It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
I’m going to see 2ne1 in Bangkok this afternoon (flex), and it’s got me thinking about my K-pop journey, since “Fire” is one of the first few K-pop songs I ever heard, and 2ne1 is one of the first groups I was aware of. But my K-pop gateway drug, i.e. the very first song that got me into K-pop, was “Hot Issue”, and the very first K-pop group I even knew was a K-pop group was 4Minute.
Which has me wondering… what the fuck happened to 4Minute?
With K-pop and all things Korea taking over the culture, it seems like all the 2nd gen groups are having some level of activity. Even if not putting out new music (SNSD, Sistar, Kara, Fiestar, SHINee, BigBang, SuJu, Teen Top, U-KISS, Beast, etc.), they’re doing *something*. Serri and Subin performed Dal Shabet songs at a Waterbomb in 2023. T-Ara dropped a lightstick in 2024. 2nd gen idols are always popping up on Knowing Bros. or MC’ing some singing competition or something. Other than some rookie group doing a cover of “Hot Issue” once every 5 years, it’s like the whole group disappeared down that ventilation shaft along with their fans.
When they disbanded in 2016, I remember the online vibes among the (then tiny) online K-pop community being “K-pop isn’t K-pop without 4Minute” (this was before I found Kpopalypse, so I’m not sure what your take was at the time). Now they can’t even get played on a RPD.
Why has 4Minute been memory holed?
(I know Hyuna’s was cancelled last year for getting engaged to someone in the orbit of Burning Sun (literally and figuratively; her US concerts were cancelled), but 4Minute had vanished from collective memory long before. Are there a bunch of other groups that were just as big and are just as dormant, like Secret or Miss A, but I’m only focusing on 4Minute because they were important to me? Maybe. Could they be inactive because it turns out they were just Hyuna and 4 hacks after all, like the haters were always saying? Possibly. Did they just suck? If so, I’ll have to adjust my suck meter, since I thought they were great.)
Ah, 4minute. Conversations about their fate always take me back to how a certain publication (who won’t be named due to Kpopalypse boycotts) insisted that T-ara would disintegrate in 2013 but that 4minute would have a long future. Of course I knew the reverse was true, and the cracks in 4minute started forming pretty quickly after that publication’s claim. This is actually what inspired me to do my yearly “prediction” posts, just to drive home the point that while I certainly don’t know everything and am just as capable of getting things wrong as anybody, I probably do still know more than some random idiot at a k-pop “news” site with no experience in the inner workings of music.
4minute were a group that were pretty hit and miss for me, but their hits were certainly bone-fide good, and when I saw them live in 2013 at arguably the height of their powers they were definitely able to pull together a mostly entertaining set. The group suffered from the same fate as The Supremes, Destiny’s Child and many others, where one member’s star shines so bright that it overshadows everyone else, and 4minute ended up being treated both internally and externally as “Hyuna and the other four girls”. In a pop music scene like k-pop where the main competitive aspect that members of a group typically feel is not externally but with each other for attention and contracts, this is an almost surefire recipe for disaster as it tends to breed bitterness and resentment in the less popular members who feel like their time is being wasted. Now that Hyuna herself is facing career struggles of her own and isn’t the big cultural force that she once was, the group that was synonymous with her has little chance to be relevant again in the near term. Can’t rule out a revival at some point though but I think the members have mostly gone their separate ways. For my money the best post-4minute work comes from Jiyoon, now the singer in PRSNT.
can you share with me which k-pop community is the most “genuine”? like they’re actual people who want to enjoy K-Pop together or something. I actually think “people” on twitter, reddit, pannchoa, etc. are all bots or k-pop company marketing staff or something. they don’t talk like how real people should talk
My own. I’m completely serious about this. I think I attract people from all walks of life who have different opinions on all sorts of things but I think the fact they’ve all resonated with my writing to some extent means that they mostly are actually interested in the music that gets made and not the other bullshit.
You’re not imagining the “bot” flavour on other websites, mind you k-pop fans are so brainwashed by hypercapitalist corporate cheerleading that a lot of them behave like bots quite willingly to the point where no extra media manipulation is required.
what’s your opinion on bluey, the current face of Australia
Bloody potent.
Oh wait, you’re not talking about the Australian 70s cop show Bluey (that was famously redubbed as “Bargearse” by Australia comedy skit show “The Late Show”) but the children’s cartoon? I wasn’t a child when that came out, nor do I have children, so I haven’t seen it.
thoughts on Troye Sivan? He’s both gay and Australian, two things you appreciate
I don’t appreciate Australians in pop music though. We should all stop that sort of thing in this country and leave it to the Koreans. Why do you think I’m not Australiapopalypse.
Hello Oppar from France,
I have two music-related questions for you that aren’t about K-Pop this time, but rather about French music (hoho).
Recently, I was listening to this song by a French singer. I couldn’t help but notice that the piano in the background seems somewhat similar to the one in “Children” by R. Miles. Of course, I’m not asking whether it’s “plagiarism”—I couldn’t care less about those issues—but simply whether I’m right about the resemblance or if it’s just some sort of auditory illusion on my part. In either case, I’d love to know how this sense of similarity might be explained.
I’d also like to ask a similar question about this track. To my ears, it seems inspired by this one. Could you also please explain what makes me think this way here ?
Merci beaucoup for taking the time to answer my curiosity!
Hi there! It’s really difficult to answer these questions because you haven’t gone into much detail about exactly what is it in these songs that you find similar. Okay, the piano in the first one, but which part specifically? Some timestamps would have been helpful here. I didn’t find the piano in the two songs very similar at all, other than it was definitely a piano in both songs, and all pianos sound similar to some extent just by virtue of being pianos. It’s really hard to know what you’re hearing here with more information. The second song, I’d say the harmony is a little bit similar in a few isolated parts, but then a lot of things about the songs are different, too. Once again without timestamps or more info I’m clutching at straws here and can’t really be more helpful than this, as just like with the first example, these two songs certainly are not very similar.
