On December 2 JYP Entertainment released the music video for the company's holiday single "This Christmas" which features all the company's top artists including 2PM, 2AM, Wonder Girls, miss A, San-E, Joo, and the company's intrepid CEO himself, Park Jinyoung.
A little background information: JYP Entertainment is one of the three largest entertainment company's in South Korea along with SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment and hosts some of the most popular artists in Korea. JYP Entertainment recently announced that it's repertoire of artists would be referred to as "JYP Nation" when they took part in company wide projects and promotions, similar to SM Entertainment's "SM Town" and YG Entertainment's "YG Family," and "This Christmas" is their first group endeavor before hosting a holiday concert on December 24.
The music video features a guest entering the JYP House and shuffling around helping various JYP artists with preparations for a Christmas party from eating snacks, opening presents, and taking a group photo. The music video is definitely bright and cheerful inter cut with individual scenes of artists singing about wanting to fall in love this Christmas. Though bordering on corny, although that's to be expected, all the artists run around having fun with each other with bright smiles giving off a very fun and warming feeling. Though I'm not their biggest fan it was nice to see the Wonder Girls interacting with their other label mates, especially miss A, arguably the best rookie girl group of 2010, after being away from Korea for an extensive period of time while try to break through in the American market. Though all the artists are featured in the video I was a little disappointed that not everyone was able to have a solo line in the song, although I guess it's to be expected with the number of individuals involved.
1.12.10
Album Review - T-ara's Temptastic
Fortunately for us in the United States we live 13 hours behind South Korea. Why is this important? Because that means we get new releases from artists even faster. As such South Korean girl group T-ara has just released their first mini-album (EP) titled "Temptastic" on December 1st in Korea, November 30th in the States. The girls return with a Native American themed concept and a new member bringing the total member count to 7.
Although I didn't pay the group that much attention when they debuted I did become a fan when they released their first album a year ago in November of 09 which featured a heavy synth/electronic feel.
Also, I'm not gonna lie, although I know a bunch of words and a handful of phrases, I have yet to get a firm grasp on the Korean language. Accordingly any albums or songs I review won't focus on the lyrical content but rather on the overall listening experience, although as you can guess with any pop music it all revolves around love, falling in love, losing love, being in love for the first time, etc. etc. I think you get the picture.
The first track off the album is also the title track (the one that will be used for promoting) called "Yayaya", the music video of which you can watch below.
"Why Are You Being Like This" was actually the first song and music video that was released in order to build anticipation for the release of the album and I actually prefer this song over "Yayaya" because it's more upbeat with a more pop sound yet is still able to incorporate an edgier sound in the breakdown. I also think it's cool they included a guitar riff, albeit a simple one, into the song.
The third track, titled "Ma Boo", strikes a balance between "Yayaya" and "Why Are You Being Like This" by using lighter synth beats accompanied by piano part in order to give off a more whistful feeling to the song.
The fourth track, "I Don't Know", is the most "pop" sounding song on the album. Even though more synth beats are present they're well hidden allowing the song to retain its innocent and fun feeling.
The fifth and final track of note is "I'm Okay" which is the track that most resembles the obligatory, but welcomed, ballad song present on nearly every Kpop artist release, although this song is a little more upbeat than your typical straight ballad. It's certainly a pleasant listen but I thought some of the blending of voices during some singing parts could have been better and I wish there was a larger rapping part because it's the highlight of the song for me.
Overall this is a solid release by T-ara, an album you can listen to from start to end and not get bored or want to skip any song. Although none of the songs strike you over the head with their awesomeness neither are any of them bad by any of my kpop metrics and probably all the tracks will be included into my regular listening rotation.
Although I didn't pay the group that much attention when they debuted I did become a fan when they released their first album a year ago in November of 09 which featured a heavy synth/electronic feel.
Also, I'm not gonna lie, although I know a bunch of words and a handful of phrases, I have yet to get a firm grasp on the Korean language. Accordingly any albums or songs I review won't focus on the lyrical content but rather on the overall listening experience, although as you can guess with any pop music it all revolves around love, falling in love, losing love, being in love for the first time, etc. etc. I think you get the picture.
The first track off the album is also the title track (the one that will be used for promoting) called "Yayaya", the music video of which you can watch below.
Overall I enjoyed this song as the first track and think it's a decent song to promote with, although I don't think I would have picked it first. It features some heavy bass and driving synth beats that I've come to associate with T-ara and also have become popular in the Kpop scene over the past couple years.
