halfcactus

Posted by TSJ

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/ive-bang-bang/

K-pop group have less to say, but stylishly…

[Video]
[6.33]Claire Davidson: The first verse of “Bang Bang” promises my least favorite kind of K-pop song, with its overblown bass beat, exaggerated trap skitters, and a performance of ironic coyness from Leeseo suggesting a sharp polarity between aggression and self-infantilization that rapidly grates on my nerves. Luckily, the song tampers that obnoxiousness by the time the chorus arrives, at which point it seems to resign itself to a more anonymous approach, coasting on a thin, stuttering synth line and an odd guitar lick to build momentum. This oscillation from overt confrontation to shrinking automation is strange enough, but what’s remarkable about “Bang Bang” is that, despite the roteness with which, say, the group members alternate between uttering the word “Bang” until it loses all meaning, the song still manages to tire, thanks to its astounding inability to ever stay still and build to a real climax. At least “Gnarly,” for as disastrous as its genre pile-up was, bothered to properly accost its listener with an appropriate degree of sensory overload — far more than Ive, in their vow to be “a little bit offensive,” can accomplish here. Even the Anglophone “Bang Bang” went harder than this!
[3]

Andrew Karpan: Found the Good, the Bad and the Ugly mood board riffs more distracting than illuminating; just one of many parts grinding together. Grind. Grind. Grind. Bang. Bang. Bang. It works, of course, but at what cost? To what end?
[3]

Alfred Soto: Allusions to Cher’s “Bang Bang” and Iggy’s “Bang Bang,” surf guitar alluding to “Toxic” — Ive’s track is distillation at its safest.
[6]

Iain Mew: The surf guitar is quite “Sound of the Underground”, which fits with the bit of the video that looks like whatever the Korean equivalent of Canada Water station is. They use it very differently to Girls Aloud though, taking the song along a twisted path with some unexpected melodic bits that they slide into like Poppy. It’s nimble, engaging, and so enjoyable that it can’t be spoiled even by the line “it’s a little bit offensive, yeah I said it”, plastic edgelording flapping uselessly in the wind.
[8]

Kayla Beardslee: Oh my gosh! Don’t you know Ive a savage? Aside from its first verse, “Bang Bang” isn’t actually that reminiscent of Aespa musically, but the general attitude (girl group clangs and bangs and punches their way through a cartwheeling arrangement) is very like Aespa, or any other major fourth gen girl group’s best singles. The members know what they need to do (overpower listeners through either intimidation or sheer appreciation for a good pop song) and they have just the polished instrumental to get the job done. Rei’s spitfire rap is a particular highlight: “talking my [shit], gotta pop my gum” — sure, girl, whatever works for you! “Bang Bang” is easily the best Ive single since “Heya” and “Accendio,” and after an underwhelming run of singles last year, it comes as a much-needed course correction that I hope spells better things for fourth gen girl groups in 2026.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Me listening to a beatmaker who is producing for nerdcore rap: is this harder than this song?
Me listening to the beatmaker for this song: yes, this is harder.
[10]

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/ive-bang-bang/

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=29782

thesinglesjukebox_feed

Posted by TSJ

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/i-dle-ft-skaiwater-mono/

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=29780

K-pop group with Things To Say…

[Video]
[5.29]Claire Davidson: There’s a vintage quality to “Mono,” which is so clunky in its broad-strokes “come together” messaging that it almost becomes more charming for it, its quirks at least betraying a semblance of sincerity. Indeed, there are so many left-field choices in this song that it becomes hard to pick a real standout: there’s the hook that seems to deliberately break its own rhyme scheme specifically to end on a reference to gay-straight alliances, the slurred rap verse from Skaiwater, and, most amusingly, a spoken-word bridge that features an unknown man attempting to start a pronoun circle with the members of I-dle before admitting that he doesn’t know any nonbinary people. (This voice presumably does not belong to Skaiwater, who is actually nonbinary.) Even the song’s lyrical conceit is bizarre — beyond the fact that the line “love is louder in mono” barely makes sense on its own, given how young K-pop fanbases tend to skew, I’d wager that a significant portion of I-dle’s audience doesn’t even understand the context of that metaphor. I will admit that “Mono” does have an intriguing beat, but its foundation of thumping synth bass doesn’t exactly accentuate the song’s otherwise uplifting tone. Ordinarily, that contrast would have a flattening effect, threatening to damn the track to mall-pop anonymity, but given the song’s sheer oddness, I’d wager that “Mono” will at least leave a distinct impression on anyone who encounters it.
[5]

