Mixtapemotions

  • “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer, Monday, June 17, 2024

    A big part of my blog is discovering music. Sometimes that’s new indie artists with very little written except for press releases. But what I’ve found more often is that I’ve been unearthing the long-lost civilization of the 2010s, a decade I scoffed at as the nadir of music. During the pandemic, though, I started listening to new music, finding the newer songs resonating with me in ways that the 2010s didn’t. But then I started going back, re-evaluating pop, rock, and alternative in the 2010s, listening with an open mind. I realized that music was changing and that loyalty to any genre was an illusion. Alternative playlists reminded me of what would pass for pop music in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Bedroom pop, dream pop, hip-hop, and neo-soul flooded the playlists. Now I see that as a strength rather than a weakness.


    SAY YOU WANT ME OUTTA YOUR LIFE. One of the tracks that showed up on an Apple Music Alternative Hits playlist was “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer, called 5SOS by fans. My musical diet in the 2010s was Christian, K-pop/K-hip hop, and queer pop, so I missed out on several alternative acts–the height of Paramore and Twenty One Pilots, though I was aware of them. But I thought that 5 Seconds of Summer was a boy band like One Direction or The Wanted. The Australian band did come to fame by opening for One Direction on their 2014 Take Me Home tour. The band’s name floated around in South Korean entertainment shows, but I didn’t realize that they were actually big in America–three number-one debuting Billboard 200 albums big. Their 2018 single, “Youngblood” was the band’s biggest single in America and Australia. In America, the song peaked at number 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The song’s inclusion on an Apple Music Alternative Hits playlist is interesting as boy band music in 2018–in America–was in a valley. One Direction had gone on hiatus in 2016, and Jonas Brothers wouldn’t come back until the next year, though BTS was breaking into America about this time. 


    LOVE ME ‘TILL THE DAY I DIE. The official music video for “Youngblood” was released in August 2019 while 5 Seconds of Summer was touring in Japan. In 2017, before they recorded their third record, 5SOS had been featured on a song by Japanese rock band One Ok Rock. The video for “Youngblood” starred a Japanese cast with 5SOS not appearing in the video. Director Frank Borin stylizes a nutro Japanese greaser/ rockabilly-stylized video with modern video stylizations. The plot of the video follows a Japanese elderly couple who take pills and recall their youth, presumably in the 1950s. The motion of the video and the apparent electronic glitches both set a modern anachronistic mood (as do modern shots of Tokyo) and make the music video open to interpretation. As a song, “Youngblood” is full of energy. The lyrics speak of a romantic entanglement that is not easily broken. It seems like a break-up song, but the speaker and his love seem to be pushing and pulling, leaving the speaker to feel “like a dead man walking.” Yet, the “Youngblood” makes the song sound like the speaker and his partner can overcome whatever it is that is in the way.  But maybe that’s the music video doing the interpretation. 








     

  • “Cosmos” by B.I., Sunday, June 16, 2024

     

    The authorities take drug allegations in South Korea very seriously and can have significant consequences for those involved. The country has a strict anti-drug policy, and drug offenses are punishable by severe penalties. Usage of substances such as cannabis that are legal or decriminalized in other countries can lead to jail time in South Korea.  But besides legal implications, there is a social stigma that comes with drug use. Allegations can ruin a career, which almost happened to the Korean rapper and leader of the idol group iKON, B.I (비아이). In 2019, Kim Han Bin (김한빈) was found guilty of attempting to purchase drugs. In 2019, Kim Han Bin (김한빈) was found guilty of drug possession and attempting to purchase drugs. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison for three counts of drug possession, including two counts of possessing marijuana and one count of possessing LSD.  


    DON’T FALL LIKE PETALS ON A FLOWER. Following the allegations, YG Entertainment terminated B.I’s contract and the singer departed iKON. The group recorded some of the songs the former band leader had written. But unlike many Korean stars who faced drug charges and allegations, B.I returned to music in 2021. He offered his fans an apology and returned as a solo artist, first featuring on a track by Epik High, on their tenth album. B.I’s solo return came with a charity three-track single, Midnight Blue. B.I pledged to donate all proceeds of the streams and physical release sales to World Vision, the Christian humanitarian aid organization. For his debut solo full-length album Waterfall, released in June, B.I also donated the proceeds to World Vision. Both projects specifically continue to fund the “Basic for Girls” project in Zambia, providing the funds to build women’s restrooms. Streaming and purchasing the albums will fund the project for sixty years after the rapper’s death, as is the statute of copyright law.


