Mixtapemotions

  • "Shine" by Kim Sung Kyu (updated repost), Wednesday, September 25, 2024

    In high school, Kim Sung-kyu, the future leader of the boy band Infinite, had to hide his vocal practice from his parents. In high school, he sang with some of his friends in a rock band. When he graduated he left his hometown of Jeonju in hopes of having a career in music in Seoul. After failing an audition for SM Entertainment, he tried out for the label Woolim Entertainment. He hoped to be a rock singer like his future label mate, Nell. On the day of his audition, though, he was suffering from appendicitis. Determined to make it as a singer, he sang through the pain and went to the hospital after the audition finished. Rather than cultivating Kim’s rock talents, the record label placed him as the leader of their first boy band, Infinite. Throughout the group’s tenure, they would flirt with rock music; however, it wasn’t until Sung-Kyu’s debut EP, Another Me, that he would be able to make the kind of music he envisioned. 

    WHENEVER THIS TIME OF YEAR COMES, I ALWAYS THINK OF THE WORDS YOU USED TO SAY TO ME. Released at the end of 2012, Another Me is a K-pop album for listeners who don’t really care for the genre and was an excellent introduction to Korean music. From the vocal intro/title track that is reminiscent of early ’90s harmonies to the near-epic closing track “41 Days,” which displays Sung-kyu’s passionate vocals, this short album is a refreshing look at a soft-rock album when most Korean musicians, particularly ones with any association with K-pop, had long rejected the genre. Born in 1989, Sung-kyu’s prominence in the music scene corresponded with a rejection of guitars, bass, and drums, in favor of synths and trap beats. And while the songs on Another Me are much calmer than some of the rock bands who charted on the pop charts in the ‘90s and ‘00s, the EP has an authenticity that the “other” Sung-kyu can sing to the music he believes in. His confidence will make it popular, rather than chasing trends. Another Me was not a very popular release. Apple Music didn’t have it for a long time, and Sung-kyu’s later releases seem to have received more recognition. But fans of the album seem to really love it. The guitar-driven “Shine,” Like “Time Lapse,” was written by Nell’s vocalist Kim Jong-wan. Sung-kyu stated that he auditioned for Woolim Entertainment because of Nell, so the lead singer’s input on the album brings Sung-kyu’s career full circle. Speaking about the seasons of change, a break-up, a longing for the past lover and a longing for the past makes this late ’90s-sounding guitar ballad feel relevant even ten years later.  

    YOUR VOICE, YOUR EYES, YOUR TOUCH THAT LINGERED ON ME. The ’90s tones of “Shine” make it a nostalgic song, reminding me of the music I would listen to in the afternoon after school, albeit the music was in English. It’s the kind of music you would expect to see in a television drama on the WB, like Dawson’s Creek. Just when the emotional teen drama hits, a ‘90s song blares, disproportionally louder to the show’s dialogue. Maybe for modern audiences, this takes viewers out of the storyline, but for us millennials, the music solidifies the emotion. “Shine” is the Korean pop equivalent of that emotional song may have been 12 years too late and may not have appeared in an emotional K-drama about teenagers skipping out on 학원 (private after-school academies) to make out in the park, but the reflective nature of the song reminds us about the simpler times. It’s a song about love and loss. It’s a song about the time of the year when we get sentimental. 

    Original version:
    Live version:

    Live Acoustic Version:


  • "Somebody That I Used to Know" (Tronicbox '80s Remix) by Gotye ft. Kimbra, Tuesday, September 24, 2024 (repost)

    A few years ago, YouTuber Nick Canovas, or Mic the Snare, made a video about the characteristics of meme songs and why some songs go viral. Not all meme songs are created equal. Some annoyingly catchy songs get stuck in enough heads to become a hit. These are so bad that they’re almost good. Then there are old songs that become renewed for the TikTok generation. These songs had a solid presence before taking off on social media. Some of these songs are laughable in a modern context—the swanky sax solo from “Careless Whisper,” Rick Astley’s shoulder dance when he sings “Never Gonna Give You Up.” But some meme songs are what music critics still call legitimately good. A-ha’s “Take On Me,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” and today’s song can be legitimately enjoyed with an extra dose of irony once it has soundtracked a meme.

    YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO CUT ME OFF. In the spring and summer of 2012, I did a lot of driving. I had to get my paperwork together to go to Korea, and I couldn’t hack American bureaucracy by using the mail or courier services. Two trips to Johnson City, Tennessee to get stamps from the state in which I graduated college, two trips to Atlanta, and countless trips to around Western North Carolina to get the paperwork together, I listened to a lot of radio. I listened to the radio mostly because I had an old radio-turner device to play my iPod on the stereo. My 2001 Toyota Corolla came with a CD player, that had died some time before. If I drove a long distance, the radio stations would change, and I would have to find a new frequency to broadcast my iPod. However, this got old, so I just listened to the radio. At that time, I remember a few songs that would play constantly–Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe,” “Lights,” by Ellie Goulding, and “Somebody That I Used to Know.” This song will always remind me of those trips in the early summer before my life changed forever.

    An old television set with fake wood 
    encasing, popular in the ‘80s
    source: Flickr, photographer Seth Keen    .

    YOU CAN GET ADDICTED TO A CERTAIN KIND OF SADNESS. The YouTube channel Middle 8 released a video about “Somebody That I Used to Know” and a musical breakdown of why it became such an earworm. The Gotye original is built on a 1957 Luis Bonfiá jazz instrumental, “Seville.” Gotye topped both the Alternate chart and the Hot 100, a rare occurrence as the Alternative chart boasts very few pop songs. But while it may have been the elements of “Seville” that got listeners addicted to this art pop song, remixes and covers that take the song in a completely different musical direction may give us the same enduring effect despite only the lyrics staying mostly intact. For example, YouTuber Hildegard von Blingin’s “bardcore” version of the song. Bardcore is a style of music imitating Medieval/Renaissance music, using older instruments and often adapting lyrics to sound more Chaucerian. With the line: “send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters” the spirit of the song is transformed into an earlier time. It’s witty, but there’s enough homage to the original spirit of a break-up song. Today’s song also loses many elements that made the original great. Instead of the Latin guitar and the xylophone which help to carry the original song listeners are treated to electronic drums, synths, and a raucous guitar solo–all absent from the original tune.  Essentially, the Tronicbox remix is a meme of the original song. This song might have you looking through the garage for some old VHS tapes beside the lacquered wooden vacuum-tubed TV set. But before you book that perm and change to bigger rims on your glasses, just consider how ridiculous you’ll look. This song brings to mind everything awful about the ’80s, and that’s why it’s so fun. 

    Tronicbox ‘80s Remix:

     

    Original Music Video:

    Original song by Gotye

     

  • “Houdini” by Dua Lipa, Monday, September 23, 2024

     

    I remember writing about Dua Lipa’s collaboration with Elton John  “Cold, Cold Heart“ several years ago At the time, I was barely familiar with the singer and found her to be unoriginal. The songs “New Rules” and “Levitating” were inescapable but I never listened to them voluntarily. They just happened to litter the gym stereo and the streets outside the phone stores in the shopping areas. As I’ve become more fluent in pop music over the last ten years, I still argue that the late ‘10s were the nadir of the genre, maybe the music industry in general. I realize that I’m often wrong about new artists and that a bad first impression can be undone with maturity. And sometimes, I was wrong about those early hits and they weren’t as cringey as I thought. I’ve been laying the criticism pretty thick. To be fair, these days when pop music isn’t light and airy, it can get rather dark.


