Posts by dizzcity

Interesting interpretations, everyone, and I agree with a lot of it. However, I'm going to throw in an alternative interpretation which I think makes things even more interesting and complex:

- The singer starts off NOT in love with the target, but rather was planning to get into the relationship and break his heart as revenge for her friend (his ex-girlfriend). Thus, she states at the beginning that she "knows there's no point in trying to change you", but "unlike her I'm not about to let go so easy". (In my interpretation, this means that the ex-girlfriend has gotten over him, and is trying to forget, but the singer still wants revenge and refuses to let go of this matter of him being an asshole to her friend.) She further explains her plan in the first pre-chorus:

"As if I don't know anything,

Baby no more real love

I will stay by your side

Then in the end break your heart"

In other words, she's pretending to not know that he's a cheater (even though she does know), and is deliberately trying to get close to him in order to break his heart and make him feel regretful. She doesn't believe in real love - she's just doing it while masking her feelings of hatred: (i.e. "You don't know me, L O V E or hatred. Instead of goodbye I wear an innocent smile" - the guy can't tell that she's masking her hatred, and pretending to love him)

But then by the end of the first chorus and Verse 2, she finds herself losing her hatred of him, and finding herself wanting to forgive him. If you contrast Pre-Chorus 1 ("Baby no more real love... in the end break your heart") with Pre-Chorus 2 ("Just like real love... Show me your true love"), she moves from a cold hatred that disbelieves in love to someone who desperately wants the pretend-relationship to be real love.

This is further emphasised by an interesting conceptual twist in the Bridge: "Love is so toxic, it makes hatred melt away". This is fascinating because it's a reversal of how you would normally expect the word "toxic" to be used in a relationship. Here, LOVE is the toxin that destroyed her hatred, not hatred being the toxin that destroyed her love. She's mourning the death of her hatred, not the death of her love.

And so, the meaning of the line "cry for me" becomes complex and changes over the course of the song, from "CRY for me", to "cry FOR ME". In other words, at first she just wants him to cry, to show his remorse for being a "bad boy". But by the end, she wants him to cry FOR HER, to signify that he cares for her. Because then she finally has the excuse she needs and justification to outwardly let go of her hatred and enjoy the relationship. But if he can't, then she can't officially forgive him, and must make him die for her. *cue yandere vibes*

Quote from aespaevolution

For me, it’s a song about being betrayed and wanting the betrayer to feel as bad as you felt.

Thanks for responding. Yeah, I agree that there are some elements of that desire for revenge against someone who betrayed you. But then, I think it's also more complex than that, because the chorus says "I keep making reasons to forgive", and Verse 2's last line: "Cry for me, let me please forgive you".

So how would you interpret those lines then?

I thought I would elevate the tone of discussion on these forums by actually starting a proper discussion about music, rather than just endless comparison threads. So... let's actually discuss the lyrics of TWICE's "Cry for Me", and think about what the song signifies. Here's the official audio with subs:

This is actually quite an interesting song to discuss lyrically, because of the way that the emotions evolve throughout the song, and the setting of the relationship drama that it evokes. So, some questions to get us started thinking:

1) Who is the "her" in that is mentioned in Verse 1, and what do you think is the relationship between "her", the singer, and the target of the song?

2) Do you think the singer is still in a relationship with the target (i.e. "bad boy"), or is this a post-break-up song, or something else? Maybe just prior to break up?

3) How do you see the relationship or the singer's emotions evolving between Pre-Chorus 1, Pre-Chorus 2, and the Bridge?

4) Given the last line, what do you think the singer will do to the target of the song?

Quote from jhp

I found it!

It's this song FYI, bye everyone and thx

(it's old AF btw)

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Whoa, what a nostalgia trip! Thanks for sharing this, didn't even know it existed! Baby Shinhwa and Fly to the Sky look cute. It's nice to see a young Uhm Jung Hwa again. Baby V.O.X. look about the same (seriously, Yoon Eun Hye is a eternally-young vampire...). And I almost didn't recognise Kim Kyung Ho until he sang in his distinctive voice (god of rock!). The rappers look familiar, but I can't quite place them... was that MC Mong?

EDIT: Also, here's another song where multiple artists (and actors and athletes) collaborated to raise funds for disaster relief.

They're not as popular as they once were (and they've also expanded their team from a duo to about 11 members now), but here's thewiki showing their discography including recent years. This reddit thread might be useful too.

This is just funny... MAMAMOO has great ad-libs every time they perform at award shows.

