Mnet Asian Music Awards 2014 - MAMA In Hong Kong

Wednesday 3rd December saw the sixteenth annual Mnet Asian Music Awards take place at the AsiaWorld Arena in Hong Kong.

Once again, the most popular K-Pop groups and artists were celebrated, with awards being voted on by fans online. As always, it was a star-studded event attended by numerous Korean pop stars.

Award winners plus YouTube videos follow "The Performances" section.
Congratulations to all who took part!


The Performances

The show opened with a performance from Dancing9, with a routine titled "Beat Box", featuring dancers dancing to a medley of songs, including  Bony M's "Sunny", NKOTB's "Step By Step", James Brown's "Get Up", and Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

This was followed by a couple of hip-hop performances "연결고리 YGGR" performed by Illionaire Records featuring rappers BOBBY, The Quiett, and Dok2. They were followed by MASTA WU featuring Dok2 and BOBBY performing "Come Here".



After this came two awards; Best New Artist and Best Dance Performance Solo.

Once these were awarded, we were treated to a performance from Girl's Day and AILEE; this act being called "Last Fantasy". First up was Girl's Day with "Something", and then AILEE with "Don't Touch Me". Both Girl's Day and AILEE then took to the stage together with a joint performance of the song "Problem".



Two more awards followed, and then on came Epik High and WINNER; their section called "Beyond The Screen". Winner performed "Empty", and then Epik High performed "Happen Ending" with the soothing voice of Yoo Inna. They then followed this with the funky sounds of "Born Hater". They were joined on stage by B.I, and then Song Mino of Winner. Soon, BOBBY returned to the stage to perform with them.

SISTAR - Touch My Body

SISTAR have released a new mini album, "Touch N Move", their first in fourteen months. Their comeback features a brand spanking new music video for track two "Touch My Body". It's a catchy summer song, and the brilliantly coloured video features all the usual summery stuff; surf boards, swimming pool, fake palm trees, etc. There's even an Elvis lookalike saxophonist!

To me, the song kinda reminds me of their summer song from 2012, "Loving U", but ever-so-slightly more upbeat.

Check out the video below:


Here's the tracklist for the mini album:

01. Wow
02. Touch my body
03. 나쁜손 (feat. 버벌진트)
04. But I Love U
05. OK GO!
06. Sunshine

Are you a fan of the new video? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.


Photo credit: Official SISTAR Facebook page

Lady Gaga Chooses Crayon Pop As Support Act

Lady Gaga has revealed that K-Pop girl group Crayon Pop will be the opening act on her tour "artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball". The award-winning, multi-platinum selling singer tweeted the news along with the video to the K-Pop sensations' hit song "Bar Bar Bar", which went viral last summer. Their "straight-five engine dance" was copied and parodied the world over, and since then, Crayon Pop's profile has gone through the roof!

"Bar Bar Bar"

The girls will be joining Lady Gaga from June 26 to July 22 on her tour of America and Canada this year. Tour dates are as follows:

Jun 26 Milwaukee, WI - Summerfest (Buy Tickets)

Jun 28 Atlantic City, NJ - Boardwalk Hall (Buy Tickets)

Jun 30 Boston, MA - TD Garden (Buy Tickets)

Jul 02 Montreal, QC - Bell Centre (Buy Tickets)

Jul 07 Buffalo, NY - First Niagara Center (Buy Tickets)

Jul 09 Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre (Sold Out)

Jul 11 Chicago, IL - United Center (Buy Tickets)

Jul 14 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center (Buy Tickets)

Jul 16 Houston, TX - Toyota Center (Buy Tickets)

Jul 17 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center (Buy Tickets)
Jul XX Las Vegas, NV - MGM Grand Garden Arena (Buy Tickets)

Jul 21 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center (Sold Out)
Jul 22 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center (Buy Tickets)

Crayon Pop plan to release a new song "Hey" on March 31.

Are you excited about this? Are you going?

Girls' Generation - "Mr.Mr." New MV

Girls' Generation recently released a new video for their latest song "Mr.Mr." The song looks to continue to cement their status as South Korea's most successful girl group. The song features yet another infectiously catchy chorus, coupled with a slickly edited video, and new dance routine. I'm a fan of it!

What do you think? How does it compare to previous releases?




Photo Credit: Header - SMTOWN Official Facebook page

Top 10 K-Pop Christmas Songs 2013

'Tis the season to be jolly, and here are some recent K-Pop songs to help you do so!

I'm not generally a fan of Christmas songs, but sometimes you can't help but like some of them. Here are my Top 10 of this year...

