Tell Me about Ice Cream and Chocolate
I’m probably over-analysing it when I say that, to me, this recent ad of Kim Tae-Hee’s (김태희) is another example of a distinctive “2000s” style, but then that would hardly be a first for me:
(Found via Mongdori)
I’ve been humming it for days now. Here’s a recent song that it immediately reminded me of:
I like both despite myself. Bob Dylan or Tracy Chapman probably wouldn’t approve, and 10 years ago an ex-Sandinista guerilla lecturer of mine didn’t think much of Barbie Girl either, but then us Generation Xers will take what shared icons and sources of identity we can thank you very much.
So too, will Generation Y Koreans. No matter what I say about the Wondergirls, I’ll be the first to admit that the popularity of “Tell Me” is primarily because it’s just so difficult to shake the (not all that bad) rhythm out your head. Hell, our 15 year-old students will probably still be singing and dancing to it at 노래방s in 2038:
As will I be of the aptly-named “Can’t Get You Out of my Head” by Kylie Minogue, which followed me on computers all around Malaysia on my 2 week trip there in 2002. The song is haunting enough in its own right, but has special meaning to me as a personal symbol of globalisation:
Admit it, you’re humming along to at least one of those videos by now…
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I’ll admit it. The Banana Girl song is a guilty pleasure. Actually, more the video than the song itself. Listening to it, you can’t help but hear the long reach of Giorgio Moroder - in 1977 Brian Eno is said to have said that this song represented the next 15 years of club music. Thirty years later…
Couldn’t agree more, on both counts. “Ice Cream” is still stuck in my head on the bus, but I enjoy only watching “Chocolate.” And listening to the song you mention is eerie when you realise that it was made in 1977. It reminds me of my dad pointing out how much of my trance music is based on classical music.
Dudes,
I’m nearing the end of Nick Tosches’ book Where Dead Voices Gather, which links up neatly with all this stuff about the continuiity of music and lineages of influence or repetition, but I’m saving it for my own post on the subject. For now, I’ll just admit that I share a guilty pleasure song with you both. The Banana Girl song/video is one that, bizarrely, fascinates me. I can listen to it over and over without it bugging me, and the video always cheers me up or makes me laugh. No idea why.
Then again, I also get a kick out of these and kind of wish we had comparably weird shit over here. Then again, maybe we do, but I’ve run across it already? That dude is wicked weird.
By the way (which I say because my earlier comment is still pending moderation), what in the world is this? And… oooh, look here! How come I never heard of Masterly Master Lee? (Who happens to post about the group that made the previous video.)