Hi Oppar, how do I deal with casually bigoted parents? The internet says it’s my job to educate them but honestly, I can’t really be fucked. I was taught as a kid to not talk back or say what I dislike about them (especially to my mom), so I’ve gotten used to staying quiet and hoping they’d get the memo (ofc they don’t and I’m an adult now so I’m more responsible to do something about it). I could put in the effort of speaking up but at best all it might achieve is them continuing to say racist shit, just not around me. My dad is a lot more insufferable about this, as I can’t have a single coversation without him saying something, so I’ve been almost entirely avoiding him (though regardless he’s unpleasant to speak with). Am I in the wrong and what should I do?
You’re probably not going to change them, realistically. People who are old are generally pretty set in their modes of thinking. They’ll change if they want to, but they have to want to, and that’s difficult to convince people to do, especially people who are older and have spent their whole life believing a certain thing. This whole “you have a responsibility to…” no you fuckin’ don’t, not really. Waste of time anyway, honestly. Just accept that they will probably always be that way. That doesn’t mean bow down to it either – certainly if they say some shit around you that you disagree with, tell them that you disagree with it and why. There’s no need to be coy about it either, it’s okay to stick up for your beliefs. However don’t expect them to change their beliefs either. You’re allowed to have your beliefs and so are they. They’re allowed to be wrong, you’re allowed to tell them they’re wrong, and they’re allowed to continue to be wrong after that. Mind you it’s also sometimes okay to just say to yourself “I can’t be fucked talking about this right now” because these are generally big conversations. Even if you do change their minds one day, it’s not going to be with just one conversation – ingrained attitudes and beliefs take a lot of time to change. Don’t cut them off though, that’s the most important thing. If you stop talking to them completely, you’ve lost them to bigotry forever. People who are bigoted need sane, non-bigoted people in their actual lives to show them there’s a better way. Leading by example is what makes a difference more than destroying someone’s argument.
What does Kpopalypse’s girlfriend do for a living?
Also, I feel like you often mention being the one to cook. Do you do most of the cooking in your household? has this been common across your relationships? (Lucky Kpopalypse!exes if so, none of the guys I meet can ever cook.)
I won’t talk about my girlfriend’s occupation here for privacy reasons.
We probably do the cooking about 50/50, it just depends on who is busier, has more time/motivation to cook, has more ingredients in the cupboard that they’re good at working with etc. We have different things in the kitchen that we’re good at, so this means a lot of variety, which is nice. There was only one other girlfriend I had long term who used to cook a fair bit and she was fairly unspectacular at it (although like most women, she thought she was great at it and you couldn’t tell her otherwise). Most of my other girlfriends didn’t cook for me much, if at all.
you know that meme that says “it was nice that something good happened to you, however it should’ve happened to me instead”?
well yesterday i stumbled upon the twitter feed of an online ex-friend. ex-friend because he was an annoying snob about idol music (he only listens to “intellectual” idol music like nugu groups, korean live idols and even those edgy japanese anti-idols), and because he was a massive hypocrite who constantly trash talked his acquaintances behind their backs under the guise of being a sassy gay boy. i always supposed he would talk behind my back aswell and didn’t want to submit myself to that type of toxic energy so i blocked him.
well recently i stumbled upon his twitter feed, read a lil out of sheer curiosity and found out that he is doing well enough to 1) emigrate to europe (we’re both from third world countries) and 2) visit korea to see all his (and mine) favorite idol groups live and it made me REALLY JEALOUS LOL. it feels unfair! i’m very very very jealous! it also made me feel like an absolute loser and ruined my day because despite us being the same age and him coming from slightly better circumstances as me he still managed to fulfill all my koreaboo dreams while i’ve spent the last decade just trying to survive mental illness and get my life on track.
and also… ALL the people in my mutual online circles have visited asia and have seen their faves live, multiple times. i’m literally the only one who hasn’t done it and i’m already in my 30s. i don’t know how people manage to travel overseas it’s like magic to me.
mentally, i’m doing much better than before and achieved very important things for myself and i think i shouldn’t be too hard on myself, but i always wanted to travel the world and visit korea, china and japan and see my fave kpop-cpop-jpop groups live and that’s just never happening at this point because everything is too expensive due to my shitty third world currency and i can barely save any money in my current job (and the few i can save is going straight to corrective eye surgery as i can’t see shit without my glasses).
and if i do get to save enough money to travel, by the time i finally get to those countries, most of my favorite groups will have disbanded, most of the the idols will have retired/graduated and the music scenes will probably have dissappeared. or worse… i could be unlucky enough to catch the one time they have a bad performance. or they could be promoting their latest release and it happens to be a totally shit song. so like there’s no point anymore.
my question is then, how do i cope with this? how do i accept that the time to travel and see my faves live already passed and that my dreams will just stay as that- simply dreams?
and yes, i do listen to plenty of non-asian music and i even go to local gigs of local bands and i’ve enjoyed that very much. i would join a grindcore band like shin hana but nobody nearby my age is nearly that cool.
This feels relatable, I feel a bit the same way, I’m way too poor to go travel and see groups, I have to hope they come to me and even then I’m usually too poor to get over to see them, or the gig just gets fucking cancelled for some reason (which has happened to about 50% of k-pop shows I’ve tried to attend, another factor which makes me super not motivated to try to attend more). But I don’t worry about it much. I mean meeting your bias… isn’t that big of a deal to be honest. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few people that I follow in the western music world (not saying who because cringe name-dropping is cringe) and… I mean, they’re just people. Not that they weren’t nice or whatever, but they are also just human and it doesn’t seem worth the big chunk of airfare people spend on it, if I did spend big money on something like that I’d regret it for sure. If I were you I’d refocus my energy into succeeding in other ways. There’s all sorts of ways in life to succeed.
why do you think you’re so social online when you’re a massive introvert in regular life? Different energy expenditures?
I wouldn’t say I’m very social online at all. I mainly just keep to my own website, I barely promote, I don’t participate in forums that much, and my livestreams are probably the shortest in existence from any regular livestreamer out there. I guess I interact a bit with these question and answer things, but I can do it at my own pace mostly so it fits with my introvert brain. In fact it’s probably this constant Q&A stuff that I do which partially feeds my need to not interact in other ways.
