KultScene is happy to announce that, in celebration of our third anniversary, we are beginning a collaboration with K-Pop Unmuted, a podcast dedicated to delving deep into K-pop.
In episode 19, Stephen Knight, Alejandro Abarca, and Sam from East Coast Kpop Outlet – ECKO discussed G-Dragon’s newest album, Kwon Ji Yong, how we became his fans, T.OP.‘s scandal, and the future of G-D’s career. We also discussed Produce 101season 2‘s“Never,” G-Dragon’s “B******T,” and SISTAR’s “Alone” as the songs that have us hooked as of late.
Let us know your thoughts on G-Dragon’s new album in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.
K-pop and British pop culture has little direct influence on one another, but some K-pop music video directors are definitely fans of the iconic British television series, “Doctor Who.” Although they’re few and far apart, there are some K-pop music videos that directly take influences from “Doctor Who.”
In honor of the new season of “Doctor Who” being well under way, I took a look into three K-pop music videos that get their inspiration from “Doctor Who.” Even if you’re not a fan of the British show, you know these K-pop music videos and may be surprised.
Big Bang’s “Bang Bang Bang”
Long before Buzzfeed’s Try Guys noticed a connection between the British television series “Doctor Who” and one of this year’s most watched K-pop music videos on YouTube, I noticed a seemingly impossible reference to the iconic sixth season premiere, “The Impossible Astronaut.” In the music video, wearing a cowboy hat and a leather jacket, Big Bang’s rapper T.O.P appears to be no other than the stand in for the show’s leading man, The Doctor.
Yes, T.O.P is The Eleventh Doctor. And River Song. Or, at least, he’s wearing a cowboy hat while hanging out with an astronaut, who also appears to be T.O.P. To my knowledge, YG Entertainment hasn’t explained if T.O.P kills himself and ruins the history of time forever or is married to himself, but it’s a pretty humorous few moments in the music video.
Think the cowboy and astronaut are just coincidences and accidentally appear to be referencing “Doctor Who?” Think again, because here are definitely alien-like specimens in jars on the sill and that white room looks a bit like the room from the episode “The Girl Who Waited.”
ZE:A’s “Breathe”
The Big Bang music video is actually just the most recent addition to this list of K-pop music videos that take aspects from “Doctor Who.” The 2014 music video for ZE:A’s song has a bit of a depressing tone to it, like the whole world being destructed and ZE:A dancing in a spaceship, but then we get our space elements that take us to “Doctor Who” and everything seems like it is much better.
In this case, we don’t get a blatant reference to The Doctor or any other character from the show, but we do get a TARDIS. Yes, a TARDIS, but not The Doctor’s TARDIS. This is more like ZE:A’s COE.
For K-pop fans who don’t know, The Doctor’s TARDIS is his spaceship that travels through time and space, and it looks like a 1960’s police call box from England. Its name is an acronym for “Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.” So, going with that, ZE:A’s blue box has the group’s name it in English, which is Children of Empire so… I decided that ZE:A’s spaceship is called a COE, and it doesn’t really travel through space and time as much as it makes a handsome K-pop group.
ZE:A’s music video has a lot of out of this world elements, but I can’t help but wonder whether their blue stage outfits came before or after someone suggested throwing in one of the most iconic images of British pop culture, the TARDIS from “Doctor Who”.
IU’s “You & I”
Last but definitely not least, we have a K-pop singer emulating The Doctor.This 2011 music video from IU takes us to England, or somewhere that looks like it, with a clock tower that can’t quite compare to Big Ben and a cozy little house with black and white pictures and a random goose walking around IU’s home as she counts down to D-Day.
Do you remember how I explained that the TARDIS is a spaceship that travels through time and space? Well, IU’s waiting for some handsome guy to wake up and there’s a magical mystery device that says “time” and “space” on it.
And then it gets better!
Not every season of “Doctor Who” has clockwork in the beginning of each episode as part of the opening theme, but clockwork played a role in the intro of the eighth season of “Doctor Who,” and what is IU dancing in front of during the intro of the song? Nothing more than tons of clockwork gears.
Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch, but here is the best use of any “Doctor Who” reference in K-pop to date- IU uses the TARDIS. Or something that looks like it and works the same way.
Yes, Korea’s pop princess IU takes a ride on a train called the Fantasy Express and then gets into a time machine that looks oddly like a TARDIS from the outside. “You & I” foregoes the delightful bright blue color for something a bit more sedate, but there’s the same twirling and cosmic ambiance of IU’s box of time and space.
Do you know any other references to “Doctor Who” in K-pop? Let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.
https://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Untitled-design-10.png7681024Tamar Hermanhttp://kultscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KULTSCENE-LOGO-2018-TRANSPARENT-RED.pngTamar Herman2015-10-02 06:21:282015-10-02 06:21:28Blink & You’ll Miss These ‘Doctor Who’ References In K-Pop Music Videos
To people outside the fandom, K-pop is weird. And yet, for us in the know, it’s funny, because we know they haven’t seen anything yet. That’s why this week’s playlist is dedicated to those truly odd music videos that actually deserve the “bizarre” tag.