    SHE CAN BE A PAINTING LIKE A MUSEUM. The June 2021-released Waterfall was followed by November 2021’s EP, Cosmos. This EP would be the first part of his second full-length album. The title track, “Cosmos,” has a rock-styled introduction. The lyrics of the song play on the meaning of the word cosmos, meaning an astrological coincidence that the speaker and his lover are together, and with the fall release of the mini-album, the song also references the flowers that bloom in the autumn, just before the winter cold sets in. Not every fallen star in the cosmos can be reborn. B.I seems to be a charismatic rapper, well-connected with fans and the hip-hop side of K-pop. His apology also helped his career, but perhaps the best way for a star to be reborn is through charity. By donating proceeds to charity, hesitant fans feel less guarded about funding someone embroiled in a scandal. So by the time B.I released Cosmos, his fan base trusted him, and he could make money in music again.


  • "I Blame the World" by Sasha Alex Sloan, Saturday, June 15, 2024 (repost)

    The self-identified sad-girl Sasha Alex Sloan made a “mad record” in 2022. There was a podcast I listened to reacting to Sloan’s EP Self-Portrait. While the podcasters enjoyed the EP, they hoped that Sloan would never make a full-length record. She did release a full album in 2020. Only Child is a heart-breaking masterpiece, but it pulls back from the gut-wrenching, sometimes mean-spirited lyricism of her EPs. On 2022’s I Blame the World, Sloan is caustic as ever. The title track “I Blame the World” is probably the most catchy, but the other songs are worth a listen. Emo surely was alive in 2022.  

    WHY TALK TO GOD IF I AIN’T GOT PROOF HE’S EVEN THERE? When I counted down my favorite albums of last year, Sasha Alex Sloan’s I Blame the World was my seventh favorite record, which is code in my blog for I didn’t listen to it that much. I think that Sloan writes better when she’s more sad than angry. There are certainly enough things to be furious at in 2022. Sloan was born in 1995, and like all millennials, has watched the world get shittier and shittier since 2016. I Blame the World is the soundtrack of world leaders basically deciding to bring about the apocalypse, slowly. From Donald Trump’s presidency to the erosion of human rights around the globe to the threat of “Global Warming”  to the complete shit show in Sloan’s ancestral countries of Russia and Ukraine, I Blame the World feels like it should be the soundtrack to not only 2022 but for the foreseeable future. But there’s only so much anger the singer can express before sounding monotonous. “Live Laugh Love” takes the basic white girl motto and rejects the Instagram culture of “living your best life.” Sloan says, “Don’t wanna live my best life / Just wanna live my best life.”  Pandemic lingo also seeps into the record on “New Normal” being a life without the one she loves. I still think that Sloan is one of the best pop songwriters today, but I think that I Blame the World is overwrought with negativity, which makes the record start to rely on clichés and lose the listener’s willingness to invest.

    WHY GET HIGH WHEN EVERYONE EVENTUALLY COMES DOWN? “I Blame the World” as a song sounds halfway between an ’80s New Wave track and an angry girl rock ballad from the ’90s. Sasha Alex Sloan keeps her voice in a low register throughout the song, drawing similarities to Miley Cyrus, yet never belting out the chorus an octave higher, although I had a false memory of Sloan doing that until I listened to the song to analyze it. The video for the song also draws ’90s comparisons. It’s ultra-low budget with Sloan singing into a hairbrush and two members of her band playing air bass and air drumming to the song. The trio is dressed in awful outfits that look like bowling clothes, with tacky flames on the shirt and pants. The flame seems to be related to the video of the album’s lead single “WTF,” which features Sloan singing as her apartment catches fire. I Blame the World is a song cycle of problems as unsolvable as life in the 21st century. And after a long day that’s been longer than it should because everyone is working short-staffed with no significant raise, I wonder, what really is the cost of treating everyone with a little kindness? I want to blame the world for not being able to do anything. I want to blame Elon Musk for transitioning from technologies that could save the world from the impending climate crisis to delving into right-wing politics and crashing the 747 that is Twitter into the side of a mountain. I want to blame Bezos who made more money than ever during the pandemic, yet his company threatened to fire employees who tried to flee a distribution center when a tornado hit. I want to blame every boss who says that you can work 10% harder this year. I want to blame Sasha Alex Sloan’s booking agency for bringing her to Seoul on a Sunday night during the busiest time of the year for a worn-out teacher. I want to blame the world, but what comes of that? Tomorrow I’ll be more optimistic.