So I finally visited the kpop store in my town after living like 10 minutes from Chinatown for 5 months (they don’t allow food/drink/backpacks in the store and as a student I ALWAYS have a backpack+water on me, but they told me I could just keep it at the front door.)
1) They have a policy against taking pictures. Is this because like in a museum, the pictures could degrade the quality of the photos?
2) I looked for some albums to buy of my favorite artists, but dang, even for my favorite ones I can’t really find a single album that has more hits than misses for me. I kept thinking “man if this was a compilation track of the most popular singles+a few hit bsides I’d definitely get it, but otherwise it’s just not worth it.” So I just got a planner and a cool noh-face themed gel pen. But the planner was SuperM themed and the broken English “I love you girl” captions on all the pages will definitely make me suspicious if I use it in public lmao. (Nobody in SuperM is really my type and even if they were I wouldn’t find these cheesy phoned-in declarations of love from 7 random men particularly encouraging.)
3) Complaining section: The single albums are just as expensive as EPs and full albums and have like 2 songs per (not a good deal even if I like both.) All the albums I *knew* I liked were sold out even if the store had the rest of the albums from the groups available (ReVe Festival Finale + Summer Magic + Red Summer for Red Velvet, and the collective soul and unconsciousness: chapter one for Billlie.) Billlie was a real disappointment since they had LITERALLY every other album in stock. I’m assuming these are popular albums so aren’t in stock as often? I might go back and get the Antifragile album since it has all songs i can tolerate and some neat kintsugi packaging, but I really wish it was a best of compilation that included The Great Mermaid and Blue Flame ajioeuwgihiurawigqwew
4) I found a few albums from groups from like 2013-2015 who disbanded after one comeback I’d never heard of before, which was neat. Didn’t buy them though.
5) Are there many kpop vinyls? I recently bought a cheap record player secondhand for like $20 from one of the richer college students who lives nearby. It looks like the records are usually more expensive than that. Is this because vinyl is a sort of dying format and more expensive to produce than it used to be, or is vinyl always more expensive than CDs to produce generally? (Also LPs come with way fewer songs than CDs usually, furthering the price difference.)
1. They’re probably selling at least some stuff which is unofficial i.e pirated material. Back when there were such k-pop stores in Australia’s Chinatowns, a lot of them would sell these dodgy DVD compilations, that contained all of an artist’s videos compiled together. If they had extra room on the DVD they’d then also add various live performances, solo projects etc… and if it was a newer group without many releases, sometimes even MVs from completely different groups! I’ll show you one of these compilation DVDs from my personal collection:
Note how the tracklist starts with the official 2NE1 MVs and then progresses to collabs and live appearances just to fill up space. Also note the typographical errors here and there on the rear cover. You might find the store may be selling pirated k-dramas and k-movies too, these are pretty easy to spot due to the shitty gloss DVD packaging which is of similar quality to the k-pop stuff and probably packaged by the same shady companies.
2. This is exactly how I feel about it also and the compilation DVDs in the Australian Chinatowns probably existed to cater to this type of demand. People want the feature tracks mainly rather than filler and they also like having visuals. I got the DVD shown above precisely because the “Scream” music video kept getting deleted from YouTube by their weird Japanese company.
3. When you’re buying a k-pop “album” the “album” that you’re really paying for is the photobook, not the CD. That’s why they call singles a “single album”, for instance – it’s a single, that comes with an album, which is the photo album. So you’ll find that the amount of songs on the disc doesn’t correlate a great deal to the price you pay – what correlates instead is how involved the packaging materials are, as that’s where the real expense in the physical product is, and also the popularity of the group (less popular groups will usually be at a lower price point, but not always).
4. I have a few of those too. I have everything physical that Gangkiz ever put out…
5. Not that I’ve seen. I’m sure they exist but vinyl is expensive to produce whereas CD is dirt cheap, also vinyl has some interesting sonic limitations due to the nature of what vinyl is (such as the amount of very low bass you can reproduce, for instance) that make it a less than ideal format for modern electronic pop music.
I noticed you have switched over to proton for your email. With the increase in AI tools and concerns about data scraping, I am thinking more carefully about the “free” services I use. Why did you move over?
I switched over many years ago! Although amusingly, some people who spam me with random offers and bullshit still haven’t noticed the switch after all this time. I think it’s always funny when they send me an email telling me they’re a great fan of the site and do I want to collab on some random thing while using a decade-old email address that they didn’t check. Anyway I moved because more and more I found myself corresponding with people who also used Protonmail and didn’t trust other more popular mail services like Google because they were worried about confidentiality and data privacy etc given the types of things they were telling me about the industry and the types of data leaks big tech companies are known for. I made the switch to Protonmail purely to increase their confidence that anything they told me via email as well as any images they sent etc would be kept confidential unless they specifically wanted it to be released.
Sometimes I get really tired about the stupidity of people on the internet. Here’s a question for you that was proposed in an STS class I took: has social media/the internet fundamentally changed the ways that humans communicate?
Your 2025 Kpopalypse Awards made me think about this question again. Every year it’s similar themes; I always have a good chuckle at the most hated KPOP girl group section: “supposedly hated for some scandals no-one cares about, but really hated because they dared to debut and show their faces.” But since I’ve been a fan of yours for almost 5 years now (!!), so this year your awards also made me sad. It’s hard to see there being any sort of meaningful change anytime soon to address cyberbullying. And as a US citizen, I am thinking about these issues more consciously since Elon Musk may have unprecedented sway in US social media regulation and this makes me feel BAD.
There is an argument to be had that people were stupid beforehand, but this stupidity was localized so the whole world wasn’t aware of some dumb thing happening in whatever small town somewhere. I feel like the ability for near instantaneous communication over the internet (vs writing letters), access to a huge audience (much larger than newspaper classifieds), anonymity, and low activation energy (writing a letter takes a while) all combine to encourage new heights of stupidity. People can post off the cuff or hateful posts on X in seconds and do not have to face consequences for their ideas.