    I COME AND I GO. Dua Lipa released her third studio album this year, Radical Optimism. The album’s title contrasts the negativity in pop music and culture in general. A singer who has at times described her sound as “dark pop” for her sultry tones, Duo Lipa’s third record is anything but dark. Building on the ‘80s dance hall template of her previous album Future Nostalgia, Lipa continues to create infectious music. For her third album, Dua Lipa tells Zane Lowe on his Apple Music interview series that she started with the title and began writing songs in a notebook she bought at a CVS drugstore.  In total Lipa wrote 97 songs. Eleven of them made the album. In many of her interviews, Dua Lipa talks about writing down her goals to manifest her future success. In the interview cycle for Radical Optimism, the singer talks about two goals that she wrote down at the beginning of her career when thinking about her third album. One was headlining Glastonbury, specifically the Friday night set on the main stage. The other dream was collaborating with the Alternative band Tame Impala. Both of these dreams came true with the Australian band’s lead singer Kevin Parker producing many tracks on Radical Optimism.

    CATCH ME OR I GO HOUDINI. Dua Lipa released “Houdini” as the lead single of Radical Optimism. The track was produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker who also wrote the intro to the song. The funky electronic grind of the intro and many of the ‘70s sounds on Radical Optimism sound connected to some of the work of Parker’s band. The Hungarian-American illusionist’s namesake was also the name of Emimen’s lead single from his album this summer, though the songs are in no way related. Still, this didn’t stop the citizens of the Internet and even the band Foster the People from mashing up the two songs.  The Dua Lipa song is perhaps the simpler of the songs. It’s a club anthem about being free and uses the reputation of the escape artist Harry Houdini as the speaker who has no time for a lackadaisical lover. She hopes “maybe you could be the one who makes a girl change her ways.” And while the song has elements of a dark club, the lyrics are centered on hope. The next move is up to the song’s subject.





  • “Tell It to My Heart” by Taylor Dayne, Sunday, September 22, 2024

    Earlier this year, I talked about an episode of Girls5eva in which the fictional girl group flew to Orlando to play for a morally compromising concert for a billionaire’s birthday party. This happens in the real world frequently and it’s not without backlash. Whether it’s a sensitive political affiliation like Elton John playing for one of Rush Limbaugh’s weddings to performing from authoritarian leaders like Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Usher, and Nelly Furtado performing for the Gaddafi family in 2011 to corrupt presidents or Russian oligarchs, less wealthy fans have certainly taken issue with some of these controversial patrons. 


    THE PASSION’S SO COMPLETE, IT’S NEVER ENDING. There is a growing list of recording artists threatening to sue or in the process of suing Donald Trump’s campaign for unauthorized use of their song at his rallies, from Céline Dion to The White Stripes. In contrast the Democratic Party’s playlist is extensive with many pop, rock, and hip-hop stars even actively campaigning for Democratic candidates. Sometimes musical artists’ political involvement can hinder their career as audiences don’t always want a political sermon and they may not agree with the message the artist is preaching. The two musical acts that Trump was able to secure for his inauguration in 2017, 3 Doors Down and The Piano Guys, faced backlash for their support of Trump. Providing music at fundraisers, rallies, and even inaugurations can be viewed as political acts; however, what about artists who perform for wealthy politicians at private events? As an American billionaire, Donald Trump owns several venues including Mar-a-Lago, a private club in Palm Springs, Florida, which is his primary residence since leaving the White House in 2021. Some of the events at the $200,000 minimum membership buy-in club require entertainment. Before Trump’s political career, A-list celebrities could be seen at various events at the Florida resort. After he announced his presidential candidacy, more and more celebrities began to decline invitations. 

    BODY TO BODY, SOUL TO SOUL. On December 31, 2021, Mar-a-Lago held a New Year’s Eve Party. Donald and Melania Trump were not in attendance, but Trump’s sons Eric and Donald, Jr., his daughter Tiffany, and his lawyer Rudy Guillani attended the event. Performing that evening were members of The Beach Boys, Vanilla Ice, and Taylor Dayne. Backlash to this “maskless” party was perhaps strongest among Taylor Dayne’s fans. Dayne has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, playing at many pride events since her debut in 1987. Her iconic “Tell It to My Heart” is a pride anthem with Dayne’s powerful vocals and the dance hall rhythm empowering listeners. Dayne responded to the backlash by saying: “I try to stay non-political and non-judgmental and not preach.” Some fans weren’t convinced. George Orwell said in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language”: “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.” If that was true in 1946, it seems that every action today is also a political act, especially when it pays well.

