The craziest year ever for Korean pop, with punchy, progressive tracks from CL, T.O.P and EXO
Ropey debuts, drug busts, flops, scandals, sasaeng fans raising hell, and losing your favourite singer to the mandatory Korean military service. That's a fraught year in K-Pop. But it's also music videos that inspire, songs which transcend language barriers, heart-wrenching and deserved comebacks. The sheer volume of material makes summarising a lip-chewing nightmare. Ten places just isn't enough to truly capture the year and the following, in no order, need smashing high fives for being damn awesome. Put your hands together for SPICA's “Tonight”, TEEN TOP's “Miss Right”, BTS' “No More Dream”, HENRY's “Trap”, VIXX's “Voodoo Doll”, SHINEE's “Why So Serious”, BLOCK B's “Very Good”, EVOL's “Get Up”, and SISTAR19's “Gone Not Around Any Longer”.
10. B.A.P- "Hurricane"
9. CRAYON POP- "Bar, Bar, Bar"
8. CL (of 2NE1)- "Baddest Female"
7. TROUBLE MAKER – “There Is No Tomorrow (Now)”
6. f(x) – “Rum Pum Pum Pum”
5. TAEYANG – “Ringa Linga”
Taeyang's early solos marked him as king of the slow jam, hip grinding while chiffon curtains fluttered in the background. It never felt fully indicative of Taeyang as an artist, particularly as through Big Bang we've watched his inner swag intensify from video to video until something had to give. “Ringa Linga” granted Taeyang a Superman-ripping-open-his-shirt moment, shedding the sweet, somewhat hapless guise of his previous singles. Blindingly confident and wearing a triumphant smile, this unapologetic dancefloor monster is meth-level addictive.
4. INFINITE – “Destiny”
3. G-DRAGON – “Coup d'Etat”
“Michi GO!” was batshit crazy fun but the title track from GD's second solo album captivates on a broader scale. Broken, bloody fingernails scrape through sneering self-deprecation and the doomy bass tolls leadenly for a twisted foray into Kwon Jiyong's complicated mind. The MV's ashy, nightmare landscape revisits many of GD's previous visual trademarks, where he mutates with a Frankenstein's monster-esque outcome. It's beautiful and sinister, and so deeply committed to self-destruction and the pursuit of freedom that the final stark scenes come as a relief.
2. EXO – “Growl” (Korean Version)
1. T.O.P – “Doom Dada”
Big Bang's rapper T.O.P has never felt like your average popstar. He's feline-sleek yet awkward, and no amount of media training has quelled his fascinating combination of chilly reserve and childlike whimsy. Like the man himself, “Doom Dada” is unexpected and, from a pop standpoint, virtually impenetrable on the first go. The lyrical rhythms are both inviting and alienating, while the beats align to trap and M.I.A's jagged tribalism. But go deeper and recognisable cadences reveal themselves.... it's K-Pop but sly, frenetic and slippery. The pinching from Dali, “Space Odyssey 2001”, and “The Good, The Bad and The Weird” is shameless but thrilling, challenging MV production out of the couple-ring chucking, piano burning cul-de-sac its been squatting in for too long, like a shiny Ferrari jacked up on bricks.
You might ask why we would award the #1 slot to a track that didn't want to be K-Pop, but as a product of T.O.P and producer Choice37, both unquestionably ingrained within the genre, “Doom Dada” can be nowhere else but the top spot. The dissection and progressive reassembling of existing music and culture gave K-Pop its edge, but it now has a concrete history and with that, a set of cliches it's already begun to impale itself upon. Eventually, as Western pop has done for decades, it will be a case of evolve or die. T.O.P won't be single-handedly leading this but his label YG can – “Doom Dada” (and its surprising success) is the enthralling, intriguing evidence.
Source : bigbangupdates[dot]com
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