Iain Mew: The way this metaphor usually goes, the way Kelis played it and Clean Bandit & Zara Larsson played it, when they sing about a more complex version of music it is as the better, elevated version. I-dle have mono as what they want the world to aim for (perhaps they’re mid-period Beatles purists?), complexity taken away in favour of unity. If it comes off a bit confused and limited, that fits with a song that has both a pronouns section where someone says “I don’t personally know any theys”, and a guest who uses that pronoun (among others). The possible generous reading, “Born This Way”-style, may be that it’s clumsy but their popularity means that its acknowledgements of queerness are still important; I don’t know its primary audience context well enough to make that call. So I’ll stick to saying that I enjoy its cool pop-house pulse in a soft “4 Walls”/“View” style, which musically uses simplicity very well.
[6]

Kayla Beardslee: I don’t think there’s any malice to the “right or left” line, so I’m just going to acknowledge and move past it in favor of noting that, no matter how basic the ideas may be, a track that so intentionally centers the line “whether straight or gay,” and which features a nonbinary artist and references they/them pronouns, is downright groundbreaking among the usual heteronormativity of the K-pop industry, especially coming from one of the most popular groups of their generation. (And if any K-pop group could take this path for a comeback, it would be I-dle, whose M.O. for years has been to push back on ignorance, judgment, and gendered expectations by way of catchy, confident fuck-yous.) “Mono” certainly isn’t I-dle’s most remarkable or ambitious single, but it’s a worthy of a spot in their discography for this purpose alone. The muted groove is a refreshing change-up from their louder electronic fare last year, plus Miyeon gets a nice little diva moment in the bridge; as far as this Neverland is concerned, I’m satisfied with “Mono” as standalone single to tide us over until their next proper album. Soyeon said this one is for the gays.
[6]

Andrew Karpan: When Skaiwater’s voice patches in, it sounds like it’s being broadcast from a distant high school PSA, murky and under the weight of the early, intensely plastic, communication of the late 2000s. A kind of ad-lib buoyed by grace & how we all hope we would sound, two decades from now too.
[7]

Leah Isobel: That spoken word bridge is camp, honey! The rest is fine.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: i was going to give I-dle credit for putting a nonbinary artist on their very good song but then they don’t feature them at all in the video. No credit for them.
[2]

Julian Axelrod: It boggles my mind that nonbinary Brit-rap rabble rouser Skaiwater has gone from hijacking Rihanna and Sabrina samples on songs like “S+M” and “wna torture me tn?” to collaborating with K-pop superstars in a few scant years. The song itself is a standard, solid girl group offering, and Skaiwater’s influence is more cultural than sonic. (Gay-straight unity is cool and all, but if I-dle were real allies they’d bury their voices under seven layers of distortion.) Credit where it’s due: this is probably the first pop song to feature a spoken-word interlude where cis people exchange pronouns and say, “I don’t personally know any theys, but… I think it’s important to just be yourself.” Gay rights!
[6]

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/i-dle-ft-skaiwater-mono/

https://thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=29780

profiterole_reads

Zero Happily Ever Afters by MN Bennet was amazing. It's Book 4 of Branches of Past and Future, a magic school adult book series, focused on a telepathic teacher. And there are still two books to come, so I don't know what's going to happen with the numbers in the titles.

In terms of plot, the stakes have increased a lot in this tome. I prefer less over-the-top storylines, but so far, the author has managed to keep them sufficiently grounded.

There's major m/m, which used to be m/m/m (Finn died a few years before Book 1, but we have all the flashbacks, so maybe that still counts as polyamory). The students include an m/m couple, a sapphic, an ace girl, a trans boy, an enby... And there's a trans woman among the new superheroes!

