YG Representative Steve Lee Posts Past Photo With Dae Sung

 

“Straight chillin’. I got wings!!!!”

Source: @hh_steve

New York Times Music Review: Beyond ‘Gangnam,’ the True Wild Heart of K-Pop: BigBang Performs at the Prudential Center

 

NEWARK — What you have to understand is that “Gangnam Style,” the goofy crossover hit that has given K-pop a global profile — it has even reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 — is still something of an outlier, a lightly ironic sendup of the genre’s eccentricities. But it’s very hard to parody something that gets more outrageous by the day.

If anything, the center of K-pop is far stranger. Take “Crayon,” by G-Dragon, an electro-rave-meets-Southern-hip-hop thumper with a video that makes the excesses of, say, Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj in that medium look like tiny incremental gains. It is kaleidoscopically weird, hilariously comic and sinisterly effective.

G-Dragon is a member of BigBang, the long-running K-pop boy band, which played its first show in the New York area at the Prudential Center here on Thursday night. He performed “Crayon” early in the night, wearing a jacket with the head of a white tiger attached to the back, a pair of black Air Yeezy 2s and bleached blond hair standing straight up like sheaves of pesticide-soaked wheat.

And that wasn’t even the most energized part of this vibrant show, in which BigBang — G-Dragon, T.O.P., Seungri, Taeyang and Daesung — performed more than two dozen songs wearing almost as many outfits, and in unusual setups: before “How Gee,” which could pass for an early Teddy Riley production, members of the group took to the stage on gilded Segways and lowrider bicycles.

Over the years G-Dragon has emerged as the flamboyant center of the group. He has a soft voice but a shrieking exterior. He’s balanced out by T.O.P., who raps nimbly in a basso profundo voice and has a regal bearing, even walking around the stage wielding a scepter. Taeyang is the group’s battery, a compact dancer and singer with a tender voice. Daesung has a totally credible R&B voice — during a solo song, dancers affixed wings to his back, and he soared over the crowd on a wire — and the baby-faced Seungri plays the straight man.

At one point Seungri called G-Dragon a genius and told him, “I love you.” It can be a challenge to dig up subtext in K-pop, which gleams with outlandish visuals and candy-coated sentiments, but maybe this was penance of a sort for the recent romance scandals that have dogged Seungri in Asian tabloids.

K-pop can be so heavily referential as to be post-referential. The band wove an interpolation of the signature guitar crunch of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” into a song. Multiple members of the group beatbox, a technique that’s hardly, if ever, used in mainstream American hip-hop, its birthplace, but is a routine part of the K-pop star arsenal. Late in the night Taeyang, heavily tattooed, with long braids and a bandanna worn just so, tore his tank top in two, Usher-style, and did a back flip, which is probably beyond Usher’s skill set.

(Throughout, BigBang was backed by a cadre of dancers, the men emphasizing break dancing.)

BigBang’s more recent material is bubblier and more frenetic, like “Fantastic Baby” (the chorus of which, to be fair, does bear a passing resemblance to the buzzing beat of “Gangnam Style”), but toward the end of the show, the group devoted time to more blatantly romantic fare like “Monster” and “Cafe.”

This show was the first of two nights at the arena, part of a short but loud American tour for an act that, while it has a big following in this country, has not yet achieved American pop success. At the end of the night, during a long encore, Taeyang kept singing the hook from Alicia Keys and Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” as if he could single-handedly change that.

Source: NY Times

Leading up to its Newark shows, is Big Bang ready to bring K-Pop to the US?

 

Big Bang, the South Korean pop group that is enormously popular throughout Asia, is trying to live up to its name on these shores as well.

Judging by ticket sales for their U.S. debut this month, the boy band that blends hip-hop, high fashion and theatrics into a polished package is off to a good start. Tickets for their Alive Tour — at the Prudential Center and Anaheim’s Honda Center — sold out within a few hours in September, prompting their management to add dates.

Sure, they can sell out arenas in cities with large Asian-American populations, but are these pop sensations the harbinger of a larger Korean pop trend in the U.S.?

Not likely, says Amy He, editor in chief at the Manhattan-based Korean pop culture website Seoul Beats. “I think their following is a niche on this side of the globe. A lot of the Western press is saying K-pop is the biggest thing right now. I don’t think that’s true,” said He.

American fans first need to embrace more Asian-American artists, something they haven’t done yet, said He. “It’s not like there aren’t Asian-American artists out there. It’s more that we have to start with American acts like Far East Movement before we can accept K-pop,” she said.

One recent exception is the Korean artist Psy, who became a momentary household name last month when he had everyone from Britney Spears to the U.S. Navy mimicking his “Gangnam Style” dance moves. But Psy is an outlier, said He. “He’s not representative of the Korean pop market. He’s not boy or girl group material. He’s more subversive, cheeky and sarcastic,” she said.

K-pop is short for the genre of pop music churned out by the big three Korean record labels, which has been a cultural trend-setter in Asia. Teens from the Philippines to Taiwan pine after these well-coiffed boy and girl groups.

