Thoughts On: K-Pop live performance

Its been stated in previous post for my affection for K-Pop. And I'd like to share a little bit of an issue I've been having with some of the more recent performances.

I really like live performances. Regardless of genre, I feel like it gets all exposed in a live performance. Like whether or not they can sound like the audio from a groups album. And most of the time they never do. And that's a good thing. Live performances are how I feel how the song should sound.

Anyways, with my affection for live performances and K-Pop, I tend to watch a lot of these pop groups do their thing live. Now I understand a lot of these performers aren't exactly talented, so they have to hide their flaws. For one, a lot of the songs played have the entire audio, so you don't necessarily hear the group signing all their lonesome. Which ok, a lot of these people are just meant to be pretty faces and singing is an afterthought. My cousin Arvin actually gave me a good analogy stating "People just want to see pretty people preform. It makes them happy." Which I can get behind.

Anyways here's an example:



The song is called Abracadabra and its by a K-Pop group called Brown Eyed Girl


There's a bunch of variations on it, ranging from just back up vocals, chorus only and a bunch of other stuff. Like I said, its understandable. Their not there to evoke any deep emotions or anything, their there to entertain. But one problem I've been seeing a lot with these performances is that its getting a bit too flashy.

I'm not sure if it goes for everyone but, normally, when I tend to watch a live video of a music performance, I do so because I want it to feel like I'm there... minus the cellphone cameras and crowd. Which is why I usually just like a static camera, or at least, shots of what the person in control finds important aspects to emphasize on. But recently its getting out of hand.

Some live performances I've been watching have been acting like their on A.D.D, with constant zoom-in zoo-in out, quick cuts and stupid half matrix pans because they can't do a full one cause of that huge wall behind their performers.

So here's an example of SNSD's (Girls Generation) live performance of their latest song "Oh":



You can sorta see where I'm coming from right? But it gets worse. Here's another version of the same song:



Do I really need to see a shot of some boot? Well ok, I'm sure we're not looking at the boots but still. A bunch of constant multi-shoting, continuous swipes and bunch of other stupid ideas. It's like the DOP or whatever was like "Y'know... we have the technology to shoot this performance like a music video. Except instead of going to another shot in another area, we just shoot the same dance from a slightly different angle."

There were even some videos where the camera actually spins! Do I really need that? What purpose does that serve to a live performance other then "Hey look what we can do!"? Yeah good job, get back and focus on the task at hand.

Its crazy, its hectic and it gave me a headache the first time I saw it. Or, maybe that's a sign of me getting old, I don't know. But you don't need to be flashy with these sort of things. Its like a kid got in the control booth and started pressing random buttons.

The difference between a live video and a music video is that one conveys the energy of the song, and the other conveys the actual performance. Once one starts becoming the other, then there isn't any significant way to make each one special. If the future of these live performances are to emulate the music video instead of the choreography, then I say screw you stupid half matrix camera. I don't need you in my life.