TOP TEN K-POP OF 2013 - 영국 매거진 Dazed and Confused 선정..

[에디베더]

Ropey debuts, drug busts, flops, scandals, sasaeng fans raising hell, and losing your favourite singer to the mandatory Korean military service. That's a fraught year in K-Pop. But it's also music videos that inspire, songs which transcend language barriers, heart-wrenching and deserved comebacks. The sheer volume of material makes summarising a lip-chewing nightmare. Ten places just isn't enough to truly capture the year and the following, in no order, need smashing high fives for being damn awesome. Put your hands together for SPICA's “Tonight”, TEEN TOP's “Miss Right”, BTS' “No More Dream”, HENRY's “Trap”, VIXX's “Voodoo Doll”, SHINEE's “Why So Serious”, BLOCK B's “Very Good”, EVOL's “Get Up”, and SISTAR19's “Gone Not Around Any Longer”.

10. B.A.P – “Hurricane”

Five singles, an American and Japanese tour – B.A.P have been 2013's unstoppable machines. To some they lost their way after February's superior “One Shot” and truthfully theBadman LP was, in parts, incoherent and misguided. But you had to relish its ballsy experimentation and "Hurricane" stood out as loud, squalling and dripping with gold like an Argos loving, 37 year old grandmother of two. It was vicious; uncaring that B.A.P's strongest vocalist was bent double to compete with the heavy production, or that it ruthlessly defiled every music genre in existence. Months later it's still spectacularly precocious and demented – the sound of growing pains from an idol group reluctant to be merely categorised as such.

9. CRAYON POP – “Bar Bar Bar”

Every year needs a musical viral moment. What was it for you? "The Fox"? "Blurred Lines"? Robin Thicke and his parading lady parts have nothing on these moppets. They're simultaneously creepy and adorable, like Children Of The Corn in safety outfits. "Bar Bar Bar" was initially overlooked – though it came cult-ready with an earworm chorus and iconic dance – but over the summer it insidiously crept into public conscious. Flashmob and parody videos appeared, then idols got in on it – Nu'Est, Sistar, SHINee, EXO all recreating the jump – and Crayon Pop exploded in South Korea. They won Best New Female Artist award at MAMA 2013 and accepted wearing satin gloves, white bike helmets and capes. Laters, Thicko.

8. CL – “The Baddest Female”

This is YG ringing gold plated bells and blowing designer whistles as only they can – shoehorning in labels and glitchy, chunky beats with glossy abandon – as Taeyang and GD stand protectively alongside their baby rapper to form the coolest gang in the world. Jesus might have wept thankful tears as CL stood atop a mountain in studs and leather, but this was a missed opportunity to rip lyrical holes in K-Pop's fabric and throw out the rulebook. It's a small quibble at the foot of a stunning MV and killer chorus, and CL has proved absolutely capable of holding a solo career beside her 2NE1 duties. YG would be mad not to let her flourish in 2014 and push a few buttons while she's at it. Revisit our 2013 interview with CLhere.

7. TROUBLE MAKER – “There Is No Tomorrow (Now)”

The sub-unit of 4Minute's HyunA and B2ST's Hyunseung began in 2011, gave us a track called, wait for it, “Trouble Maker”, then disappeared in puff of awkward sexual chemistry. Armed with a matured sound, they returned as a trailer park Sid and Nancy/Bonnie and Clyde. A love story MV splattered in blood, Cube Entertainment stuck their middle finger up at conservative Korean media and filled it with skin, underwear, severed limbs and lots more spit swapping. It wasn't without questionable moments –  the Budweiser overkill, the Joker, and the menage a trois participants being Western was shady – but ultimately stands up as an epic, hyper-coloured piece with noir aspirations. It went to number one on ten Asian charts and turned Trouble Maker from a side project into an act capable of bonafide pop storytelling.

6. f(x) – “Rum Pum Pum Pum”

SM Entertainment have in f(x) one of the genre's finest girl groups yet consistently fail to capitalise on them. Being styled like a Scottish shortbread tin is a cruelty of sorts – but the underwhelming level of promotion they got for this comeback was embarrassing. The intricacy of "RPPP" as it morphs sinuously around its melodies is amazing, and it's a song so finely crafted and performed it rises far above the generic SM 'dance in a box' MV. Their full studio LP Pink Tape deserves a place in albums of the year, with its perfect marriage of pop to EDM loops and breaks. Like 2NE1 they completely occupy their own niche though, unjustly, don't share the same acclaim.

5. TAEYANG – “Ringa Linga”

Taeyang's early solos marked him as king of the slow jam, hip grinding while chiffon curtains fluttered in the background. It never felt fully indicative of Taeyang as an artist, particularly as through Big Bang we've watched his inner swag intensify from video to video until something had to give. “Ringa Linga” granted Taeyang a Superman-ripping-open-his-shirt moment, shedding the sweet, somewhat hapless guise of his previous singles. Blindingly confident and wearing a triumphant smile, this unapologetic dancefloor monster is meth-level addictive.

4. INFINITE – “Destiny”

Hallucinations, spontaneous combustion, furniture smashing. Two versions of “Destiny” appeared and neither fully explained what the hell was going on, as members vanished into black smoke. Let's just go with the manifestations of loneliness and regret, 'kayyy? Death-by-metaphor aside, this is unstoppable, steamroller pop. Their signature formula is sweeping choreography against squiggly funk riffs, bulging 80s synths and complex, emotive builds. They've used this immaculately in “The Chaser”, “BTD” and “Be Mine”, and “Destiny”, a lavish, wrenching four minute tour-de-force, joins that Infinite canon to elevate them into K-Pop's upper echelons.

