Summer’s well underway and K-pop took a bit of a vacation over the past week. While we’ve recently received an onslaught of new releases, the middle of July lagged a tiny bit. Our writers highlighting songs by the likes of Hello Venus, Amoeba Culture artists, Stellar, and f(x) in our weekly column. Look at all […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Untitled-design.jpg7681024KultScenehttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngKultScene2016-07-24 20:42:022016-07-25 22:43:56Weekly K-Pop Faves: July 18-24
Many Chinese K-pop stars have been hitting the headlines lately for their public statements in protest of rulings made against China’s claim to large parts of the South China Sea. The ins and outs of this don’t interest me too much but it’s interesting to see the effect that it’s having on miss A’s Fei […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/oab8gpfqjIW5AD5P3E1-o.jpg8001200Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-07-22 02:55:202020-10-01 04:14:10Fei’s “Fantasy” Music Video & Song Review
Summer’s well underway and K-pop took a bit of a vacation over the past week. While we’ve recently received an onslaught of new releases, the middle of July lagged a tiny bit. Our writers highlighting songs by the likes of Hello Venus, Amoeba Culture artists, Stellar, and f(x) in our weekly column. Look at all […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Untitled-design.jpg7681024KultScenehttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngKultScene2016-07-24 20:42:022016-07-25 22:43:56Weekly K-Pop Faves: July 18-24
Many Chinese K-pop stars have been hitting the headlines lately for their public statements in protest of rulings made against China’s claim to large parts of the South China Sea. The ins and outs of this don’t interest me too much but it’s interesting to see the effect that it’s having on miss A’s Fei […]
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/oab8gpfqjIW5AD5P3E1-o.jpg8001200Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-07-22 02:55:202020-10-01 04:14:10Fei’s “Fantasy” Music Video & Song Review
Summer’s well underway and K-pop took a bit of a vacation over the past week. While we’ve recently received an onslaught of new releases, the middle of July lagged a tiny bit. Our writers highlighting songs by the likes of Hello Venus, Amoeba Culture artists, Stellar, and f(x) in our weekly column. Look at all those girl groups!
Take a listen and comment at the bottom of this page to let us know what song you like the most from the past week!
“Paradise” by Hello Venus (Released July 18)
To few people’s attention, the girls of Hello Venus released the song of the summer this week. Produced by team Devine Channel, “Paradise” is a tropical doo-wop track made for days on the beach. Its music is lowkey with sporadic guitar licks and bursts of brass. “Paradise” really beckons with its vocals however. There’s a great range and assurance of voice on display. New girls Yeoreum and Seoyoung open brilliantly with a cheeky rap and an enticing vocal respectively. The rest of the girls go on to show their own takes on similar styles all while adding a new hook of their own. Throughout the day I could get any part of this song stuck in my head and be more than happy. It’s a perfectly pitched summer track made for only a digital release.
— Joe
“highfiVe” by Dynamic Duo, Primary, Boi B, Crush (Released July 21)
After a string of disappointing songs released this summer, Amoeba Culture artists came to the rescue. Dynamic Duo, Primary, Boi B, and Crush teamed up and put their amazing chemistry to good use to come out with “highfiVe”. It makes you want to grab a drink and dance the night away in an outdoor bar or club — and not only because it’s an ad for the Korean beer Cass. Seriously, how can you go wrong with Crush’s buttery vocals, Dynamic Duo and Boi B’s fiery verses, and Primary’s hyped up beats? It might not be anything groundbreaking, but it’s a fun track. And given the spot for summer anthem has yet to be grabbed, I’ll take it.
