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why are you not the president yet how does it feel to spend your days with a brain so big and ideas so good pLEASE WRITE THAT ESSAY I AM BEGGING

LOL i’m not the president because i want to topple the US government among other things but it is actually a curse!! so many good ideas! no manpower or time to bring them into fruition! 

what that taemin x jose munoz essay would be is about munoz’s concept of queerness as horizon (something that is not yet here) and queer time as opposed to straight time. it's about going against queer pragmatics and instead engaging the political imagination. i think ngda is the closest thing there is right now to a mainstream portrayal of a queer korean futurism.

"The poem speaks of multiple temporalities and the affective mode known as ecstasy, which resonates alongside the work of Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time Heidegger reflects on the activity of timeliness and its relation to ekstatisch (ecstasy), signaling for Heidegger the ecstatic unity of temporality—Past, Present, and Future. The ecstasy the speaker feels and remembers in “A photograph” is not consigned to one moment. It steps out from the past and remarks on the unity of an expansive version of temporality; hence, future generations are invoked. To know ecstasy in the way in which the poem’s speaker does is to have a sense of timeliness’s motion, to understand a temporal unity that is important to what I attempt to describe as the time of queerness. Queerness’s time is a stepping out of the linearity of straight time. Straight time is a self-naturalizing temporality. Straight time’s “presentness” needs to be phenomenologically questioned, and this is the fundamental value of a queer utopian hermeneutics. Queerness’s ecstatic and horizonal temporality is a path and a movement to a greater openness to the world. (Munoz 25). 

Munoz also describes queer ecstasy as "being marked by both self-consciousness and obliviousness, possesses a potentially transformative charge."

Things I could write a page about each:

Taemin's use of temporality, specifically queer temporal unity with a deliberate subversion of the linear:

1. the contrast of plato's theory of forms with a futuristic aesthetic is connected through a gay fashion designer's vision of an ecstatic catholic rave (Palomo F/W 2020). the motifs of the virgin mary, jesus, etc with the y2k futurist aesthetics.

2. and the form of the narrative is one of an epic poem, of orpheus descending into hell to save his wife or princess bari descending into the underworld to find the cure to save her parents.

Taemin and ecstasy:

1. As me and yaejin's post about the Palomo outfit says, "taemin said thotcrime jail is now GAY CATHOLIC RAVE". Taemin dismantles the panopticon! Taemin destroys heaven and hell to become one with nature!

2. How this ties into Korean communal musical practices for 5000 years, the practice of communal music spaces as places of untying han and instead creating generative catharsis and communal uplift

Taemin and possession:

1. I talked about this a bit already with my how is taemin korean ask but Taemin channels BoA, is momentarily possessed by BoA as a higher power when he lipsynchs her lines. But I wrote my senior thesis on how in Indigenous spiritual cosmologies, possession isn't a demonic thing of an act of owning and claiming the way it is in Western culture. It's about mutual responsibility to the spirit of the land/object in your care, stewardship and commitment and expectations of care. Through BoA's voice Taemin channels the "transformative charge" of queer temporality

NGDA is a uniquely korean, uniquely queer narrative of liberation that retools the imposition of western history onto the korean peninsula into a way to present a colonized queer korean reality.

https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2015/05/david-byrne-on-music-ecstasy-and-catharsis/

This interview with David Byrne is also something I would use to contextualize the discussion of music, ecstasy, and catharsis and the globalization of pop music with its base in African diasporic music.

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think of you being the happy counterpart to 2 kids but the lyrics like “everything is bothering me, please can someone just say they love me & let me lean on them. i don’t care if it’s a lie, i just need someone to say it” but the song itself has a mellow vibe & he’s all smiley & happy wandering around paris & hugging himself & looking like he’s totally ok w being by himself despite the lyrics in mv….

act 2 is v vulnerable & still has tinges of sadness to it but unlike w like 2 kids & act 1, it’s like… yes, he’ll have sad moments & it’s not the most healthy mode of thinking to be like “i want even a false love, that’s how low i feel” but it somehow doesn’t feel dysfunctional in think of you bc it’s like coming from a place of actually loving himself & cherishing his own needs. unlike w 2 kids where there’s such devastation to it & such regret & uncertainty of the future & most importantly, a still unsure grasp of his sense of self without these relationships, he know he’ll be ok in act 2 regardless of these lonely feelings bc it’s like by accepting those vulnerable parts of himself, that is also finding peace in a way. he may be lonely but he’s sure of himself now & who he is.

