Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Sport and k-pop should not mix

Sport.  I'm against it generally, and I'm even more against it in k-pop.  This post is about why sport and k-pop need to remain separate, and I've made it because it's one of those things that people are always asking me about.  Usually I just say "I'm a musician - sport is against my religion" when people ask but since you blog readers are so lovely I feel like I owe you a little more detail and entertainment than that.  Also I'm not seeing anyone else blogging about this shit and it's a Kpopalypse specialty to brazenly wander into topics that other bloggers won't touch with a ten foot T-ara lightstick for fear of being cyber-stoned to death by the Internet hordes.

tarasport

WARNING: this post may contain Australian cultural trufax, including gratuitous references to Drop Bears.

I don't know what it's like in other countries, but in Australia, sport is a big thing down here and probably the biggest cultural pastime that we have besides getting incredibly drunk and having outdoor barbeques every month of the year.  (I know what you people from other countries are thinking, especially those of you who had to endure Paul Hogan's horrid tourism advertising, but "shrimp on the barbie" is an advertising line for foreign consumption only - in Australia we don't even call them "shrimp" and most barbeque is sausages and kebabs because shrimp prawns that are big enough to not fall through the metal cracks in the barbeque grill are just too fucking expensive.  Oh look at me getting all sidetracked and it's only the opening paragraph.  I can already tell that this is going to be a weird post.)  No matter where you go in Australia, you can't avoid sport, it's fucking impossible because that shit is everywhere.  Believe me, I've tried - it can't be done.

Growing up I noticed that only my school's total fuckheads were good at sport so I drew the sensible conclusion early on in life that sport sucked a bag of dicks and I didn't want any part of it so I logically took refuge in the world of music.  Music is sport's natural arch-nemesis, the Yin to sport's Yang.  Key contrasts between the worlds of sport and music include but are not limited to the following:
  • Sport has cooperative elements but is fundamentally about competition, while music has competitive elements but is fundamentally about cooperation
  • Sport injuries keep musicians from practising their instruments, while listening to music prevents sport players from hearing their teammates warn them about the hockey puck that is flying toward their head and about to slice their eye in half
  • Many sport players aren't allowed to excel at their craft when on drugs, while many musicians aren't allowed to excel at their craft when off drugs
It's obvious to me that sport and music exist on opposite ends of some kind of "leisure spectrum".  You're either really good at music, or you're really good at sport, but if you try to be good at both your interest and participation in one activity will always be compromised by the other activity in some way.  Want some relevant k-pop examples?  Sure you do.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 1:  Wassup's "Fire"



We can see the negative mix of sport and music here in two ways.

1.  It negatively affects the music.  The song is shit.  There is sport in the music video.  Wassup aren't usually quite this bad, so therefore, it's sport's fault.

2.  It negatively affects the sport.  Wassup are apparently one of the biggest k-pop groups in Brazil. and their song was made to cheer on Brazil (not Korea, because Wassup troll k-netz for laughs just like me) in the World Cup.  Gosh, that didn't work out so well, did it.  Coincidence?  I doubt it.  Brazil's unusually poor sporting performance in the 2014 World Cup is obviously related to the Brazilian team jerking it too much to Wassup's video - and who can blame them?

Clearly, it would be best if music and sport were kept far apart.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 2:  Idol Star Athletics



My guitar students are always getting injuries from stupid fucking compulsory school sport and having to take time off from my lessons to heal their broken arms and hands.  I keep telling their parents "tell the kid to not attend sport at all, sport is Mickey Mouse bullshit, it won't help their career - write the little shits a note to give to their Phys Ed teacher saying that the kid has got terminal ass cancer and is exempt from all sports games on doctor's orders" but it never works.  The parents always just mutter something about "needing exercise" as if sport is the only source of exercise that exists and refuse to heed my advice... then the kid just breaks another arm a few weeks later.  So much for the supposed health benefits, I must have missed the memo on how it's so fucking healthy to break a new bone in your body every two months.  Likewise, stupid Idol Star Athletics in Korea injures fappable k-pop performers like AOA's Seolhyun, preventing their appearance in comebacks.


