Apropo of nothing, but I just cannot stop listening to the old song “Space Vacation” (우주 여행), by the Bunny Girls — identical twins Gho Jae-sook and Gho Jung-sook. They performed it on Shin Joong-hyun Sound Vol. 1 (1971), their first recording, a very good Shin record that was filled with a variety of new singers. On “Space Vacation,” the Ghos sing all these strange echo and flanging effects … and no one knows whether they did it for fun or because they did not know how to make the real effects in the studio. Either way, it’s just too much fun.
And if I’m going to get musical on today of all days, I guess I have to include Girls’ Generation’s appearance on David Letterman last night:
There was a “Woah” from Regis Philbin and a “Kamsahamnida” from Letterman himself. As for the quality of the Girls’ performance … well, it was standard lip-syncing K-pop. Well done, of course. My wife thought they looked nervous, causing their dance moves to be a little weak. I assumed they were just hungry.
Meanwhile, we have a rainy day today here in Spain; I’ll be on the lookout for falling frogs.
Oh, and The Atlantic had a piece on K-pop the other day, asking “Does Korean Pop Actually Have a Shot at Success in the US?“. It is not a bad article, as these things go — a tad long-winded, but I think he notes the important thing, that K-pop this time is aiming for the Tween market, where it has the best potential for success. But he really should have discussed the Kim Sisters, a Korean group that did very well in the United States for years, albeit more on the live circuit than in the charts. Here is an article titled “Kim Sisters Can — and Do — Just Anything” from Billboard in 1964.
Anyhow, no signs of Girls’ Generation on the iTunes charts (yet … although they are doing well on the Billboard Heatseeker chart). Not that it matters so much. I think SNSD is getting their name and sound out quite effectively, regardless of how they do on the charts.
