First, take a moment to listen to Emily Mwila singing Goose’s Dream (거위의 꿈) by Insooni (인순이). You won’t regret it:
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Emily is the deserved winner of the singing section of the New Zealand leg* of the recent K-pop World Festival 2013 , and her beautiful voice has given me a renewed appreciation for Insoon’s too:
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Next month, Emily (and dance section winners the Siu Twinz ) will be competing against 100 winners of other national competitions to be selected to participate in the finals in Korea, based on judges’ choices, YouTube views, and votes on the competition homepage (official voting period is from September 1-15). Unfortunately, Emily is really disadvantaged with the latter two because of New Zealand’s small population size, so if you liked the song please take a moment to add one more view by clicking here , and make sure to vote for her next month! (I’ll remind readers closer to the date).
Next, here is DJ Trance Blossom’s epic remix of 2NE1’s I Love You (original here ), which I’ll let speak for itself (download it here ):
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Trance Blossom recently joined the Areia Creations three years ago . I’m still most impressed by their remix of Girls’ Generation’s Visual Dreams (비주얼드림) in 2011 though, turning a mediocre original into something that is still one of my favorites today :
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Finally, because I so rarely get to mention trance on this blog, let me also pass on some recent commentary on the objectifying imagery that unfortunately usually accompanies it (but not Ariea’s or Trance Blossoms’). From number 21 of the “The 40 Best Dance Tracks of 2013 So Far” at Spin
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Electronic dance music has a problem with objectifying women, and by “problem,” we mean, can’t fucking stop doing it . That goes for the “underground,” as well as the mainstream , not to mention a dispiriting proportion of fan-uploaded songs on YouTube, with their softcore thumbnails cribbed from cheesecake Tumblrs. So praise be to Planningtorock, who gives contemporary dance music its very own feminist manifesto, set to a wobbly, improbably effective house rhythm (liquid rave stabs, Thorazine bass plonking, bird squawks, flutes) plus the kind of dryly, slyly theorizing lyrics you’d expect from a comrade of the Knife. It’s steeped in funk and punk as fuck; she might as well have titled it, “Oh Borgore! Up Yours!”
I’d like to like Misogyny Drop Dead by Planningtorock, but agree with a commenter that its more “experimental” and “obscure” than something you can actually dance to.
As for that “problem” though, the author definitely has a point. Just type “trance” into a Youtube search and see for yourself:
*Update: Link is just about the regional Wellington competition sorry. Any sources on the national competition would be appreciated.
Thoughts? Any more quality K-pop (or covers or remixes) out there that should be much better known? Would you say the objectifying imagery is simply because — I assume — most of the DJs are male? Or some other reason?
The Grand Narrative 