This is obviously not acceptable.  Seolhyun isn't even my fave but AOA is a rare group where every member meets required standards and we really need all hands (and boobs, and asses, and legs, and...) on deck to maximise fap music appreciaton.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 3: Super Junior's "Victory"



Here's Super Junior back in 2010 milking the success of "Sorry Sorry" for the 153rd time, using the same dances and rhythms that we've heard from them ad nauseam with minor variations, I guess even SM realised that some shitty soccer game wasn't worth the effort of writing a whole new song or coming up with any new ideas.  No need to mention how much motivation to perform this shitty song gave the Korean team of course, we already know.  Shit tossed-off song, shitty team performance - everybody loses when sport and k-pop mix.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 4:  Hyomin fap


This...

hyomath

...or this?

hyomath2

Case closed.  Sport, leave Hyomin alone.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 5:  Ailee's "Fighting Spirit"



So between creating web traffic for 6Theory and singing dicksucking western pop ballads Ailee recorded a World Cup song this year and it's more listenable than the last couple of feature tracks she's done but then so is just about anything. Of course because it's for a sport thing she has to dress as unflatteringly as possible so she doesn't make ugly fat couch-potato TV sport addicts feel bad, which is reason enough to add this song to the list of reasons why k-pop and sport shouldn't be together.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 6:  Orange Caramel fap



I find the soccer ball patterns on the front of the costumes confusing to the eye, it makes it hard to make out the contours of the Orange Caramel member's boobs underneath the clothing.  Obviously if they weren't performing for some World Cup bullshit the patterns would be different and the opportunity for fap wouldn't have been squandered.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 7: Music Fucking Core

exo_win_musiccore_082413

Does anyone with a life actually give a fuck who wins and loses what on a music TV show?  Of course not, if you have half a brain in your head you only care about if you like the song or not and you're just happy that your favourite group was able to get on the show at all to perform the song so you could watch them.  However to the world's fuckwits, winning and losing on shows like this is terribly important, and that mentality comes from applying a sport-based competitive attitude to music.  I've blogged before about why music competitions are all bullshit and nothing has changed since then... as if EXO's "Growl" beating out Crayon Pop's "Bar Bar Bar" wasn't enough of a tipoff that something's amiss.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 8: Akdong Musician's "Give Love"



See what bullshit music we have to endure because people win music competitions?  Moving right along.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 9: Shindong in a karate uniform

Shindong.3jpg

Scarier than a drop bear, and possibly twice as hungry.



So that oughta do it.  If these nine points haven't convinced you of the strength of my argument, nothing will.  Of course if you love sport then all is well and good just keep it the fuck away from music because those two things shouldn't be mixed.  It's like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters - you just don't do it.  This has been a Kpopalypse Community Service Anouncement.

35 comments:

  1. Unfortunately the Korean media is not capable of pulling off something as spectacular as the masterpiece that is Mechaike' okajo contest with Morning Musume (they're trying to find out who is the worst sports person in the girl group and make fun of everybody):
    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xiebwu_hps-mechaike-okajo-taiikusai-extra1_fun

    Other than that, I was happy to see South Korea lose in the world cup.

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    1. I have to confess too I was happy about the elimination of South Korea on the knockout phase on the world cup.

      They're fucking obsessed with that their team got to semifinals thanks to being the 2002 world cup hosts and to the referees (Spain and Italy still remember this) that 12 years later they have a large national delusion of having a standard impossible to surpass so they get fucking crazy.

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    2. And nationalism being crushed is always a nice thing to see.

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    3. Who cares? Soccer is a sport for queers.

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    4. Well, it isn't a sport if you need a fucking armor to play to not hurt yourself.

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    5. Soccer ? I'm sure you meant Football, not to be confused with Handegg.

