Unrelated to previous posting

[zenolalia]

Also, I've been listening to this one K-pop* song that came up on the radio, basically on repeat, for like a week. I will not be seduced by the wiles of the korean idol industry, but I do like the song.

"Unforgettable" (Watch on YouTube)

However, it has really strong "this is an amateur cover version of another, better song" vibes, and I have to say, I am really disappointed that, nope, this is the original version.

I hope someone with better guitar-and-vocals powers than me (I have neither lmao) will someday make a superior cover of it. This is just a tragedy.

EDIT (16:55 11/05/2019): I have been informed that just because the song showed up on a K-pop radio station, that doesn't mean it's K or pop. In fact, the band in question is actually Japanese, and billed as a rock band (though I hesitate to extend the genre of rock to this track in particular, and am awaiting further discussion eagerly).

Comments

[stardust_rifle]

Umm...One Ok Rock is neither Korean nor pop...

[zenolalia]

Orly? It specifically showed up in a k-pop radio station online, so I just assumed that was the correct genre.

I admit, I know nothing about the band (I didn't even bother googling them, as you can clearly tell). I just find the song itself very interesting, both in that I really like it, and in that I'm weirdly aware of all the ways in which I also don't like it. I'm usually much more black and white, so this is confusing to me.

But, what I'm most interested in here, aside from the basic fact checking which is always a nice thing to offer, so thank you for that.

Anyway, what I'm most interested in is, how is it "not pop"?

It certainly has all the hallmarks I associate with pop music, but I'm also not a music theorist. My girlfriend is, and she called it pop too, so I assumed that was a done deal. But here is a counter-claim!!

This is clearly asking a lot of you, but if you could explain how it "isn't pop" I would love to hear more! I don't understand genre boundaries outside of literature (where genre boundaries are quite porous and usually an after-the-fact judgement based on surrounding literary trends, of course), so this is a super interesting subject to me.

Alternatively, if you have any kind of other literature/bideos/podcasts/etc about how pop music is defined, I would love to see them, as well!!

[stardust_rifle]

I'm gonna be real with you here, the only reason I know who this band is is that RPF about them pops up in the Japanese Rock tag on AO3.

Never minding that, this song is very...well it sounds like pop-rock, or songs I've heard called pop-rock before.

I'm not a music buff, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, though this song was so aggressively meh that I wasn't able to listen for long.