3. G-DRAGON – “Coup d'Etat”

“Michi GO!” was batshit crazy fun but the title track from GD's second solo album captivates on a broader scale. Broken, bloody fingernails scrape through sneering self-deprecation and the doomy bass tolls leadenly for a twisted foray into Kwon Jiyong's complicated mind. The MV's ashy, nightmare landscape revisits many of GD's previous visual trademarks, where he mutates with a Frankenstein's monster-esque outcome. It's beautiful and sinister, and so deeply committed to self-destruction and the pursuit of freedom that the final stark scenes come as a relief.

2. EXO – “Growl” (Korean Version)

Debuting as EXO-K (Korea) and EXO-M (China), SM reunited the two boybands for the dubstep mess of comeback single, “Wolf”, then split them for the rest of the XOXO album. "Growl" surfaced on the repackaged version though, a shimmering, funk heavy, R'n'B secret weapon that sounded effortlessly immediate and completely abstract to anything else around, including their own LP. Free of the random, grinding electronic breakdowns K-Pop likes to abuse, the gracefully-sugary verses are tempered by a chorus that trots along like a spanked pony. If the old-school style wasn't risky enough then pairing it with a dizzying single-take video in a badly-lit industrial warehouse gave it that extra push. Fans used to mainlining flashy jump cuts and pulse racing close-ups could barely make out their idols' faces, the grey palette accentuating the choreography and nothing else. It went against everything they'd done before and the result is minimalist, masterfully executed and virtually untouchable.

1. T.O.P – “Doom Dada”

Big Bang's rapper T.O.P has never felt like your average popstar. He's feline-sleek yet awkward, and no amount of media training has quelled his fascinating combination of chilly reserve and childlike whimsy. Like the man himself, “Doom Dada” is unexpected and, from a pop standpoint, virtually impenetrable on the first go. The lyrical rhythms are both inviting and alienating, while the beats align to trap and M.I.A's jagged tribalism. But go deeper and recognisable cadences reveal themselves.... it's K-Pop but sly, frenetic and slippery. The pinching from Dali, “Space Odyssey 2001”, and “The Good, The Bad and The Weird” is shameless but thrilling, challenging MV production out of the couple-ring chucking, piano burning cul-de-sac its been squatting in for too long, like a shiny Ferrari jacked up on bricks.

You might ask why we would award the #1 slot to a track that didn't want to be K-Pop, but as a product of T.O.P and producer Choice37, both unquestionably ingrained within the genre, “Doom Dada” can be nowhere else but the top spot. The dissection and progressive reassembling of existing music and culture gave K-Pop its edge, but it now has a concrete history and with that, a set of cliches it's already begun to impale itself upon. Eventually, as Western pop has done for decades, it will be a case of evolve or die. T.O.P won't be single-handedly leading this but his label YG can – “Doom Dada” (and its surprising success) is the enthralling, intriguing evidence.

More: MUSIC 

[ether]

그러고 보니 의성어 제목이 대부분이네요.. 그만큼 가사내용도 줄어든 듯한... 말초적인 우리 음악계의 단면인듯..랄라 뚜뚜 뚜릇 뚜릇...

[겐타]

내가 여기서 제대로 들어온 노래라곤 쿠데타빼곤 하나도 모르겠씀.. 아니 아예 들을 생각도 안해봄..ㅎㅎ

[루 쿠루쿠루]

메인스트림 대중가요씬은 거의 YG발 블링블링 음악과 SM발 일렉트로니카 음악이 라이벌관계라고 생각하는데 이 리스트는 YG의 대승이군요. 올 해 샤이니도 나쁘지 않았던 거 같은데... 개인적으로 큐데타는 좀 실망이었는데 탑 솔로는 생각보다 좋았어요. 씨엘은 언니야~ 하는 부분은 참 좋았는데...

[루 쿠루쿠루]

개인적으로 가장 흥미로운 음악을 하는 아이돌그룹 중 하나라고 생각하는 인피니트가 상위에 있어서 반갑네요. 사실 좀 더 잘 나가도 괜찮은 그룹인데 아무래도 한방이 없어요. 스타적 아우라 같은거랄까요. 소속사가 이런저런 잡음에 시달리기도 했는데 내년엔 좀 괜찮은 행보를 보여줬음 좋겠네요

[MOGWAI]

ㅋㅋ

[YAY!]

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[ecstacy]

다른 나라 음악 차트 보는거같은 느낌이 드는건 비단 저뿐인가요? ㅋㅋ

[雪花]

효린어디써 난씨스타가조은데..ㅡㅡㅋ

[대마]

특히 탑 음악듣고 헉~!! 우리나라 곡들 수준 엄청 올라왔다... 아니 이젠 꿀리지 않는거 같은데요?
본인들이 자작 한건지는 모르겟지만... 제 생각으로는 여튼 여기 올라온 곡들중에
절반정도는 어디엘 내놔도 본전치기 이상은 할정도 되는거 같아요...
헉 여태 말로만 듣던 이게 바로 케이팝의 위력인가...
애써 무시하고 외면해왔었지만 이젠 찾아서 들어봐야 할 단계가 온듯하네요 ㄷㄷ

[최범석]

아 하필 첫 이미지가 씨엘.....

[YAY!]

어머 탑횽

[budapest]

엊그제 가요시상식을 봤는데 샤이니 무대가 짱이더라구요 노래도 좋고 춤도 얼마나 잘추던지 샤이니 짱짱 !!