Category: Music (Page 8 of 10)

All things K-pop

Psy on Sunrise in Australia

2012/10/17 / Nic / 36 Comments

Today I saw Psy! He flew into Australia yesterday morning and was on the X Factor last night and was on a morning TV show called Sunrise this morning. Sunrise is filmed not far from where we live so of course I took this chance to get a glimpse of Psy.

I went with a Korean friend who only arrived in Australia last week – it’s kinda bizarre for her to see a Korean popstar in Australia. The problem was that because it’s morning TV we had to get their really early and got up at 4am to go where it’s filmed. My husband decided because of his work schedule that he couldn’t go as he’d be too tired for work. He now really regrets that decision. There weren’t that many people when we arrived so we got second row but very soon it got really crowded. We had no idea how many people were behind us. The crowd was really hyped up and was so excited to see Psy. The backup dancers did a sound check first and it was funny to recognise some of their faces, then Psy did a quick sound check. It was amazing to see him in the flesh and his clothing was hilarious.

Getting ready for Psy

Construction workers waiting for Psy

There were even people in the surrounding buildings waiting for Psy. These construction workers were hanging out in front of the windows waiting to see Psy and not working (when do you ever see them working in Australia anyway?)

Finally after a few hours of waiting: Psy!

Check out the back of his costume:

His backup dancers are awesome.

They interviewed him as well. Psy can speak English but I always get a bit tense and hold my breath a bit when he is being interviewed because he is not exactly fluent and I know how difficult English can be for Korean speakers. I also cringe when people use slang or words I know a Korean is not likely to understand because I’m so used to modifying my own speech that those words become glaringly obvious to me. He did really well though, obviously was prepared and knew what he was going to say.

The hosts also seemed to really enjoy him being there and got into the spirit of it.

I’ve been to other Kpop things before. I went to the Kpop Fest last year. What I did notice was the difference in the crowd, there were was a huge range of people there. Usually Kpop draws a crowd of young Asian Australians, people like me who have a connection to Korean culture, Koreans who happen to be in Australia at the time, and other young Australians who have got into Kpop for whatever reasons. While those groups were all represented there today there was a much bigger range of people. I also overheard the teenage girls behind me talking about how they had discovered Big Bang 🙂

Pic of crowd

Psy is such an amazing performer. He said he doesn’t really care if Gangnam Style is just a one hit wonder in other countries because this is amazing and he is having fun. But you can see the difference between him and other one hit wonders. He has been in the music industry and a performer for years. He is so professional, he knows how to work the crowd, he has more to give. Hopefully he’ll be more than just a one hit wonder, but if he is, he still has a very successful career in Korea.

You can see from these photos how close we were. I really didn’t want to be on TV but was kinda inevitable because of our position. A friend texted me a photo they took of their TV where I was definitely visible. Nooooo! Looking at the clips though, I think I did manage to avoid being seen too much.

It wasn’t just one performance of Gangnam Style and that’s all. There was the sound checks, the main performance, the interview and an encore performance. Psy also chatted a bit while waiting on stage. It was well worth the early morning and the wait.

Even after people were crowding around trying to see him as he left.

So why didn’t my husband go? Good question. He was concerned about being too tired for work and not being able to see much because of a big crowd. Psy will also be performing at one of the venues in his work place so he thought he’d get a chance to see him then. Now he realises he should have come this morning. We were so close and this was free! By the time he realised that it was too late as the crowd was already so big and he would have missed most of it anyway. He is kicking himself though. Seriously, he is moping around all depressed right now. This was an opportunity to see Psy perform and maybe he’ll never get another opportunity like this. He may glimpse Psy at work tomorrow but he won’t be able to enjoy it like we enjoyed it today. Silly silly boy.

So, that was my experience!

Here is a video:

edit: just changed link to the tv show’s website.

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/factsheets/article/-/15139078/psy-rocks-gangnam-style-live-on-sunrise/

Youtube comments are usually pretty stupid. I noticed some comments saying the crowd was dead- really not true. On camera people look like they are doing nothing but actually people were dancing and getting into it. Also the camera is panning the whole audience and the people at the back probably can’t see much. Definitely at the front people were going crazy AND this was early in the morning. Also people were SCREAMING out the lyrics but of course we don’t have microphones so that sound isn’t always picked up as well. It was an amazing vibe! It’s just you can’t always convey that well on camera. I should just never read youtube comments I think….

Psy will be going to so many countries over the next 6 months! If you get a chance, definitely try to see him!

How to survive Noraebang (Karaoke) with Koreans

2012/10/13 / Nic / 16 Comments

So you might be out with Koreans and you’ve survived the drinking of soju but then everyone starts talking about going to noraebang. Oh no… that’s karaoke! What if they expect you to sing?

Well, yes, they will expect you to sing, but the good news is that this type of karaoke isn’t exactly what we think of in Western culture. It’s not like you will be made to awkwardly stand in front of a restaurant full of people and be expected to sing well.

