While you were sleeping, K-Pop morphed into this. Zoetica of Coilhouse, from whose tweets I found this, asks:

"How can I simultaneously hate and love one thing this much?"

The one I've embedded below contains dancing Stormtroopers. And, yes, more auto-tune. The styling in both videos is kind of incredible.

[Video Link]

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Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Nuski

#7 –interesting question….Did Lady Gaga influence K-pop, or was it the other way around? Just what is the connection between LA and Seoul, in terms of K-pop’s evolution?
KanedaJones

They also have a pretty good rap scene too, like this one

DJ Doc – Run to you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZmYqodoqTk

That tune was stolen and modified by a very weird Japanese band (a side project of a more famous guy), I forget his name however.

Meanwhile the whole back beat is the Boney M. track daddy cool so who am I to complain. still so danceable.. =D
Sagodjur

It’s like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha got married and adopted a Korean girl and when she grew up they hired Seth Green to direct live action episodes of Robot Chicken for her music videos.
- Xeni Jardin
  
  wins the thread.
Anonymous

I think it is time to reread William Gibson’s Idoru. I’m pretty sure he saw this coming.
- Michael Smith
  
  I think it is time to reread William Gibson’s Idoru. I’m pretty sure he saw this coming.
  When Bono starts showing an interest, we will know.
  - braininavat
    
    Achtung baby
    - Michael Smith
      
      Lo/Rez skyline?
Anonymous

- Lee Jung Hyun has a lot of influence in not only K-Pop fashion, but Lady Gaga fashion. The connection Lady Gaga has with 2NE1 is designer Jeremy Scott. Jeremy and CL are very good friends. 2NE1 is often seen on stage with outfits designed by Jeremy Scott.

- 2NE1′s album To Anyone is the only Korean album to have reacher #1 on the US iTunes Hip-Hop charts.
fataltourist

Stuff like this is perfect for posting on your friends’ facebook pages, since it’s irritating yet compelling.
bcsizemo

+1 to fataltourist as well…cause that’s just what I did.
Anonymous

Unfortunately an increasing amount of K-Pop is mostly commericalized music – not talent – which is leading to more auto-tuning. Groups are groomed similarly to J-pop’s teen bands, and the members are chosen based on either their looks, singing ability, or dancing ability – but usually not all 3 combined.
Just look at groups like SNSD, Wonder Girls, and Super Junior. Yet I still enjoy their music (for the first month or so until it becomes super-annoying).
Anonymous

The second song is just like M.I.A.’s Gulang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCL1RpgYxRM
Blaine

Pssh. Danny Choo is the only dancing stormtrooper I acknowledge.
Anonymous

I think its great in the way it is just being whatever it is…also each K-pop group I hear is surprisingly different from the other… I also like the weird usage of English in most songs. I don’t like these songs as much as Girls Generation and Brown Eyed Girls’…didn’t think I would end up obsessed with this stuff, but its my secret horribly embarrassing yet highly enjoyable past-time.
turn_self_off

either i am getting to old, or the brain bleach is out of date…
Dean Putney

I have a couple things I look for in music to listen to while programming:

Energetic and upbeat.
Similar beats between songs.
Relatively unintelligible lyrics.

These are pretty much ideal. It’s all just manufactured, so it’s pretty much the same tempo or sharing similar beats. They don’t even speak English, so they can’t break my concentration. I just downloaded a bunch of their videos from YouTube so I can ignore them while I work.
- Anonymous
  
  @Dean Putney – #44 – They do speak English. Not only that, but they have an English version of the song Can’t Nobody. The album they are working on with will.i.am is in English.
- turn_self_off
  
  using them basically like mental white noise generators?
KWillets

K-Pop is wild and you can find tons of it online. Youtube often has audio clips packaged as videos, and gasazip.com has lyrics. You can search for a title with “ê°€ì‚¬”, eg, “can’t nobody ê°€ì‚¬”, and get the text of the lyrics.

After a few K-Pop songs I know just about every love-song cliche in Korean.
Anonymous

What about Superjunior!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAWqnA8PdcY
Anonymous

i love 2NE1~~^0^
Anonymous

did anyone link the unholy meeting of BIG BANG and 2NE1 yet? because it is my favorite, if that’s what we call this love-hate thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIRW_elc-rY&ob=av2e
Mark Frauenfelder

These are great! So much better than the stuff my 13-year-old listens to on the radio.
- KWillets
  
  My 11-year-old already listens to this stuff :-o.
Anonymous

some information about 2NE1

# Korean Pop, with Online Help, Goes Global(TIME, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010)

“2NE1′s international exposure â€” particularly in the U.S. â€” has been growing. Black Eyed Peas producer will.i.am saw one of their videos and immediately wanted to work with them, says Choi Sung-jun, chief operations officer at YG Entertainment. They have been collaborating for the past couple of months in Los Angeles and London.”

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2013227,00.html

# Will.I.AM talks to 2NE1

http://www.youtube.com/user/2NE1#p/f/3/xLcZlDMKCqk
sparkdale

Are those pot leaves at the end of the second video?
Anonymous

It’s not really J-pop if they’re Korean, is it?
- Xeni Jardin
  
  Fixed, meant to type K-pop.
neokimchi

damn that song is OLLLLLDDDDD

here’s one from this decade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxrPsEXXiLU

not exactly new, but also a bit less wack. haha
- neokimchi
  
  btw that was in response to kanedajones; dunno why that didn’t work properly
Nuski

Sorry, but this is actually a K-pop band.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2NE1

The Korean has a great list of the top 50 K-pop bands here.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_wave
Anonymous

Lady gaga and Ke$ha can’t dance like that. lol
penguinchris

I am not as repulsed by Asian pop as US pop, but I’m not compelled either. I had to force myself to finish both of these videos because I lost interest but I thought, maybe there’s something I’m missing if I don’t watch the whole thing (I’ve seen plenty of videos like this before, but who knows).