    Music video:

    Lyric video:

  • “Smart” by LE SSERAFIM, Friday, June 14, 2024

    Today it’s back to the world of the Hybe Corporation. In 2019, Hybe hired Min Hee-jin (민희진) as the company’s chief brand designer. She worked as the company began a transitional phase when BigHit Entertainment took on several subsidiary record labels. Min had worked for SM Entertainment, one of the big three K-pop labels in the ‘90s to early ‘10s, and had been the creative director behind some of the label’s biggest acts such as Exo, SHINee, (f)x, and Girls’ Generation. She then worked developing other K-pop acts on every label for Hybe except for BigHit because that label had its own specialized brand designer. But upon being hired at BigHit (later Hybe), Min demanded her own subsidiary, Ador, of which the brand designer became CEO. Ador was formed in 2021 and signed their first act in 2022.
     

    WANNA BE A WINNER. Min Hee-jin planned to release a girl group in 2022. Hybe Corporation was known for its boy bands and rappers. Still, with SM, YG, and JYP releasing successful fourth-generation K-pop girl groups like aespa and IVE, Hybe needed to capitalize on that demographic. Min hand-picked the girls of the group NewJeans, but before the group could debut with the song “Attention,” Source Music, another subsidiary of Hybe Entertainment, debuted their new girl group, Le Sserafim. The girl group followed the girl groups Glam and GFriend, the latter who had recently disbanded in 2021 leaving Source Music an empty roster only to Le Sserafim. Three of the group members were involved with the talent show Produce 48, which aired in 2018. Two of the members, former J-pop idol group member Sakura Miyawaki (宮脇咲良) and Kim Chae-won (김채원), won the competition and joined with ten other winners in the group Iz*One. Hybe and Source Music promoted their new group Le Sserafim, beginning to tease the group on March 14, 2022, and debuting the group’s EP Fearless on May 10th. 


    BUT LIVING LIKE A VILLAIN IS WHAT I NEED. Le Sserafim’s debut EP was commercially successful, becoming the best-selling debut of a girl-pop group. In contrast to Le Sserafim’s promotional hype, Min Hee-jin’s girl group NewJeans arrived with their debut single without much promotion from the label. Hybe claimed that Min’s demand for her own label delayed NewJeans’ debut and that Hybe couldn’t promote two new girl groups simultaneously. Still, NewJeans’ surprise debut turned into a number-one hit, and NewJeans has been one of the most successful girl groups since their debut. Le Sserafim has maintained a strong presence on the charts. They’ve released three EPs; their latest Easy was released on February 19th. The two singles “Easy” and “Smart” performed well on charts around the world. The songs range from experimental rock on “Good Bones” track to trap on the lead single “Easy” to tropical house on the second single “Smart.”  In April, they performed at Coachella. While many American music outlets praised the performance, many K-pop fans and netizens were disappointed with the group’s lack of live vocal talent. Listeners didn’t only point to the Coachella performance but noticed that the group’s vocals had always been inconsistent with their studio recordings. We’ll see if this affects the group’s next comeback. 


    Read the Korean lyrics on Genius.

    Read the English version’s lyrics on Genius.

  • “Daylight” by Harry Styles + Harry House Track by Track, Thursday, June 13, 2024 (repost)

    It’s been over two years since Harry Styles released his third album, Harry’s House. The album combines Styles’ love of classic rock and modern pop. I’ve listened to this album a lot–or at least started listening to it a lot–in hopes that it will make me fall in love with it similar to how I fell in love with Fine Line. While I have started to pick up on the musical nuance in this record, I still think that Fine Line is superior. But here’s a house for the tracks that I talk about on this record. I’ll furnish the house with more information as it is later!

    1. “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” kicks the album off in the best way possible. I’ve heard so many music snobs slam this song as a soundtrack to shopping at Target, and that’s partially true. It’s “music for whatever you want.” The somewhat shallow lyrics about the speaker’s oral fixations set a tone for the album’s lyrical depth. Things don’t go very deep on Harry’s House. There are a few points of lyrical devastation. It’s sex, drugs, and food.