i remember him in an interview being like "early on, i tried hard to assert myself & now i want to relax” or something like that… pinocchio & famous esp are like “PLEASE someone read between the lines & see who i rly am! if i try hard to Show Myself in this obscured way, then maybe ppl will finally get the real me behind the trappings of idol culture & constraints of company image” & now in act 2 it’s like “well, no one can see me unless i put myself out there authentically & caring too much abt if i’m being Seen Correctly just gives me grief.” so in think of you, it’s like "i will always try to be true to myself & i hope by showing that vulnerability, you all will love me for who i am.” never gonna dance again rly a coming to peace w his relationship to fame & authenticity which was such a source of contention for him in his career & now he’s focusing on that emotional connection & finding comfort in it & seeing it as an ongoing process of vulnerability & accepting the risks in it instead of pushing himself hard to be Correctly Visible in One Big Show.

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#there's so many layers to idea... hello.................#the Ascension of Love from one individual all the way to Love for Its Own Sake#& will then know true beauty#all right... all right....

plato’s “ladder of love” & taemin’s “idea”

Well then, she [the goddess Diotima] began, the candidate for this initiation cannot, if his efforts are to be rewarded, begin too early to devote himself to the beauties of the body. First of all, if his preceptor instructs him as he should, he will fall in love with the beauty of one individual body, so that his passion may give life to noble discourse. Next he must consider how nearly related the beauty of any one body is to the beauty of any other, when he will see that if he is to devote himself to loveliness of form it will be absurd to deny that the beauty of each and every body is the same. Having reached this point, he must set himself to be the lover of every lovely body, and bring his passion for the one into due proportion by deeming it of little or of no importance.

Next he must grasp that the beauties of the body are as nothing to the beauties of the soul, so that wherever he meets with spiritual loveliness, even in the husk of an unlovely body, he will find it beautiful enough to fall in love with and to cherish–and beautiful enough to quicken in his heart a longing for such discourse as tends toward the building of a noble nature. And from this he will be led to contemplate the beauty of laws and institutions. And when he discovers how nearly every kind of beauty is akin to every other he will conclude that the beauty of the body is not, after all, of so great moment.

And next, his attention should be diverted from institutions to the sciences, so that he may know the beauty of every kind of knowledge. And thus, by scanning beauty’s wide horizon, he will be saved from a slavish and illiberal devotion to the individual loveliness of a single boy, a single man, or a single institution. And, turning his eyes toward the open sea of beauty, he will find in such contemplation the seed of the most fruitful discourse and the loftiest thought, and reap a golden harvest of philosophy, until, confirmed and strengthened, he will come upon one single form of knowledge, the knowledge of the beauty I am about to speak of.

[…] And so, when his prescribed devotion to boyish beauties has carried our candidate so far that the universal beauty dawns upon his inward sight, he is almost within reach of the final revelation. And this is the way, the only way, he must approach, or be led toward, the sanctuary of Love. Starting from individual beauties, the quest for the universal beauty must find him ever mounting the heavenly ladder, stepping from rung to rung–that is, from one to two, and from two to every lovely body, from bodily beauty to the beauty of institutions, from institutions to learning, and from learning in general to the special lore that pertains to nothing but the beautiful itself–until at last he comes to know what beauty is.

[…] But if it were given to man to gaze on beauty’s very self–unsullied, unalloyed, and freed from the mortal taint that haunts the frailer loveliness of flesh and blood–if, I say, it were given to man to see the heavenly beauty face to face, would you call his, she asked me, an unenviable life, whose eyes had been opened to the vision, and who had gazed upon it in true contemplation until it had become his own forever?

And remember, she said, that it is when he looks upon beauty’s visible presentment, and only then, that a man will be quickened with the true, and not the seeming, virtue–for it is virtue’s self that quickens him, not virtue’s semblance. And when he has brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, he shall be called the friend of god, and if ever it is given to man to put on immortality, it shall be given to him (Symposium 210a-212b).