Quote from wsoet

Ok, now that I had all the yearly inflation scaling factors, I simply applied those factors to each girl group's yearly win count. My calculations are shown below. Note that my numbers are up to date as of the end of 2020.

TableGirlGroupWinsInflationAdjusted.png

The upper table shows the nominal (or raw) wins achieved by each group over each year of interest, along with running totals in adjacent columns (the "Σ"). The lower table is similar, except that I've applied the scaling inflation factors to each yearly win count.

I can now present inflation-adjusted win totals for each group, which are shown below along with nominal wins.

Ranking by Nominal Wins	Ranking by Inflation-Adjusted Wins	Change in Rank
#1. Twice - 112 wins	#1. Girls' Generation - 79.21 wins	+1
#2. Girls' Generation - 100 wins	#2. Twice - 60.83 wins	-1
#3. Red Velvet - 73 wins	#3. Wonder Girls - 42.13 wins	+3
#4. GFriend - 71 wins	#4. GFriend - 39.08 wins	--
#5. Apink - 51 wins	#5. Red Velvet - 38.78 wins	-2
#6. Wonder Girls - 45 wins	#6. 2NE1 - 35.84 wins	+1
#7T. 2NE1 - 43 wins	#7. Apink - 28.49 wins	-2
#7T. Sistar - 43 wins	#8. Sistar - 27.20 wins	-1
#7T. Blackpink - 43 wins	#9. f(x) - 23.53 wins	+3
#10. Mamamoo - 42 wins	#10. T-ara - 23.32 wins	+3
#11. Itzy - 34 wins	#11. Blackpink - 22.53 wins	-4
#12. f(x) - 33 wins	#12. Mamamoo - 22.45 wins	-2
#13. T-ara - 28 wins	#13. Kara - 21.67 wins	+1
#14T. Kara - 26 wins	#14. Itzy - 17.12 wins	-3
#14T. Iz*One - 26 wins	#15. 4Minute - 14.91 wins	+1
#16. 4Minute - 23 wins	#16. Iz*One - 13.20 wins	-2
#17. EXID - 22 wins	#17. EXID - 11.68 wins	--

So what does this all mean? Well it means that, taking into account inflation, newer girl groups may not be doing as well as their raw win numbers would suggest. Notice how older groups generally see their rankings improve once inflation adjustments are applied.

In effect, newer girl groups may tend to have more wins since there are simply a lot more wins being awarded each year currently, compared to what we saw in the Second Generation era.

To be continued in the next post...

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Thank you, great work! Interesting to see how so many of the 2nd-gen groups rose in rank after the adjustments. (I was especially surprised at how much the Wonder Girls rose... they were a lot more celebrated than I thought). I had a sneaking suspicion that SNSD and TWICE would switch places at the top given the inflation adjustments, and I see your results bear that idea out. Still, looking at the graphs, TWICE's trajectory is actually rising faster than SNSD's was at a similar stage in their career, so I'm not too worried about their future - all they need to do is accumulate longevity and a steady win rate to eventually overtake SNSD. Pretty impressed with Gfriend staying extremely solid and maintaining their position, even after inflation adjustment.

Mina was really creative with the orange circus ball thing.

How on earth did Dahyun know all the ramen flavours?

Chaeng's just chilling out after being the richest person ever.

Tzuyu on the other hand... poor girl. :)

What exactly is that snack that looks like cellophane tape that Sana was trying to eat?

Who let who win in the last Jihyo vs Nayeon arm-wrestling battle?

This is Black Eyed Pilseung, the duo that made some of TWICE's biggest early hits (and now STAYC's boss):

Black-Eyed-Pilseung.jpg

This is GALACTIKA, the duo that is central to ITZY's biggest hits:

galactika.jpg

And if you don't know who this is... well, welcome to Kpop 101:

JYP.jpg

This is an example of mistreatment:

- For the girl group Yellow Bee, the company executives sexually-harassed the members, attempted to sleep with them, falsely accused a member who left the company as 'being fired for promiscuous behaviour', did not pay any salaries to the members, made them pay for their own styling and video editing, sent them off to Japan with no support staff and told them to find work by themselves. (source)

That's what it means for artists to be neglected by the company, and treated badly by the company.

These are examples of mismanagement:

- Company did not publicise the group on the channels that would make them more well-known. Company had poor or lacking communications with fans about organised events. Company did not organise proper sales channels for overseas fans. Company did not do a good job at protecting the members from stalker-fans or malicious comments online.