I’m glad to have your site as a place to slow down and think more deeply about issues hehe. Happy New Year
A secondary follow-up to the early question would be do you think there is need for further internet/social media regulation or social media use education? Would either of these solve the human stupidity issue? Your website has definitely been educational for me, maybe you should rebrand yourself and pick up a tagline of “teaching fans of kpop to be less stupid”
A summary:
-has social media/the internet fundamentally changed the ways that humans communicate?
-should internet/social media communication be regulated and/or should there be additional focus on social media use education? Would either action have any effect on perceived human stupidity?
People have always been stupid, this hasn’t changed much. What has changed is the ability for stupid people on the Internet to find other people on the Internet who share their stupidity. If you believe in some total bullshit, now you can find a whole bunch of other people really easily from around the world who also believe in the same bullshit. It’s allowed fringe networks of all types to grow, and that includes the really bad types of fringe networks. It’s allowed people to deepen and cement their wrongly-held beliefs because “look at all these other people who feel the same way”, never mind that you might also be the only person who feels that way within a 50km radius of your house. The social corrective mechanisms of a real-live peer group are less effective when you’re part of a cult-like Internet community who accepts you even when your friends don’t.
I don’t really know the answer to regulation. The nature of the Internet is such that any regulative attempt probably will backfire. Look at how the USA’s attempted TikTok ban because of TikTok’s Chinese influence just forced people to experiment with other Chinese apps instead. Expect similar “cobra effects” from further regulation attemps, like the misguided social media age limit in Australia, which is well-intentioned in theory but I think the goverment is underestimating the media savvy of the average young person. At the end of the day parents should definitely be the ones to regulate their children rather than the government, but then what if the parents are shit, or what if the parents actually are the ones suckered in by the bullshit, which is more often than not the case? So I’m not sure of the right answer here. Boomer network Facebook is probably more dangerous than Twitter, because Facebook attracts an older audience who are less tech savvy and more likely to be fooled by a bit of AI tinkering, media manipulation or social engineering. If you think young people are too easily fooled by bad media, wait until you meet old people. Education is of course a better answer, but how to go about it, and how to ensure the quality of it, is a question and probably one for someone with more expertise in that field than me. I do my best to help people be less stupid, it probably makes some form of difference but I have no idea how much. I’m still a cunt though.
i’m 19 but i look fucking 14, and it frankly sucks. yeah i know i know i’ll thank god for my babyface when i’m older – i get this from my mum who too looks younger than she is. fun when you’re in your 40s-50s, not fun when guys your age think you’re a baby. what also doesn’t help is that i’m short (5 foot nothing) and slightly chubby. so how should i change my fashion to appear older?
Someone I met through work a while back was very short, very petite, I though she was a child, I was like “who brought this kid into the workplace”, turns out she’s over 30 and is also married with two children. When she did look a bit older (like maybe 21 rather than 12) was when she had longer hair that was not tied back, also when she dressed more corporate office style in suits, pants or pencil skirts etc rather than casual clothes, so maybe try those things and see how you go.
What is your opinion on the new trend for 8D audio videos of K-pop performances? Personally I can’t see how it adds to anything but instead just randomly sends elements of the stage performance out of different speakers. All the stranger considering the lip syncing.
A total wank to be honest, 8D my ass, more like they sucked on 8 D’s while making it. Personally I’d rather listen to a track without it panning around in stereo in a really annoying and intrusive way.
Why do asianjunkie censor so much things?
Not sure what you mean exactly, you’ll have to be more specific. Not that I would even fucking know, maybe try asking him instead of me. Then you can tell me and then we’ll both know the answer.
I’ve been pretty openly bi to my friends and family since high school, I would say? Maybe it’s because my friends are all quite progressive that I didn’t realize how homophobic and ignorant the average person is until I started dating outside of my college circle recently.
I guess I’ve been extremely naive, as I figured out my sexuality pretty early and so never had to go on a trip of self-discovery and hatred etc.
I dated two guys recently. The first one mentioned off-handedly that he thinks bisexuals are “greedy,” and then the second one interrogated me about whether I would hit on or fall in love with my female friends when I went out to clubs and I guess cheat on him (???). I had to take like 30 minutes to explain to him that I’m not attracted to every man and woman I see. Like what the fuck?
I’m realizing that men genuinely think a woman saying she’s bi means she’s a “freak”, a cheater, or happy to do threesomes.
there’s obviously nothing wrong with threesomes or being freaky obviously…it’s just not me. at all.I know a lot of lesbians also don’t like bisexuals. I have a friend who is bisexual with a strong preference for women, and they told me they just say they’re lesbian to avoid these same sorts of conversations.
It’s a long winded question, but should I just go back in the closet when it comes to dating?
It seems like the only people who are comfortable with me being bi are other bisexual people. Like no one else seems to have any conception of what they’re like, and they seem to spit out a bunch of biphobic garbage at me that I’m finding more and more disheartening as I date.
If anything, I’m jealous of bi people. More options, right? Also I’d find it personally useful to be able to perceive male sexual attractiveness, which I honestly cannot do because I’m so heterosexual and boring. I mean I know objectively that Brad Pitt is considered generally attractive while Steve Buscemi is considered generally unattractive, and I know why, but I only know these things because people tell me them. I know Steve’s buggy eyes make him unattractive, but only because I’ve been told that. His male buggy eyes doesn’t register innately with me as either a turn-off or a turn-on compared to Brad Pitt’s male non-buggy eyes, because I just don’t respond at all to male physical appeal I don’t “feel” this innate unattractiveness, I just objectively know it because people told me it.
It’s generally better to be honest when dating, but it’s also a good idea to time when you reveal things. Being honest doesn’t mean “tell everyone everything about you straight away including the shit they’re not ready for”. I mean, the man who thinks that all bisexuals must be sluts or cheaters, do you really want to be with that person anyway? If you don’t, then just tell him you’re bi straight up and then you can weed him out, which might not be a bad thing. On the other hand if you wouldn’t mind at least one night with someone who is hot, even if they’re possibly a bit fuckin’ stupid, perhaps hold back that sort of information for a while, then see how he deals with it in the morning. It’s up to you and what you’re comfortable with. A lot of people probably will require some educating though because there’s nobody really teaching this stuff as far as I can tell, mind you you might just meet someone like me who has dated bi girls all his life and it’s just like “oh, another bi person, I guess bi girls like me a lot [shrug]”.
