This week’s Music Monday is the sexy rhino edition with Jaejoong's 'Mine'
Ooh... Oops, wrong video. Err... With Jaejoong's 'Mine'
Wow, this might be the least kpopish video we've ever reviewed.
It's not colorful, there's no dancing, there's no lip rubbing
it's hardly in focus. We'll get to that later.
And it has a very dark theme to it.
It does, however adhere to the k-pop video field of having a very theateresque feel to it
Which I happen to love. What with all the costumes and hair changes
A...and that bit of blue hair as well.
Whut?
And there's no randomly thrown in English to be cool either.
It does a great job of bouncing on the cuss of artsy and cool
And is both meaningful and trendy.
And is both meaningful and trendy
I feel like the members of JYJ have really taken control of their images.
What with Junsu's videos expressing his sessuality
and now Jaejoong expressing his darker side.
I wonder what we could expect from Yoochun
Hey Micky you're so fine, I'm so fine I blow my mind, Hey Micky
So for those of you that are new to the k-pop and the controversy with TVXQ
You might not understand Jaejoong's roots
Without going into too much detail; Jaejoong is now part of JYJ
and the trio were originally a part of TVXQ, which is run by SM Entertainment.
JYJ battled against SM Entertainment to get out of the contracts a few years ago
But once they got out of their contract JYJ has been battling against SM's stifling of JYJ ever since
Now there is a lot more to the story than that
but that basic rundown will give you a better foothold into forming your own understanding of this video.
For starters, it's a very symbolic video, but before we get into that let me say this:
for every single k-pop music Monday we've ever done
we always get people who read into music videos a lot more than they probably should.
Seriously, not every single video or every single detail in every video is necessarily deep and symbolic.
Black dogs represent death
Owls represent wisdom
Crows represent cunning
Circles represent the cycle of life
And snow represents the season of death
*sigh* I don't find talking about that kind of stuff interesting
Owls also eat mice
And dogs bark whenever you ding-dong the doorbell
I'd rather see how each of these animals are used in the video
rather than seeing them on their own and saying that the video is So deep and symbolic
because there is a few frames with an animal in it.
Did you know that Pekingese dogs are part of the Chinese royalty.
And we make our blue mohawked Pekingese dog dance to k-pop at the end of our music Monday.
Does that mean that we're symbolizing how k-pop has desecrated and is taking over China?
Hello, my name is Spudgy.
If you are watching this video, you have been deployed under secret mission to China.
Super Junior M, EXO M, prepare to infiltrate communism when you see this dance
ne ne, nenene ne, Secret Infiltration Dance
When you see this dance it means deployed of forces.
That is all.
This video will self-destruct in 5 seconds
AAAAAH!!!
People, that's silly.
That kind of symbolism does not interest me.
The kind of symbolism that that Does interest me though is much more overt
Breaking free of chains and muzzles, for example, makes sense considering Jaejoong's history
And that's a clear message he might be trying to convey.
The same goes for the diamond mask scenes.
A diamond mask that he sings to, for example, suggests a false face.
On the outside there is appearance of beauty, wealth and perfection
While behind the mask Jaejoong is something different.
Also know how unaccidently crappy those shots are.
The camera barely brings focus onto the diamond mask
When, however, he is a confident dark vampire angel, that you've got no problem seeing his face at all
But if you see Jaejoong with his false face on it's all blurry
You can't see it right simply because it's not right
That Has to be the reason or else someone really needs to fire that crappy camera-man.
And even when you see him with the mask on at first
His mouth is hanging open and he looks either hypnotized or drugged
He's not really moving at all.
He looks like he's not under his own control.
And then we see that slithering cold-blooded snake work its way around his body.
And now consider how many control issues he and the other members of JYJ have fought against.
And then this scene might make a little bit more sense.
That or he just really doesn't like snakes.
Now at the beginning of the video we see him stumbling and lost in the woods
He looks frightened and confused and super inappropriately dressed for the weather.
Seriously, we'd like a scarf. Cashmere.
And at the same time we see shots of him chained to that giant wheel
But as soon as he breaks free of the chains and he throws that collar dramatically to the ground
He is no longer lost in the woods.
And that imagery is to never return again.
Instead he transforms into a confident Jaejoong
One who is able to plow head-first into a flock of angry crows
Maybe they're not angry
They look kinda angry.
Don't crows always look angry?
Notice that all the crows look the same and are all going in one direction.
Which can be a way of Jaejoong saying that he's going against the stream and doing something different.
And also, he is probably trying to get through that stream of that non-stop crow poop.
Tons and tons of crow poop, seriously
poop... Everywhere.
Also, we can't forget that some of the video could just be because it's Jaejoong's damn video
and he could do whatever he wants
If he likes a Goth-rock aesthetic and is influenced, let's say, by j-rock
Then having a similar looking field in his video makes sense.
And it won't necessarily be devalued if you don't derive great meaning out of every image.
Just like when he becomes a latex rhino.
Does he make you horny, baby?
That was definitely meant to be a scene from Tarantallegra, by the way.
Now that being said as much as I respect Jaejoong for what he has done with this song and video
I'm sorry, guize, this kind of Goth-rock isn't really my thing at all.
I wouldn't mind it for a boss battle in Final Fantasy XV, if that ever comes out.
But you won't catch me listening to this otherwise.
Sorry yo.
I'm more into Junsu's nasty music, than Jaejoong's angsty music.
While I totally and completely disagree.
I Loved this song upon first listen.
I feel like I just listened to the opening theme song for some like super-kick-ass anime
about like vampire ninjas. Anime script writers, jump on that.
And his vocals! It's like a combo breaker of singing and yelling and emo worth it voice cracking
Yes I would like some more of Jaejoong awesome sauce on my burger. Thanks for asking.
Rock ballads are usually drums and guitars plus like ____ R&B like singing
But this is heavier and darker.
And I loved the two minute and ten second mark
where like slow down for like that short, sad piano riff
and then picked up again at around the three minute mark
where Jaejoong precedes to scream his heart out.
As a big fan of rock music, Jaejoong, you get the Martina approves jig.
As for the English of the song
There is no English
Move along
So for last week's showdown we asked you who was the biggest scumbag
Snape in 'I Got a Boy'
or Chungji in 'No more perfume'
and Chungji won by like a super duper land-slide
Probably because he was all smug about it and we didn't see Snape all gloating about it
unless you watched our blooper footage.
Then you would see Snape gloat.
For this week's artsy-fartsy edition
we ask you which super artsy solo JYJ video you preferred
Junsu's in 'Tarantallegra'
or Jaejoong's 'Mine'
OOOH WE'RE SO EVIL IN MAKING YOU VOTE!
MUAHAHAHAHAHA
Leave your sexy solo votes in the sexy solo comments and we'll announce the sexy solo winner next week.
Also if there is a video you wanna see me do for next week's Music Monday
coz I'll be doing it by myself since Martina is going to be out of the country
Head on over to eatyourkimchi.com/kpopcharts and get voting
Where I can definitely mock Martina whatever video I review
Heeey~
It's gonna be great.
It's not right fair
It'sgpnna be totally fair. You have no control, you have no camera while you're there, what you gonna do?
And lastly don't forget to like and favortite this video and to subscribe for more Music Mondays.
Take it away crushing communism Spudgy.
Say goodbye to communism, Spudgy is coming through.
Say goodbye to communism, Spudgy comes for you.
Dancing Spudgy, secret signals.
Secret k-pop starts coming for ____ country