10 - KOYOTE - Hug Me

First up is KOYOTE. A nice mixture of rapping and singing, come together with a catchy chorus to produce this pleasant Christmas song.

09 - Wa$$up - LA Pam Pam PA

This one doesn't particularly sound too Christmassy, but then that's what sets this apart from most other Christmas songs. I think it's pretty cool, and I reckon Wa$$up are a girl group to watch in the future...

The 2013 Mnet Asian Music Awards: Who Won This Year?

Twenty days after we saw a K-Pop group win an award at the YouTube Music Awards, Friday 22 November saw the fifteenth annual Mnet Asian Music Awards, which is pretty much totally dedicated to K-Pop music (with a few international acts too). The ceremony took place at the Asia World Expo Arena in Hong Kong, and was broadcast live on YouTube.

There were numerous categories, recognising the most popular K-Pop groups and solo performers of the year, as voted by fans online.

Watch the awards below (red carpet show to begin with, followed by award show start at 2hr12m):


Award winners and some videos to show you of who they are (if you didn't already know...) appear after "The Performances" section.

The Performances

The star-studded show opened with rock band Jaurim and an "Enter the Dragon" version of their song "Icarus", who were joined on stage by Lee Han-Eul and Jay Park, in a combination of rap and rock. I thought it worked quite effectively, and enjoyed the song.

The show also featured performances by pop duo Trouble Maker with "Now", boy band INFINITE singing "BTD", flipping and somersaulting all over the place before performing "Destiny". They were followed by Hong Kong singer/actor Aaron Kwok performing "Yi Ge Hui Wu". The next performance was by girl group 2NE1 performing "Lonely" and new song "Missing You",  followed by Swedish pop duo Icona Pop who performed "All Night" and were also joined on stage by 2NE1's CL on their hit "I Love It".

T.O.P - Doom Dada. What's It All About?

The new video for T.O.P's new solo single "DOOM DADA", was released a few days ago. It's his first single since 2010's "TURN IT UP".

Being more of a fan of the female voice rather than male vocals, I don't really follow T.O.P or his work with BIGBANG for that matter. Still, I think his new video is quite interesting, even if I'm not so keen on the song.

I say "interesting", but some might say it's downright weird! From the scene with the apes (referencing the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, substituting the bone for a microphone), to running along with images of skeletons, to walking through the woods with a huge microphone on his back hand in hand with a big-headed baby, it's hard to make sense of what's going on in this video, if it does even make sense at all. The scenes with the big baby also sees T.O.P sporting an oversized bow-tie/ribbon and also a large moustache. Is this video just being weird for the sake of being weird? Any ideas?

The song is written by T.O.P himself, fellow BIGBANG bandmate G-Dragon and producer CHOICE37, and the video is produced by Seo Hyun Seung, who also produced the video for TAEYANG's "RINGA LINGA", though that video bears no resemblance to "DOOM DADA".

Anyway, here's the video:


What do you think of the new song? What is the video all about? Let's hear your thoughts!



Photo Credit: Header - Official BIGBANG Facebook page, Image - Official BIGBANG Facebook page

miss A's New Comeback Song "Hush"!

Due for release on Wednesday 6 November, miss A will return with a new song called "Hush", their first after a year long break.

A couple of days ago, AQ Entertainment released a video teaser featuring the four members of the group. The song itself was not to be heard in the video; instead we get an eerie atmosphere, and we just hear the sound of running water, water drips, and other ambient sound effects.

Throughout the teaser, we get a glimpse of each member of the group standing or sitting motionless and looking at the camera with no emotion or expression.

Did K-Pop Win At The YouTube Music Awards?

Tonight (3 November, I find myself writing this now at 2am, after the show finished after midnight here in the UK) saw the first ever YouTube Music Awards ceremony take place. The event was streamed live on YouTube, and was presented by Hollywood actor / musician Jason Schwartzman and comedian / musician Reggie Watts. The ceremony itself was largely unscripted and improvised, and featured live performances by Arcade Fire, Walk Off The Earth, Lady Gaga, Avicii, M.I.A., and Eminem.

Over the last few weeks, YouTube viewers have been voting by posting and sharing the official video links of their favourite nominees to Twitter, Google+, and Facebook; the more shares each nominee got, and for every subsequent share, the more votes the respective videos accumulated.

As I wrote in my previous "K-Pop At The YouTube Music Awards" blog post, we had seen that K-Pop had made quite an impact over the last year, and in doing so had made an appearance among the nominees in four of the six categories.