  • “Supernatural” by NewJeans, Saturday, September 21, 2024

    It’s time to check in with NewJeans. On August 27th, Min Hee-Jin was dismissed as the CEO of NewJeans’ label ADOR, a sub-label of Hybe Corporation. The corporate intrigue has left one of Hybe’s most internationally and financially successful acts in limbo. NewJeans is like the victim of a divorce in which the custody lies legally with their father label. NewJeans, however, expressed their loyalty to Min Hee-Jin, who formed the group and managed every step in their process toward global ubiquity. But NewJeans aren’t completely helpless. As one of the biggest K-pop acts, the group has an active fanbase. On September 11, NewJeans hosted a livestream on YouTube and demanded that Min be reinstated as CEO of ADOR by September 25th. This statement by the group was believed to be responsible for Hybe’s 3% dip in value of the company’s shares. 


    WE ARE BOUND TO EACH OTHER. With the turmoil at ADOR, NewJeans’ releases this year have lagged compared to the last two years. The group has released two singles, each with a B-side. The second pair of songs, “Supernatural” and “Right Now” were released on June 21 and served as the group’s debut in the Japanese music industry. The group hosted a two-day fan meeting in Tokyo on June 26-27. NewJeans also announced that they plan to release a full album by the end of the year. However, it seems that the drama surrounding the group’s former manager has overshadowed the group’s latest efforts. To make matters worse, group member Hanni talked about the environment at their label after their manager was ousted. In the live stream, the 19-year-old singer said that the group’s new manager told another member of another Hybe K-pop girl group to ignore Hanni when she greeted that member. In many ways, NewJeans is a headache for Hybe. A less popular group would be easy to pull promotion and drop. NewJeans, however, has a strong fan base despite Hybe’s attempts to replace NewJeans with ILLIT and Le Sserafim. 


    IN A MOMENT, WE REUNITE. What’s the future of NewJeans? It’s hard not to think of them as princesses locked in a tower by an exploitative though mostly absent father who favors his other children. Ultimately, K-pop groups are bound by contracts. Each member signs a contract, usually for seven years and often can renew their contracts. It’s rare, though, even after seven years for the group to be able to take their act to another label because the group was established by another label. NewJeans members are nowhere near the end of their contracts. Still, it’s still uncertain whether or not Min Hee-Jin has some ownership of the group’s intellectual property and could sway the future of NewJeans. Still, some K-pop fans blame Min for inciting a coup in Hybe and using NewJeans as leverage. It’s worrisome to think about what the group may sound like without Min’s musical supervision which has made the group one of the most critically-acclaimed new K-pop acts in the last few years. Even more worrisome is NewJeans being shelved due to their label’s pettiness. Maybe the key to NewJeans’ future is their fans. K-pop fans love their groups and ultimately investors will listen to what the music listeners want. 



     Read the lyrics (Korean, Japanese, & English) on Genius.

  • "Silk Chiffon" by MUNA ft. Phoebe Bridgers, Friday, September 20, 2024 (Repost)

     MUNA is an alternative pop group composed of three friends who studied together at the University of Southern California. The trio self-produced their debut EP and uploaded it to Bandcamp and SoundCloud. The band’s success with their debut EP led to the group signing with RCA records and releasing their 2017 debut record, About U. In May 2021, the band announced that they had signed to Phoebe Bridgers‘ Saddest Factory record label. The group recently released the single “Silk Chiffon” which features Bridgers singing a verse. The song is one of the group’s few singles to chart on Billboard, peaking at #35 on the US Alternative chart. 