For more HP-like LGBT Books, check out my rec list.

nnozomi

I lost most of this week to an atmospheric-pressure headache, the usual “not bad enough to put off things I have to do (like meet deadlines) but bad enough that I can’t enjoy doing things I want to do,” ugh. Still, if it’s the worst health problem I have in middle age I should be relieved, knock wood. (I went to the doctor for an MRI a few years back and they said “oh, your brain is fine, your neck is just fucked up, sorry about that.”) Catching up now, and grateful for everyday things.

Instead of a Jiang Dunhao song this time around, here’s one by one of his brothers: Li Hao’s I should be with you is absolutely haunting for me, in all senses, the chorus just gets me where I live. Also, listen to this song without checking the singer names and tell me whether you think you’re hearing two women, two men, a man and a woman, or what?

Still reading The People at No. 1 Siwei St.; there are definitely lesbians, along with non-Taipei regionalisms (the characters come from Taichung and Tainan and Chiayi and Taitung) and delicious-sounding food and a grad student who writes BL novels in her spare time, and it’s a lot of fun. Maybe I will just go ahead and translate it (from the Japanese version, until I can get my hands on the original) for my own amusement? It’s a quick read, except for figuring out all the Taiwanese food names.

Elen and I have been watching season 2 of Under the Skin--about halfway through, or maybe two thirds?—and it’s very enjoyable, although maybe that’s not the word I want; it’s quite brutal, a chronicle of all the ways society finds to victimize women (and sometimes other vulnerable people, but especially women). But not completely bleak, at least not so far (we’ve counted at least two stealth-lesbian couples up to this point, both with tentatively happy endings, the scene with the wedding cake was one of the best things I’ve watched in ages). It is often stunning to look at, not that I know anything about cinematography whatsoever, and thoroughly, thoughtfully characterized down to (or especially) the one-off roles, a gold-mine of gifted middle-aged character actors of both sexes. I like Shen Yi and Du Cheng, but am not as gripped by them as I was in s1; Shen Yi as the all-knowing psychologist doesn’t really work for me, and the rest of the time he needs the services of one himself, the man has no common sense/self-preservation to the point where it’s just frustrating. (Having also encountered Shen Wei and Wu Xie along the line, I would now really like to watch a drama where the main character does have common sense and acts accordingly, i.e. throwing yourself into stupid danger is not required to move along the plot! Any recs?) My favorite regular characters remain Zhang-ju (competent older woman in a position of authority who has retained her sense of humor and looks very good in a uniform—and now we know her first name!) and Jiang Feng (straightforward loyal floppy-eared puppy). Also I was delighted that Lu Haizhou, my very favorite character from s1, showed up again briefly in s2 and was still very very Lu Haizhou—fair, stern, unemotional, and not unwilling to make enemies in the course of his duty, but also prepared to flirt outrageously with more than one of his male colleagues likewise. (Somebody please give Zhang Tao bigger roles? He still reminds me of a younger Wang Yang, and should be able to follow in his footsteps.)

Reading A Winter’s Tale with yaaurens and company; among other roles I was assigned the unspectacular-sounding Second Gentleman, who has this wonderful line: “Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.”

In cooking news, I recently invented a new and sinful form of TKG. Tamago kake gohan is a Japanese diner standard of raw egg served over hot rice with soy sauce; unfortunately I won’t eat raw eggs (they’re safe to eat here, I just can’t stand the texture), so instead I started by chopping up some garlic and sautéing it in sesame oil until browned and sweet. Then I broke a couple of eggs into the saucepan and let the egg whites fold in the garlic, until the eggs were sunny-side-up with hard whites, soft yolks, and very crispy, garlic-studded bottoms and edges. Eaten over rice with a dash of soy sauce, delicious.

Sometimes I wonder why Brahms’ contemporaries/fellow composers didn’t just go “okay, forget it, I’m going off to sell insurance or run a sheep farm” or something. Listen to the quintet here, my God, it’s doing so much. (Okay, among Brahms’ contemporaries was Wagner, who wouldn’t have run out of musical confidence if God Himself came down and said “Richard, you’re not getting it,” but still.)

Photos: Lots of plum blossoms, some citrus, and some winter daphne (I have to look up the English name every time), which is boring to look at but has a lovely fragrance you’ll just have to imagine.