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Wonder Girls, What Are You Doing?

So, in my opinion, the new Wonder Girls song, "DJ Is Mine" is trash. I understand exactly what they're trying to do, but I don't agree with it. With this song, they're trying to make an American dance/pop style track for the club... but, yikes. It's WAY overly processed. Also, they're about 3 or 4 years late on the overuse of auto tune, which they use liberally, at least on the first verse. I was actually curious if they were trying to mask some of the problems with English pronunciation by using crazy amounts of auto tune...

On that note, I really think they need to spend more time working on English pronunciation. I'm in no way trying to be racist, nor am I trying to hold back the spread of music and styles internationally (given my interest and desire to pursue music internationally, I'm 110% for it!), but there are some things that foreign groups need to realize. The American audience is probably one of the hardest to please. Music made in English has a fairly easy time spreading to other countries (for example, there are always American songs in the top 50 in Japan, and much of the time in the top 10), but it's not nearly as easy going the other way. Once again, I'm not trying to play down the Wonder Girls' efforts, but I feel like if they are going to try to make a smash hit like this, they need to bring their absolute A game. That means their production and everything else need to be on point. The style of this song actually made me think of the boy and girl groups from back in the 90's. To me, it sounds more like that kind of pop than the mainstream pop/dance stuff that's popular right now. This could also be influenced by the fact that the Wonder Girls made this track for a TV special they're doing on Nickelodeon in early February. So they're probably trying to make a track that'll appeal to an audience of 10-14 year olds instead of a grown-get-down-at-the-club crowd.

Also, on a much more nitpicky level, they need to step up their rap game a LOT. Trust me, I love Yubin, and her Korean raps are possibly the hottest thing ever, but she honestly did not come through very hard on this track in English. I know that when people are at the club dancing, they're not listening for really deep, complex, or well-thought out lyrics, but the English rap lyrics I've heard from both Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation for their debut US singles have been TOO simplistic, and don't make it exciting by using word play, punchlines and metaphors and things like that, which US rappers use all the time, even in dance songs for the club. For example the line from a Bay Area hip-hop track that goes, "You want dro, man, we got it// and my wallet's swollen like it's allergic to my pocket" is a good example of a metaphor and punchline because he's saying that he has so much money that his wallet looks swollen. In the Wonder Girls' song, the majority of the rap section goes, "Stay at the top of his charts I am the air play// flyer than airplanes, I know you hear me// If you didn't let me reiterate, let me reiterate." First off, how many times have you heard something along the lines of "higher than a plane", "flyer than a plane", "fly like a G6", "yada yada G5" or whatever. It's completely overused and played out at this point. I don't even understand the logic of the first line about air play. And I guess this is really nitpicky, but reiterate just sounds awkward to me in a rap. But to Yubin's credit, the black girl who raps right before her is just as bad.

One of the biggest reasons I have some beef with this song is because Girls' Generation actually did a fairly good job with their debut US single, "The Boys," so I know it's possible for Korean groups and other foreign groups to take a legitimate stab at the US music market, but they HAVE to approach it the right way. "Let me reiterate", the US music market is very difficult to break into, but I'd really like to see them do it right and be the first to really open up the US music industry to foreign artists, because once the US lets foreign artists in, I think it'll be like a snowball effect and pretty soon artists from everywhere will be able to collaborate and musical styles from all over the place will be able to mix and blend and I believe some truly awesome things will be able to result from it all. 

[flowzenmusic]

My new remix of 'The Boys' by Girls' Generation! Listen, Download, and Share it with your friends!!

Thanks everyone!

[flowzenmusic]

Just posted a NEW Electro House track! 

Please 'Like' it, 'Favorite' and Download it for FREE on soundcloud, follow me, and help me spread the word!! 

Thanks everyone!!

http://www.facebook.com/FlowZenMusic

[flowzenmusic]

Just started working on this track today, please check it out and let me know what you think so far!

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[flowzenmusic]

This is a pretty dope dub step track called Blue by Gemini! It's not really new, it's been out since February, but if you happened to miss it, check it out! I been blasting this recently!

[flowzenmusic]

For all you Trance heads out there, check this track out from Alex Larichev and Rusty Spica! Pretty dope!

[flowzenmusic]

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. - Gustav Mahler

[flowzenmusic]

Just bought a new microphone preamp today to replace my old outdated one that broke a few weeks ago and it makes vocals sound hella good! Can't wait to start recording again!