    KEEPIN’ IT LIGHT LIKE SILK CHIFFON. I think I first heard MUNA in the awkward teen comedy Alex Strangelove, a story about a high school senior who is struggling to understand his sexuality. All the members of MUNA identify as queer, though, as a lyricist lead singer Katie Gavin often avoided pronouns in the group’s earlier music to allow all gender and sexual expressions to relate to the band’s music. The group is known for their dark lyrics. Their previous LP, 2019’s Saves the World, is an addictive break-up record, filled with depressing lyrics, but often using upbeat, deceptive chord progressions. Phoebe Bridgers is known as a “serial collaborator,” which has made the 27-year-old singer quite a versatile star. So many of my music snob podcasts and YouTube channels praise the singer-songwriter. Some even credit her for saving rock music with her two LPs. In addition to collaborations with MUNA this year, she has appeared on Lorde‘s Solar Power, The Killers‘ song “Runaway Horses,” Taylor Swift‘s “Nothing New,” Paul McCartney‘s “Seize the Day,” Julien Baker‘s “Favor” and two songs by Lucy Dacus. 

    LIFE’S SO FUN. “Silk Chiffon” is a positive anthem about queer love. Gavin sings about a girl dressed in a silky dress, while the singer is wearing a mini skirt and rollerblades. Silk chiffon is not only what the girl is wearing, but the singer draws a comparison between the girl and the luxurious feeling someone has when “trying on” a light fabric. Phoebe Bridgers, who identifies as bi-sexual, sings the second verse of the song. Bridgers’ verse takes the song to another perspective. It is the feeling of someone looking at you “with a ‘you’re on camera’ smile.” You feel flattered and you forget that you’re “feeling anxious” about whatever’s going on with your day. There is only one dark element of the ordinarily dark pop group’s latest single. The video, directed by Ally Pankiw, a writer for Schitt’s Creek‘s final season, develops a love story between a camp counselor (portrayed by Bridgers) at a conversion-therapy camp and a girl who was sent away to the camp (portrayed by Gaven). By the end of the video, some of the camp attendees break free and go to a gay bar. Even some of the counselors (Bridgers included) break free from the restrictive camp. It seems that in recent years, the media has shed light on gay conversion therapy camps. Two years ago, director Ryan Murphy released the Pray Away documentary, which follows the dissolving of Exodus International and about former leaders in gay conversion therapy who have changed their views on the practice and embraced who they are in the LGBT community. The adolescent feeling of “Silk Chiffon” for anyone who is becoming aware of their same-sex attraction may be entangled with religious push-back. Mine certainly was. But eventually you have to jump onto the back of the pick-up truck and ride into town. Staying on the farm leads to a life of misery and constant lying to yourself.

    Read “Silk Chiffon” by MUNA on Genius.

  • “Jealous” by Nick Jonas, Thursday, September 19, 2024

     

    In 2013, the Jonas Brothers decided to stop making music together. The eldest brother, Kevin Jonas appeared in a reality TV series about his married life with his wife Danielle Jonas. The middle brother of the trio Joe Jonas formed a band called DNCE. Nick Jonas, the youngest member of the family trio, got involved in several ventures. He guest-starred in a few television episodes and was hired as the musical creative director on his friend Demi Lovato’s Neon Lights Tour. After the tour, he was cast in the boxing drama Kingdom. In 2014, he released his second album, X2, which completely rebranded the singer from a squeaky-clean teen heartthrob to a sexy twenty-something.


    YOU’RE TOO SEXY, BEAUTIFUL. In 2005, a year before The Jonas Brothers released their debut album It’s About Time, Nick Jonas released a Christian self-titled album as Nicholas Jonas on Columbia Records’ Christian division INO. The album is now out of print and unavailable on streaming services. Nick also released the album Who I AM in 2010 with a band called Nick Jonas and the Administration. Both of these solo attempts and arguably the Jonas Brothers before their reunion in 2019, can be considered to lack critical approval and were somewhat marked by the artist’s lack of maturity. Nick Jonas’s 2014 X2 album was an attempt to shake off the youthfulness of the singer’s Disney Channel and conservative Christian reputation. The album was prefaced with press about Jonas’s role as Nate Kaluna in the drama Kingdom. Nick’s role was nuanced. Nate was a young boxer growing up in a family of boxers and toxic masculinity. Along with the pressures to follow in his father’s footsteps, Nate struggles with his sexuality, eventually coming out as gay. Corresponding with the role of Nate Kaluna, Nick Jonas was a centerfold model for several LGBTQ+ magazines including Out and Attitude. Nick Jonas essentially came out as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, a fete controversial both in the community as some argued that Jonas was queer-bating and among his stanchly Christian fanbase.  