— Alexis
“All Mine” by f(x) (Released July 22)
f(x) is back! Well, kind of. This past week, f(x) unleashed this single as the next installment of SM Entertainment’s weekly STATION project. The EDM banger is produced by LDN NOISE, some of K-pop’s more well-known EDM producers. With a memorable melody, the song is matched with an equally cute music video, which shows the four members singing along to the song at various parts of an SMTOWN concert venue. And while they aren’t promoting it on music shows, the song is actually doing amazingly well on the charts (unlike most other SM STATION releases this year). It’s nice to see f(x) together releasing a song, especially considering that the group has been under a lot of speculation in regards to disbandment. Whether the members renew their contracts or not (and it’s likely that they will), it’s great to have this song to get us through the remainder of the summer.
— Kushal
”Crying” by Stellar (Released July 18)
While I’ll let Joe and Kushal be called our resident girl group experts, I was intrigued by Stellar’s latest release for the sole reason that it was giving me major 2010 K-pop feels. While an extremely different song, producer Brave Brothers utilized similar synth chords and autotuning on both “Crying” and NS Yoon-G’s “Just Dance” of that year. Since I’m obsessed with NS Yoon-G and think she’s been robbed of her career, I played “Crying” and “Just Dance” alongside one another for about a half hour before I realized it was the mellow dance pop sound of both songs that really drew me in as a listener. This is clearly a 2016 take on what Brave Brothers has done best for much of his career, but I felt like it wasn’t a far enough step to give Stellar the leap they need to propel themselves to the height of popularity. Sweet and soft is fine, but please bring back Stellar’s biting unique sound and style for their next release!
— Tamar
Share your picks and thoughts in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us onFacebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Untitled-design.jpg7681024KultScenehttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngKultScene2016-07-24 20:42:022016-07-25 22:43:56Weekly K-Pop Faves: July 18-24
Many Chinese K-pop stars have been hitting the headlines lately for their public statements in protest of rulings made against China’s claim to large parts of the South China Sea. The ins and outs of this don’t interest me too much but it’s interesting to see the effect that it’s having on miss A’s Fei and her solo debut. It’s likely these idols (f(x)’s Victoria, Fiestar’s Cao Lu, and Super Junior-M’s Zhoumi along with Fei) were just hoping it would help their chances of expanding into the Chinese market and avoiding a Tzuyu-sized scandal. Korean fans however, have not reacted well and Fei’s debut single “Fantasy” is charting terribly likely because of it.
Letting politics get in the way of an actually important topic like pop music is only hurting the fans themselves however. “Fantasy” is the most sensual release of the year and has a video bursting with sexuality like we have maybe never seen in K-pop before. You’d be a fool to ignore it.
Song
Written and produced by Park Jin Young with help from the brilliant Marcan Entertainment team of producers, Denzil “IDR” Remedios and Ryan S. Jhun, “Fantasy” is a subdued mix of glittering synth pop and lush R&B. Dreamy crystal synths reverberate throughout over a beat that can barely even be called a beat: it’s a variety of 808s that tumble in and out without drawing too much attention to themselves. They create the languid atmosphere that pervades “Fantasy.” It shimmers slowly across your mind, implanting different feelings with every listen.
The structure does nothing to alter this atmosphere. “Fantasy” moves from verse to chorus with little caution, maintaining the sexual energy rather than bringing things up a level. This lack of movement does not hamper the song in anyway. The second verse and bridge add serumbal sounds to keep things interesting. Fei is taking her time to seduce you. Her breathy vocals ls iin verse turn to sensual opines in the chorus and finaly, a climatic moan in the bridrige-a perfect slow burning progression of sexual possibilities.
The lyrics play up the sexual elements as Fei is a woman ready to fulfill the fantasies of her lover. “I’m your girl now, You can tell me your hidden fantasies” she whispers in the verse. It’s hard to see where “Fantasy” falls in terms of being a positive or negative song for female sexuality. Lyrics like “I’m your girl now” and “I made up my mind” suggest a submissiveness that she is almost being coerced into this by the man. Yet she also takes quite an active role, telling him not to hesitate and to tell her all his fantasies. Even in these more active parts however, it is always in service of the man, “I wanna do everything for you tonight.”
