Free time from a week off work + some kdramas taking the week off + inspiration from all those other year-end lists drove me to check out (*gasp* I’m not much of a music fan) Kpopalypse’s year-end top 30, AND to actually watch the videos (**double gasp** I like the frequent shifts in most music videos even less than I like most music). But it wasn’t a total waste of my time, there are cats in two of the videos.

https://kpopalypse.com/2019/12/31/kpopalypses-30-favourite-k-pop-songs-of-2019/

For those new to him, he definitely has a way with words, even if many of them aren’t printable. Some of the safer excerpts in the comment.

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    it’s nice to be able to follow a k-pop group that works as hard as any other but probably also gets to eat occasionally

    I suppose in 2019 we should probably just be grateful if agencies manage to refrain from either suing their own talent or shoving them in a van and sending them over to YG’s nightclubs

    it’s good to have this video to remember that Gahyeon wasn’t an anemic waif at least once during her career

    some seriously face-melting guitar solos that would make most of Korea’s boring coffee shop “rock bands” shit their pants

    The only time they really struggle to get “pro-woman” content right consistently is with performers like Ailee or Mamamoo, where they always lean far too hard on the vocals because they have so much some vocal ability, but with most girl groups that isn’t really an issue because none of them can actually sing that well anyway. Lack of vocal ability in k-pop is almost always a good thing for the music overall, it means that the songwriters are working within strict limitations

    Believe it or not, Kanye West isn’t all that well known where I live. Sure, a few people vaguely remember him as “that idiot who acted like a dick to Taylor Swift before it was trendy to act like a dick to Taylor Swift“, and “the guy who was actually able to sit in a room with Donald Trump and be the bigger narcicist”, but beyond this he’s “that random guy who married a Kardashian”

    Rather than pushing the vocals up in that generic ballad way with cheesy insulting-to-the-intelligence “look ma how good I can sing” high notes

    Sometimes retro is cool because the wisdom of hindsight pays off when combined with technology of today making it easier to create art than ever before, and so these days you don’t need to die with a needle in your arm to make music better than someone who did

    it’s still an amazing song that should have been more recognised at the time, but of course it wasn’t, because this is 2019 and we can’t have music quality being a determining factor in if something becomes popular

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