I remember feeling some slight anxiety and excitement while waiting for T.O.P’s “Doom Dada” to be released. Prior to this single, the last time he had a solo song was back in 2010, therefore, the anticipation was riding pretty high. “Doom Dada” was a roller coaster of emotions. My friend and I listened to the song first and watched the music video afterwards. There were moments where we both gave each other really puzzled “WHAT THE HELL?” looks and then there were moments where we were both in tears from laughing at the bigheaded masked baby. T.O.P’s fandom knows that he has strange characteristics; it’s hard to really figure what goes through his head most of the time, so I can’t say I was completely surprised by this song and music video. If anything, it just makes me want to dig deeper and ask him a lot of questions.
— Tam
No collection of weird K-pop songs is complete without the Godfather of Weird, Seo Taiji. In 1992, along with his Boys, he ushered in a new age of Korean pop music. And thanks to his roots in rap, metal, and pop, that age would go on to be a profoundly weird one. So it is because of him that we now have such a diverse of music within K-pop. To show he’s still got it, I picked his most recent single “Christmalo.win” for today’s playlist. “Christmalo.win” combines all of thes influences into one rip-roaring piece that somehow works. It’s the perfect mix between Halloween and Christmas sounds coming off like “The Nightmare Before Christmas” except good (yeah, I went there!). The song bounces between genres with electronics taking up the most of it with interjections of metal and rap. It is a perfect summation of the man and K-pop that a song like this can be released in 2014 and not be considered utterly groundbreaking. To Korea, it’s just Seo Taiji, the President of Culture.
If your first thought after watching “Bae Bae” wasn’t “WTF??” there’s something far more wrong with you than with BIGBANG. Seriously, where do I even begin? How about the fact that they made the fangirls’ minds run amok when they said the video would be 19+, only to be surprised with G-Dragon getting handsy with furniture, T.O.P having a very metaphorical sex scene, and all of the members lifting girls’ skirts? I mean, did anyone even pay attention to the actual song –which is quite good, by the way — on their first viewing of the music video? Not this girl. “Bae Bae” is an overall mind fxxk, but a very interesting one. You can watch it multiple times and you will always find something funny or weird you hadn’t noticed before. Some boy bands get cutesy or funny on their music videos to cater to fans. BIGBANG gets weird, and that’s perfectly fine with VIPs.
— Alexis
Of all the weird, early K-pop concepts that I’ve seen (H.O.T, I’m looking at you,) Lee Jung Hyun has always been the weirdest of them all. She is the queen of performances in South Korea, after all. “Wa” is iconic in K-pop but not truly because of its musical style instead, it is primarily famous because of Lee’s live performances. The song is a rhythmic pop-techno fusion song and extremely catchy, and the music video is absolutely insane, with space ships and kimonos and who really knows what. But it’s when Lee performs “Wa” live that I think all of her crazy, weirdness comes out. Definitely check out the music video sometime, but you can’t miss out on Lee dancing her iconic fan performance and using her pinky finger like a microphone. If you’re interested in seeing her perform the song more recently, Lee performed the song on “Infinite Challenge” Totoga earlier this year.
— Tamar
If it weren’t for the sensual reggae vibes of the song, I think I would be a little nervous watching the music video for PRIMARY’s “Don’t Be Shy.” Let’s just say that if I were a parent, I would think twice about letting my girls have a sleepover after this. The video revolves around a less than average sleepover with AOA’s ChoA and friends, where we witness them rip apart Barbie dolls, play ghost dress-up, and summon spirits in the dark; I bet somewhere in there there is a satanic message waiting to be decoded. The whole music video is a nod towards ‘90s grunge, if the Pokemon cards and the gritty quality were not enough indication of that. And even if you don’t fully understand the subculture you can’t deny how much of a total babe ChoA is looking. Her unmatched talents will have you revisiting the video again and again, and saying creepy is the new aesthetics anyways.
Yes, we already have them in the list, but we can’t help it. BIGBANG are known for being weird and crazy most of the time, but with their newest release “Zutter” by GD & T.O.P., they hit a home run. First of all, what does zutter even mean? The video not only starts with them peeing, but it also has this crazy story, that after seeing the video repeatedly, I still don’t get what the video and song are about. I’m pretty sure T.O.P.’s slimey slaughter of something blurry and the puing of guts has somewhat of a metaphorical artsy meaning. Nevertheless, the video is not only weird, but it’s funny in a really crazy way. What gets weirder than T.O.P. peeing on G-Dragon? I honestly don’t think anything could top that. The song is really good and it seems as if it could have been in their first debut album as a duo.
— Alejandro
What’s the weirdest K-pop song you’ve ever heard? The weirdest K-pop music video you’ve ever seen? Let us know your picks in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.