Music Video
As a male I can’t really say whether or not it is ultimately offensive to women. What I will say is that it is an interesting new angle when considered alongside the video. It takes the fantasy to literal levels as Fei plays a digital sex worker, specifically a Virtual Reality sex worker. As a male, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been on sites similar to https://ehocams.com/ to watch some cam girls and I know that they are getting increasingly popular these days. And now with VR, there are even more options for people. Considering the sexual nature of the music, it doesn’t surprise me that the video goes down this route.
A man sits down in a dingy neon lit backroom as a woman puts VR goggles over his eyes. As soon as they are on him he sees an underwear clad Fei with her hula-hoop. Whether the hula-hoop is merely a prop for her dancing or a particularly female symbol for her openness to any of his fantasies is unclear.
What’s really interesting is how the camera depicts this sexual digital world. I don’t know if it’s just me but there seems to be a lot less close ups in this video than most K-pop videos that feature the artists. It isn’t until around the one minute mark do we get a good look at Fei’s face and even then we might be slightly distracted by her new Day-Glo orange hair. Most of how we see Fei is in wide or medium shots where her body (always in some sort of underwear) is emphasized. For the VR viewer, this disconnects the person who owns this body from herself. He can watch and take peasure without thinking about an actual person as she has become an object, a fantasy. It’s clear a lot of people enjoy VR porn and it’s allowing people of all ages to explltSce: miss A “Only You” Music Video & Song Reviewc
Aesthetically this is enhanced by a weird digital sheen. The quality seems to have been deliberately made worse for the parts when Fei is dancing in her synthetic realm. It gives the viewer a feeling of discomfort, that maybe we are not supposed to be watching this let alone taking pleasure out of it. Reality is being distorted just enough for us to see the falsity yet not enough for us to stop. In a rare clear shot Fei, lit by a single light, lounges on a bed looking directly into the camera. It is the most brazenly pornographic image in the video. It’s almost like something you’d see on somewhere like twinkpornvideos.xxx, that’s how extreme we’re talking. Its clarity is disturbing in comparison to the previous shots and the POV element brings the viewer right into the action, making us complicit.
The final part of the video uses similar techniques to deliver the conceit. The man takes off his goggles seemingly finished with his viewing but Fei then buffers into his view in real life. She continues her dance as he watches mesmerized and then starts to walk towards him, takes off her top and leans in to kiss him. It then cuts to directly to a red title screen with the name of the song, “Fantasy.” It seems like Fei is coming to life in order to be with this man, a conclusion that would be disappointing normally. The camera tells a different story though. As she dances Fei is shot in the same style as before. Wide shots that offer no intimacy. More telling is how these were (I think) shot with a lower frame rate which is what makes it look like it’s skipping a bit. Our view is of the real world but the Fei that is dancing before us is definitely not real. This is the danger of porn and virtual sex. For the viewer, the person he watches on screen becomes indistinguishable from real life people. Either he can only find pleasure in the virtual or he starts to expect real people to act like his virtual loves. He expects them to fulfill everyone of his fantasies without hesitation.
Overall
2016 has been a bumper year for female soloists with Taeyeon, Luna, Hyomin, Hyosung, and more. They have released a large variety of great tracks all showing a great maturity in their individuality. Like most of them however (except Taeyeon), Fei is proving to be less than popular with the public. This is a great shame considering “Fantasy” biting thesis on modern sexuality, as well as being a beautiful slow jam. Its charms don’t end there also as the choreography makes use of hula-hoops and backing dancers in really interesting ways. Slip into Fei’s “Fantasy” for the future of sex.
What did you think of Fei’s “Fantasy”? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear you thoughts and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Bloglovin’ so you can keep up with all our posts.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/oab8gpfqjIW5AD5P3E1-o.jpg8001200Joe Palmerhttps://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngJoe Palmer2016-07-22 02:55:202020-10-01 04:14:10Fei’s “Fantasy” Music Video & Song Review