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#he commits blasphemy so he can confess and be punished #catholicism is being in a full time dom / sub relationship w god

(via gays4taemin)

me avoiding the judging eyes of god every time i sing along to taemin’s “you are my messiah”

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ofc i’m still thinking about the new criminal choreo…it’s very marionette-y

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taemin rly said god isn't who you think it is you have to kill the god machine they made u worship in order to reach the truth

is that not the SEXIEST take you've ever seen in a polished high production dance pop album

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parallels between sunmi and perfect blue

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‘Sun.

  I am Andúril who once was         

Narsil, sword of Elendil.

         The slaves of         

Mordor shall flee from me.

         Moon.’

Lord Of The Rings Anduril Sword with Runes Of King Elessar Aragorn

sword transcription

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this set is so detailed and so key!!!! it's very very aesthetically pleasing and cohesively put together with a distinct sense of atmosphere, it's meant to suggest an iconographic hollywood dressing room and succeeds but the details are specific to kibum.

the union jack newspaper mannequin head showing his anglophile love for fashion. also the sparkling head and the picture of the boy taped on the wall with his face covered in tape. his first album is FACE and there's many faces here that are all different, just like he has many faces.

the posters: lynyrd skynrd and steve ray vaughan. 2 acts purposefully chosen to be the opposite of key's own image and evoke a hollywood dressing room but also musicians he definitely listens to. key loves 80s rock especially glam rock/hair metal and steve ray vaughan is associated with david bowie

the shinee jackets all over the room from dcm and atlantis. retro shaped pearl aqua container right in the middle.

i interpreted the dressing room as a semi private space between the talk show (variety side) and mv shooting (idol side) of his career and it's in between those that he throws a rockstar bitchfit and claims the whole thing is bad love that he doesn't need anymore.

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IT’S BAD LOVE

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🌈🌈🌈

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Criminal x Bad Love

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notes on hate that by key ft. taeyeon

bad love era is just about to begin and it is truly the era where we see key showing the most of himself he ever has before in his work. a big part of what makes following shinee's career so much fun is that they are always trying new sounds and concepts and building on what they have done before, pushing boundaries but maintaining a strong sense of identity that is as deliberately crafted as it is the truth. kibum especially has always been very intentional in playing it as safe as possible while showing the public One New Thing every time he's active in the public eye. this ranges from aspects of his music taste to his entertainer personality on variety television to his famously androgynous/genderless fashion sense. he really is the master of intimacy without access – he has always been exactly who he is and fought to never compromise but he also strategically chooses when and how he wants to show himself with a professional ease. key's prerelease single "hate that" ft. taeyeon is a perfect example of how he builds on his previous work and bridging it with his new concept.

key has never released a song like "hate that" before, it's a midtempo american-style pop song about the bitter conflicted feelings after a break up. while he has had plenty of emotional lyrics before, this is the first time we're getting actual angst and bitterness and a kind of tortured pettiness that he expresses very well.

it feels somewhat like a continuation of don’t call me, shinee's first fuck you break up song. and aesthetically, dcm had hints some sort of mass disaster and post-apocalyptic future that mirrors hate that's spaceship and abandoned island concept. it's basically dcm kibum standing in the middle of the ocean & him saying don’t call me (미쳤어 넌!) & dropping the phone in the water but in hate that, he’s like “wow… no one’s calling me… : (“

from refutation of a toxic sort of love to mourning what could’ve been & his actions that led up to it… hate that ft. taeyeon feels like both of them commiserating about their different responses to a similar situation.

both key and taeyeon are talking about a break up where the other person moved on but they haven't, and key admits to this emphasizes angst and longing with lyrics like "you're still smiling as pretty as you used to" while taeyeon's voice, demeanor, and lyrics are colder and more bitter, like "even the breakup was perfect, you were being you til the end".

also taeyeon’s red dress & the red lighting in the mv—another connection to dcm? or it could symbolize her putting on a bold show but really is just pretending she's okay and becoming cold to avoid thinking about her ex. this contrasts w kibum who wears beige and white which could symbolize humanness & honesty. plus his full outfit has so much more detail than i first thought when i looked up close— it looks quite like an astronaut outfit up close complete with those big boots. visually he doesn't quite belong on earth but he doesn't belong in that spaceship either, he isn't protected for the atmospheric pressure of space. he activates an escape pod but falls into water, he's doomed and unable to be rescued.