Breaking into the United States has not been as straightforward. Rain made it to People magazine’s Most Beautiful People list in 2007 and continues to tour here. Girl group 2EN1 is linked up with producer Will.i.am, and played the Prudential Center in August.

“A lot of the groups have tried to court the market here, but it’s a very expensive market. It’s not as guaranteed they can fill up a big arena,” said He. In Asia, these acts are easier to market because of a common shared Asian culture. “A lot of these boy and girl groups represent an aspirational product. They represent a lifestyle, glamour and trendiness,” she said.

He, who attended 2EN1’s August concert in Newark, said the crowd was about half Korean-American. “It was a pretty diverse crowd. Teens are finding them through social media and YouTube. But I don’t think it’s an overlap with the Justin Bieber crowd,” she said.

Among recent popular K-pop acts, Big Bang has the most Westernized sound. The quintet, whose members also have solo careers, mix hip-hop, R&B, rock and electronic styles and cite Wu-Tang Clan and Michael Jackson as musical influences.

For Stella Kim, who bought $325 VIP tickets to catch the Big Bang show in Newark on Friday, her love of Korean pop music didn’t start until college and has been a way to connect with her roots. “I grew up in a Caucasian neighborhood in Rockland County [Tappan, N.Y.]. My Korean was really bad in high school. I always wanted to be a part of Korean culture and didn’t know where to begin,” said the 24-year-old, now in Manhattan, who is a marketing manager for celebrity fragrance lines.

Kim, who is also a fan of Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and Eminem, said she loves Big Bang’s fashion, their genre-mixing sound and that they write some of their own songs. “Each one of them has their own unique characteristics. They work together so well, and all of them shine in their own light,” she said.

She’s betting that Big Bang is likely to make the biggest impact here. “I think a lot of Korean groups are trying to come into the American market,” she said. “I’m not saying this just as a fan, but [Big Bang’s] music and style has the most potential here.”

Source: northjersey.com

Big Bang, SISTAR and Wang Lee Hom Confirmed for ‘MAMA’

Following the announcement that Psy and Super Junior would be gracing the Mnet Asian Music Awards stage in Hong Kong this year, Big Bang, SISTAR and Taiwanese American singer-actor Wang Lee Hom have been confirmed to appear at the music event of the year!

Big Bang enjoyed a stellar year with fifth mini album Alive, released earlier this year, while SISTAR took over the K-Pop scene with hit songs Alone and Loving U.

SISTAR is up for the Best Female Group Award this year, while Big Bang has been nominated for the Best Male Group Award.

Hong Dong Cheol, the director of this year’s MAMA, said, “Expect a world class stage that can only be seen at MAMA featuring not only the world’s top stars that have already been unveiled but musicians from England and America as well.”

He continued, “From Psy, who has sparked a worldwide syndrome, to Super Junior, Big Bang and SISTAR, who have been leading K-Pop across the world, to China’s representative multi-entertainer Wang Lee Hom, please look forward to the special stage that is MAMA, where people from all around the world will be able to communicate through music.”

This year’s MAMA will take place at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center in Hong Kong on November 30.

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Note: Don’t forget to vote for G-Dragon and Bigbang on MAMA. They’ll be attending the awards night and I’m pretty sure they would be very happy if they can receive an award. 🙂 Vote here: mama.interest.me/poll

source: bigbangupdates

BIGBANG for G-Market (Photos)

source: bigbangupdates

Big Bang kicks off the American portion of their world tour with sold-out performances

Big Bang began a successful start to the American leg of their ‘ALIVE Galaxy Tour 2012‘ at the Honda Center in Orange County, California.

After selling out seats in Japan, Taiwan, China, and other tour locations, the hip-hop idol group continued their winning streak by selling out all available seats on the West Coast stop for their world tour, despite having never officially promoted in the States.

Also, Big Bang’s Honda Center concert was the largest concert in America pulled off by a single K-Pop artist, adding another veneer to their successful American tour kickoff.

The concert drew its fair share of celebrities as well, including cast members from the hit show ‘Glee‘, Harry Shum Jr. and Kevin McHale.

Big Bang performed a total of 23 tracks during the course of their concert, starting with “Still Alive” and rolling through a repertoire of their biggest hit songs, such as “Lies”, “Haru Haru“, and “Fantastic Baby“. G-Dragon also unveiled an English rap and remix version of his newest effort “Crayon“.

In addition on both nights, fans joined the members in singing Happy Birthday to the group’s rapper, T.O.P. On day two the Big Bang members also presented T.O.P with a large birthday cake.

Following their successful California concerts, Big Bang is scheduled to cross into New Jersey, where they will yet again play to a sold-out audience at the Prudential Center.
source: allkpop

BIGBANG ALIVE GALAXY TOUR 2012 @ Honda Center in Anaheim, CA!

source: http://www.facebook.com/BIGBANG