Hello all! I know I haven’t be around lately, I doubt anyone noticed—but my life has settled down again so I wanted to get serious about blogging. You should know though—one of the reasons that I’ve been absent from the Blogosphere is because—well—I’ve switched sides.
Now don’t get too angry—I have just jumped headfirst into the kpop ocean of amazingness.
I’ll back up a bit and tell you how I got sucked into the Jpop world—why I don’t listen to it as much, why Kpop is now god—and of course what this is really supposed to be about.. Chocolate Love, and no I don’t mean the Hersey’s Bar in my freezer.
I got into Jpop about six months before Konkon and Mako’s graduation. Namie Amuro was my first Jpop love—and to this day I can probably sing you ever live out of every song from Queen of Hip-pop. When I first got into Jpop though that is all I listened too—Namie. The first song that started me on the H!P Crazy!Train has got to be in the top thirty(or so.) or the least known H!P songs.
The video was on my friend’s LJ—and before I knew it I was watching the video almost fanatically. I was addicted—I don’t know if it was Rika’s fishnets—the boots—the creepy as male voice in the back or simply the uniqueness of it. I made up translated lyrics in my head—and months later looked up the real lyrics—hated replaced them with my own again. Wow. I’m listening to this song again after not having heard it in a really really long time and am still addicted. One thing lead to another, and a youtube search for ‘Country Musume’ lead me to ‘Morning Musume’ which lead me to my first H!P vid—Chokkan 2. Close up version.
Insta!Love.
After some help from my best buddy google, I found Ray Mescallano’s(I CAN HAZ BAD SPELLING??) Feed of Pop and his extensive blog post concerning Chokkan 2’s close up PV and then all the members. My first Momusu love—and my current one if you don’t know is Sayumi though of course as Ray knows Mako came in a close second. I still love this pics you sent me btw <3 you probably don’t even remember though xD
ANYWAY.
Jpop lured me in because—well I’m not sure. Some of you may have read the second blog post I ever did that got noticed by Ray about Momusu being able to make it in America and how they seemed to be so much more genuine and caring about their fans than American artists. I think it was because American artists these days change so much (except Offspring of course. Please tell me there are some Jpop fans that adore them too) along with the fact that they sell out and seem to think it is cool to be cold and distant towards their fans. Not all of them of course—just a lot of them. Plus the uniqueness just wasn’t present as much as I would like—the individuality. The Black Eyed Peas were no longer awesome, No Doubt broke up, Blink 182 disappeared, Sublime died, only Regina Spektor and a few other unknowns kept me interested in American music. And Lily Allen but that is a whole ‘nother story.
Plus Jpop sent shivers down my spine, they inspired me and cheered me up. I was done with my teenage moody phase and was tired of listening to depressing music. Hola H!P! For me, Jpop was actually the next stage in maturity. In my own special kind of way of course.
Lately though—I haven’t really enjoyed a Momusu single since Naichau Kamo—and that is a stretch. I have over a dozen Momusu singles in my home but after Kanashimi Twilight I sorta lost the passion I have for them. Don’t get me wrong, you find me a amazing Sayu vid and I’m all over that. Or Gaki or Junjun or even Linlin and I still watch the concert videos—and I still watch the vids once they are subtitled. But their last three singles haven’t gotten more than one play. I can’t tell you why exactly—they just don’t seem to be Momusu anymore. No more shivers. I mean I enjoy Berryz, truly, and C-ute too but are they enough? I have never followed a member of either of those groups like I followed Mako, Yossie and Sayu.
Admittedly I was never hardcore obsessed with Jpop. Mostly Namie, KAT-TUN, some Arashi(mostly thanks to Hana Yori Dango), H!P of course, Ayu, Kuu(some) and a few others I can’t remember right now. Oh and on the AKB note—the only singles that really caught me were Seifuku and the song about school bullying/suicide… It’s a long name okay! Don’t judge me my head is filled with Korean!
Then I stumbled upon F(x) on accident…
More importantly my new crush—Amber. Quite sexy. This video is even better:
Yummy, ne’?
Next was Brown Eyed Girl’s – Abracadabra, and I encourage you Jpop fans who have never touched Kpop to watch these just to try something new. Please?
Now the said thing is, even I listen to a Jpop song five times chances are I can sing you the chorus minimum, Korean is still kicking my ass!
