Taking Sides: Restraint versus Less Restraint

[koganbot]

Videos:

RESTRAINT
Sunny Sweeney

It's someone else's party and she'll cry if she wants to, but discreetly.

Watch on YouTube

Or on Vimeo.

LESS RESTRAINT
Ga-in "Irreversible"

Regrets, she's had a few.

Watch on YouTube

[EDIT: I've now found a version with English subtitles; if you're not getting them, click CC. RE-EDIT: But KBS Media made YouTube kill it, so I'm now back to the unsubtitled version.]

Comments

[koganbot]

The Singles Jukebox discussion of Sunny Sweeney

[koganbot]

What I wrote over on my lj after one look:

Didn't really take in the music, I was so engrossed in the story. Is there a tradition of briefcase videos in Korea pop, as there is in Eurodisco? 'Cause this sets you up to expect a suitcase chase; instead, the 'case is abandoned as inessential.

The ending is a flashback, right (as opposed to the beginning being a fantasy)? Is any of the Korean dialogue crucial? I rather assume that this is self-explanatory without it.

First impression of the music is that it's kinda soft-shoe tango'n'R&B, in any event a mixture that doesn't quite map onto the American grid.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

These two clearly demonstrate there's place for both, although Sweeney's video doesn't match up to her great song. It's a case of cheap footage turned black and white to make it look less cheap, I feel. Well, I like Sunny's look there, but the actor and actresses can't convey her subtle emotions.

'Irreversible' dialogue: Before she jumps, midway through, she says "I'm dumber than you think". At the end, she says "when I meet someone like you, I should hold onto you and never let go", he then says "you need to learn to be happy without me" and finally she says "it doesn't matter, I'll never be alone".

I initially thought of Eurodance, because there's such a tradition for the use of accordeon there. I really like the song -- the textures, but the melodies too, and the way it restlessly jumps from chorus to verse.

[koganbot]

Forget to say I was talking about the Ga-in, though you probably figured that out.

I've known the Sunny Sweeney song for several months and had my own vision of it, the man and his wife in the light and Sunny invisible in the shadow, a shadow in shadow, though of course you can't shoot a video like that; and anyway that's not the way it would actually be in a restaurant, one table in darkness and the next all lit up. I like the video: the whole gift-giving theme, gifts she's doubly left out of, neither the birthday girl/birthday gift at one table nor the love girl/love gift at the other. Of course the video's story isn't as effective as the one Sunny tells in her song: what she sees juxtaposed against what the guy had told her. But to shoot that as a video, back and forth, would be too heavy-handed, so I think they made a reasonably good choice with what they did.

[brak55.livejournal.com]

The Sunny Sweeney song is great. She's a real talent. Too bad mainstream country radio can't get behind this one.

[koganbot]

It's been a long slow build, but the song hasn't lost its bullet, has gotten as high as 13 on the country chart and is also in the Hot 100, though down at 78. She just released in an EP, eloquently titled "Sunny Sweeney EP."

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Connecting the dots from country to k-pop: A recent heartbreaker in which it's unclear what role the woman has, but perhaps it is the wife Sunny sings about, except she'd probably be better off if the man did actually break up instead of going to 'Sunny' to find his child-like joy. In the end the patheticness of the situation is revealed, she'll give up her dignity for a chance to 'breathe next to you'.



"You're bored, hungry". Actually there's a possibility that BoA inhabits the same position as Sweeney, because she speaks of how the man comes to her when the Other woman is busy, suggesting the Other is the one who gets the most of his time. Or not a lover at all, just yearning, like the girl in "Teardrops On My Guitar"? The literal translation of the title is 'person next to you'.

[koganbot]

Yeah, the situation makes me think of "Teardrops On My Guitar" and "You Belong With Me," but the presentation is actually so different, in that in the Taylor songs you get the sense of (1) why the guy might actually be an interesting person on his own merit, and (2) how the guy and the protagonist actually click with one another, how they make each other laugh and come alive (and in "You Belong With Me" this is why they belong together, as they create joy so much better than he does with the girl he's actually dating, or at least that's what the protagonist believes); whereas in this one the guy just takes advantage of the woman, comes to her when he's lonely while she absorbs his sorrow, like the wet towel she is content to be. I wonder if she comes across better in Korean.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

She doesn't, it's all a terribly sad scene. Some of the original lyrics' poetry is lost in that she's constantly referring to herself as (sentence structure being opposite of English) "the next-to-you person", "the 'always listening to you' person", "the hurting person", "_______ 사람(person)".

[koganbot]

Well, one of the features of American rock criticism (I do this, Chuck does this, we possibly picked it up from Meltzer or Bangs, though I don't actually recall if this device is in their work) is the long-string-of-adjectives-in-front-of-a-noun phrase construction.

[koganbot]

Here's a new link, since YouTube killed the other:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_8bxLJCZE

I do find the lyrics eloquent in translation, even if the translation is inadequate and I'm frustrated by the protagonist (and don't really like the tune).