The Straight-Five Engine Dance
August 10, 2013 7:38 AM   Subscribe

Could this be the next k-pop viral hit? The Wall Street Journal seems to think so. Climbing its way up the Korean charts since debuting at No. 143 in June, Crayon Pop's "Bar Bar Bar" has proven popular with policemen and policewomen, Taekwondo students, cheerleaders at baseball games (Samsung Lions, Lotte Giants, Hanhwa Eagles) and been parodied by Saturday Night Live Korea. Crayon pop also boasts some devoted fans - videobombing, serenading, and cheering at music shows.
posted by needled (42 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
The most important thing I have learned here is that there's a Korean SNL. So much for whatever I was going to get done today.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:51 AM on August 10, 2013 [5 favorites]


I can't figure out how much of that song is in English, and it's driving me crazy.

I want to say that it goes "get, get, get humping, everybody" but surely not
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:54 AM on August 10, 2013


Also I enjoy how the Korean police appear to thwart a rape by hopping up and down in a line in front of the would-be molester?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:58 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


where is the Chomsky cameo?
posted by aesop at 8:04 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Jumping", and they have jockey helmets making a parallel with that other k-pop horse dance.
posted by stbalbach at 8:18 AM on August 10, 2013


I remember that The Blue called Gangnam very early in the game, so I feel I should put all of my chips in on this one. Yeah, I'll mix metaphors...that's what Crayon Pop are doing to me.

This one has legs, baby...legs? No, wings! It's gonna take over the globe! Chincha!

Aja aja FIGHTING!
posted by Hennimore at 8:21 AM on August 10, 2013


The policewomen seem rather more organised than their male counterparts.
posted by ersatz at 8:34 AM on August 10, 2013


I don't know. Major news organizations can report viral hits, but I don't think they can predict them. I think their predicting itself adds to the downfall.

It is like being in high school and your mother telling you to listen to this song on the radio because she thinks it is going to be really big among your friends. It pretty much kills any chance you might have of admitting you like it.
posted by eye of newt at 9:07 AM on August 10, 2013 [10 favorites]


Wall Street Journal can't even predict the stuff they're supposed to be very, very knowledgeable about.

Cute song and video though.
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:18 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


I guess you could call if the next Gangnam Style in that it's from Korea and may be trending.

But I kind of object to that framing, because IMHO that's not really what made Gangnam Style worth talking about. I mean, I'd seen a fair number of k-pop videos before then, and none of them particularly struck me as anything but catchy (although... I do revisit this one every once in a while, because). But Gangnam Style had such obvious and immediate warp that I knew it would be interesting and fun for most of my friends.
posted by tychotesla at 9:27 AM on August 10, 2013 [6 favorites]


Yeah, I'm not sure what makes this the next "Gangnam Style" at all. It doesn't have a particularly clever visual hook (or hooks), and the look and sound is really repetitive even for k-pop. They just come off as a Korean version of those Disney and Nickelodeon groups that are (to me, at least) indistinguishable from each other with slightly older group members. Their kiddie name and singing (apart from the token "tough grrl" member) doesn't help with that perception either.

Of course, maybe I just sound like some guy telling them to get off my lawn and back to Korea, so I'm probably not the target audience.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:45 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Seconding that. Gangham Style was just capital-F Fun, even though I had no clue what was going on.

These five girls? Not fun. WSJ should stick to reviewing ETFs and not KPOPs.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:46 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


What is the KSNL (SNLK?) parody doing? Please explain the cultural and contextual elements.

I feel as if this could be the starting point for understanding all of Korean culture.
posted by zippy at 9:56 AM on August 10, 2013


This is not the next "Gangnam Style":

1. It lacks that something special and different that made Psy's track so damn listenable. This here is a nice track, but absolutely by the numbers. (For my money, it's the couple of beats of silence before the chorus that makes GS super-hooky.)