Hi, kpopalypse oppa. It’s not my first time asking a question but it’s my first time asking a relationship question. I met this girl a few months ago and we really clicked. We have a lot of interests in common, we both play instruments (I play the guitar, she plays the bass), we both love reading and writing, we both enjoy hiking and traveling – just a few examples. We talk every single day, we hang out as often as we can (we both work full time so it can be a little tricky), we flirt all the time, we’re planning a trip together… But I’m really scared to ask her how she feels about me. I really care about her and if she wanted to be more than friends I’d be more than happy about it, but I also don’t want to risk bringing it up and ruining our friendship. I flirt with my friends often and a lot of things I do with her are things I’d do with any other friends. But she’s special to me in a way other people aren’t. I just don’t know if she feels the same and I don’t know if I should risk it. Thank you for reading this. It sounds a bit silly when I write it down, but talking about it helps
I hope you had a great January!
Just fucking ask her, fuck it. She’ll probably say yes. Women don’t tend to spend a ton of time with guys they don’t like, if you’re talking literally every day that’s a good a sign as any other that she’s into you. Planning a trip together… yeah, she’s into you. She’s probably been impatiently waiting for you to make the first move here. If you don’t make it, she might be writing me a question for the February edition “I’m pretty sure he’s into me and I’ve been making it real fucking obvious but why won’t this idiot say anything?” So just do it. “Ruin the friendship” pfft… I’m sure you also have other friends. If she’s not into you that way but just wants to be your friend, that would be weird, but if that’s the case, then fine, right? Better to know than not to know.
I know you can play many instruments. Of those you can play, what’s your favorite and why? Is your overall favorite different from the one you love playing most? Of those you can’t play, what’s your favorite? Finally, what do you think of synths?
I don’t really have one favourite instrument. Guitar, bass, drums, piano, they’re all cool in really different ways, I think I enjoy playing them all equally although I might like guitar a little more to play, and piano a little more to listen to. I do have some hated instruments though. I really dislike harmonica for instance. Most of the instruments that I can’t play (brass, woodwind) I also don’t like that much, which is why I didn’t learn how to play them.
Synths are a lot of fun. I don’t really get into making synth music much but having a workstation keyboard that’s able to reproduce synth noises is dead useful. It really helps for making the computer games, for instance. They’re also just fin to mess around with.
Can I email you?
Yes! No need to ask for permission, nobody else ever does. Anyone can email me, my email address is in the “about” section of my website, which is here. Emails are at your own risk, particularly shitty emails may appear in future posts…
Can you rank all your songs from all of your top 30s from each year? (Or like draw a line graph that shows the ups and down overall of kpop music through the years? MS Paint is encouraged). I want to know if there are any K-pop songs now that rival the golden years for you. I was thinking about this since the worst 30 from the golden era did not seem so so bad compared to the unlistenable stuff from this year (like Island from that girl group without autotune).
Also what you you think has caused the decline in topline melodies in kpop? Is this just a general pop thing? I notice song tone is so inconsistent in kpop now (especially with all the shouting bullshit) whereas even in the worst songs from the golden era the melodies were boring but at least more consistent over their thumping dance beats. …just some gutter production values… Too many chefs in the kitchen? To many kitchens for the chefs?
All time list – I won’t be doing this, because if I did this I’d have to constantly update it to keep it curent (otherwise it wouldn’t be an all-time list) which would get super annoying. Don’t worry in 2030 I’ll give you a summary of the decade just like I did with the 2010s, but as for “best of all time”, no. The list would be redundant the very week after it appeared. Maybe one day in the far future when I quit writing, assuming that I see the end of my writing career coming and don’t suddenly fap myself to death one day.
Decline in topline melodies is just a trend in music fashion. Like all music fashion trends, it will eventually trend the other way and in fact I can see signs of this trend reversing already.
I didn’t think I loved “Let it Burn” that much, but whenever the chorus hits I’m brought to tears. A similar song where this happens is “Love Bomb” by fromis_9. Both songs I don’t consciously love (though I think they’re not bad) but consistently make me cry which kind of gaslights me into feeling like they’re super good bc why else would they be that impactful? Any thoughts on why this is?
It’s your subconscious mind telling you that they are in fact awesome. You just need to awaken your consciousness appropriately to sense it. When this effect happens (or something similar) to me it generally feels like a combination of certain melody, harmony, lyrical and other delivery choices such as dynamics and mood, although I can’t point to a singular factor. I’d say out of last year’s songs NMIXX “Love Is Lonely” got the closest to this for me.
I’m a classical musician (well I think so, don’t really perform or compete publicly anymore because such opportunities are very expensive and time consuming, but I still learn classical music for myself.) I find it interesting that you say music isn’t sport and shouldn’t be treated as such, because competitions are a large element of the classical music “scene.” I think they’re often a good thing, because they often have certain requirements which can make people reach out of their comfort zones/learn things they normally wouldn’t play, and high-profile ones can improve your performance opportunities or earn you money.
I think sport such as “well who’s the technically best vocalist in pop” or even ranking people’s preferences as if they have consistent objective value is bad; I also dislike survival shows. But I also believe competition often motivates people to stretch and do things they otherwise wouldn’t be motivated to.
I suppose an alternative to competitions would be “everybody show up and play Chopin, no rankings, only feedback” (for example.) This would be interesting I think because it’d be a labor of love for the participants and could result in more experimental picks which aren’t usually competition-appropriate. However, you wouldn’t be able to offer anyone money, since there’s probably not enough for everyone and any unequal money on the line leads to competition.
I agree songwriting competitions also seem potentially subjective and annoying since ultimately what people buy/listen to is different from “objective quality,” but some people do get their starts from competitions (like Eminem for example, or Måneskin.) Classical music is also highly technical in that ultimately extraordinary technique plus iterative practice is very important to express most pieces or get noticed, and it’s a very “covers-heavy” world so to speak. Other scenes seem to have more emphasis on expression or attractiveness or writing catchy tunes, so I could see competing being less relevant.