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    6. It's called football or soccer depending on country but I just call it "sport" which means it gets lumped in with all the other sport I also don't give a fuck about.

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    7. no akf, even I hate soccer too

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  2. best article yet, very good.

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    1. i think it resonates with me because i took refuge in art and spent most of my schooling career thinking of ways to skip physical education. very good kpopalypse fat losers everywhere are proud

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    2. I was a skinny loser back then but I still hated sport. I discovered all sorts of scammy ways to skip Phys Ed.

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    3. you dont have to be fat on the outside to be fat on the inside

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  3. I hate sport, but I love world cups. I love how 31 nations cry and gnash their teeth at the final whistle blow, then walk away whimpering and limping, cursing and wailing. Unfortunately there's always one that walks away full of that filthy joy of having won the cup, but there's hope for the next tournament that they'll join the ranks of the unfortunate.
    But I never listen to their crying while listening to k-pop, for obvious reasons. These two ought to be relished separately. Thanks, Kpopalypse, for the illuminating examples you provided.

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    1. 31 teams out of 32 being miserable means a happiness ratio from sports fans of just over 3%, which is just over 3% too much for my liking.

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  4. I'm a swimmer, not sure if this applies to me lol.

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    1. I was forced to do that shit when I was younger too. Fuck chlorinated pools and doing laps, the only thing swimming is good for is skinny-dipping.

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    2. In all honesty I do it because it's pretty relaxing. But that's just me. What I dislike in P.E. are the teachers who are damn near obese who thinks it's cool to make fun of a kid more than less than- half their size for not doing something they probably can't do. That's what I don't like about sport.

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  5. Chec out shiina ringo's song for cheering on Japan's soccer team

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  6. It's not that music and sports don't go together, it's that koreans and sports don't go together. Compared to the rest of the world they suck, but at the same time completely oblivious to this fact to the point of ignorance.
    http://blog.ningin.com/2010/06/29/idols-welcome-back-south-korean-team-with-a-special-concert/
    Obviously koreans don't know what the hell they're doing because the last thing you would want as an athlete after letting down your entire country is to show your face and celebrate your humiliation on national television (just look at their expressions). What other country does this?

    tl;dr Music and sports can go together but Koreans don't know how to do it because they suck at sports

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually Koreans sucking at sport makes me like them a little more.

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  7. I think it varies. The star cellist in my orchestra is a national-level gymnast. Then again, in the youth orchestra community music is almost a competitive sport.

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    1. One day that cellist is going to break her hand on a pole or something and have to skip and important gig, then the die will be cast.

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  8. Hah...had no idea that you taught music.Say knowing how big and homicidal Australia is, this is probably a stupid question but do you know who Chris Zoupa is ? If so have you ever met him? The dude's lessons are amazing.

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    1. I wasn't aware of him but I looked him up. He doesn't live in my town. His videos seem decent!

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  9. about Hyomin... you could've taken almost any picture for your argument, but the "nice body" styling is an ugly mess. I very much prefer her in that tracksuit.

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    1. She's in an outfit that shows overboob and underboob and sideboob and cleavage all in one. Tracksuit can't compete with that.

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  10. Sounds more like your students are the one making excuses to avoid your class lol, in my high school years, the boys are always prioritizing the sports class.

    I myself personally like music classes alot because I suck at almost every sport. Or ill have to play with the girls, because they're less tryhard

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  11. Soyul's ownage of lesser athletic idols during her consecutive Dream Team appearances prove otherwise.

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    1. Stop highlighting things that are logical and sensible but don't fit in with my argument.

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  12. 1. I like sports.
    2. I actually read the article you linked about drop bears. lol

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    Replies
    1. Actually I linked two different drop bear articles. Because you can never be educated enough.

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  13. In that case I'm sure you'll have the best New Year in your life when Australia hosts the Asian Cup in January. Oh the fun you're gonna have, I envy you oppar ;)

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