

June 20, 2011
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Flaxton Street in Kpop Videos
Ok, so it seems like since we introduced our Kprop shop guy that we can’t stop ourselves from noticing all of the recycled props in Kpop videos. The use of Flaxton Street in F.T. Island’s “Hello Hello” was when we first started noticing the recycling of props, but now it seems like everything’s being recycled (or maybe we’re just thinking too much into this). The tank in this video looks like a painted version of the one in GD&TOP’s “Knock Out” and the telephone booth sure looks like the one in 2NE1’s “Lonely”. Korea doesn’t even really have a lot of telephone booths, or at least, we haven’t seen many that look like the telephone booths in these videos. We’re starting to think that there actually IS a Kprop shop somewhere here in Korea, some wearhouse that stores lots of random stuff in it that Kpop record labels rent out for their videos. We don’t know enough about the movie industry to know how this works, but someone mentioned last week that recycling material is common in the movie industry. If there is a Kprop shop, we call dibs on calling it the Kprop shop! They better not use that name!
Also, we might have been harping on about the heat issue for a bit too long. There’s a good reason behind it, though! Seriously, it has gotten very, very hot here in Korea. Really hot. And we don’t like it. We wilt in heat. Wintertime is best for us. We even sleep with the windows open, because we love the cold air. This time of year, though, is just inhospitable. Yuck! Worst part about it all is that our Air Conditioner is acting up. It’s not spitting out cold air in the afternoon. ARRGGGH!! So the only thing we could think of while we watched this video, sitting in our apartment and sweating, is how absurd it was for f(x) to dance around in a cloudless summer day in what looked like leather. Come on! Leather! We can barely wear sleeveless shirt without erupting into flames.
Is their dancing in leather in the heat outside really absurd, though? We kind of have our slight doubts. f(x) mention in the song something along the lines of showing the sweaty foreigners what to wear, dress in black, or something like that. We’ve noticed that Korean people don’t really seem to be affected by the heat as much as we are. They’re not sweating that much, and they often wear a lot more clothing in the summer than we could imagine wearing. Really! What’s your secret, Korean people? Please tell us! Are you really not as sweaty and hot as the two of us are, or is it that you really are sweaty and hot, but you’re just not showing it? Riding the bus in Korea is torture for us as well: taking the crammed bus from Seoul back to Bucheon, and the bus has nothing but two tiny windows in the back, which nobody wants to open, and barely any AC on at all either, and nobody seems bothered by this. HOW DO YOU DO THIS?!
We touched lightly, in passing, on the idea of recycling songs for use in Kpop, specifically SM’s rampant repackaging of other people’s music. We didn’t want to talk about it in depth in f(x)’s video, because we didn’t want to take away from the focus of an awesome song and fun video, so we’re saving this rant for a different video. We’ll post it tomorrow, on our bonus channel, and write about it in depth here on our site. For now, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you can see here:
KE$HA – Run Devil Run vs SNSD – Run Devil Run
Kristine Elezaj – Razor vs f(x) – Danger
Monrose – Hot Summer vs f(x) – Hot Summer
Now, again, we’re not going to get into this here. What we want to avoid outright, though, is making anyone believe that we’re accusing SM of shenanigans, stealing songs, or anything illegal. They have bought the rights to these songs legally. Does that mean that they should re-release these songs once other people have sung them, though? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
Anyhow, since we still are big fans of f(x) – and Amber especially after we talked to her when we were Backstage at Inkigayo – we recommend you check out f(x)’s Hot Summer Album here. It ships internationally. Huzzah!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/29cnd-ear.html
“They write that earwax type and armpit odor are correlated, since
populations with dry earwax, such as those of East Asia, tend to sweat
less and have little or no body odor, whereas the wet earwax populations
of Africa and Europe sweat more and so may have greater body odor.
Several Asian features, such as small nostrils and the fold of fat above
the eyelid, are conjectured to be adaptations to the cold. Less
sweating, the Japanese authors suggest, may be another adaptation to the
cold climate in which the ancestors of East Asian peoples are thought
to have lived.”
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Kara’s Go Go Summer!! At least it felt more summerlike, being by a pool, sitting in front of fans, etc… versus dancing in front of pink tanks.
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Kara’s Go Go Summer!! At least it felt more summerlike, being by a pool, sitting in front of fans, etc… versus dancing in front of pink tanks.
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F(x) :)!!!! wiiiiii shinee winssssss :)!!!!!
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I still don’t like Amber’s hair cut >.>
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I still don’t like Amber’s hair cut >.>
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I still don’t like Amber’s hair cut >.>
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I still don’t like Amber’s hair cut >.>
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As always simon and martina Nice and funny music monday xD you made my day at work right now is 12pm in venezuela :P hey now that you mention the phonebooth i also noticed that maybe is the same phoneboot from TVXQ Banjun Drama “Dangerous love” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1uwDHAYIc0&feature=related is in one of the parts i just posted the first because I dont know if you watched this if not please watch it^^
Btw i vote for FxÂ
PS: Wiii SHINee won xD
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If hear f(x)’s live version of Hot summer, you can hear the fans’ screams fluctuating, and how it always seems to increase when it’s Amber’s turn!!! XD
AMBERAMBERAMBERAMBERAMBER!!!!!!!
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Thank you for this review. Actually when I saw for the first time F(x) Hot Summer I wanted to ask you for the review and here it is. I didn´t know that it is not an original song. Even though Monrose is a German band (I live in Europe so not so far away from Germany) I haven´t heard about it till now. But I like F(x) version more.
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SNSD’s song is the same cause they bought it from kesha. SM announced that, but the others not so much. Anyways I’m not a fan of fx but your videos are funny nonetheless. I’ll vote for Kara~
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KARA all the way!Â
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lol yay SHINee beat big bang!!! :D
…sorry, martina… >.>
i vote for f(x) this week.
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Btw, SNSD’s run devil run is an orginal song. Kesha was just doing a flavour for the song writer of run devil run……to sing a demo for SNSD. But fpr some reason, Kesha’s demo leaked out to the internet~
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Actually they sold it to SM no SNSD member own the rights to RunDevilRun SM does, the only member in SNSD that I know of that owns rights to a song is Sooyoung heck even she only owns partial rights since she only wrote the lyrics but she didn’t make the music :s
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khat31, must you go around disagreeing with people all the time? *facepalm*
I mean, you may be right (in fact I do agree with you most of the time), but what does that achieve?
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Hey khat31, thanks for asking :)
I don’t have any issues with this particular comment, or in fact with anything you say specifically, since S&M encourage discussion, and if you want to argue about kpop gossip, that’s fine with me.
It’s just that, as a moderator here, I’ve noticed that all your comments have been of an argumentative nature with a negative tone. I’m not sure if you just have a tendency to disagree with anything you see, or if you only choose to comment on things you disagree with. (or as you said, you only reply to people when they get the info wrong).
I was just hoping if perhaps, you could sometimes make some positive comments? Encourage people when they do get their info right? If that isn’t too hard. :)
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as far as JYJ is concerned – Martina :) did you by any chance get a Xiah Junsu fringe?xD at least it resembles me of it and I love it, you look great >0<
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f(x)! I actually don’t like fact that it’s not original song… But anyway, for me it’s better than KARA’s GoGo Summer)