The second track is "Why Are You Being Like This" the music video of which is also below
"Why Are You Being Like This" was actually the first song and music video that was released in order to build anticipation for the release of the album and I actually prefer this song over "Yayaya" because it's more upbeat with a more pop sound yet is still able to incorporate an edgier sound in the breakdown. I also think it's cool they included a guitar riff, albeit a simple one, into the song.
The third track, titled "Ma Boo", strikes a balance between "Yayaya" and "Why Are You Being Like This" by using lighter synth beats accompanied by piano part in order to give off a more whistful feeling to the song.
The fourth track, "I Don't Know", is the most "pop" sounding song on the album. Even though more synth beats are present they're well hidden allowing the song to retain its innocent and fun feeling.
The fifth and final track of note is "I'm Okay" which is the track that most resembles the obligatory, but welcomed, ballad song present on nearly every Kpop artist release, although this song is a little more upbeat than your typical straight ballad. It's certainly a pleasant listen but I thought some of the blending of voices during some singing parts could have been better and I wish there was a larger rapping part because it's the highlight of the song for me.
Overall this is a solid release by T-ara, an album you can listen to from start to end and not get bored or want to skip any song. Although none of the songs strike you over the head with their awesomeness neither are any of them bad by any of my kpop metrics and probably all the tracks will be included into my regular listening rotation.
29.11.10
Welcome
Hello all and welcome to the first post of Infinitely Yours, Korea. As stated above the purpose of this blog is for me to share some of my thoughts on contemporary Korean pop culture and what it is about the country that has made me fall in love with it over the past couple years. Hopefully through these posts you'll be able to learn something new and if you walk away with even a tiny new interest in Korea or Korean culture that didn't exist before then I'm all the more happier.
A little more detailed information about myself: I was adopted from South Korea when I was six months old and was raised in Rhode Island my whole life. Growing up my parents never hid the fact that both me and my older sister were adopted from Korea (my sister was adopted six years prior to my own arrival). Despite growing up in an overwhelmingly Caucasian town and community (as far I can recall I was the only minority in my elementary school and the number of minorities in my relatively small high school could be counted on two hands) no one really drew a lot of attention to the fact that I was Korean and so my different ethnicity had a pretty low impact on my youth.
It wasn't until through the end of high school and into college that I matured to a point where I recognized being Korean was a significant part of my life and something that differentiated me (not necessarily in a good or bad way) from most of the people around me and, because of that, had a cultural heritage that I knew nearly nothing about, but had a renewed interest in, and it took off from there.
Lastly, the influence for this blogs title "Infinitely Yours, Korea" is a reference to the global promotion campaign "Infinitely Yours, Seoul". The aim of the promotion campaign was to promote Seoul, South Korea's capital, as a warm and welcoming city with endless possibility and opportunity. The title resembles the traditional closing of a letter, reconciling a sense of limitless offerings with a feeling of sincere and genuine warmth. In that same spirit "Infinitely Yours, Korea" is a platform by which I wish to share with everyone what it is I love about Korea and hopefully inspire some of the same feelings in others.
A little more detailed information about myself: I was adopted from South Korea when I was six months old and was raised in Rhode Island my whole life. Growing up my parents never hid the fact that both me and my older sister were adopted from Korea (my sister was adopted six years prior to my own arrival). Despite growing up in an overwhelmingly Caucasian town and community (as far I can recall I was the only minority in my elementary school and the number of minorities in my relatively small high school could be counted on two hands) no one really drew a lot of attention to the fact that I was Korean and so my different ethnicity had a pretty low impact on my youth.
It wasn't until through the end of high school and into college that I matured to a point where I recognized being Korean was a significant part of my life and something that differentiated me (not necessarily in a good or bad way) from most of the people around me and, because of that, had a cultural heritage that I knew nearly nothing about, but had a renewed interest in, and it took off from there.
Lastly, the influence for this blogs title "Infinitely Yours, Korea" is a reference to the global promotion campaign "Infinitely Yours, Seoul". The aim of the promotion campaign was to promote Seoul, South Korea's capital, as a warm and welcoming city with endless possibility and opportunity. The title resembles the traditional closing of a letter, reconciling a sense of limitless offerings with a feeling of sincere and genuine warmth. In that same spirit "Infinitely Yours, Korea" is a platform by which I wish to share with everyone what it is I love about Korea and hopefully inspire some of the same feelings in others.
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