2. Scooter Braun hasn't drawn any attention to this track. He's the reason we all (in this hemisphere) started listening to "Gangnam Style" in the first place. (Seriously. Look at the stats on the GS Youtube video, the views explode after his 7/31/12 tweet.)

3. Predicting a viral hit? Sure, everyone knows that the WSJ has its finger on the cultural pulse.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:58 AM on August 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, in the SNL parody, is something bleeped out at the one minute mark?
posted by zippy at 10:01 AM on August 10, 2013


Is there an unwritten rule that trying to predict the next viral hit sort of takes away what makes it a special occurrence? It might still be popular, but viral seems to imply that it was unexpected and a (generally) pleasant surprise. Like the difference between Gotye and a manufactured boy band.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:07 AM on August 10, 2013


If there's one place to go to determine what the next big pop culture hit will be, it's the Wall Street Journal.
posted by nushustu at 10:14 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


When the Wall Street Journal is your ears on the street, you're doing pop music right.
posted by spitbull at 10:15 AM on August 10, 2013


Yup. With pop as commercialized as it is, it only makes sense that a financial newspaper would be the best at predicting future successes.
posted by tychotesla at 10:22 AM on August 10, 2013


I remember that The Blue called Gangnam very early in the game

We don't even metatalk about that.
posted by srboisvert at 10:44 AM on August 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


It is like being in high school and your mother telling you to listen to this song on the radio because she thinks it is going to be really big among your friends. It pretty much kills any chance you might have of admitting you like it.

Just to know, because I suspect that since 'viral' has become desperate mainstream editors new buzzword this viral predicting's only going to become all the more persistent (and desperate), can we come up for a new term for a forced meme when it's done by the media?

Like Milhouse Is Not A Meme. Crayon is not a meme?
posted by litleozy at 10:53 AM on August 10, 2013


Back in March I had some hope that "Tienes Algo" by Raul y Mexia would be the breakout earwormy non-English language sleeper hit of the summer, a la "Gangnam Style". Sadly, that still hasn't happened (I can't even find the song on YouTube), but even with an okay single these guys deserve some love.
posted by pxe2000 at 11:04 AM on August 10, 2013


"Solo para ti" is also a good song.

I go away now
posted by pxe2000 at 11:06 AM on August 10, 2013


Do they have Psy's musical training? I could relate to Psy. I don't really relate to this at all.
posted by jeffamaphone at 11:22 AM on August 10, 2013


I feel like what made Gangnam Style such a big deal, at least to me, was that it WASN'T what everyone thought of when they thought of K-pop. It wasn't a troupe of fembot Korean singers pulling off perfectly synchronized dance moves (not to say that isn't great in its own way) and it seemed to have a genuine sense of humour, which I feel isn't something you usually get from K-pop unless you're a connoisseur and know where to look (I am not). It was goofy, and goofy is not what I think of when I think K-pop.

This feels like K-pop aimed at a preteen audience: the clothes are less sexual, the dance moves are less provocative, the sound more cutesy and less in-your-face. But it's pretty much K-pop. I don't know why this would become a breakout hit, unless it's "hey it's that song released this summer that everyone young and old can bop to!" Which, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
posted by chrominance at 11:28 AM on August 10, 2013 [8 favorites]


Kim Chae-young attends cram school five evenings a week, toiling deep into the night. But unlike most young South Koreans who spend hours at special schools to polish their English and math, she studies slide steps and bubbly lyrics.

“I want to become a K-pop icon, like Psy,” said Chae-young, who is 13 years old.
posted by four panels at 11:34 AM on August 10, 2013


I was watching J. Fla’s Story yesterday and came to the surprising realization that I actually liked K-pop. But this one is just lame – it reminds me of an uninspired OK Go video, without treadmills (or anything interesting) in it.

I did not particularly think much of the Gangnam video but at least it had a massive overload of energy... or fun, as JoeZydeco says... or goofiness, as chrominance says. This doesn’t.
posted by LeLiLo at 11:54 AM on August 10, 2013


I'm sticking with Muscle Shoals and Memphis.