    2. “Late Night Talking.” By track two, I started noting a difference between Harry Styles’ second and third records. Fine Line was generally a brighter record. Even the slower, melancholy moments lead back to warmth and bright acoustic tones. Harry’s House feels colder. There are moments of musical extraversion, starting with “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” but the album’s second track is half-bummer, half-banger. The musical production feels a little bit like a head cold, but the lyrics evoke the feeling of being up all night talking during the start of a new relationship. Perhaps it’s nostalgia for a better time and the production is the contrast of the shitty time that is in the present. That’s purely my interpretation, though.

    3. “Grapejuice” feels a bit like a kid wanting his sippy cup. Harry starts to go deep on this track. The musical production sounds half ’70s folk with the keys and the acoustic guitar, and half indie-rock with the driving beat. The vibe I have from “Late Night Talking” lyrically is thematic in “Grapejuice”: reminiscing about the old days is fun, but it makes me depressed about what’s going on now–and this could be a pandemic depression song.


    4. “As It Was” is another pandemic depression song. When Harry Styles released the song, the upbeat A-ha-styled synth line distracted listeners from the fact that it’s a song about being paralyzed by the past. 

    5. “Daylight” is today’s song. Its calm start contrasts with “As It Was,” taking listeners back to the ’70s. “Daylight” is a prime example of how the concrete images Styles uses to paint a picture can either make the meaning of the song obtuse or crystal clear. The image of the bluebird flying to see his love turns to “sticking like honey to you.” His love is on a plane, he’s on the roof.

    6. “Little Freak.” We’re well into the album’s second act. The lyrics on “Little Freak” and “Matilda” are the most melancholy the record gets. It’s a relationship that has ended. Some have called the song offensive with the opening line: “Little freak, Jezebel.”  


    7. “Matilda” is a slow acoustic ballad that seems very personal to Harry Styles. When talking with Zane Lowe, he didn’t elaborate much on the story behind the song in order to protect the identity of the subject. The song deals with the theme of chosen family and draws a parallel between the subject of the song and Roald Dahl’s protagonist from the novel of the same name as both the subject and the protagonist are neglected by their families.

    8. “Cinema” brings the energy of the album back up to its second peak. It’s a jarring contrast between the emotional “Matilda” and the disco “Cinema,” but the summertime vibes and the buttery, fizzy imagery make the mistake a pleasant one. Many speculate that “Cinema” is a song referring to Harry Styles’ and director Olivia Wilde’s relationship at the time of recording Harry’s House. Harry Styles met her on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. 


    9. “Daydreaming” picks up the groove where “Cinema” left off. It’s dreamier, though. Another one of Taylor Swift’s exes plays on this track–John Mayer. 

    10. “Keep Driving” takes the energy of the album down again. According to his interview with Zane Lowe, Styles said that he wrote the song about an experience driving from the UK to Italy in 2020 when some of the travel restrictions began to ease. 

    11. “Satellite” is Harry’s latest single.  The song’s central metaphor is comparing watching an ex being like a satellite, watching from afar.

    11. “Boyfriends” is an acoustic track about toxicity in relationships. Styles admitted to Zane Lowe that the song is “both acknowledging my own behavior [and] it’s looking at behavior [Styles] has witnessed.”
    12. “Love of My Life” ends Harry’s House in a similar way that Fine Line ends—anticlimacticly.  It’s Styles as a singer-songwriter, but with the hype that the album sets up, I wish that there was something more dynamic to end with. And who is the love of Harry’s life? England, his home country.


    Read the lyrics on Genius. 

  • "Hero" by Family of the Year, Wednesday, June 12, 2024 (repost)

    The 2014 film Boyhood was a highly acclaimed film that has an incredible Rotten Tomatoes score, yet nobody talks about it anymore. The film was shot over 12 years from 2001 to 2013 using the same actors and feels like a piece of turn-of-the-century Americana, a kind of early 2000s rendering of a Norman Rockwell painting of the imperfect white, working-class American family. The film not only explores boyhood and coming of age, but also parenthood and the complications of raising a family while trying to better oneself as well as the struggles of co-parenting through a divorce. The events and pop culture throughout the years are woven into human themes. The soundtrack for the film is a combination of famed indie artists of the early ’00s and popular music of the time. Seamlessly joining the soundtrack was virtually unknown folk-rock band Family of the Year, with their song “Hero.”