So what do you think? Sport in classical music yay or nay (and are competitions even sport?)
If you play music, you’re a musician. So yes you are a musician.
If you play sport, you’re a… sportperson? Or whatever. Who cares about that really, not me.
I don’t like music competitions at all. I didn’t get involved in any of that shit when I was at classical music university, I just worried about doing what I needed to do to pass my course and that was all. I agree that competitions can help you hone your skills though, but so can just practice for its own sake. Maybe some people need that competitive element to motivate themselves and kick themselves into gear or whatever and that’s fine I guess, maybe some personality types get off on that, but it’s not for me, in fact I find it intensely demotivating. Yes there’s also money in competition winnings but in my opinion that money would be better spent in other ways, like raising the actual wages for all types of performing musicians, not just the one person who can play more sixteenth notes than the others.
do you know these groups?
– double b
– kingdom (2018 group)
– refiners
– 10×10
– fantastie
– underdog (zombie run was soty)
– lucky girlswhats your favorite song from extremely hardcore nugu group?
– i actually read nugualert im extremely hardcore nugustan
– i know bigstar because i stan unb
I’m not here to play hipster. If you like something share a song.
Best nugu song to ever exist:
I know you don’t care too much about vocalist ability (for good reason. No one else really cares), and many great vocalists have songs that are basically virtuoso showoffs rather than music for listening (honestly reminiscent of Godowsky and Paganini). When have a great vocalist elevated their music in a way that less skilled ones could not even with technical assistance? I want to hear some examples to see for myself what’s the point.
For that, we need to go outside of k-pop, because there are no examples within k-pop worth a fucking shit.
The second verse of this particular recording of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” has the best punk rock vocals ever recorded. That crescendo at 1:17 is everything that people pretend IU’s “Good Day” is, but it actually isn’t. Shivers down my spine every single time and I’ve heard it hundreds of times.
Obituary’s John Tardy is the best death metal vocalist ever. Incredible sustained delivery plus perfect articulation, he sings so you can actually understand every word cleanly without compromising an inch on guttural heaviness.
Rap music simply doesn’t require vocal skill. All the skill is in thinking up the rap flows, not in delivering them. Period. Tell that to the fucking moron mouth-breathing knuckle-scrapers who start k-pop rap threads in k-pop forums, talking about “breath control” or some bullshit, trying to justify their biases’ shitty ass raps. Exception: if you rap like RA The Rugged Man raps (and your bias definitely doesn’t).
If you want “singing”, Diamanda Galas is technically the most accomplished vocalist I have ever heard in any genre. Opera vocal style wielded as a ruthless weapon with pure technique employed to the maximum to devastating effect, no compromise to anything and especially not your sanity. I attended a performance of hers and it was the most divided audience I’ve ever seen – half the audience gave her a standing ovation and the other half walked out in sheer horror because they couldn’t handle it.
Second prize goes to King Diamond, another person who plunders opera technique but does it for good music rather than bad.
Hope this helps.
Hey oppar
I just wanted to let you know that asking your girlfriend to answer fan questions is deeply disrespectful to caonimas. We put up with your stupid posts, we put up with your dating, how much more do we have to endure. I defend you from haters tirelessly, but you just go on and blatantly mention her again and again. If you do so again, I will leave the fandom. If you think of your fans take a break and reflect please. That is the only way to show your determination. Before you leave though please post shirtless selcas.
Kpopalypse-yah, hwaiting!
I reflected for two seconds while writing this reply. I hope that’s enough, I’m really busy answering questions right now. I’ll reflect more later if you think I still need to.
I’m still practicing my “Sex Like A Pickle” titty flexing, I’ve got it down pretty good but I want to get to the point where I can do it like the guys in the video, I’m only about 65% of the way there please be patient with me.
Also this really wasn’t a question so JAV of the Month is SONE-526. Some sites only have the first 45 minutes for some reason so make sure you get the full two-hour thing for maximum plot.
Is IU a slut or a cunt? I think slut.
IU is getting laid because why wouldn’t she be, you would be too if you were her. She owns her own fucking apartment block, she could set aside an entire penthouse suite just for that purpose alone, plus hire someone to clean up after each session (probably Annie would do it for a small fee).
1. Do you think kpop girlies (and a lot of other women) like IU Krystal raina fetishize relationships with older men cuz I see them talking about/with posters of movies like Leon and the lover which are pretty sus but I’m sure they not pedos.
Like for example iu was sexualized as a teen but she wrote a song called Leon and I don’t think it’s really calling anyone out. The 23 mv was definitely though. Also for zeze I don’t think she was calling anyone out either, I think she was just writing a love song with some innuendo and was misunderstood by crazies cuz if you listen to the album intros she just talks about the boy’s character and says she finds it sexy but makes it clear she wasn’t talking about the boy so she def not pedo.
[some stuff redacted at reader request]
It’s not just them but a lot of people too, so why do you think so many romantize these movies, cuz I don’t think they are all Pedo even though there is a huge market and that’s why kpop dog whistles and so much porn is like that.2. Can you pls rec artists with songs like sulli’s Dorothy cuz I feel like it’s just ambiance music but I can’t find anything else with vocals in it.
What you or k-pop fans in general might see as “romanticisation” or “fetishisation” might in fact be something else. Sometimes it is that, but sometimes it’s a way for the artist themselves to come to terms with and reconcile their past. Maybe they’re using the songs to try and work through their emotions and feelings, or give themselves a sense of perspective on it. Music writing is a good way to work through life events, and someone like IU… would probably have had a shitload to work through at one point. I don’t think anyone should be in a position to tell anyone else what they can and cannot write about. Unless it’s sport. Fuck sport.
No idea about “Dorothy”, maybe someone else can chime in on that one.
What to do if you just killed someone
How Marry a kpop
Give them a ring, ask them if they wanna do it. Disclaimer: might work for you about as well as it did for that guy pursuing Shu in the Shin Hana books.
How to be look a kpop
Why are you a kpop
Thoughts on vvvv?
