“Go Away” by 2NE1

“What’s up first?” I sat on my couch next to (get this) a girl completely obsessed with Korean music. Silently quelling any inherently competitive urges to proclaim our respective sides the pinnacle of Asian music achievement, we sat in front of my television trying to figure out which of a dozen or so Korean Pop videos to watch first. It was my crash course in K-Pop.

Synchronized-dancing, androgynous, pretty boys and oversexed school girls flooded into my living room with hypnotic hooks and painfully catchy melody lines. In other words, it was a lot like watching J-Pop videos; though not without a few interesting differences.

My K-Pop tutor kept insisting that the Korean pop groups are a bit more conservative than their Japanese counterparts. To be sure, there was a metric ton of sexual tension in at least a few of these videos though the principle characters never so much as locked lips. On the other hand, murder and and misogynistic behavior in some of the more dramatic videos was totally fair game. In “Go Away” by 2NE1 (video above) the singer gets brutally smacked by an ex-boyfriend then exacts her revenge with explosive results.

I have to admit, watching K-Pop vides was fantastic. And as it turns out, I’m hardly the only one with a burgeoning interest in Korean music.
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