Marta vs K-Pop #5⋅Bodyrolling with Babylon

Crush On You — Babylon ft. Lil Boi

I don’t think Babylon has a fanbase name yet, but I am most definitely a Babylonian. He manages to always make something interesting out of relatively unoriginal R&B staples.

Crush On You is not nearly as good as his previous 2016 single U & Me (which — spoiler — is one of my top songs of this year so far), but I fell for the progression of the chorus, and that smooth falsetto he pulls out of nowhere.

As far as I can tell, this is also the first single Babylon is bringing to music shows. I am really curious to see how his popularity will grow from this.

Starlight — Taeyeon ft. DΞΔN

I would struggle to think of any SNSD release — group, TTS or solos — that I genuinely like. Even after months, I find Taeyeon’s debut megasuccess I one of the most grating songs I’ve ever heard.

I have to concede to SM and Taeyeon that calling Dean for her pre-release track was an excellent (if very cheeky) move to get the attention of an audience that might be less open to her music.

Unfortunately they didn’t go for a Dean song; Starlight is a lovely pop tune for the summer, but it doesn’t stand out in any way. Even after listening to it over a dozen times, I couldn’t hum it to save my life. It’s such a waste on SM’s part to go for a cool collaborator like Dean — whose work they clearly know — and waste his talents on someone else’s unremarkable song.

On a side note, it irks me that Taeyeon’s persona seems to be settling more and more into the manic pixie dream girl stereotype. K-pop is already riddled with the collective obsession for “innocent” girls, so it’s not surprising that the pseudo-indie iteration of it would be successful. I wouldn’t wish this kind of image on anyone, though; I hope she manages to break free from being Zooey Deschanel’s Korean alter ego.

Comfortable — Simon D + Gray + One

While I don’t watch Show Me The Money because I don’t need that amount of cultural appropriation in my life, I do at least listen to the original songs that get released on Spotify. This week I really liked Simon D, Gray and One’s Comfortable.

• The fact that there was an entire performance in which nobody had braids and/or dreadlocks was a success in itself.
• Looks like One isn’t very happy with YG either:

Are Winner coming back yet?

No, they’re not. But there are reports that Mino and iKON’s Bobby will release solo projects at the same time. Considering how ugly the fan wars between Winner and iKON supporters have been in this past year, adding fuel to the fire is the dumbest things YG could do.

The good thing is that YG has been more unreliable than ever lately, so it’s safe to assume this might well never happen.

To help you live through this hard Mino-less times, have this glorious masterpost.