The Spice Girls were a thing too.
posted by spitbull at 11:57 AM on August 10, 2013


From the WSJ piece:
“Bar Bar Bar,” the latest single by girl group Crayon Pop, is emerging from left field in South Korea with eccentric choreography that has pundits comparing with Psy’s famous horse-dance routine.

Known as the “Straight-Five Engine Dance,” the five girls jump up and down during the track’s refrain, mirroring the movements of five engine cylinders.
OK, so I learned about the dance mirrors the movements of an engine, but "emerging out of left field"? How so? The Wikipedia page on them makes it sound like they're new-ish, but they've toured Japan and have 2 EPs to their name.

K-Pop is full of girl-groups who have appealing dance routines. The difference with Psy and Gangnam Style is that 1) Psy is not your typical pop musician (he's a chubby, 35 year old guy, who doesn't have a history as a pop star), and 2) Gangnam Style is parodying the local consumer culture (as discussed in detail in this great blog post).

An alternative headline: WSJ thinks new hit K-Pop song is a hit!
posted by filthy light thief at 12:38 PM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


On review, chrominance said it better.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:50 PM on August 10, 2013


It's not k-pop, but I've been unable to get this song out of my head for the past few weeks. Why isn't Kyary Pamyu Pamyu trending all over the damn place? She gets my vote as next WTF pop style icon, at least in a hypothetical world where my wishes are magical ponies. Her new album is catchy, manic and one of the best things released this year.
posted by naju at 1:16 PM on August 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


What makes Crayon Pop comes out of left field is that they're not a product of one of the major South Korean entertainment agencies (currently SM, YG, and JYP, and also Cube by some sales measures). It's incredibly hard for a k-pop act to get any media exposure or chart in Korea, let alone develop a fan base, when coming from a small agency or even a middle-tier one - Woollim Entertainment, home of boy band Infinite as well as Korean modern rockers Nell, had one of the rare success stories with Infinite, but just this week was absorbed by SM Entertainment to become a subsidiary label. During Infinite's long slog to the top, Woollim's CEO had to give up his own apartment so he could use the lump sum deposit to fund Infinite's music video. Crayon Pop's agency is at a much smaller scale than that. Most entertainment agencies can't keep going for 2 or more years waiting for their main act to finally break through. Some fold right after an act's first release, if it's not instantly successful. According to the typical k-pop scenario, Crayon Pop's song should have sunk without a trace after initially charting at 143th place, and shortly thereafter the group itself would be gone. Yet somehow it has continued climbing up the charts, acquiring devoted fans and parody videos. For Crayon Pop to get the exposure it did, including a mention in the WSJ, is pretty astounding.

Crayon Pop is a bit of a break from the current k-pop girl groups, who had been going for increasingly sexy images (e.g. Girl's Day, Dalshabet). I find them interesting for having adopted the image of high school delinquents by wearing tracksuits. This is made more explicit in the "Bar Bar Bar" story version MV. They are neither angelic princesses nor sexy vixens, but hard-up young women trying to better themselves despite limited opportunities. The other linked girl group music videos should make even more evident the shoestring budget of Crayon Pop music videos.

It will be interesting to see if such left-field hits disappear altogether from k-pop as the major agencies such as SM keep getting larger and monopolizing media exposure and attention.
posted by needled at 1:31 PM on August 10, 2013 [7 favorites]


Hey, thanks for the followup. That's some good context.
posted by tychotesla at 2:09 PM on August 10, 2013


Stylistically, this is actually more J than K - which isn't surprising, considering they pretty much launched in Japan (which isn't unusual - a lot of K-pop groups have 'used' Japan as a launchpad to become famous in Korea).
posted by aielen at 3:32 PM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


> What is the KSNL (SNLK?) parody doing? Please explain the cultural and contextual elements.