    EVERYBODY WANTS A TASTE. Nick Jonas’s album X2 didn’t explicitly build on the queer themes in Nick’s acting career or his modeling. Instead, Jonas comes off as a jock-bro R&B singer as he explores lyrics dealing with love, sex, and jealousy. Nick’s reintroduction to solo work assumes the gospel of Justin Timberlake’s Justified as a template of escaping boy band cleanliness: amplify sexual lyrics. Nick’s solo career, though, we never to the level of success that Timberlake achieved. Jonas’s highest charting songs come from X2. His biggest song was the second single, “Jealous.” Nick’s smooth vocals and his sexy music video look distract from the song’s message. Jonas told Just Jared: “‘Jealous’  was inspired by a feeling I think a lot of people have but are afraid to admit, especially guys. But just that thing of puffing your chest up every once and a while when someone looks at your girl while you’re with them. Not only is it disrespectful, but you feel like you’re ready to go. At the time I wrote and recorded it, I was in the middle of all the training for Kingdom, so I was really sort of hyped up on testosterone.” (Italics supplied). The song is a bro-anthem that is supposedly directed to his supermodel girlfriend at the time Olivia Culpo. “Jealous” is a song about the lack of control a person feels when a lover enjoys the glances of another potential suitor. It’s kind of toxic how the speaker even admits, “You know I get excited / When you get jealous too.” Not a great relationship dynamic. 


  • “Another Life” by Key, Wednesday, September 18, 2024 + K-pop in English Playlist

     

    SHINee’s Kim Ki Bum, or simply Key, released his second full album, Gasoline, in 2022. Like “Helium” on his EP Bad Love from 2021, Key features an English song: “Another Life.” Key is not the only Korean idol artist who sings in English. Today, I thought I would start a collection of K-pop songs that are entirely in English. Key’s English tracks are album tracks, not promoted as main singles in Korea or abroad. Other artists on the list released these English tracks as singles in Korea and abroad. Still, others recorded an English version of a Korean single to promote the single to international audiences. Whatever the reason, we’re glad to hear more from our favorite K-pop stars. Enjoy the list.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “That, That” by Psy ft. Suga, Tuesday, September 17, 2024

    I arrived in South Korea at the end of August 2012, about a month after Korea’s biggest viral hit had been released. I taught elementary school, and I was aghast to hear a chorus of  7-year-olds dancing the horse dance and singing in English, “Hey, sexy lady!” I was teaching at a Christian school among other young conservative missionaries. I thought about how sheltered the Christian schools were that I grew up in. I had arrived in South Korea, the land of electronic boy and girl Idol groups–boys and girls who had dieted, trained for years under questionable conditions, and undergone plastic surgeries and treatments to look magazine-worthy, yet it wasn’t BIGBANG, SHINee, Girls’ Generation or  2NE1 who popularized K-pop for the world. It was Park Jae-sang. 


    LONG TIME, NO SEE, HUH? Psy’s “Gangnam Style” was simultaneously the quintessential K-pop song and the most anti-K-pop song ever recorded. Psy was a Korean rapper and only achieved modest airplay in South Korea before his viral hit. Also, much of his music was censored in Korea for explicit content–only adults could buy his albums. He was even fined for the content of his first album. Park Jae-sang grew up in Gangnam to a wealthy family, his father was the chairman of a semiconductor manufacturing company, and his mother was a successful restauranteur. He disliked studying both in Korea and in Boston University where he dropped out of his Business major to attend the famed Berklee College of Music also in Boston. Psy came back to Korea to begin his music career in 2000. Twelve years later, Psy became the biggest national celebrity. The song “Gangnam Style”  and its accompanying video both satirized and popularized South Korean culture. It also became the first K-pop song that many around the world heard. Rather than a barely- out-of-high-school group of pretty boys or girls, the overweight Psy was 35 when at the peak of his fame. Idol groups rarely last until their early 30s and are kept on strict diets by their managers. 

