I’m usually down to geek out over anything 2NE1 end up associated with – have you heard “Scream?” Doing a fist pump right now – but man this song they did with Japanese hip-hop outfit M-Flo seems like a real waste of talent. 2NE1 don’t do any of the things that make them such an…
Usually, I try to avoid writing about K-Pop artists crossing over to Japan on this blog so much anymore, moving that stuff over to the Tumblr. Yet Korea’s 2NE1 hold a special place in this site’s digital heart, so I am not all that hesitant to post a brief teaser of their new Japanese single…
Regardless of what claims borderline-nationalist J-Pop fans squawked out, Korean pop artists locked themselves into the Japanese pop-culture landscape this year, going from foreign curio to accepted face on the music charts. Girls’ Generation and KARA started releasing Japan-only songs and albums, releases which did very very very well. K-Pop boy bands started hitting the…
Minneapolis’ duo Elite Gymnastics have become a very strange authority within the American indie music scene – besides releasing blog-backed music sometimes wearing a chillwave mask, they’ve become the group responsible for introducing Korean pop to the American indie-scape. In interviews they’ve pledged allegiance to all sorts of K-Pop stars and recently member James Brooks…
Let’s go back in time and revisit something I wrote back in March when 2NE1 made a special stop in Japan to perform “Go Away:” “It’s also clearly a female empowerment number, hinted at by the title but also driven home by the overall feel of this song and the video. Japan at least features…