definitely not a bad thing). So, fire away.
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There's a few of us. We have a kpop topic!

Some of my faves:

Wonder Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYGODWJgR-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QXQz6uE0M

Orange Caramel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Med2XipHJJM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqSF_9Zf0n4

KARD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LPjJ1p4dYs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Dp7Q-SM1Y
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I've been on mamamoo binges lately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2OFPvYxZuY
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I know nothing about K-pop. How does it differ from J-pop? And why isn't there a Chinese equivalent (that I've heard of)?
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Anagram posted...

I know nothing about K-pop. How does it differ from J-pop? And why isn't there a Chinese equivalent (that I've heard of)?

I'll always take an excuse to post Shin again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y1Wxk5ZfkM
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Anagram posted...

I know nothing about K-pop. How does it differ from J-pop? And why isn't there a Chinese equivalent (that I've heard of)?

I am not an expert by any means, far from it, and these are certainly questions for people more informed than I am. If I had to say though, it would be
1. J-pop is Japanese
2. China has some pop stars of their own but I don't think it's quite as much of a market there. The idol thing is far more Korean and Japanese than Chinese. (again I could be totally wrong)
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I've always thought it like this:

J-POP = Cute
K-POP = Sexy
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basically, at least with the girl groups

kpop is kinda more reminiscent of the girl groups and boy bands of the 90s than it is of jpop
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i'm not entirely in agreement with that from what i've seen but i suppose it's not the farthest from the truth either
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Basically all the groups I like disbanded =\
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Solioxrz362 posted...

A pattern throughout most of my favorites that I'm seeing is that a lot of them have a bit of other styles I like in them

kpop is a mishmash of influences, so you might find this is the case often.

here are a few of my favourites:

Oh My Girl - Closer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isUudT58Xfk

Laboum - What About You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elU6ZzSI4yU

WJSN - Secret

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uJxJ7tSi1w

Ladies Code - Galaxy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgT1eq3CLM

DIA - My Friend's Boyfriend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui_YY5mJZT4

Red Velvet - Dumb Dumb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGdbaEDVWp0

f(x) - Red Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv-8-EgPEY0

and why not, here's my year-end list last year (not all girl groups) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMoLL8mA8nwqAzpQbj5bRSOd7zXroRKK
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did someone say younha
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Kpop kinda springs from the government's interest to follow the Cool Japan strategy of attaining soft power on the global stage and is pretty strongly designed for global appeal and heavily pushed by the government for the industry to grow. The original "Cool Japan" strategy however was more on building off of a longer history of Japanese culture and inter-war influences whereas the Korean strategy is a bit more targeted and recent.

Although it should be noted that it doesn't mean the music comes from the government per say, but rather the government gives money to the producers to develop the cream of the crop independently, competitively, so it's not so much like what Germany was doing which produced fairly bad results.

Lately China's been trying to gain the same kind of footing of cultural influence, although especially with film in their case.
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Jay Chou is basically a god in china. There is still a big music culture in China too, they have KTV literally everywhere. There are 100's of them in every city, they also have the same sort of manufactured bs tv talent shows too like The Voice. there was a rap based one last year that was absolutely massive. Once something gets a little notoriety it goes nuclear in China. It's something to do with the collectivist society and it means once something is popular it goes insane. I just feel it doesn't have the global presence of Korea and Japan because it's not "cool" to like china the way it is with Korea and Japan.
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SNSD, Twice, Red Velvet, and EXID are godly for me. Kara and 4Minute were but unfortunately disbanded. I also like Casker, which isn't really K-pop-y, they are more like chill/lounge music.

Yea 4Minute were one of mine.

My biggest/favorite one was 2NE1, and then they ended too

At least Big Bang will be forever
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Solioxrz362 posted...

(AOA, BESTie, and Dal Shabet)

Love it! Seriously I strongly approve of your taste.

Hmmm.

gugudan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQxtwvLUByM

Brave Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0GkKQ_nzc

CLC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ2u7pIyV9I

Loona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7FkoNKBzI

Sonamoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUoznes8Fn4

Seohyun (hey, I love this song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBYnq_G866U
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Anagram posted...

I know nothing about K-pop. How does it differ from J-pop? And why isn't there a Chinese equivalent (that I've heard of)?

