Tuesday, February 4, 2014

KPOPALYPSE NUGU ALERT - Episode 1: Fresh Boyz, Valiant, Cherry Kim ft. SNK

As previously mentioned on this site, 2013 hasn't been a very good year overall for established groups.  However, the nugus were another story with several decent groups (as well as a lot of crap ones) stepping up to the plate, something which didn't escape my attention or the attentions of other writers on Anti Kpop-Fangirl.  Of course there was criticism for this:

hipst

I'd spend some time dissecting this docile mouth-breathing argument but there's no need as The Real CZ and Zaku both did a great job and I have nothing to add.  However, since covering shit nobody has heard of instead of stuff from the same old established labels seems to really hit a nerve with some folks, I thought it would be a good idea for me to embrace the nugus and make a regular thing of it.  So welcome to:

taracustoms
(For the boneheads - no, I'm not insinuating that T-ara are nugu - I just think that this image looks cool and customs officers fits the theme of being "on the alert" for stuff)


Nugu means "nobody" and is basically used to describe k-pop artists that nobody gives a fuck about.  Each Nugu Alert post will therefore highlight some k-pop MVs that few people have seen before, but which I think you should take a look at... it might be because I like the songs, but to be honest - that's highly unlikely.  I'm probably highlighting it for some other reason and each "Nugu Alert" MV will have at least one notable quality which I believe deserves your attention.

Some rules:
  • Must have less than 20,000 YouTube hits
  • Can be new or old
  • Might not be technically new or unknown but certainly will be something I haven't seen other k-pop fans discuss or care about, so try to fucking control yourself if I link something that I don't know about but that you've been following for the last 15 years and are breakthrough stars or whatever
  • Each MV gets a "nugu alert rating" which is a measure of the total condensed nuguness in the MV's running time - qualities that enhance nuguness are lack of YouTube hits, lack of money spent on the MV and song, and general "where are they now?" vibe even though the artist in question may still be very much active
Good or bad, I think it's worth highlighting nugus for ideological reasons.  For every new group that debuts on a TV show that nobody gives a fuck about, there's ten or fifty or a hundred other groups on tiny little labels that are so much smaller that they struggle to even get on the damn TV show.  Do you know how much competition there is for these things?  So much in fact, that label staff and artists grease and kiss ass all fucking day just to secure and maintain those 3 little minutes.  Combine that with the fact that there's not exactly much of a live performance culture for pop music outside of TV shows and you realise that these crappy low budget MVs are the only chance that a lot of groups get to even exist in the public eye at all.  The least you can do is watch the fucking things and attempt to extract some semblance of entertainment value before they get consigned to the dustbin of popular culture.

But there's thousands of these things!  Which ones to watch?  Ahhh... that's where Kpopalypse comes in to help you out, so let's get started with Episode One!

FRESH BOYZ - "KOALA"


I guess as an Australian I have to kick things off with a song about everyone's favourite local marsupial.  Some little-known facts about koalas:
  • They may look cute but they are smelly, unfriendly, untameable creatures that scratch and piss everywhere, plus they fucking hate you
  • Although an endangered species on the mainland, on Kangaroo Island they're in plague proportions and cause a lot of damage to plantlife, and no-one knows what to do about it because it's illegal to kill them
  • The word "koala" is pronounced with three syllables, e.g "ko-A-la", not "KWA-la" like Fresh Boyz are doing it in this song
You won't give a shit about any of that stuff though once the video starts.  The video director wisely keeps Fresh Boyz themselves mostly absent from the visual side of the proceedings, devoting the large majority of the screen time to some model who makes up for the obvious starvation-level MV budget with underboob-flashing to rival those FX Girl videos. I don't know who she is but I've seen her in MVs before (and I'd really like to know her name by the way - surely some of you k-nerds know so don't be shy and tell me and I'll edit this post) - she's never looked quite like this, though.  I can't remember if it was Russ Meyer or Roger Corman who said "breasts are the best special effects" but whoever it was, the creative video which explores many different ways to almost show nipple certainly makes this ear-shredding reggaeton-inspired k-pop dance flatulence a lot more tolerable.  For a video with so much skin showing to get so few hits in an era when sexy concepts are raking in the cash and popularity is a remarkable achievement of nugudom.

YouTube hits at time of writing: 9459
Notable attribute: gratuitous underboob
Nugu alert rating: high

VALIANT - HIP HOP CAT


This kiddy hip-hop assault from 2012 is as cringeworthy and eardrum-raping as you'd expect, but for such an unpopular video it contains quite a few redeeming features that I didn't expect:
  • They can actually dance pretty good for their age
  • They can rap better than CL
  • No awkward sexualisation in the style of Little PSY, thank the lord
lspyr

*shudders in horror* IT'S NOT CUTE, IT'S WRONG.  If you ever need evidence that males bear the brunt of creepy inappropriate sexualisation in k-pop, here it is - and thank fuck the MV creators didn't make Valiant do something similar.  All you people whining about AOA and Gain and Hyuna and whoever else with the sexy concepts... get your priorities straight.  Getting Little PSY to put his fucking shirt back on is more important than your futile attempts to stifle healthy adult female sexuality.  But enough about you pretending to be a feminist while actually being completely misogynist, and more about Valiant's awful-but-probably-not-the-most-awful-thing-ever kiddie raps.

Of course there's nothing in the world more hip-hop in the entire universe than performing carefully choreographed dance routines in front of a graffiti mural background (just ask 2NE1), so that's mainly what Valiant's video consists of.  The main expenditure for this video seems to have been printing those t-shirts, the bus fare to the park and spending half a day putting little paper windmills in the ground... but that's okay because that just makes it look even more ghetto and broke which means it's more like hip-hop, right?