    I DON’T WANT TO BE YOUR HERO. “Hero” appears in the movie toward the end when Mason, Jr., played by Ellar Coltrane, drives his old pickup down the Texas highway. He is now 18 years old, graduated, and become himself. This comes after a scene with his mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette). She wonders, “What was it all for?” when she reflects on the hardships of parenthood. She had raised her kids and wonders what’s next for her. She tells her son, “The next big event is my fucking funeral.” She had kept her family a paycheck away from eviction at some points but ultimately raised a successful family, yet she wonders what it was all for. Family of the Year’s “Hero” serves as a reflection on the themes of the movie. The song talks about the conflict between wanting stability and something greater than you have right now. You long to be allowed to leave, but you still hold down a job to keep the girl around. 

    I’M A KID LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Watching Mason’s family struggle in the 2000s reminded me of growing up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck in the ’90s to ’06 when I graduated high school. I remember church pantry handouts and hand-me-downs from cousins. Clinton-era social programs let us go to the doctor when we needed to, and our moldy old house had me sick quite a bit as a kid. My dad worked as a logger in New York until the payment was so bad that he decided to go to truck driving school. When my dad became an over-the-road truck driver we started making more money, but we didn’t have health insurance. We prayed we didn’t get sick or injured, and thank God nothing bad happened. My mom would eventually go to nursing school and go to work when I was in high school. I’m very proud of what my family did, but I remember talks with my dad that echoed what Olivia said in Boyhood. What is it all for? The existential question that haunts us with every passing year. What is it all for? “Hero,” tells us “Everyone deserves a chance to walk with everyone else” but what does that mean? Boyhood, life, marriage, divorce, the economic depression–rituals of the American Dream. Everyone deserves it, but isn’t it all just vanity and vexation of the spirit?

    Trailer for Boyhood: 


    Music Video (original cut):

     Music Video (Boyhood cut): 

  • “Plot Twist” (첫 만남은 계획대로 되지 않아) by TWS, Tuesday, June 11, 2024

    TWS (pronounced two-us or in hangeul 투어스)  debuted earlier this year on Pledis Entertainment, an independently-operated sub-label of Hybe Corporation. Today all successful K-pop group members promote their group on social media, but the concept of Pledis’s latest boy band was to release “boyhood pop,” or pop music that “captures the daily stories of boys.” Furthering this concept, the group uses the tagline: “twenty-four seven with us.” The group is well-marketed as the cool boyfriends of voyeuristic K-pop fans. With members ranging from 16 to 20, TWS serves as a fifth (or fifth?)-generation K-pop group, marketed to middle school and high school students, which can be seen in their highly-stylized music video “Plot Twist.” The video features the group living in dormitory-style quarters and attending a co-educational high school.

    FIRST ENCOUNTERS ARE ALWAYS HARD.  Lyrically, “Plot Twist” by TWS is about the awkwardness and nervousness of first encounters. The lyrics describe the feelings of stiffness and self-consciousness that people often experience when meeting someone new. The song also conveys the idea that despite the social discomfort, there is potential for a deeper connection and relationship to develop. The song utilizes both old and new musical styles. Using synth programming, the song sounds fresh; however, the guitar and synchronized hopeful vocal delivery sound akin to early ‘90s boy bands.  The music video for “Plot Twist” reinforces the themes of awkwardness and nervousness of first encounters. The video shows this in a high school as the group members interact with each other and with female students. The video is stylized, focusing on shades of blue–a color the group has adopted in their singles and EPs since their debut earlier this year. There is also a motif of water, signifying the freshness of the group’s sound. It’s no wonder that the Korean soft drink Lotte Chilsung Milkis had TWS as part of their 2024 ad campaign for the refreshing yogurt soda. 

    WE MAY ACT A LITTLE STIFF.  In their dance performance videos, TWS shows a blocky style of dancing. The moves are exaggerated, almost as if the members are making themselves look bigger as if doing taekwondo or confronting a bear. However, each member adds subtlety to the movements, whether it’s a wink or a snap of the fingers, adding a level of cuteness to the big movements. The dancing along with their baggy clothes–when they aren’t dressed in school uniform for the music video of “Plot Twist”–, the group seems to be a harbinger of a ‘90s revival in K-pop. K-pop and general musical trends were set in the ‘80s, but the early ‘90s seem to be reemerging, despite the stars who are bringing the trends back being born in this century. While TWS may not be a “Plot Twist” to K-pop, their refreshing sound makes them an interesting group to watch with their second EP, Summer Beat! coming out on June 24th. I’m certainly not going to be waiting for the “daily stories of [these] boys,” though.  