Also, while kibum looks despondent & somewhat resigned, taeyeon looks regal in all of her shots, looking statuesque. when they’re in the same frame, she is always shown towering over him. At the end, she’s the one who walks away while he sits in the café, staring at the tv, which shows the news that she’s been rescued.also note that they pointedly never look directly at each other. love that we get an example of straight baiting… kibum pointedly saying, “taeyeon & i aren’t a romantic thing” in hate that, just in case there were heterosexuals watching… we love to see it…

taeyeon’s the one who has the strength & autonomy to walk away from the heartbreak & events of the mv… & also the news saying she’s been rescued but by whom?? aliens???

anyway, hate that is a fantastic prerelease single - it's a fresh sophisticated take on a recently archetypal genre of american pop music that's clever and cohesive in lyrics, visuals, and sound. it's a perfect more chill segue into a fantastic album and a concept that's from another galaxy. onto the space camp!!!

more posts on the rest of bad love coming soon!!!

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korean music fact of the day! the drummer of deul geuk hwa choi sung won wrote the song "the blue night of jeju island" with the feeling of a lonely exhausted man who is dreaming of finding comfort on jeju island. the song was a hit and changed his life, it promoted jeju island tourism so well that choi sung won was given a home and a plot of land on jeju island where i think he still lives today. the song was played on every flight to jeju island for decades but now it's been replaced by the several covers of it, primarily the one by taeyeon.

the original is a wistful downtempo rock based ballad and taeyeon's is an upbeat pop song made to feel refreshing and youthful, both are made to make korean people feel like even in the midst of their difficult lives there's natural beauty and adventure to be enjoyed. however, this also comes with the historical factor of the rok's colonial relationship with jeju island and the economic importance but also damaging ecological factors of jeju island tourism. this song is a very good example of how korean music and their remakes and covers hold korean culture and history.

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Are rock, ballads, rap, and western pop the most popular music genres in SK?

absolutely!

it's probably 1. ballads 2. western pop 3. hip hop/rnb (both western and korean) 4. rock 5. dance pop/what ppl call kpop

and within rock there's tons of different genres and in korea rock and ballad artists overlap a lot! there's ppl who basically only listen to western rock, ppl who mostly like old korean rock (60s-90s), there's a huge and growing alt rock scene in skorea starting around 2010 with hyukoh's mainstream success, there's always been huge metal and punk and ska scenes in skorea with ska becoming mixed into mainstream rock in the 90s and early 2000s for a while.

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Hi! I recently stumbled upon Shin Joonghyun and Kim Jungmi and I fell in love with their sound and voice! I can't stop putting Haenim and Beautiful Rivers and Mountains on repeat lol Moon Watching is going up there too. Anyways I'm rambling. I wanted to ask if you have any recommendations for any other korean artists with a psychedelic rock sound? Trying to find more history on them and other artists to get a better feel but I think you would know better and you have great taste^^

omg i forgot to respond to this days ago and then went on a huge research spree about them today. shin joonghyun is the top representative of south korean psychedelic rock both in music quality and impact.

the best place to start of course is the people on this album. pearl sisters and lee junghwa especially.

i didn't know anything besides the music until today so i have to read and think a lot more before having a postable thought but i think shin joong hyun is a very good way to show how US imperialism shapes korean music and how korean struggle and art shines through the erasure of our own culture through genocidal colonial regimes and ongoing systems of exploitation

i haven't read this article yet it might have a lot of US propaganda in it we'll see tomorrow

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thank you so much this is exactly what i was looking for!!!!!!!!! -amber

the album "now" by shin joong hyun and released by kim jung mi is an absolutely fascinating snapshot of korean history as well as an incredible album.

in particular, the history of the song 아름다운 강산 (Beautiful Rivers and Mountains) is very politically charged. it's a beloved familiar song that korean artists make so many covers and remakes of but it holds an intermediate position in korean politics. it was made in protest of park chunghee by professing love for the mountains and rivers of the korean peninsula rather than his military regime, but it is still halfway between 건전가요 ("dry pop", patriotic songs forcibly released by popular artists) and 민중가요 ("people's music", protest songs and folksongs in protest of the regimes). it is a song loved by the reunification movement but also the rok government and military, holding an entire breadth of korean history in it from the 70s to now.