Book Review - Singing Is My Life: A Memoir of My Journey from Homelessness to Fame (Sungbong Choi)

It hasn't been that long since the last book review, but you caonimas keep sending me fucking books in the mail, so that means it's time again for Kpopalypse to throw down on books about Korean music!  The subject of this book review is the autobiography of some guy who sung opera a few times on a talent show, Sungbong Choi.

Will Kpopalypse make it all the way through a book about some opera singer dude?  Will his head explode?  Read on and find out!

Five Nights At Ailee's K-pop Vocal Fan Camp

As it's coming up to Halloween, here's a scary k-pop themed horror fanfiction for you all to enjoy!  Have fun reading and don't worry, Kpopalypse doesn't do jump scares!

Vocal fakery - how likely is it in k-pop? Fuckin' likely.

Vocals in k-pop.  Everybody wants me to write about it, but there's not a lot to say because nobody with a brain cares.  The reasons why nobody with a brain cares are:

• A good singer's good vocals don't make a bad song any better.
• Most k-pop vocal performances are faked on some level so assessing them is like complaining that the bunny a magician pulls out of their hat was never really in there.

The first point should be basic common sense to anyone (except vocalfags), so let's talk about the second point.  What techniques are used to get good vocals out of someone who can't sing well, or didn't sing well in a particular circumstance... and how likely is k-pop to be using them?  Let's find out!  (Spoiler alert: fuckin' likely.)

An Introduction to Vocal Faggotry, Part 2: The Technique

Yes, this is Younha showing off her cleavage, and yes this picture is relevant to the article.

Welcome to part two of the introduction to vocal pedagogy, in this part I will teach you about the science that is behind the voice. Hopefully, you'll be able to come away from this article with knowledge on strain, resonance, pitch, support etc.

In a nutshell, vocal pedagogy (vocal technique) is the study of the science in the field of singing. Since vocal technique is directly related to science, it is a good way to use it to judge a vocalist or a performance accurately and objectively. Vocal pedagogy consists of the following:

• Physiology of singing
• Breathing in singing
• Posture
• Phonation
• Intonation
• Resonace
• Tone production
• Vibrato
• Vocal articulations
• Vocal diction
• Vocal registrations
• Vocal health
• Vocal styles
• Voice classifications
• Coloratura

This shall be explained after the jump, like the previous post, this is also very text heavy so I've tried to break it up with nice images.

Her "talents" are huge - why "MR removed" videos are all bullshit

For a while now, a horrible cancer has been infecting the world of k-pop - the obsession with "talent".  I put "talent" in inverted commas because when people talk about "talent" in k-pop in either a positive or negative sense, they usually only ever talk about one thing, which is singing ability.  They tend to ignore other talents that actually matter a lot more for career advancement and industry success in the world of ultra-commercial idol pop, such as:

• Looking good on stage
• Dancing (sometimes also factored in when people discuss "talent" - but rarely)
• Looking good on TV
• Stage presence
• Looking good in front of still cameras (i.e modelling)
• Talking to the media (if you don't think this one matters, just ask anyone in KARA)
• Looking good in a versatile way for different outfits to use in different concepts
• Emotional labour (what air hostesses do - keeping the happy facade up, smiling constantly when you've had a shit day etc, ask f(x) about this one)
• Looking good even in airports
• Fellatio technique (just ask [insert your bias here])
• Looking good even in a car accident (or else)
• Behind-the-scenes talent that supports your talent (songwriters, producers, stylists, choreographers)
• Looking good at all times

It also helps if you are attractive.  More fun facts about vocal performances after the jump.

This little Piggy Doll didn't go to market

We all know about the Piggy Dolls comeback, yeah?  If not, you can read up about it here.

Quick recap for those who haven't been following this: three girls were in a group called Piggy Dolls that debuted a couple of years back and they were kinda chubby, then they came back and became somewhat less chubby... and then they came back again recently but this time it was actually three completely different girls using the same name who were typical-kpop-skinny, thus defeating the purpose of the original Piggy Dolls concept.  Great, now we're all up to speed.

When this happened, I did my best to get a brief snapshot about how the k-pop community felt about this.  The response from YouTube, various articles and forums was fairly expected and mostly the same - naturally, the notoriously whiny "vocal talent is everything omg" crowd were horrified that clearly superior singers were replaced with some averagely-voiced but prettier girls.  Screencaps and a lot more after the jump.