In a recent survey in Japan (Nov-Dec 2020, 1167 responses), Fanfare tied with DTNA (Japanese ver.) for the second most popular TWICE song. (source). The first was Fancy (Japanese ver.). So yeah, I think Fanfare would have done well in Korea. At least better than More & More.

Ah, I knew I forgot something... that time when Jackie Chan asked JYP to produce a song to help raise funds for disaster relief after China got hit by an earthquake.

Or the time that Jackie Cheung (one of the Four Heavenly Kings of C-pop and the "God of Songs" in Hong Kong) did a Cantonese version of JYP's Honey:

Quote from NotOnceNorThrice

Am I the only one who thinks that, sure Sana always the cutie sexy. But, past Sana by default is cute. Today Sana by default is sexy. The look

Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Although, to be fair, if you remember her first dance performance in SIXTEEN, I think SanE already commented on how her eyes felt like she was seducing him. At the very beginning, even as a trainee, she had that in her - but in early days, she always ended up smiling sometime during her performance, so it came off as playfully flirty in a cute way rather than full-on seduction the way she's doing it now (where she's not smiling at all).

If you're looking for powerful female belters like the solo artists you mentioned, they're actually mostly found in Korean music genres outside of Kpop dance music. It's better to find them on multi-genre singing shows like Immortal Songs 2 or maybe Yoo Hee Yeol's Sketchbook. Here's a selection:

Sohyang at the very top. (She's not technically part of the Kpop industry, since she's primarily a Christian Contemporary Music artist who just occasionally takes part in singing pop songs)

Then there's a secondary tier of strong young singers from various other genres, such as Son Seungyeon (primarily R&B):

ALi (primarily soul):

Song So Hee (primarily gugak - Korean traditional music):

And of course, old reliable veterans like Seo Moon Tak (primarily rock):

Among K-pop specifically, the current best girl group for vocals is MAMAMOO (comprising of members Solar, Moonbyul, Wheein and Hwasa):

There are also strong female solo artists such as Ailee and Hyorin:

Most of the main vocalists for SM's girl groups are good too: Bada, Dana, Taeyeon, Luna, Wendy

Others include EXID's Solji, Davichi's Lee Haeri and Kang Minkyung, Bestie's U.ji, SeeYa's Kim Yeon Ji, and the Brown Eyed Girls (who I like to call the MAMAMOO of the 2nd generation).

Don't forget the times he also charted on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 and Top 10 with songs he wrote for Will Smith, Mase and Cassie. Or the time the song he wrote for the Jpop group SMAP charted at number 1 on Oricon. And more recently his new group NiziU breaking all sorts of Oricon records with the song he wrote for them. Just in case you think JYP's success is limited to Kpop.

Of course, music taste is subjective, and you may wish to continue in your belief that the music he makes is mediocre. That is your right. But apparently it is not an opinion shared by much of the general public in at least three countries. He has more than 50 #1 hits on the charts. Please let me know when your bias reaches 20% of his songwriting record.

Whoa, Jolin has become big. I haven't been keeping up with the Mandopop scene, but I still remember her being a fresh-faced teen idol when she first started off. (I guess, to give an analogy that Kpop fans might be more familiar with - she would be the C-pop equivalent of BoA.) Glad to see how much she's grown. Anyone know whether she's a full TWICE fan, or does she simply like this song/dance?

Quote from miuhiae

Huh?

Yeah, whoops, sorry. I made a mistake in my wording... Got I Can't Stop Me and Cry for Me confused for a bit. ICSM should have been a solid line as a title track, not dashed line for pre-release.

Chaeyoung supremacy!

Quote from Artemosia

Cry For Me didn't chart at all in Gaon?

Not in the Top 100. There was a minor blip on the week of 20-26 Dec 2020 where it landed on position 164 on the chart, but it disappeared off the Top 200 the following week. It's possible it might chart again once whatever album Cry for Me is a pre-release of gets released this year.

Quote from buffyfan

Oh nice graph!! I need to really look at this soon but one of the things I noticed is that ICSM and Feel Special has been performing relatively the same. I wonder if ICSM is actually doing better tho since ICSM is during the Melon reform.

Quote from sadsavely

Wonder how many weeks ICSM will last, hope for just 1 more then FS

Yeah, I think it would most likely follow Feel Special's trajectory, although given the recent bump, possibly it may last slightly longer. (I don't know though... I have the feeling Cry for Me is actually eating a little into I Can't Stop Me's hype). Still, both are amazing songs. I think this kinda shows there's a clear difference between what's popular and what's good - personally, I think both of those songs are extremely well-made, but it's clear that they're charting lower.