[flowzenmusic]

This new track is turning out SOOO DOPE! you really have no idea. Probably going to throw some vocals on there with my singer friend and then it's a WRAP! Stay tuned, it'll be released before too long!

[flowzenmusic]

A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence.  ~Leopold Stokowski

[flowzenmusic]

The Side of Music That You Probably Don't Think About

As I’m driving back from Vegas listening to my Japanese friends’ Jpop, It’s making me realize how there’s only a VERY select few Jpop artists that I respect and can stand listening to for more than 10 seconds. So much of it is just high pitched nasally voices of girls thinking they sound cute. They don’t. Just annoying. But, there are artists whose sound and music I really respect. One of my favorites, for example, is 青山テルマ (Aoyama Thelma). She’s actually half Japanese and half black I believe, but her music goes to show that you can make good music, be popular, and not be trying to sound like you’re 3 years old. For over a year I was studying up on the Jpop sound because my friend Aki and I were planning to try to do music there, so I’ve listened to a crap ton of the music. But I’ve now realized that I was just trying to convince myself that I liked the majority of it. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that recently I’ve been more seriously considering pursuing at least producing music as a possible career path for the near term. Because of this, I’ve broadened my lens a lot and have been looking at more genres, music from more countries, and how various languages and genres are blending to predict trends. The most obvious of which is electronic music blending with American hip-hop and pop, but other things I’ve noticed really recently are things like British rap being used in some popular music (dubstep, but also even Nicki Minaj kind of imitates a British accent in her song, Super Bass). As far as genre trends, I’ve noticed that HELLA people that don’t even understand Korean listen to Kpop a lot. It seems to be especially popular among Asian Americans, from what I’ve seen. I’ve heard from some singers and rappers I know in Japan that the industry is and has been really slow. I think it’s because the Jpop sound is SO specific so Japanese music taste and preference that the music can’t expand outside of Japan and be popular. There just isn’t a large enough audience of people who like that music in the world for it to spread outside the country. This is in part due to a cultural phenomenon in Japan centered around the concept of 可愛い (“kawaii” - cute). So like I was talking about earlier, the people to whom this appeals to try to act as cute and little kid-ish as possible, and this has become popular enough - especially with the younger generation - that it’s reflected in a lot of their pop music currently. If you look at Korean pop, on the other hand, its success and rising world wide popularity can be attributed to the producers recognizing and capitalizing on the current pop trends throughout the world, but still putting their own twists on it to give it that distinct Kpop sound. It’s heavily electronic and synthy, but it’s different from American pop and all genres of electronic music. Japanese music just seems stuck in a bubble, completely unaffected by all other music in the world, which is cool in a sense and it would be interesting to look at why that’s the case, but unless they change and become more mainstream/adapt to the current trends to widen their audience, the industry will continue to suffer. One move that the Jpop/hip-hop artist, Verbal of M-flo, did for his first solo album within the past half year that really took me by surprise was that he featured Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne on the album. Apparently there was a lot of money that was involved in those deals, but it really makes me hopeful, not just for Japan’s music industry, but music internationally. More than anything, I would love to see collaborations with artists from all over the world, and I think the fact that a big time American artist was willing to do a collaboration with an Asian artist shows a lot of promise in that regard.

[flowzenmusic]

My first Electro-House track! Up for FREE download, and if you like it, please SHARE it with your friends!! Thanks everyone!

[flowzenmusic]

Getting Off Track or Simple Change?

This is a really weird time in my life for some reason, but it's not because of graduation (I still have a 5th year of school) and that whole 'transition period' thing. I feel like a lot of things - I wouldn't say bad necessarily, just out of the ordinary - are either happening to me or have been done by me recently. I mean I know I changed a LOT over the course of studying abroad in Japan, but I felt like since then (at least up until really recently) I kinda leveled out and was chillin' for a while. I guess I'm trying to figure out if my morals or my view of myself have changed at all in the past, say, 3 weeks, or if I've just loosened up a bit... Because some of my actions recently go against everything I used to pride myself on and consider to be my moral standing. It's even shocking to me, and I'm the one doing these things; shocking enough for me to write this thing to try to gather my thoughts apparently...

Time to fix myself a cup of tea, grab some belgian butter thins, kick my feet up and spend some time doing some good ol' introspective thinking.

[flowzenmusic]

Avalon never disappoints!!! @ravnwazn