I’m not even gonna lie, at this moment, BIGBANG is K-Pop.
In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know who BIGBANG is, they are the most popular boy band in South Korea, and they have been for a good while. Fun fact, they are from YG Entertainment, the same company which PSY is coming from. Yup, you know who I’m talking about. That PSY.
I’ve been a fan of K-Pop since when I was a teenager, even though I diverged a little to Western music when I first came to America for high school. I mean, the Koreans have been always big in China, but I only have followed a selected few. I’ve known BIGBANG for a while, but I’ve only started to follow them for a bit over a year.
The reason why I write about BIGBANG right now is because they’re back after about 3 years of hiatus. They are releasing a full album soon. But just yesterday, they released two singles, and I listened to both of them today. The two songs are “Loser” and “Bae Bae.” Now, when I say they are the most popular boy band in South Korea, you may wonder, how popular? Last time I checked, the Youtube views of music videos on their channel are pretty impressive: one is about 4.2 million, another has even passed 5.9 million. They are #37 on US iTunes chart, right behind Taylor Swift’s “Style.” And let’s not forget that it’s been like what, one day. Hm, maybe it’s a good sign for people to stop overlooking Asian markets. Music wise, I think “Loser” is pretty much BIGBANG’s distinctive style, and it tells a very heartfelt story about feeling lost. The feeling of not belonging and not being understood is so personal yet universal.
That’s one thing I find BIGBANG different from hundreds of other Korean boy bands and girl bands out there. Yes, they are very much produced and packaged in a certain way, but somehow, their music manages to tell very real and heartfelt stories, sonically and lyrically. As much as I love K-Pop and my very own Asian culture, the common practice of putting artists in an unrealistically high place for people to worship, that they are called idols is just frustrating. They are human beings. We all know that. They have emotions, frustrations, troubles; their world isn’t glorious or perfect. They have feelings of love, lost, lust, guilt, anger, regret… just about everything everyone else has. I’m really grateful that someone like BIGBANG step down from “I’m up high in the cloud and all you can do is to look up to me” to a place that we can all relate to. And it isn’t even about singing heartbreaking songs that just crying “oh baby you are my one and only love and you leave me heartbroken.” It’s fine to sing about heartbreaks, but not all in the same way. No two heart break alike, right? More importantly, c’mon, we all get sick of the same story over time, especially when they sound made-up. Music is a form of communication. It’s about being real and tell the truth, because truth, and only truth can connect people with the art.
Ok, take it to my favorite, “Bae Bae.” Honestly, it’s such a weird song. Yes, the lyrics is about impressing a lover, a girlfriend, someone special. Musically, it’s so BIGBANG, yet so not… It sounds like they put pieces together from their solo work and somehow made it work (?) The music takes so many different turns, so much so that when I first finished the song, I was like “WTF? I gotta listen to it again!” It’s really hard to describe with words. But in all seriousness, if you’re a fan of BIGBANG, you gotta be kind of… weird. Because they are weird. Well, I guess that’s good because in the end, everyone is a little weird.
“Bae Bae” definitely doesn’t sound like any K-Pop song you’ll come across everyday. Even it’s so weird and random, some pieces of it are really coming out of nowhere, it does sound honest and fun, which is quite rare in K-Pop. I mean, Korean music industry is probably more developed than everyone thinks, and K-Pop songs are products of detailed planning and manufacturing. No offense, the common trend I find is that K-Pop artists seem to all adopt the same kind of boy band or girl band style. They not only look similar in terms of dressing styles, but also sound similar too! I swear, even after listening to K-Pop music for this long, I still mess bands up all the time. Another trend I notice is that K-Pop songs are either copying the hottest Billboard songs or each other, which I don’t know how far that will go in the long run. I quite understand K-Pop artists’ desire to break into Western markets, and some of them have tried over the years; but still, we’ve really only got PSY, who was not even intended to be that way. In my humble opinion, “Gangnam Style” doesn’t sound like any ordinary K-Pop song you come across or any Billboard song you would expect on the radio. PSY simply did what he liked. Maybe that says something?
Well, if you make it to here, I can tell you one thing for sure: after this, I feel so motivated to catch up on my Korean lessons.
BIGBANG – Loser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CTced9CMMk
BIGBANG – Bae Bae https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKD03uPVD-Q