    PANDEMIC’S OVER. FEELING AMAZING. Psy’s subsequent songs have not reached the same level of virality as “Gangnam Style.” In Korea, everything he releases is now a hit. Some of his singles after his breakout have charted. “Gentleman,” “Hangover,” and “Daddy” are a few of his other charting hits. All of Psy’s videos are comedic and feature his unique dance style. Before Psy, most K-pop videos were dramatic and took themselves seriously. Today, that’s mostly true of K-pop videos, though some groups like GOT7, Orange Caramel, Seventeen, and BTS have incorporated comedy into their videos. Psy’s videos, though, are a level above all other K-pop videos. Littered with Korean celebrities, internet sensations, cultural trends, fashion statements, and a dose of obscenity that pushes the mores of the conservative culture it was born of, Psy’s videos always seem to capture the zeitgeist of the singer’s comebacks. His most recent comeback was two years ago with his ninth album, Psy 9. The album’s lead single, “That That,” featured SUGA of BTS. Psy hadn’t made an album in five years, and until 2022, he hadn’t recorded music with any Gen. Z musicians. While the video for “That That” wasn’t the most radical Psy video, it introduced and reintroduced Psy to a younger generation. Psy has never been cool, but he’s always been fun. His ability to curate and condense pop culture into a 3-minute video will keep him relevant as long as he wants to come back.

     

  • “Hold on to Now” by Kylie Minogue, Monday, September 16, 2024 (repost)

    While Troye Sivan was clubbing in his home of Perth, Australia, between COVID lockdowns, the soundtrack may have included songs by fellow Aussie Kylie Minogue, an iconic pop star for a certain demographic for decades. But it’s not just the gay clubs where Kylie is famous. In fact, she is the highest-selling Australian female artist of all time. She is often called the “Princess of Pop” in Europe because of her sense of style and hit-making. In America, mainstream pop audiences probably know Minogue for her 2001 hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the singer’s most streamed song. 


    SOME MOMENTS ARE MAGIC. But pop music is much more than the Weekly Top 40, and the songs popular in Australia and Europe don’t always catch on in America. Kylie Minogue made several hits and even reached her Hot 100 peak before 2002 in the ‘80s with the number 3 hit “The Loco-Motion” in 1988 from her eponymous debut album. The song was a cover of a 1962 pop song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, originally performed by Little Eva and later by Grand Funk Railroad. But after her second single, Minogue only reached the lower regions of the Hot 100 until her big comeback record Fever in 2001. By 2002, Minogue was 34 and returning to popularity, laying a prototype for new millennium dance beats, a staple of her career for the next twenty years. Minogue never followed up “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” for U.S. Top 40 listeners, but her latest album Tension, released last Friday, is what critics and Minogue are calling a return to Fever.   

    DREAMIN’ WE’LL BE DANCIN’ FOREVER. The lead single from Kylie Minogue’s most recent album Tension, “Padam, Padam,” was considered to be a “gay anthem” for the summer. The song is a seriously danceable track. The second single and second track on the record, “Hold On to Now” is an electronic dance song with a sadder song with lyrics that evoke mild existential dread. Kylie’s voice is part siren reassuring her listeners that everything will be worked out someday. Yet somehow, maybe because I’m not dancing at the office or at home when I’m listening to it, I’m pulled back to the questions the song raises. Elsewhere on the album, the fifty-five-year-old singer balances current club sounds with lyrics of falling in love–or lust–and the search for love and being taken care of by a lover. Today’s song reminds us that now is all we ever have. Sort of like my deleted post of Switchfoot’s “Gone”–that’s a story for later–it doesn’t do us any good to stress about what may happen. It also doesn’t help us to live in the past. And yes, most of the time, we have to get to work. But occasionally, we can just enjoy shaking our asses on the dance floor for a bit.