Back to the point—one of my favorite things about Kpop is how they treat sexiness. Okay I know that might sound odd but let me explain. In the Jpop world the girls are encouraged to be sexy—but to be coy about it. You know what I’m talking about, I’m not the first of the Bloggers to say it, “Be sexy but act like you’re not. Be sexy but act innocent. “ Except Kuu—lets not even bring her into this. Now F(x), BEG, and many other girl groups are blantantly sexy—but not in a Kuu kind of way—in that “Yes I’m sexy, yes I’m better than you. I am woman hear me roar!” That overpower, woman in control sexiness. In vinyl. And Fishnets. And stilettos.
These groups..They just seem to give me what Jpop lacks now—the shivers. And you know what? I can show this music off to my friends and they can enjoy it too! Not normally as much as me of course but still. These are still girl groups, doing the same old girl group thing—but for older girls and attracting girls—for the slightly more mature more trendy audiences but still being unique. Each of these groups is very distinct in both style, voices, dance, personas, everything. Even though I haven’t been listening to them very long I can hear a B.E.G song and then a F(X) song and know who it was by style and voice etc. Sadly, a lot of Jpop seems to have lost that—spark. That uniqueness.
I will discuss Kpop more in depth—maybe even a intro post to each of my favorite groups; male and female later on. To help you Jpop-wota who are too afraid to delve into the Kpop world ^_~ but right now this post is really about Chocolate Love.
Now as I’ve made clear I love, absolutely love F(X). But I also love SNSD—just not as much. Cyon as recently gotten both girl groups to do videos with the same song—with only slight differences in style—one Is techno and the other is something else—to promote their new Chocolate phone. Or maybe their phone is called Chocolate Love I dunno.
One way or another the F(X) version brings a whole new element of sexiness to the group, and I LOVE it. Even though of course, my favorite chickie Amber gets very very little attention except a meager solo and a five second clip at the end that makes it seem like they caught her at a private session in front of a mirror. Where she is just having fun, maybe a psyching herself out session?
See what I mean when I say it’s sexy? But not in a slutty way of course, it also made me appreciate the one member I didn’t really like—Sulli. Who kind of reminded me of Rika Ishikawa. Popular, given a lot of solos, but with a voice that didn’t quite match everyone else’s but was cute and confident.
The video has a good unique dancing, very active that goes with the beat of the song and the style—it looks extremely difficult and is sexy without being slutty. I adore their outfits for the most part—except the white parts on the ones they are wearing at the very beginning. The girls are clearly flirting with the camera, being seductive—but not really in a “Come to me, take me I love you!” way but more in a “I want you, you want me, we both know this, but are you sure you can handle this? Maybe I’ll just play with you for awhile.” There is some greenscreen but very little and it Is subtle, the video is probably sixty-seventy percent dance shot but also some scenes with the girls dancing with one or two of the other’s or lounging on some dark cushions singing. The video has no story line but is it supposed to? It is really a glorified commercial. There is also a few scenes with the girls dancing under..a black sheet? Um, copying off G-dragon much?! Jeez! Granted the song is fairly repetitive but the girls are very good at harmonizing and simply their voices sound beautiful—and I’m not sure how to say it—but the way they sing/say the words gets me every time. They sound like they’ve hit a new level of incredible.
Now though to the SNSD version…
I don’t have as much to say about this one—because of the simple fact that is just not as mesmerizing to me. Maybe because the song IS repetitive but it lacks Amber’s unique solo and awkwardness during the video(for those of you unawares Amber is genuinely tomboy, and doing sexy moves makes her uncomfortable. It is fairly obvious) but the video and the song—is just SNSD. Where the F(X) girls have coyness on their side that lends to their sexiness the SNSD girls will always sound girly and feminine to me. The more submissive, less in control tone of their video/song compared to their younger counterpart may have been what turned me off. The girls wear sexy clothes—but not stilettos, vinyl, and short black dress sexy. They wear SNSD sexy clothes. Lacey white booty shorts that is really lingerie and what almost seems like too pure dresses. They try sexy—but they still come across as young and cute and innocent. That is who SNSD is though. Don’t misunderstand me now: they’re singing was, as always amazing, their dancing flawless, and the girl’s beautiful. The focus was on their legs, and the dancing itself was much like every other SNSD video I’ve seen. I can’t even concentrate on the song long enough to pick out how they changed Amber’s solo to be SNSD style.
Anyways. I guess it’s obvious which group’s version I love better. Expect new things from me and I would love to hear your opinions on the things I talked about <3
BTW, any HYD fans out there still?
Oh! And before I forget! there is a youtube user online(well boviously she's onle xD silly me) who does her own english versions of Asian songs, largely Korean, and here is her version of Chocolate Love–f(X) version of course!
I highly recommend all of her songs!
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