Jul 7, 2017
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September SongFest: LAY - Honey release: June 2019 genre: C-hiphop cw: suggestive male nudity, sexually suggestive lyrics
After all the bullshit this spring, I will laugh (bitterly) if Lay ends up coming back to Korea sooner rather than later. And then crying a bit because it'll be because of the regime's current wave of crackdowns ruining his career in China. Like the regime is using some inventive excuses all right for right now, but they're going after the arts and we all know why a regime goes after the arts, right? Especially a repressive authoritarian regime, yeah? So yeah....
I guess this counts as a flashback for a Friday, seeing as Lay's released two full albums and like a dozen singles (ok, maybe not quite that many) since Honey's release. Plus acting and recurring judge/mentor/team captain roles on such shows as China's Produce Camp and Street Dance China (will SDC survive the latest round of censorship? I'm not holding my breath). What can we say, Lay likes to keep busy and the political situation between China and South Korea has been a mess for years. And now with the pandemic piled on top and the politics getting even worse... I don't know. And that worries me a bit. As for the song itself (which is why we're really here, jagu, focus XD), I'm sure it'll come as a surprise to no one at this point when I say yes, it's a song about sex. Casual hookup sex, even. And the way he dances in this video doesn't make it any less suggestive. In fact, given the way censorship tends to work on written works, I'd probably even go so far as to call the lyrics for this song downright lewd and the visuals just feed into that. Still haven't decided if the use of a music box sound in the backing track makes it better or worse in terms of lewdness, but there we are. Want to sponsor a song selection? You sweet angel! For the low, low price of one (1) KoFi, I'll write up the song of your choice. ANY song of your choice. Yes, even that one that's been played to death. Yes, your obscure faves too. DW | Twitter | Ko-fi | Patreon | Discord | Twitch
Music May for May 12th: LAY - 莲 (Lit) release: February 2020 genre: C-pop, C-HipHop
I did promise yesterday that I would get to this artist today, so here we go? Ready to get Lay'd? ... yeah, it's a terrible joke and I should be ashamed of myself, but I'm so not. XD
... honestly, after the most recent EXO teaser (which is literally just a gif), I almost wanted to wait on this - EXO-Ls are all up in theorizing that Lay's finally rejoining his brothers for EXO's next album thanks to the teaser being a radar sweep of nine blips. But a promise is a promise and Don't Fight The Feeling won't be out until June, so.... There's a couple times in the making of video where it's joked that this production (spread over three days) felt more like shooting a short film or television episode rather than just a music video. Which, given the scale of the production, seems fair - there's quite the scroll of end credits for all the people involved (over a minute), with Lay himself featured prominently among them (as Lay Zhang), which makes sense since ZHANGYIXING STUDIO is his company. ;) There's definitely a couple ways of reading this - Lay himself says in the off-shot that the song references a specific story out of Peking Opera, so Chinese fans might catch those references that I don't have the necessary background to pick up. On the other hand, there are other cultural references I am getting and also this could easily be read as a comment on Lay's own journey as an artist and the controversies he's had to deal with as an SM artist, especially with the charged political climate of the last several years. Officially, it's been a schedule conflict between EXO's activities in Korea and Lay's commitments in China, but there's always been that undercurrent of strain from the members all wanting to be together again and Things getting in the way of that. But mostly I'm just here to watch Lay being awesome with a dragon of fire. And theorizing about how/if this could/should fit into certain narratives. Because I'm a writer whose brain never stops. ;) If you’ve been enjoying my selections and analyses, please consider buying me a Ko-fi! DW | Twitter | Ko-fi | Patreon | Discord | Twitch
Twitter.com/FarEastVibes
Twitter.com/FarEastVibes
Twitter.com/FarEastVibes
Twitter.com/FarEastVibes
Twitter.com/FarEastVibes