I’m in Thailand and here the music landscape is interesting. There are certainly pop-dance singers like this, boy bands, everything – but they’re not very pervasive. You don’t see them all over the place, and you don’t hear them very much. As far as I can tell, they aren’t that popular with Thai teenage girls either, unlike in China, Korea, and Japan.

There are a lot of places that play music, so you hear a lot of music. But it tends to be dominated by stuff from the US that came out six months earlier, cheesy love songs (in English), and certain Thai pop songs that can play for years (they don’t fade away very quickly). I still hear the “This Time For Africa” World Cup song played sometimes, and that got old well before the world cup was over.
Anonymous

thats great!
bardfinn

pop will eat itself

and Rule 34, it seems, has no exceptions as to pop eating itself.
KRNeffects

Let me arrange this.

1. K-pop? full of autotune, commercial, and singers are not talented.
â†’ autotune became a arising trend in Korea. If the autotune does not exist in the new song, people say “it’s boring, not attracting”. Commercial? maybe. As the market of music in Korea is too small to compare that of Japa or America, it is natural.
Not talented? oh my.. imagine these talented girls singing in ballad or R&B. Do you think they can be focused by the audience? hell, no. 2ne1′s three title songs, ‘go away’, ‘can’t nobody’, ‘clap your hands’ mostly have easy melodies that people can easily follow. Although they have enough ability to sing difficult songs, they don’t do it because it’s useless! (they sing ballad songs only in special occasions, not in main performances) This is how k-pop works in Korea. The criteria of ‘good song’ can be different to compare with that of in America. You should think about this.

2.it’s lady gaga’s!
â†’ Lady gaga. yes she is an amazing performer and singer with all that clothes. The concept of girl groups’ clothes have been changed into ‘catchy’ clothes. NOt only lady gaga has that concept, all the flow that singers in the world since 2008 or 2007 have catchy clothes that can appeal to people easier and faster. YOu cannot say that lady gaga had influenced 2ne1 only becuase the clothes look similar. THeir music, their appearance and their purpose of singing is actually different from lady gaga. Please, remember this.

p.s. I’m a korean student, 16 years old.
I hope people who have misunderstanding in k-pop will change their way of thinking.
Anonymous

i LOVE k-pop
Anonymous

I hate this. But for some reason I want it to infiltrate american popculture. Its a shame I have no clue how to aid it in doing that.
Anonymous

Look here! 2NE1′s another Hit MV
http://youtu.be/ZTw-UM5Jy4E
KRNeffects

p.s 2
Wanna know more about k-pop? click the links below.
these are one of the most famous singers in Korea.

Taeyang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uthxUVMcYw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpQ2-iyc-bo&feature=fvst

Girl’s generation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_gfD3nvh-8&ob=av2n

BOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhBwPj7NpBk

BIGBANG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYuYqgcWDWY

Wonder girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iVPPqF7Xv0

super junior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw

tvxq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJS32n6LNQ

Rain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0tkzuSLSlg

and.. beast, mblaq, shinee, t-ara, miss-a, davichi, dj doc, psy……..etc.
Anonymous

Unapologetically polished and manufactured and I’m addicted to the stuff. When I watch the videos I know I should be saying “nooooo”, but the whole time I am saying “yeeeessss” and gladly allow myself to replay the whole horrifically wonderful scenes across my computer screen again and again. We all have our secret shames and this is mine. 2ne1, twenty-one, to anyone–aw, yeah!
Anonymous

it looks like lady gaga’s influence on pop fashion and music videos is starting to spread
- Anonymous
  
  @anon #7 – Predates Gaga by a LOT.
  
  This video is cut at a ridiculous pace, and it’s entrancing. Living in Korea though, I can tell you the song itself gets old fast. Can’t even play one game of Settlers of Catan without it coming on the radio.
Nuski

–Still visually awesome, however. See also “Miss A”; “T-Ara”; “Wondergirls”, and “f(x)” for similar fare.
Anonymous

The interesting thing about 2NE1 is that they released three singles at once. “Can’t Nobody”, “Clap Your Hands”, and “Go Away” were all released at the same time. They are played everywhere. You can’t here one without at least hearing one more. It was a great marketing strategy to over saturate the market. K-pop marketing is extremely interesting. Normally, k-pop money isn’t made off of record sales so they use other strategies. Girl’s Generation, F(x), and SHINee released their albums as great iphone apps. They have created any weird music consumer culture here.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/girls-generation-run-devil/id361378611?mt=8
oasisob1

They have this in North Korea, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbQ7QRndcA
Johnny Justice

Has Korean pop become some sort of Japanese-American pop hybrid?
Anonymous

I don’t care if it’s K-pop or J-pop. Those girls look like they’re having a ton of fun and those songs ride a fine line between obnoxious and awesome. Also, their outfits are awesomely manrepellent.
Anonymous

While I really did Burning Farm, and I have really dug several Asian music groups, the pop still fails to impress me.
Rick.

And K-hip hop became this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOBtDDEWNVE

She’s all sweet and cute at the beginning but kicks into high gear after a minute. Apparently all her raps are about sex. Hard to tell from this video. This one’s a bit more explicit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyROBgl7wlA
Anonymous

I guess I’m gonna be the first one to say it…

That blaster rifle shoots red. Silly Koreans.

2NE1: K-Pop diva with auto-tune, spaceships, dancing Stormtroopers

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