Bet You Wanna
There is a reason I use the handle fangirlinterrupted, and it’s because I tend to fangirl hard. There is no chill in my book — at least when it comes to diving deep into fandom. Be it Nsync or Twilight or god knows whatever else I got in to in the past, things were all consuming.
So in my ‘advanced age’ of 33, I try to pick my battles given you know, life, work and reality exists and I can’t devote every breathing minute to fangirling anymore. And this is the reason why I haven’t touched the BTS Army with a ten foot pole. Not that I’m not curious. I just know it’ll be hard to come up for air when I go in deep.
This is somehow not true for girl bands though. I find myself enjoying the Spice Girls in my youth without it being all consuming or enjoying a female popstar in the form of Britney or Christina to a point of extreme like without losing myself in the passion. It’s not my first time to dip my toe in the kpop girl group after all. I loved Sistar’s Shake It dance practice video so much, I think it reached my most played song one year not so long ago. So it was with great pleasure that this weekend, I re-discovered BLACKPINK thanks to their lovely documentary on Netflix, BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky.
I enjoyed Ice Cream with Selena Gomez (it was on repeat this entire Phase 2) and Sour Candy with Lady Gaga. Heck, I even liked their Kiss and Make Up with Dua Lipa so clearly, I’ve been exposed. But not until this weekend, did I do a semi-deep dive into their ultra entertaining music videos thanks to the introduction from the documentary, And damn, I feel like this is such a great dance workout because they are so much fun.
It was nice to see the documentary cause I was introduced to the girls — reminiscent of an NSync: Making the Tour, it was nice to get an introduction to Jennie, Lisa, Ji Soo and Rose — and the insane audition/training process that is part and parcel of every Korean pop group. It’s nice that I can tell them apart and how their personalities all seem so incredibly likable. I hope none of them spiral out — Zayn style or JT style and make their own careers, because they’re delightful as a group.
I wish I had paid more attention when they appeared on Coachella because DAMN, that’s an hour of pure bliss and it was a bit cute how they were so scared no one would watch them on that stage. I still haven’t read how they were received but it really brings me back to Britney and NSync concerts (wow, my referrences are pretty darn old) because the spectacle and the dancing is just amazing! I’m sorry, Taylor, you’re a spectacle but not the dancing.
And so without further ado, please find the earworms I’ve been playing on repeat this past couple of days. Have you been bitten by this bug?!? Please share if you’ve fallen into this same blackhole that I'm in, because I’m open to any and all video recommendations. It’s been to fun.
Kill This Love (2019)
He said you look crazy
Thank you, baby
I owe it all to you
I am a sucker for trumpets and the choreography of this one. Just watching their dance practice video (which honestly doesn’t look like practice with all that camera work and the styling!) makes me want to buy all the fatigues I can find and join this armada. Also, knowing Ji Soo really doesn’t flinch is amazing. Their performance on The Late Late Show with James Corden was fun (duh)
And because obviously I don’t understand Korean, I always love the rapping from Lisa and Jennie in English, cause then I’m like, ok, apart from the song title, I now kind of get what this song is about. And yes, let’s kill this love. I’m over it.
Whistle (2016)
I love a first single and you see how crazy the production value was at their inception — not bad considering it’s four years old! It aged well!
Watching the documentary, I now know that they fought for this to be their first single, alongside their forever collaborator/producer, Teddy (who honestly is ahead of his time with the mask wearing!) and let’s be real, he looks really good with that mask on, bug I digress.
I couldn’t tell you what this song meant but I appreciate how much work it took to apparently record the whistling part, which I would have just thought came from a computer! No! It’s real!
Ddu-Du Ddu-Du (2018)
More things, I’m not sure what its’ about, but you can tell they’ve gotten way more budget now for music videos and rightfully so.
it’s also very fun to see Stephen Colbert dance to them behind the scenes when they make their debut on US television on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Also, though all their songs have a dance break because why not, I think this one has one of the best ones.
How You Like That (2020)
This has strong Destiny’s Child vibes and I love it for it, but also you know that things are a whole new level of HUGE now.
Their performance on the Tonight Show: At Home Edition was an interesting one cause Jimmy was at home but they seemed to be somewhere with lots of space and wearing very BLACKPINK-esque stylized hanboks — probably the first time I’ve seen them in this, but I’m new to this so I may be wrong.
Ice Cream (2020)
And they’ve arrived on the world stage — or at least enough to be on the cover of American Elle magazine in the middle of a pandemic. Naturally, they couldn’t shoot with Selena in real life but this was a pretty well done video, so candy colored amazing and yes, my gateway drug into this crazy sugary sweet fandom.
This song is definitely in my tops for 2020 so it’s nice that I eased myself in with this saccharine pink video. The girls look their best, Selena looks like she fits right in. I want to throw myself into this sickeningly sweet world where KPop stars can dance on the streets and hand out ice cream. Yes, please.