A lot of the separation between K-pop and J-pop really have to do with their influence. Kpop groups seem to be more influenced by western music and often (at least in the male groups) there are like rap segments and other familiar things. In fact, from what I've heard R&B and rap (and a lot of like mid late 90s to early 2000s style pop) seem to be the main influence in a lot of kpop. Jpop seems to be more of a fusion genre now, but they don't quite have any western equivalent. Shows like K-On and its score is an example of how loosely pop is used in jpop.

As for the girl groups. K-pop has long been cashing in on sex appeal and J-pop is more cute style stuff. The other is that J-pop (and other japanese groups) has rarely tried to venture outside of the bounds of Japan. While K-pop groups seem to almost aggressively attack the western markets now.
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KokoroAkechi posted...

Anagram posted...

I know nothing about K-pop. How does it differ from J-pop? And why isn't there a Chinese equivalent (that I've heard of)?

A lot of the separation between K-pop and J-pop really have to do with their influence. Kpop groups seem to be more influenced by western music and often (at least in the male groups) there are like rap segments and other familiar things. In fact, from what I've heard R&B and rap (and a lot of like mid late 90s to early 2000s style pop) seem to be the main influence in a lot of kpop. Jpop seems to be more of a fusion genre now, but they don't quite have any western equivalent. Shows like K-On and its score is an example of how loosely pop is used in jpop.

As for the girl groups. K-pop has long been cashing in on sex appeal and J-pop is more cute style stuff. The other is that J-pop (and other japanese groups) has rarely tried to venture outside of the bounds of Japan. While K-pop groups seem to almost aggressively attack the western markets now.

Ah, thank you.
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KokoroAkechi posted...

As for the girl groups. K-pop has long been cashing in on sex appeal and J-pop is more cute style stuff.

I think this sexy-cute split is understandable but misleading. K-pop and J-pop are the same. If you put a gun to someone's head who can't distinguish between Korean and Japanese they'd be dead before they could tell one apart from the other, specially if they went by this criterion.

The other is that J-pop (and other japanese groups) has rarely tried to venture outside of the bounds of Japan. While K-pop groups seem to almost aggressively attack the western markets now.

This is somewhat more true but more a comment about the industries rather than the genres. Still if you spend some time with either or both genres you will start gleaning the difference. This is right on the money:

A lot of the separation between K-pop and J-pop really have to do with their influence. Kpop groups seem to be more influenced by western music and often (at least in the male groups) there are like rap segments and other familiar things. In fact, from what I've heard R&B and rap (and a lot of like mid late 90s to early 2000s style pop) seem to be the main influence in a lot of kpop. Jpop seems to be more of a fusion genre now, but they don't quite have any western equivalent. Shows like K-On and its score is an example of how loosely pop is used in jpop.

This is right. Since the very beginning K-pop drew heavily from outside, mainly mainstream Western sources but they do other stuff rarely (although it's hard to tell if they're drawing directly or indirectly through mainstream Western). J-pop "limits" itself to older sources and new developments within Asian (Japanese) music. Well, much of which comes from the West anyways. It's interesting that a lot of J-pop is infused with rock, as opposed to say hip-hop. The problem with distinguishing K-pop and J-pop like this is that K-pop also draws from the same sources as J-pop sometimes, or even from J-pop itself. Pretty often in fact. So it can be tricky sometimes.
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A lot of the recommendations have missed the mark, but some have been interesting and I'll look into them more (this is about as I expected - most of Kpop is bad to me, but I can't deny the songs that I think are great). I probably liked WJSN and Loona the most out of everything so far.
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Btw, who the hell thought having that many members in WJSN was a good thing? That's too many members

4 works pretty well, but I think up to 8 could work. Anything past that and you're practically guaranteeing that one or two of your members are not going to get very much attention. AOA has that issue sometimes with Chanmi, sometimes Mina too, and they only have 7. Can't imagine a group really doing a good job of allowing each person to actually have a presence if there's 10 or more people.
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i regret to inform you that loona has 12 members and what you saw was a sub-unit.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Btw, who the hell thought having that many members in WJSN was a good thing? That's too many members

4 works pretty well, but I think up to 8 could work. Anything past that and you're practically guaranteeing that one or two of your members are not going to get very much attention. AOA has that issue sometimes with Chanmi, sometimes Mina too, and they only have 7. Can't imagine a group really doing a good job of allowing each person to actually have a presence if there's 10 or more people.