The parody is titled "Gura-yong Pop," a pun on Crayon Pop and Kim Gura, a Korean comedian and TV personality who was SNL Korea's host that week. It's mostly parodying Kim Gura, making fun of his appearance (his large chin) and his TV image of being a grumpy guy full of harsh criticisms, who would never do a girl group dance in full costume. There's also a play on his name in the blue genie part, as "gura" is a slang term for lie or fake. Also featured in the parody is John Park, former American Idol contestant, Superstar K runner-up, and now a musician and TV personality in Korea.

(SNL Korea has been hit-or-miss - there was hilarious and brilliant political satire in the period leading up to the Korean presidential election with skits featuring teletubbies representing various political figures, but since a director change and toning down of the political satire in favor of sexual innuendo jokes many of the segments fall flat.)
posted by needled at 4:41 PM on August 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Matching suits? Make-up? They don't even play their own instruments! And, look! They're doing this goofy dance together! No way the kids will ever go for this.
posted by Hennimore at 7:04 PM on August 10, 2013


What makes Crayon Pop comes out of left field is that they're not a product of one of the major South Korean entertainment agencies

and

Crayon Pop is a bit of a break from the current k-pop girl groups, who had been going for increasingly sexy images

are the only two things that make me wonder if we're actually seeing something new. But even if we are, I don't know that this moves the needle much. As a break from what feels like an incredibly stifling and restrictive music scene, it feels like a quarter-measure at best. But if you're telling me Crayon Pop will eventually lead to the Korean version of this, then I'm totally on board.
posted by chrominance at 9:17 AM on August 11, 2013


I believe this is more of a Harlem Shuffle analog as best...
posted by djrock3k at 10:58 AM on August 11, 2013


The real test will be to see how many people around wear protective headgear in places such as theme parks to judge its true impact on popular culture.
posted by Metro Gnome at 4:56 PM on August 11, 2013


Why isn't Kyary Pamyu Pamyu trending all over the damn place?
Beats me
posted by unliteral at 7:30 PM on August 11, 2013


Beats me

Seriously. I'm totally perplexed that "PonPonPon" only made the rounds of MeFi, Reddit, et al without breaking into a full-on sensational hit.
posted by naju at 7:51 PM on August 11, 2013


I went on a holiday to a reasonably untrodden part of Indonesia not too long ago and it was on my player along with Gangnam Style and a whole bunch of other catchy tunes/quirky tunes I'd gotten from this askme about quirky style. I played it to a lot of people. Most of them, young and old were quickly bored and thought it was a child's song. All of them, young and old, loved Gangnam Style. An international hit.
While I'm here can I point you to my last comment in that quirky Gangnam Style askme and maybe get you to view the link - it ticks all the boxes
✔ it is not from the US
✔ it is in black and white
✔ it is suitably blurry for YouTube vintage
✔ it has finger snapping in the sound track
✔ it has jazz ballet with 'reaching for the sky' jazz hands
✔ it has black and white one-piece outfits
✔ it has haircuts
✔ it has chairs that you can sit on / pose on / spread yourself on / intertwine your legs in / collapse and then open up with your body inside / throw your legs over / chuck on the floor flat and then bring them up flat on your arse
✔ it has clapping in front of Mina, on your knees
✔ it has Mina changing from a black dress to a white dress without losing a beat
✔ it has dancers playing invisible instruments, but you can hear them!
✔ it has a woman in a white onesie dancing to a flute
✔ it several dancers dancing to a jazz guitar under a large Tiffany lamp
✔ it has five piece jazz outfit playing in a semi-circle while a whole bunch of black-clad people dance behind them
✔ it has Mina screeching and snapping her fingers while she walks between a phalanx of the numerous configurations of the bands that she has sung with
✔ it has a saxophone thing happening while there is some interpretive group dancing in the background
✔ it is not the the next big thing
✔ it is pretty cool anyway

Chances are it won't go viral today. Tomorrow. Who knows? Does it matter?
posted by unliteral at 7:07 AM on August 12, 2013


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