Monday Misc: C-Pop K-Pop J-Pop
My 16-year-old SecondBorn daughter is currently teaching herself Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. To say she’s an Asiaphile is a bit of an understatement! So, noticing that the music I post tends to be 20+ years old (i.e., older than some of my readers!), and many of my blog friends manage to find fresh new music to post, I asked SecondBorn to provide me with current music to share. I asked SecondBorn because the music she listens to is mostly Asian pop (C-pop is Chinese, K-pop is Korean, and J-pop is Japanese), and chances are you’ve never heard it so it’ll be fresh and new to you. Not only does SecondBorn like the music, but she uses it to help perfect her pronunciation of these languages.
So, for your edification and education, I present to you SecondBorn’s choice of music from Asia. First up is EXO-M. As I understand it, EXO is a band that produces music in both Chinese (Mandarin, hence the “M”) and Korean (yes, there’s an EXO-K too!). This little number is called “MAMA”:
Next up is a song from a Korean band called SHINee (as in “shiny”) and this is called “Hello”:
“What’s with the boy bands?” you might be asking. Remember, these are from my 16-year-old daughter. Need I say more? Okay, to be fair, for the J-pop she offered up this song by a girl band called Perfume. (We briefly discussed why a Japanese band would give themselves an English name–and one that’s not easy to pronounce in Japanese. Apparently this is not uncommon!) This song is called “A Spring of Life” (note: there are subtitles in English and French, for my French readers):
You’ve got to admit, even if you’re not into the music, the videos are quite creative. Do you listen to songs sung in languages other than your native tongue?
Colin, you are awesome for posting these! ^_^
Yes, I listen to music in other languages. My favourite J-Pop musician is Utada Hikaru. Her song “Passion” is just SO beautiful, and “Keep Tryin'” is so upbeat it always makes me smile ^_^
As for K-Pop, you can never go wrong with Girls’ Generation’s “Gee”. It’s brilliant!
I love Bollywood music too. My time in India gave me a massive taste for it. It’s so happy!
Aww, thanks, Cole. 🙂 SecondBorn was telling me one of the reasons she likes Asian music is that many of the songs have nice, uplifting themes. This appears to be true especially with K-Pop. It’s not all about sleazy romances and full of the sexual innuendos that seem to be prevalent in much of modern Western pop. I wonder if she’s heard of Utada Hikaru. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has. I’ll have to ask. 🙂
The first one is quite dramatic. I like the tone of the music but it’s probably something I couldn’t get into. I usually go for instrumental bands. Although I really love t.A.T.u’s Eurovision song Ne Ver’, Ne Boisya. It’s the closest I come to speaking (or singing) Russian and feeling my heritage. 🙂
Ooo… so you’re of Eastern European decent? How interesting! SecondBorn wants to learn Cyrillic at some point too. Yeah, she’s a bit of a language geek. *beams with pride* 🙂
Yep 🙂 Russian, Jewish, and Irish ancestry on my mum’s side. But it’s made it a little bit difficult doing family trees.
I always fancied learning a couple of new languages. I did Spanish in GSCE and A*Level but I’d love to try out Italian or Russian. 🙂
SecondBorn is trying out Italian (I mentioned she’s a bit of a language geek, though Asian languages are her first love), and she says it’s relatively easy. I imagine with your Spanish background you’d pick it up quite quickly.
I know virtually nothing about the ABCs of worldwide pop. Except this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g This is my only experience with it, and I gotta say I’m a little terrified. O_o Hmm…maybe not for me. 😀
lol! I don’t recall SecondBorn speaking of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, but she probably knows who this is. As I said, you can’t fault these guys for being uncreative. They really go for the striking visuals. 🙂
Oh, you know I love K-pop … my favorite band is BigBang (and they are cuter too!).
And you know I’m Brazilian, so I listen (very rarely) to songs in Portuguese. Since young, I preferred songs in English …
I also listen to songs in Spanish (Wisin & Yandel, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira).
And I LOVE Medina, a Danish singer. She has a few songs in English, but most of them are in Danish.
I’m pretty sure SecondBorn has spoken of BigBang. 🙂
I figured some of my non-English-speaking friends would note that they listen to a lot of music in English. We native English-speakers easily forget how much of a challenge it is for non-English speakers to understand songs in our language. It’s not uncommon to find people from other countries singing English language songs and they don’t understand a word of what they’re singing. It was like that for SecondBorn when she started getting into J-Pop–singing Japanese songs without knowing what they meant. She’s able to recognize words and phrases now, which is quite exciting and encouraging for her.
Thanks for the recommendations, btw. I’ll be sure SecondBorn notes them. She’s quite taken with Scandinavian languages too. 🙂
Yay for French subtitles 😀 I’m going to have to listen to those songs now. I already mentioned but your SecondBorn’s dedication is amazing!
I really hope she sticks with it, Elodie. Whatever she ends up doing with her life, being able to read and converse in multiple languages is an invaluable skill, as I’m sure you appreciate. 🙂