     

    Read the Korean lyrics on Genius.

    Read the English lyrics on Genius.

  • “Never Ending Song” by Conan Gray, Monday, June 10, 2024

    Conan Gray released his third album, Found Heaven April 5th this year. The album is a departure from Gray’s music before the singles were released starting with the album’s lead single from last May, “Never Ending Song.” The ‘80s-inspired dance-pop track treads on “maximalist” pop (more on that later) the singer flirted with once on the teen anthem “Maniac” on his 2020 debut album Kid Krow, but much of Gray’s early music was emotional acoustic music like his biggest song, “Heather.” Working with producer Dan Nigro, the producer behind Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, on his first two albums fleshed out Gray as a queer-coded Gen-Z singer-songwriter. The third album is a fun excursion into ‘80s glam rock and synth-pop, and it’s pure pop-rock heaven. 

    I SAW YOUR FACE IN A MAGAZINE TODAY. Conan Gray didn’t return to work with Dan Nigro on his third album. He told Billboard News that he had begun writing the album while on tour with his second album Superache. He talks about it being the first time that he fell in love. He says that all songs before Found Heaven were just his speculation about what love might feel like—similar to the theme of his song “People Watching”— but the album is about a real love story. In the early writing process, he knew he wanted to write a pop record. To make this pop record, Gray worked with some of the biggest pop producers including Max Martin, Greg Kurstin, Shawn Everett, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Oscar Holter, Fat Max Gsusm, and Luka Kloser. Each producer brings a slightly different sound to Gray’s album. Greg Kurstin’s Elton John-inspired track “Alley Cat” and the final track “Winner” bring Gray back to his singer-songwriter roots. The Shawn Everett tracks “Found Heaven” and “Eye of the Night” bring a Queen-inspired sound to the album. But the glue of the album has to be the songs produced by Max Martin and his associates. 

    TRIED TO TURN THE PAGE, BUT OUR STORY WASN’T STOPPIN’. Conan Gray is still an up-and-coming pop star. And while he is TikTok famous, I was baffled by how he got Max Martin to produce much of his third album, Found Heaven. While the album charted higher than any of Gray’s previous records, Found Heaven was certainly a low-key album of an active early 2024. Gray told Zach Sang that the Martin collaboration came about because Gray had worked with other artists in Max’s studios for years. The album produced no Billboard Hot 100 hits, not even for the producer with the most Billboard number ones. I think the album is a fun experiment in campy music inspired by the ‘80s. Maybe Conan Gray isn’t the next Freddie Mercury, but his charisma and impeccable fashion sense are iconic nonetheless. The music video for “Never Ending Song” sets the mood for the album with Gray entering a grocery store in a leather jacket 10 minutes before the store closes. Dancing in the middle of the dairy aisle connects the kitschy and the catchy. I’m not sure if there will be a revival of Found Heaven in terms of a radio campaign, but there is certainly an absence of pop stars like Conan Gray. There are still no mainstream Asian American chart staples. Hopefully, Gray breaks through with a force that goes on and on.



  • “ Easy” (Remix) by Troye Sivan ft. Kacey Musgraves & Mark Ronson, Sunday, June 9, 2024 (repost)

    Last October, Troye Sivan released his first full-length record since 2018’s Bloom.  While other pop stars have entered prolific eras with frequent releases, fans have had to wait a long time for new music from Sivan. His last major release was an EP in 2020 titled In a Dream, but the singer has been releasing singles since then; however, whether or not they will be part of the upcoming work is yet to be disclosed. Sivan’s sophomore LP, Bloom, was a celebration of love and gay sex; however, In a Dream is an introspective collection of songs–with the exception of “Stud“–dealing with heartache and a failing relationship. 


    TELL ME WE’LL MAKE IT THROUGH. The single “Easy” is the second track on In a Dream. The song was remixed by producer Mark Ronson and features a verse by Kacey Musgraves. Sivan had appeared on Musgrave’s second Christmas album in 2019, and the reunion between the two singers on the 2020 single not only coincided with Sivan’s breakup with model Jacob Bixenman but also Musgraves’ divorce which would later be artistically analyzed on her 2021 record star-crossed. “Easy” is a song about trying to hold onto a relationship. The remix is a little faster than the original, and other than featuring the production of Ronson and the additional vocals of Musgraves, the second verse of the songs are different. Sivan sings more about the ending of his relationship on verse two in the original version, while Musgraves sings different lyrics on the remix. While Sivan uses the pronoun he in the first verse in both versions, Musgraves addition makes the song sound like a break up duet about a straight or straight-passing relationship. 

    PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME. Complicating the meaning even more is the Musgraves-Sivan music video, which opens with “Part II,” presumably the second part to original song and original video which features Sivan in an empty house watching a bizarre ’80s music video with him in dyed red hair. The original video, released during the Covid quarantine, felt isolating, and breaking up with someone during that time was very hard. You couldn’t just go to the bar or meet someone on an app; instead you were left indoors wallowing in your heartbreak. The sequel, though, sees Sivan in a Nashville dive bar, sporting a mullet. While cowboys and cowgirls are line dancing, a drag queen Jorgeous sings “Easy” karaoke-style, though looking dejected. Meanwhile, we see Sivan and Musgraves traveling from cheap motel to cheap motel with eerie CSI-styled flashes, making the audience feel that something sinister is going on. Sivan and Musgraves appear platonic in the video. They go from dive bar to dive bar. Sivan mostly just watches from the sidelines, though sometimes dances. Musgraves flirts with men provocatively. However, both end up together, sleeping in the same motel queen-sized bed. Sivan explained to Vogue that the characters that he and Musgraves portray have “separately had our own experiences, regrets, scorned our lovers and will find solace in each other.” 



  • “You Get Me” by TWICE, Saturday, June 8, 2024

    Twice became one of the biggest K-pop girl groups in South Korea in 2016 with their number one song “Cheer Up.” The group debuted in 2015 on JYP Entertainment. President Jin-young Park announced that the label would debut a new girl group, formed through a survival competition show called Sixteen, which aired on Mnet. By the end of the show, seven members completed Twice, but Park announced that the group would expand to nine members, adding Taiwanese member Tzuyu (Chou Tzu-yu), as a fan-favorite, and Japanese singer Momo Hirai, whom Park thought was a strong performer that the group needed. The nine singers have been performing to this day as Twice, and still continue to produce hits, coming back this year with their EP With YOU-th. 


    WHERE ON EARTH IS THIS? Girl groups in South Korea often have a hard time winning the hearts of the teenagers. Boy bands tend to sell more concert tickets, albums, and merchandise. The primary sales go to the teen girls with pocket money. While teenage Korean boys may spend their money on girl group posters or merchandise, they typically don’t spend the money to attend girl group concerts, opting to spend their money on video games. Korean teenage girls may support girl groups, sing their songs, and attend their concerts, but the big money comes from boy bands. This is, of course, broadly speaking, as there are certainly Korean teenagers that don’t fit this stereotype, but purely looking at the K-pop market, these trends seem to make sense, even as fourth-generation K-pop girl groups now tend to market toward girls. Still, according to a 2022 article published by Korea JoongAng Daily, boy groups still make most of the money.


    LATELY I’VE BEEN FEELING LIKE EVERYTHING’S ENOUGH. In 2015, Twice was given the name “The Nation’s Girl Group” in South Korea. The group also has a massive following in Japan and have expanded into other overseas markets. Twice was one of the girl groups I remember from their inception. I remember my students, particularly the male students enamored with the pretty girls. As the article in Korea JoongAng Daily talks about, the third-generation girl groups marketed sexuality to mostly a male audience. Twice was cute, whereas their predecessors were enjoyed by older men, and not so much for their music. Girls, too, loved the catchy choruses of Twice. But Twice’s popularity was eclipsed when BLACKPINK debuted in 2016. Yes, these two groups co-existed, and Twice still remained a powerful hit producer, but the kids loved BLACKPINK in a way I hadn’t experienced love for a girl group before. And who loved the YG Entertainment girl group the most—the female students. With the rise of the new generation of girl groups comes the message of female empowerment and gender equality in the groups’ lyrics, but also a renewed scrutiny of the possibly unethical training processes that both male and female stars must undergo before a debut. But with the issues of male conscription, I’ve wondered if girl groups would be a more profitable future for K-pop. Only time will tell.

    Read the Korean lyrics on Genius.
     Read the English translation on Genius.