[link removed for the good of humanity]
Other than the part where the tonality is fucked before the final chorus (should have used the Og LE SSERAFIM part), kinda hits.
Fan mashups are banned at kpopalypse.com sorry
Is there a reason pop music doesn’t just use good music from video game composers and add vocals to them? Beyond the genre change from pop, is there a particular issue with adding vocals to music written without vocals? Or, I guess they could get those composers to write vocal music as well. I guess my question is more why don’t we see pop music from these composers who’ve had a better track record than a lot of pop music writers?
Usually a song written for a video game that doesn’t have vocals in it, has something else substituting for vocals and performing a similar role in terms of bringing catchiness. So if you were to then add vocals, you’d usually have to remove that other element so the vocals could do it, or somehow add vocals doing something else. I mean try and imagine Doom M1E1 music, but with singing. You can’t really do it because in this song the riff kind of becomes the melody and it’s a melody that would sound a bit weird when sung, or if the singer was doing something else how would you fit it in with that very busy riff also there. Something has to give somewhere. So in this sense writing instrumentals is kind of a different artform.
How would you rank different 2nd gen K-pop groups? Like in order of preference. I have some idea (9Muses is the only relevant 9 member girl group), but I’m not entirely sure. Like is T-ara or Kara more your preference? Is there some Nugu that tops that 2nd gen tier list? Is it Orange Carmel or Crayon Pop (tbh don’t know the different myself yet *shame*). Things like that.
Have you listened to Insomnia and Guilty by Stellar? Concepts aside, those songs are fantastic. Insomnia is like 24 Hours by Sunmi and Guilty just fucks with the tempo in kinda the best way possible. If you listen to them, lmk what you think.
Thoughts about 143 entertainment? They’re imploding as bad as some companies in 2nd generation, though they’re not quite at BBC levels of self destruction yet (coming soon?!) First with the SA against Gaeun, the clip of Mashiro hiding her bruises on a livestream, and now a report that the company hasn’t paid the video directors half the money for that shit AI video. I’m assuming the CEO will never have any charges against him or get any punishment because this is the K-Pop idol system, but do you have any thoughts? I just wish people would make a more effective boycott and actually talk about this kind of thing. When Stan’s talk about mistreatment but ignore things like this, it’s so….*screaming*
T-ara is queen of 2nd gen. Orange Caramel also great but sadly they didn’t have the same amount of body of work so they can’t really be on the same level. These two definitely at the top. Crayon Pop were sometimes brilliant but not consistently enough. But I’m not going to do an overall ranking here. Maybe I’ll do a tiermaker list one day if someone can point me to a good template.
Stellar had Sweetune at the production helm for most of their stuff, as a result, most of it is good.
I agree that the 143 Ent situation needs more attention. To see so many sites who normally dive on controversy for clicks ignore this one because it’s not a traffic-bringer when the publicity could have done some good has been frustrating.
I feel so conflicted these days. I feel like all my interests clash. Like I like doing something but I also hate it so I end up doing nothing. For eg I was really into creating youtube videos but then I realised and started hating how the internet kinda steals your data and the whole meta bullshit with no privacy. So I end up not doing that. That’s a stupid example but hopefully it conveys how I feel. I think it’s because my identity feels at odd itself. I’m really into fashion but I hate the industry and don’t like to support overconsumption and feel the industry is so pretentious. I just don’t know who I am sometimes it’s so hard figuring out my identity. So I wanted to know if u had any advice. Did u ever feel conflicted about your interests and sometimes paralysed to pursue them because of the conflict ?
Well I guess with k-pop I know it’s a hypercapitalist hellhole of exploitation, assault, various torture etc, but I don’t feel conflicted following it because I follow it in my own way and address these things directly in the manner in which I engage with it. I feel like that’s how I should engage with it, and that’s what this site is all about. You can take that approach with anything. If you like fashion but don’t like certain aspects of it, engage with it in a way which addresses or is criticial of those aspects which you feel are bad, while still also enjoying the aspects you do like. No more paralysis. If you look at it any other way you’ll be paralyzed your whole life, because there are good and bad aspects of everything in life, from what you listen to and what you wear to what brand of butter you spread on your toast.
Assuming that our race isn’t about to become extinct, is Chuu the next stage in human evolution? She’s smart, she’s cute, she’s funny, she has a great personality, she seems to be friends with everyone in the industry (including ultra-feminist Chodan), and it’s quite possible that she’s had sex with Yves.
It’s a theory.
Although if I were to pick the most highly-evolved creature in this video it’d be Chodan.
When you talk about how attractive Viviz and Gfriend are, how serious are you? It’s a bit of a weird question to ask, but I can’t always tell when you’re being serious, and I don’t really know your aesthetic preferences. To what extent does personality play a role in that? I know I find Sinb’s goofy judging faces really attractive; the sheer amount of judgment she channels on variety shows is great. Yeah, the girls are pretty, but in Kpop, you’d be more hard-pressed finding people who aren’t at least above average.
Overall, while my writing style may be humourous depending on your subjective preference for humour, I’m joking on this website about stuff a whole lot less than most people think I am. The bias list rankings I do certainly have a lot of (arguably shit) humour in the writing style, but the positions of the people in there do actually reflect my real preferences, more or less. I mean it’s not supposed to be OCD-level accurate – obviously Raina hasn’t come in at exactly #20 for half a decade because I’m trying to make a specific point there, and making specific points is more important to me than being data-accurate, but generally speaking yes these are all atttractive people to me and generally speaking Viviz are attractive af – even SinB who is the least attractive member for me personally is still pretty damn nice. Having said all that, if I were to take the fact that I’m a k-pop writer out of the equation completely and just did a top twenty people I bias, there wouldn’t even be any Koreans in it at all. It’d basically be my girlfriend > various ex girlfriends > some JAV stars and random internet folks and celebs. Don’t ask me to make that list because I don’t want to shame any of my exes into being publicly revealed, lord knows they’ve suffered enough.
Is there a reason so much metal has neoclassical elements? or is this just selective bias and I’m only finding neoclassical metal because it’s what I’m into….
