Hot Summer: Monrose vs f(x)

It never even occurred to me that K-pop, or in this case SM entertainment, might be buying songs from other artists. I guess it makes sense. K-Pop isn't exactly traditional music. It is designed to be entertaining, in a very commercial way... not to be an expression of the artist(s).

Still, when a company blatantly buys a song like this, I at least loose some of the illusion that I'm hearing something from the artist's heart or mind and it kind of spoils it for me. I really liked f(x)'s Hot Summer, ignoring that they make fun of us poor foreigners for our tendency to sweat, (Hello?! Why don't YOU sweat? Everyone else on the planet does.... I think it's because you drink so little water.) before I found out that they bought the song. Really this is all EatYourKimchi's fault, I'm pretty oblivious, if they hadn't pointed it out I probably wouldn't have noticed. Check out their review of f(x)'s Hot Summer here. They do a review of a K-pop song every Monday, and every other day of the week they write about something else that's fun. Love 'em and I highly recommend them (note they're one of the blogs I follow on the right).

So I've decided, the real question here... with two almost identical songs (slightly different lyrics), which one do you like best?


f(x) translated lyrics here.



Monrose lyrics here.


Things each group wins at (in my opinion):

f(x)-

• Cuteness
• better set(background)
• no dirty trailer-park-esque white guys (ewwwww!)
• they're not German (let's face it, German's, though better then the French, are still German)
• I feel like I could learn the dance to this song, but I'm not motivated to, so I would always feel dumb dancing to this version. But other people could learn the dance, so it's still a plus.

Monrose-

• Hot sexyness 
• didn't make fun of sweaty foreigners 
• no dikey looking girls (does the Koreans willingness to look sexually ambiguous bother anyone else? *both guys looking like girls and girls looking like guys and there's always one in every K-Pop group* It wouldn't bother me if they weren't so intolerant of homosexuals. Quit screwing up the signals I'm receiving!!)
• actually looks like they get hot which only makes sense in context 
• I like their chair dance better, I'm sorry I just do. Plus I feel like I could just jump around at a club to dance to this version

Maybe you can be more objective (maybe less offensive) then I've been?

Leave your vote in the comments. ;)

Kpop songs I truly love - Wonder Girls

I really couldn't say this until recently. Don't get me wrong, I could say I liked a lot of Kpop songs, but there was no love (besides loving to watch the awesome/silly videos).

This is my first song that I really love. I was first introduced to it by YeonSil singing it at the Noribang and thought it was super catchy then. I've heard it several times since then and finally looked it up. Thank you YouTube!!



This song is so catchy and fun. And the video just happens to be awesome/ridiculous. I love the "flasher" in the girls locker room being taken care of by this Wonder Girl. lol

In case you don't know what Kpop is, the concept is similar to assembled "boy bands" and "girl bands" in the US. Think N Sync and Spice Girls- uh yeah, I know Spice Girls are British, not American, try to stick with me here. But Korea puts it's own special twist on the idea and it's wildly successful all over Asia.

Some things Kpop bands have in common.

1. Put together by a corporation. (I think)
2. Songs tend to appeal to pre-teens/teens
3. They commonly have dance routines in the videos that their followers can learn and imitate
4. They typically have a couple words of English in each song, whether used correctly or not.

Wonder Girls are particularly awesome though, and in 2009, they were the first Kpop band to place in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart with this song:

OMG, this is the OTHER song YeonSil sang at Noribang! (You're such a big fan YS! Well, so am I now, good job!) ^.^ Hilarious, awesome, great, catchy song!

One more awesome Wonder Girls song and I'll stop talking about them (for today):

I just found this video on YouTube, I hadn't seen/heard this song before today. So cute! so much fun and I'm done talking about this for today.

I'll probably post more Kpop music videos that I like in the future, but I'm honestly not good at reviewing, so I won't break them down or anything, I'll just tell you I like them!

I keep forgetting!

Thanks Andy!