I don't mind all the members honestly, but I can see how some get lost in the shuffle. What are your thoughts on SNSD and Twice? SNSD had 9 for many years and Twice has had 9 since their debut.

I have never listened to either

I have not heard a lot of Kpop
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TWICE is godly
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CelesMyUserName posted...

TWICE is godly

YESS

The more I listen to the songs I like, I think this is what I've started thinking:

BESTie
These are the best of my favorite 3 musically. Their releases have been the most consistent. Their side songs are usually kinda eh but listenable, and their singles are money (pretty much all of them, maybe there's one that I'm iffy on but the rest are pretty damn good). Bias is probably Uji, but Haeryung is pretty cool too.

AOA
Visually, by far the best of my favorite 3. Their music can be pretty good too, and their singles have been consistently good since probably Confused (maybe with the exception of Bing Bing and Good Luck?). Some side tracks are just as good as the singles, but some are pretty bad. Choa's voice is so damn fantastic and I'm sad she's not in the group anymore literally as I start to get into them. They're all talented though so they're still good. I actually have a ranking of my favorite AOA members
1. Choa
2. Chanmi
3. Yuna
4. Mina
5. Hyejeong
6. Seolhyun
7. Jimin
I think Jimin is easily my least favorite, but she has her moments. Her bits in Joa Yo and Short Hair are pretty cool. Seolhyun would be higher (she can sing pretty good and obviously she looks AMAZING but I feel like she's probably a bit much in person once you get to know her lol). But I really like everyone except Jimin. She's just kinda alright.

Dal Shabet
I just REALLY like Joker and Someone Like U. I've heard some of their other songs and don't like them as much (NEARLY as much). But Joker and Someone Like U are so stylish and fuckin cool. I listen that shit and just feel like I'm listening to something good. EDIT: Oh and Subin is the bias by far, she's astonishing and I'm surprised that she didn't get Dal Shabet more popular single handedly.
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I'll look into TWICE
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I don't think there's anything from TWICE I don't love

but ffffffffffff Jimin is by far the greatest so we aren't compatible at all
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I think Jimin is maybe my least favorite in every category in AOA. She's usually my least favorite to listen to, her personality is my least favorite, and I find her the least attractive of all 7. I just think her rapping voice is annoying, and Chanmi is more suited for it. I like her more in her singing parts and she doesn't do a lot of that so

In fact, when I first was listening to AOA, her rap part in many songs almost made me not keep listening to them.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

AOA
Visually, by far the best of my favorite 3. Their music can be pretty good too, and their singles have been consistently good since probably Confused (maybe with the exception of Bing Bing and Good Luck?). Some side tracks are just as good as the singles, but some are pretty bad. Choa's voice is so damn fantastic and I'm sad she's not in the group anymore literally as I start to get into them. They're all talented though so they're still good. I actually have a ranking of my favorite AOA members
1. Choa
2. Chanmi
3. Yuna
4. Mina
5. Hyejeong
6. Seolhyun
7. Jimin

If we're speaking strictly visuals with AOA, Choa and Seolhyun slay IMO. I'm also sad Choa left. She will be missed.

DreamWarrior805 posted...

If we're speaking strictly visuals with AOA, Choa and Seolhyun slay IMO.

yeah they're uh

very hot

VERY

I mean all 7 of them are attractive at the least, and Yuna is also pretty damn fine, but Choa and Seolhyun are on another level
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If you like BESTie, I'd say Sistar is worth a look. BESTie used to be called 'the next Sistar' or 'Sistar lite' depending on who you ask, but who cares they both have some good songs.

Sistar - Loving U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL2AlXWVbKU

Also worth noting that Duble Sidekick produced the best works of both. There are some very prolific producers in kpop, which can be a good way to find more stuff you'd like.

For Subin, I highly recommend checking out her solo work:

Subin - Flower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkxSc1VlrmA

Subin - Circle's Dream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdT1OEYfcMs
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To add to that, Someone Like U, Love Options, and most AOA songs since Miniskirt were all produced by Brave Brothers, who might have been the most prolific of all at one point.
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