Time for an end-of-year post. In addition to the music post, which I also did last year, I’ll also be doing a drama post because…I watched a lot of dramas :Db

Favorite albums of the year:

Eternal Morning’s “Soundtrack to a Lost Film” – This album was released in 2007, but I’ve only gotten around to loving it this year. The pieces make me feel like I’m wandering around, submerged under water. Everything looks illuminated, but hazy too, so I don’t know what I’m looking at, yet I want to keep looking. This album makes me feel a jumble of things, but most importantly, it makes me wish I could set every single song to moving image so as to truly make it a soundtrack.

Kanye West’s “808 and Heartbreak” – I like this album better than anything he’s ever done. Yeah, it’s a mystery to me too. But the short of it is that I’ve always been wary of Kanye West because he samples SO much and this album is 80% refreshing and new. “Love Lockdown” is one of my favorite songs ever.

Super Junior’s “Sorry, Sorry” – I basically talk about this album ad nauseum in the rest of my favorite song review, so read the ramble after the jump!

The Bird and the Bee’s “Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future” - Delightful new find of the year. Their sounds are really whimsical and I love the lead singer’s voice because it sounds so clear. If The Bird and the Bee’s music were a person, it’d be a person who’s good at pushing away pangs of disappointment and loneliness when he/she has to deal with the rest of society. But hey, being sad is still being sad, and I feel the album does dip into more melancholy territory in the second half.

Epik High’s “Map the Soul” – Tablo’s writing never strikes me as pretentious even though I can see how it can come across like that to other people. He’s very sharp with his words and his music (as well as Epik High’s music) reflects that aspect of him, along with the qualities he admires in other musicians.

This is “Cipher” from the album.

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I will NEVER forget the atmosphere in Irving Plaza when Tablo jumped on stage to sing this first line. I can see is so clearly in my head: Beatbox DG does about 5 minutes of beat boxing and then he signals the start of the “Cipher” performance and the crowd goes crazy. Tablo speaks into the mic from backstage and the cheers get even louder. We were all anticipating, but even that is not enough to describe the mood of the audience. Even watching fancams now, my heart still pounds in anticipation of Tablo jumping on stage and whipping the audience with water as he raps his first line.

Favorite songs of the year:

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via youcapturedme

I just want to say for the record that I love fandoms where the fans are generous with media sharing. My biggest fandom pet peeve is probably when people tag the images they scan. I understand tagging personal pictures that you took with your camera, but tagging images that you scanned is so self-indulgent. Yes, it probably took a really long time to scan and it took money for you to buy the product, but it’s not your actual creative work. /rant

I have no inspiration to post anything these days but as I sit and watch a bajillion KPop performances every week I’ve been thinking a lot about choreography.

Rino Nakasone has done the choreography for SHINee’s “Replay,” SNSD’s “Genie,” f(x)’s “LA cHA TA,” f(x)’s “Chu.” Nick Bass and Trent Dickens are the guys who worked on Super Junior’s “Sorry, Sorry” and SHINee’s “Ring Ding Dong.” I only started thinking about this after I realized that RDD was choreographed by Nick & Trent because there seems to be something very inherently male about the choreography. I don’t dance and I only speak as an observer but N & T’s moves for both Suju and SHINee don’t work well with girls whereas Rino’s choreography feels more gender-neutral. (I don’t like taking “Genie” into account because “Genie” doesn’t feel like Rino’s style at all; I feel like she was to told to create a simple routine that was trendy as possible so that it could be easy for the public audience to imitate and thus popularizing “Genie”‘s song status as super mainstream.)

When I look at SNSD + f(x) doing Suju & SHINee’s stuff, it feels off for some reason. The movements are very big and visually they seem to emphasize maleness. Does it feel like this for anyone else? Like Suju’s famed lean-back-while-rotating-with-arms-crossed move and SHINee’s pelvic swivel in the RDD chorus. When girls do it, it feels mannish. Maybe I’m making a mistake by placing a gender on dancing and movement but it feels different enough for me to notice that for these instances, a female choreographer’s work doesn’t contain as many gender-defining movements that a male choreographer’s work does.

Yoona (SNSD) at the press conference of “Cinderella Man”:

My favorite part of her look is her eye makeup. I LOVE turquoise eye makeup and it’s so subtly done and adds a nice pop to her otherwise pretty boring outfit. It actually really reminds me of what they did at the Marni SS 2008 show and the makeup was my fave part of that too.

1. The DBSK 2009 desk calendar. I haven’t gotten DBSK merchandise in more than half a year, and I only bought “Mirotic” out of loyalty, but this calendar has a very comfy home feeling to it. January 2009 has been designated as Junsu’s month in the calendar and I’m glad I’m starting off the year with this boy. You’re a hugeass brat, Junsu, but always the cutest.

2. The packaging for Taeyang’s mini-album. (Is this list starting to look like a regular “Shit I bought lately” list?) I finally got this album because . . . well, the music I’ve listened to from this album is something that deserves my buying it. Now, I’m used to YG packaging Big Bang’s albums in really oddly sized and oddly designed boxes, but I have no qualms with Taeyang’s. The casing is beautiful, the art on the disc is really appropriate, and the booklet is intriguing. Way worth the money (and my love for Taeyang). Stay solo, boy. And grow some inches.
3. February 2009, Vogue China, “Spring Rhapsody”
   
   
   
   Via fakingfashion.

4. 羅志祥’s “愛轉角”. This song is so sweet and spring-like that I don’t even mind that Alan Luo is a terrible singer.

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   So Nyeo Shi Dae’s “Gee”. I am not ashamed.

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5. Givenchy Nightingale bag. I saw two women carry this when I was at the airport and this bag is just the type of bag I dig (and love and will drool over). I don’t go bag/purse crazy very easily because I like big bags that carry a lot and those don’t seem to be the type of bags that get trendy easily. Sigh.