Um...wow. It's bad, real bad. My first encounter with Korean Pop culture was within 20minutes of being in the country. When we hopped on the bus, they had a TV going and when the commercials came on I had to do a double take and look around to see if it was a spoof or something....but no one was laughing. "Are you serious?" I yelled, "very" the TV said....
How to explain it? For starters, they have about 4 songs that play on the radio. One of them is tolerable, melodically speaking, but they're all pretty tragic. Most have a line or two of English mixed in with the Korean (because English will make the song sound cool......right?) Usually something dumb like "kiss me" or "one more time" or "tell me" or "I love you".
It's systemic too, I mean, try to picture 40 year old women dressed as little school girls, or 50 year old ajummas sporting cutesy Disney apparel and you'll start to get an idea of the "innocence" or "cuteness" that pervades Korea pop culture.
As for TV...I can only compare it to the feeling I get when I watch 80's Batman, and laugh hysterically at the commercials. It's like the 80's ubercheese and sort of innocently dorky ways combined with a bit of a modern twist...add a bit of language barrier plus some Korean flavour and voila Korean Pop.
Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: this video includes an appearance by ET and Little Red Riding Hood...go figure....
(also includes an English translation for your maximum enjoyment)
3 comments:
that's pretty well an abomination. how I feel when I listen to Kool FM's horrid top forty list. a grim reminder of North American taste for all things lame and reminds me of the mass mind numbing of "brave new world". It's the great modern Soma.
Can you say "SPECIAL"! I'm at a loss for my favourite costume choice on there. Although the guy in the dancing scene with the florescent pink pants and pony tail on his head was definitely a top contender. Wow brings me back to.
"If you want
America's
BEST PERMS"
Clearly I can't do it justice, as I don't have a rewind feature or bright letters to project across the screen. Ahhhh 80's batman commercials. SO GREAT!
yea....
its pretty special eh?
IF
YOU
WANT
AMERICAS
BEST
PERMS
Mwuhoohahaha!
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