Valiant

Okay, maybe not.

YouTube hits at time of writing: 3609
Notable attribute: has annoying kiddy rap and is basically rubbish but is still more listenable than Little PSY and CL's solo plus the last few 2NE1 comebacks
Nugu alert rating: very high

CHERRY KIM ft. SNK - SECRET L.O.V.E.

(look at that still shot - they've copy-pasted the same actor because they couldn't afford more than one machinegun or set of SWAT clothes)

You'd have to be living under a pop-culture rock not to notice that zombies have really advanced heavily in popularity lately, turning up in all sorts of places from movies to MVs and TV shows with increasing regularity.   You can barely move for zombie computer games over the last few years, and there's plenty of TV shows and movies dedicated to our shuffling drooling friends (no, not Korean netizens, our OTHER shuffling drooling friends).  Long gone are the days when Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was the only zombie-themed MV on the block, with plenty of zombie MVs from all sorts of genres and in k-pop T-ara and 4minute have both been getting in on the zombie act.

So what's the reason for this sudden surge in zombie popularity?  Well, it all started with the classic zombie movies from the 60s, and the reason why zombies have been a popular choice ever since for someone wanting to make a horror film is simple - zombies are cost-effective.  Think about it:

Ghosts:  Need some crazy special effects shit and camera trickery to make that work
Witches and vampires:  Gotta make them fly somehow without looking ultra-stupid, in movies realistic flying costs money
Dracula: spiffy clothes budget plus renting a mansion required bare minimum
Zombies: your brother's torn flannelette shirt, throwaway ripped jeans, some tomato sauce, some charcoal makeup and you're done

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the MV for Cherry Kim and SNK's grating earsore "Secret L.O.V.E.".  The budget here is so stretched that they couldn't even afford shotgun blanks, and opt to use cheap-ass superimposed CGI to fire most of the shots... plus they even recycle one of the BarBarBar locations:

cherry

I guess it's where all the nugus are allowed to go to shoot their stuff without paying site rental (remember nobody gave a fuck about Crayon Pop besides me and three other people when BarBarBar was being filmed).  A thousand nugus have probably danced on those coloured tiles.

YouTube hits at time of writing: 2762
Notable attribute: ambitious post-apocalyptic concept on minimal budget
Nugu alert rating: extreme

nugu1

This concludes Episode One of "Nugu Alert".  There is no schedule for these, so another episode could appear at any time.  Be afraid.

25 comments:

  1. You should do a nugu alert for f(x), because according to fangirls thy are the most underrated and unappreciated group in K-Pop. These poor special snowflakes only have just over 55 million view for this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8I8QGFA1oM

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    1. Heh. It's kind of true, considering how long they've been around and with one of the Big 3. f(x) seems to be SM's stepchild that they keep in the attic and apparently not important enough for the fandom to be given an official name.

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    2. I might blog about f(x) soon just because it seems to be a pressing issue for people.

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    3. f(x) is one of the most high teir grops in k-pop without putting in nearly enough effort as the other groups under SM. SM doesn't need to work them like slave prostitutes because the other groups do that already. Who gives a fuck about a fanbase name. Its means absolutely nothing other than all of their delusional, idiot fans who belong in a cage are united under one label, as with every other fandom ever. I guess f(x) being mistreated by SM could make for a kinda lame running joke but anyone who takes it seriously open their fucking eyes.

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    4. Hey, shhhhh. Don't write my blog for me. LOL

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    5. now you only need to copy-paste that shit...

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    6. Jaejin Fag needs to sharped up his grammar and punctuation before I can do that.

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    7. SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP SHARPED UP

      Delete
  2. Just so you know, The Real CZ = Akf

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for letting the peeps know. I tend to assume that people know that but I guess some may not and it could be confusing.

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    2. What the hell, I though I was talking to two different people this whole time on twitter.

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  3. Shit, I don't think I've heard of Freshboyz ever since that Chitty Chitty bang bang fiasco. (Great song btw)

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  4. Btw, love that pic of T-ara in uniform. Having fantasies about being arrested for being a naughty boy and then brutally beaten while handcuffed and then having my body cavities searched by Eunjung and Qri, while Jiyeon looks stares into my eyes with her one eye and spits in my face.

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    Replies
    1. That's good because I plan to recycle that image quite a bit.

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  5. Doesnt nugu literally translates to 'who' ?

    Oh and that spinning thingy is also used in K.Will's Love Blossom and one of BJY's MV posted here.

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    Replies
    1. I guess all this stuff comes from only one city and there's only so many good locations.

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    2. you also complained bout kwa-la but not keu-rae-yeon

      so biased

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    3. Cu-ray-ons are not native to Australia so their mispronunciation doesn't offend my sense of patriotism.

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  6. With k hip hop though this shit is ho hum and the equiv of a "box" mv. Its a glorified gravure video so to speak.

    And i was the guy who made the nugu comment. I still love you all though

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All the more reason for it to be included!

      I love you too... for inspiring not just one blog but an ongoing series! Although it was actually the "you hipster" comments I got on ask.fm that really made me feel that I should do this.

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  7. Here is an article about the abandoned amusement park called Yongma Land where they filmed Crayon Pop's 'Bar Bar Bar' and that nugu video you posted.

    The park has had an influx of visitors since 'Bar Bar Bar' went viral:

    http://blog.korea.net/?p=19113

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  8. I though it was interesting the articles you linked about the managers, first time reading about that.

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  9. According to soompi the girl's name of the Koala MV is "Huh Kkot Bun Hong". And I gotta say I love Koala. It's a great song, though I am disappointed that Ceejay and Kwon are so few in the MV, though the underboobs are nice to look/fap at so I'm not even mad.

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