The perfect K-pop primer
One rabbit hole I’ve always been curious about, but never properly dived down, is K-pop. You may have noticed, K-pop has hijacked mainstream music. It has saturated the market with saccharine pop like candy you can’t stop eating.
Blackpink’s The Album is an adrenalineinfused, 24-minute crash course in why this pop music from Korea is so popular. It compresses so many ideas into such a tiny space, you emerge out the other side like you’ve been through a spin cycle.
Jennie from Blackpink lived in New Zealand when she first heard K-pop, and on her return home landed her dream role at the age of just 14. It’s big business, and aspects of it are deeply concerning. Performers are recruited young, vetted, trained and scrupulously managed. Band members are combined to create maximum appeal with streamlined, programmed personalities.
The music is built by committee and road-tested for maximum profit, which is why it takes up so much chart space. Ice Cream featuring Selena Gomez was an early hit from this record, but they’ll be shooting for No 1 with Bet You Wanna with unstoppable force Cardi B.
All these songs barrage the senses, with hook after hook colliding together, like a cross between Ace of Base and Migos, but in a good way.
Meanwhile, Shamir is a young artist from Las Vegas who continues to avoid cliche and definition. His 2015 debut Ratchet sounded like an underground party you weren’t invited to because you simply weren’t cool enough. A real bodice-ripper.
He’s prolific and keeps changing tack, but his latest album is self-titled, which I assume means he feels like he’s found his lane. Sometimes sounding rockabilly with awild falsetto and sometimes synth pop with big 80s snares. Non-conventional chameleon blues has you experiencing the occasional double-take, as you think: ‘‘Is that the same singer as the last song?’’
RoisinMurphy may not be a name you recognise, but you’ll be familiar with the Irish singer’s voice – we’ve all heard 1998’s Sing It Back by Moloko. Murphy quietly punches out a solo record every few years, but on Roisin Machine, she delivers an epic serve of progressive disco proportions.
After 25 years in the game, she threads melodies and stitches beats effortlessly. There are traditional soulful choruses sometimes sung with diva-level drama, but she can also narrate a song with soft, sensual sweet nothings that lull you into the groove.
‘‘I feel my story is still untold,’’ she seductively whispers on album opener Simulation, before mincing her way across the dancefloor over crisp hihats and solid, stompable basslines.