The algorithm of whatever you’re using to find music has probably just worked out that you like your metal that way. However you’re not imagining the connection between heavy metal and classical music in general. The connections between the two styles are fairly obvious.
why are kpop lyrics so bad? im not saying writing lyrics is easy per se, but im so confused about objectively horrific (usually english) lyrics getting the pass…. especially in groups that have native english speakers (maybe management doesn’t care about their input….? im less happy simply accepting that though because then these native english speakers in kpop become soloists and the lyrcis don’t improve…..)
Yeah a native English speaker in the group doesn’t matter for lyrical quality if they’re not the ones writing the lyrics. While it does happen, it’s actually quite rare for idol singers to contribute meaningfully to their lyrics, there’s really only a few groups who are like this. However one group who DO write their own words is G-Idle, and they also have some of the most egrerious English usage out there, so how does that work? Well, Soyeon has basically come out and said (paraphrasing here) “I don’t really care if it’s correct English or whatever, I just use what I think is fun and gets the point across, language is something to have fun with”. Are her lyrics “bad” as a result? I guess it depends how you define it… if you’re looking for words that make coherent English you might not find that in G-Idle but if they’re still memorable phrases that communicate a message and are fun to sing along to, arguably they’re performing their function, this is why I’ve never had much time for people saying she’s a bad lyricist.
GFRIEND COPIUM SECTION
I refuse to believe that Season of Memories is anything more than some random B-side Gfriend had lying around. This doesn’t sound anything like their songs from Glass Bead to Summer Rain, and it’s not a Time for the Moon Night clone either. Who the fuck greenlit this? It’s not bad, but you’re telling me Gfriend made endless clones of great songs, doing a decent to great job each time, and then their reunion is some random song that sounds nothing like any of their title tracks? Motherfucking HYBE. If they think this will make Buddies forget the shit that was the disbandment, they have another thing coming.
Anyway, my question is what do you think Gfriend’s original comeback after Mago was supposed to be? They seemed to be preparing for something before that announcement that took even the girls off guard. I sure as fuck don’t believe it’s this.
It did certainly seem that way, but it’s possible that whatever it was, it hadn’t been decided yet. I doubt it was anything that Le Sserafim or Illit ended up receiving, or at least, not in the form that they eventually got it in. It’s possible that some permutation of “Fearless” probably with different lyrics might have originally had Gfriend’s name on it as the sound of that song is only a hop, skip and jump away from a bass-heavy later Gfriend song like “Apple”.
After hearing Always, I’m convinced HYBE gave them rejects from other groups. I don’t know if that’s intended. Something tells me Gfriend’s songwriters left or got fired with the group. Now, the question is where they went? I need my fix.
I think a more likely possibility is that the songs were songs previously rejected for Gfriend use that HYBE still had left in the vault. Don’t worry, if there are good songs still around some other group will get them eventually. Maybe ILLIT will get one of them, along with their usual suggestive lyrics so look forward to that, or perhaps the songwriters will contract to some other project. The network of k-pop songwriters and producers is very complex and interwoven so nothing is for sure other than that people are competing with each other to create the best product all the time and sometimes it bears fruit.
Well, Gfriend’s reunion was a disappointment. It’s not genuinely terrible like a lot of reunion songs, but it’s not a Gfriend song. You’d think they’d get Iggy Youngbae back since the Rough-Navillera time was Gfriend’s most popular era. Why would Gfriend get this song that sounds nothing like any of their previous songs?
Because I don’t think they give that much of a fuck to be honest. They’ll assume people will buy/stream it anyway because they’re fans of the group, regardless of what it sounds like. From the behaviour of most k-pop fans discussing this, I don’t think that’s an incorrect assumption either. We get the music we deserve.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING IN THIS COUNTRY (USA)” SECTION
What the fuck is happening in this country? I almost want to hope Trump is only grifting and doing bullshit to enrich his cronies because holy shit these statements are insane. At least greed is more predictable than the absurd takes he spews. Is this term going to be even worse?
and
We’ve got First Citizen President Musk doing multiple Nazi salutes. What the fuck is happening in this country? They’re immediately calling for the suppression of the LGBT+ community. How do I get out of here?
I wouldn’t know, fancy asking an Australian this. I have no idea what’s going on over there at the moment, other than whatever it is, it’s clogging my k-pop feeds on all my social networking accounts which is really irritating. I don’t need a minute-by-minute update on Trump’s wacky decisions. People seem to think that all they have to do to make something go away is share and engage with it as much as possible on the Internet, strange times we live in. I just hope our stupid prime minister here in Australia keeps his head down and his mouth shut and doesn’t incite Trump to bomb us or something, because with Trump you never really know. Also Elon needs to stop doing weird salutes and either subscribe to my Ko-fi at the Elon Musk tier that I created for him, or give his goddaughter Go Won some money, or both. That’s about where my knowledge on this ends, good luck Americans, I’m cheering for you.
BEST QUESTIONS
I’ve been dating my boyfriend for like 2 years now and he never gave a fuck about any kpop song that i listen but last month i was doing my stuff while hearing kpop on youtube and when ROLY POLY started i just notice how interested he was hearing the song and even did a little bit of the coreo LOL since then i caught him singing the chorus like 2 or 3 times and admited for me that liked the song a lot.. and i remember you saying in your best songs of the golden age that people you know also usually thinks the song is so cool even if they dont like kpop songs. Dont know if still happening to you so i’m here to say that it’s 2025 and the roly poly effect still 100% ON
Not really a question so JAV of the Month is also PRED-730. Anyway, sounds to me like he’s a keeper.
this is definitely not a question. in fact, I am making definitive statements. The sky is blue. Grass is green. I am typing right now on my laptop. I absolutely do not want recommendations of a particular variety.
I knew someone would start gaming the system eventually. Do I have to tell you all another 231 times that you’re supposed to be asking actual questions on this thing…
How to be caonima? I already bought the lightstick but I don’t know if it’ll work at a concert since it doesn’t light up. Also is there a membership? I can’t wait to see fellow caonimas collectively using their lightsticks at a concert if there is one in the future
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Have a good day oppar
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Thank you so much for your support!
Can I see your pussy?
That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!
Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!
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