Both PSY and Girls' Generation were up for the Video of the Year award, with "Gentleman" and "I Got A Boy" respectively. PSY was also in the running for the Artist of the Year award, and his song "Gangnam Style" was nominated for the YouTube Phenomenon award.

"Gangnam Style" was also featured in the Response of the Year award, for Jayesslee's acoustic cover version.

Results

K-Pop At The YouTube Music Awards - Vote For Nominees Before November 3

Pretty much everyone knows about YouTube of course; even my parents, so if you've visited the site at any time recently, it probably hasn't escaped your attention that YouTube are holding their very own awards ceremony on November 3.

This year sees the first ever YouTube Music Awards (YTMA's), and fans of Asian music may be pleased to know that K-Pop has made an appearance in the nominees of four of the six different categories.

In recent years, K-Pop has become hugely popular the world over, and seems to have an ever growing online presence. It has had quite an impact in the mainstream media, thanks largely to PSY's worldwide smash hit song; the infectious "Gangnam Style", released last year. Whether or not K-Pop, or other Asian music can continue to make any more of an impact remains to be seen, but with K-Pop girl group Girls' Generation also making an appearance in the list of potential winners, it certainly is encouraging.



The six different awards categories are: Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, YouTube Breakthrough, YouTube Phenomenon, Innovation of the Year, and Response of the Year.

Crayon Pop - Bar Bar Bar (Global Version)

Crayon Pop have released a global version of their #1 Billboard K-Pop Hot 100 hit, and with it comes a new promotional video.



The original was released back in June with a Story Version video. The release of the Dance Version music video for the song followed not long afterwards, and since then, the video went viral, and they slowly climbed and eventually topped many of the K-Pop charts.

While I think the new video is fun, and I do like it a lot, I still prefer the original Dance Version, and I'm not so keen on the start of this one; how it goes straight into the Straight-Five Engine Dance. I know this dance has become synonymous with Crayon Pop and Bar Bar Bar, but I like the build up to it in the original version.

Still, you can't blame Chrome Entertainment or Sony Music Entertainment for wanting to capitalise on the huge success of this song and video, but I hope Crayon Pop will be bringing out some new material soon.

You can download the single on iTunes or buy a physical copy at amazon.co.uk
or at cdjapan:
THE STREETS GO DISCO [Korean Version]
THE STREETS GO DISCO (Taiwanese Edition) [CD+Trading Cards in Folder]




Photo credit: Crayon Pop Official Fan Site / Korea

Crayon Pop - Itaewon Freedom teaser

Here is Crayon Pop's teaser trailer for, what I can only assume, is their version of the UV with J. Y. Park song "Itaewon Freedom" (2011). The teaser features the girls miming along to the original song, and was filmed guerilla style on the streets of Seoul. It is posted on their official Facebook page, with the full length performance airing on M-net Japan on August 16.

Looking forward to seeing this! I reckon it looks like fun!
What do you think?

T-ARA with DAVICHI feat SKULL - BIKINI "비키니"

Well, this new video for T-ARA's new song "Bikini" doesn't seem to be getting much love, judging by the YouTube comments it has been getting so far. Then again, you can always find the best haters in the YouTube comments section!

Is it because T-ARA do not feature in the video? Or DAVICHI or SKULL for that matter. Is it the video itself? Perhaps it's due to last year's bullying scandal?

What are your thoughts? I quite like the video ;) What's not to like?!






Photo Credit: Official Core Contents Media T-ARA Page

Crayon Pop - 빠빠빠 (Bar Bar Bar)

How fun is Crayon Pop's new music video?? "Bar Bar Bar" is a pretty simplistic song, but there's something about it that just makes me want to smile. Could it be the brightly coloured costumes? The synchronised dancing? Or is it just the jumping?

Jumping! Yeah! Jumping! Yeah! Everybody!!



I had heard only one of their songs prior to seeing this video, and that was when I saw the video for "Saturday Night" (2012). At the time that it was released, I thought it was okay; a fun song, and an okay video that ultimately didn't really grab my attention. Then I saw this; the video for "Bar Bar Bar"...

SISTAR - Give It To Me, Goodbye Stage, Music core 2013.07.13

Here's a nice performance from SISTAR on the Goodbye Stage at Music core, uploaded yesterday by MBCkpop on YouTube. This signifies the end of their promotion for this song then; I'm looking forward to hearing what they come up with next, as SISTAR are one of my favourite K-Pop girl groups.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we hear some more material...

In the meantime, enjoy the performance!





Photo credit: Official SISTAR Facebook Page