A Korean karaoke place is divided up into rooms. You’ll pay for however many hours you want at the front, pick out some drinks and snacks and then head to your own private room. No singing in front of strangers, it will be just you and your friends in a comfy room.

It is likely you will be expected to sing though. Even if you protest that you are a terrible singer or that you’d rather poke your own eyes out rather than sing in front of people, it’s not going to get you out of it. They won’t stop insisting. But it’s not in order to embarrass you, they genuinely expect you to enjoy it. So instead of insisting no it’s better to just suck it up and maybe you’ll have some fun.

I am a terrible singer but I’ve worked out some tactics for handling noraebang and I really enjoy it now.

It is likely that you are with people who don’t speak English as a first language. If you are a native English speaker you have an advantage. Firstly you can legitimately say that you can’t sing a Korean song because it’s too difficult and your Korean skills aren’t good enough. That’s okay, but many Korean pop songs have some English. What you can do is pair up with someone who sings all the Korean and you just sing the English parts. So technically afterwards you’ve done one song already even though you haven’t done much singing.

We often do CNBLUE’s ‘Love’ with my husband doing the Korean and me doing the English parts… (and the nonsensical words). Big Bang’s Fantastic Baby is also great for this. Most people can handle singing “Dance dance dance dance dance dance” and “Wow fantastic baby.”

Okay so what do you do if they insist on you doing an English song? This is no time to show off your amazing taste in music. No one wants to hear you doing some boring obscure song so you can show how cool and indie you are. Korean karaoke places in both Western countries and Korea will usually have quite a selection of English language songs so think about what might be easy to do. If you are an amazing singer you can do what you want, this advice is more for bad or extremely nervous singers.

Firstly, The Beatles are your friends! And there will be many Beatles songs. Early Beatles songs are often a good choice. I usually do “Can’t buy me love” and both of us do “Twist and Shout” together because we can just yell it. “Come together” is also an excellent choice because you hardly need to sing you can just ‘sing talk’.

Another song we’ve discovered is good to do is One Direction’s “What makes you beautiful” because the verses are really easy and you can just scream the chorus. So try to think about what is an easy pop song to do. Just stay way from Adele songs!

Koreans usually don’t do a whole song. They’ll do the first verse and chorus and then skip to the next song so they can fit more songs into the allocated time. So as soon as you’ve had enough you can say you are finished and they’ll skip to the next song and you are off the hook.

You will soon realise that Koreans are amazing are karaoke. And they should be, they do it all the time! I still get surprised at the way my husband can belt out a song. Although they might be great at it, they are unlikely to say anything bad even if you are a terrible singer so just try to relax and have fun. It’s not just sitting in a room and watching others sings: you can drink and eat and dance. It’s fun. That’s why it’s something they love doing.

If you have experienced noraebang what are your tips? What are your favourite songs to sing?

Taylor Swift

2012/10/12 / Nic / 9 Comments

I’m probably a bigger Taylor Swift than him but he is the one who sings loudly and badly along to her songs the most. You know when people are listening to music with earphones in and singing along and they think they sound great? Yeah he is one of those people. He also has the annoying habit of when he hears a song he likes for the first time he’ll try to sing along before he has even heard the whole song yet… hehe.

In case you aren’t sure, this is the song he was listening to:

Radio

2012/10/02 / Nic / 9 Comments

When I was a teenager I obsessively followed the music charts, getting up early on Saturday morning to watch Rage and Video Hits. This was before we could just watch everything online. If you wanted to see a band’s new video you had to sit through the whole show and hope it was played (it was the 90’s).

These days I don’t really care about what is popular in Australia and don’t listen to mainstream radio so I don’t know what stuff is really popular or top 10. I have a few favourite bands but that’s it. My husband knows a lot more than me and can name bands and singers that I have no clue about.

If I listen to any radio I’ll listen to SBS PopAsia online and catch the TV show sometimes (it’s awesome). My husband just doesn’t get into it much. If I talk about new Korean groups he won’t know who they are and doesn’t care.

It’s funny how music tastes can change over time.

Get Your Crayon

2012/09/14 / Nic / 16 Comments

So I watched the preview before subtitles were added. Apparently he means “get your crazy on” or like “lets get crazy” and made a compound word. (Koreans love doing that).

HOWEVER, if someone is singing about a cylindrical object, I may just assume things… I’m not sad at the end of the comic because I want G-Dragon to be singing about something like that… just that I got a mini lecture about how things are in Korea again. Sometimes I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the extent of censorship.

That’s not to say that’s it’s good that so many western songs are so sexual or have thinly disguised sexual meaning, it’s just I’m surprised when Koreans, because of their culture, don’t see the same sexual innuendos.

So anyway, sorry G-Dragon.. haha.

P.S. I love you.