5 Favorite K-pop MVs of 2022

It’s once again time to spread the joy of K-pop to all my readers!  Here are my favorite K-pop music videos from 2022 in no particular order.

Familiar faces and old favorites

1. “Tomboy” by (G)I-dle

This girl group (pronounced “Idle”) had two big hits this year, both written by leader Soyeon, both with very different musical styles.  When I’m not listening to K-pop, my preferred genre is alternative rock, so “Tomboy” in particular really appealed to me.  I love the punk rock feel!  Both “Tomboy” and “Nxde” talk about breaking free from restrictive gender norms, which feels so empowering.  (G)I-dle is such a talented group and I feel like they have a lot to say.  I’ve been a fan of them since their debut and I’m so happy they had such a great year, especially after losing a member to a scandal last year.  I can’t wait to see what they do next.

2. “Waka Boom” by Hyolyn

Hyolyn, former member of SISTAR and one of the best vocals in K-pop, continues to show the younger idols how it’s done with this single for the music competition show Queendom 2.  Hyolyn’s fierce look and dancing combined with the inspiring lyrics make a big impact.  Plus, some rapping by the amazing Lee Young Ji, who is one of my favorite female rappers and just a fabulous person.  Check out her cover of Lizzo’s “Juice!”

3. “Blah Blah Blah” by Itzy

After killing it in Korea, Itzy moved on to Japan this year with two awesome Japanese singles, “Blah Blah Blah” and “Voltage.”  I love the energetic vibe; it really suits them.  Jpop is actually my first love, so I always really appreciate when groups put out great original Japanese songs (as in, not just translations of their Korean hits). I picked this one especially because I love the esthetic of Ryujin in that orange dress!

😍

4. “That That” by PSY

It’s a collab between K-pop royalty!  Suga from BTS joins PSY of “Gangnam Style” fame for this super catchy hit, staging a Wild West showdown. As always, PSY is just so much fun to watch.  Even my kids liked this one!

4th Generation Queens

This year also had an amazing crop of female rookie groups!  I couldn’t pick just one, so here are two videos that really stood out to me.

5.1 “Antifragile” by Le Sserafim 

Despite having a bit of a tough start, what with losing a member to scandal right after their debut, Le Sserafim had an amazing comeback with “Antifragile.”  I particularly loved this performance version, which really showcases their stage presence as well as former ballerina Kazuha’s awesome leg lifting choreo.  Just try to get ANTI TI TI TI FRAGILE FRAGILE out of your head!

😮😲🤯

5.2 “Attention” by NewJeans 

It is so refreshing to see a rookie group that actually looks like contemporary teenagers! NewJeans feels like a breath of fresh air.  No dyed hair or matchy outfits, just friendly interactions and natural athleticism.

Honorable Mentions:

And on Earth, peace to men of goodwill (via John Denver and the Muppets)

Here’s a classic from the archives to express my wishes for you all this Christmas season.

Jedi by Knight

Around this time of year, the sounds of the season are constantly playing in my house and car: Celtic Woman, Straight No Chaser, Pentatonix, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and many others are regulars in my playlist.  I love all Christmas music, but my very favorite album is this: the sadly-rather-obscure John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together.

We had this album on vinyl when I was a kid, and I learned to use the record player just to be able to play it. It has some darling versions of classic Christmas songs:

  • The Twelve Days of Christmas (BA DUM BUM BUM)
  • Little Saint Nick by Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem (RUN RUN REINDEER)
  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Piggy pudding?!?)
  • Silent Night in both German and English, with a brief history of the song

There are also wonderful original songs, most of which I’ve never heard covered by…

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Biology lab humor

DNA: Still single? RNA: Of course 😦

Some more whiteboard humor that some students left in the hall at work.

DNA is the material on which our gene are encoded, in the nuclei of our cells. It is a double helix, as shown by Watson and Crick based on work by Rosalind Franklin.

It is then transcribed into a single strand of RNA, which is then transcribed into protein. So while DNA strands have a partner, RNA is forever alone.

Page to Screen: Paper Girls

Being a huge fan of Brian K Vaughn’s comic series Saga, I was thrilled to see his scifi series Paper Girls get an adaptation on Amazon Prime. The first season came out earlier this year and was well received, but unfortunately it will not be getting a second season. Still, both the TV show and the original comic are definitely worth checking out.

Paper Girls follows four 12-yr-old girls as they meet while delivering papers very early on the morning after Halloween in 1988. What starts as a difficult morning on the job with acquaintances morphs into a time-traveling journey of friendship and self-discovery as the girls find themselves thrown into the middle of a time war.

Despite a bit of a slow start, the TV adaptation is quite engaging. The characters are its strength. By the end I was really drawn into the struggles of each of the four girls and even their intimidating antagonist the Prioress. Erin, Tiffany, KJ and Mac all have to reconcile themselves to the fact that their own futures aren’t exactly what they expected. The four young actors are perfectly cast and did such a wonderful job; it really felt like the characters had leapt off the page into real life.

Naturally, there were some changes in adapting the comic to a TV show. Mostly, they had to tone down the crazy a bit. The comic has some really memorable events that would be really hard to translate to screen without a *huge* effect budget, like the giant tardigrade battle in the Cuyahoga River.

Wish we could have seen this on screen, but I totally understand why not!

Although there are some changes to the plot as well as new characters added in the TV series, they did a really great job keeping the spirit of the work. We still got scifi elements like time travel, Gundam-style mechs, and pterodactyls, as well as coming-of-age and friendship themes. There are some truly emotional moments. They also did a great job keeping the tension of the girls being stuck between the two sides of the time war and not always knowing who to trust.

The TV show added a clearer antagonist and didn’t go as far into depth on the philosophical differences of those trying to control the timeline and the resistance who wants freedom to change things. I wish we would get to see what a second season could have been, especially after the teaser at the end, but they really wrapped up the characters’ arcs well so the season does stand on its own.

They also dropped the idea that all the future tech is Apple branded, with the Apple logo (and apples in general) being a recurring motif. Shame to lose that depth of meaning, but the show streams on Amazon! 🤣

Posted by u/aguiadesangue on Reddit (https://i.redd.it/unix3qm70p361.png)

Saga fans will definitely find a lot to love in the comic. In particular, I was tickled to find an “alien” language, just like Blue in Saga (which is actually just Esperanto). In Paper Girls, the time travel rebels of the future speak in a pictographic-looking language. Just like with Blue, the meaning is pretty clear from context, but you can actually translate it if you want. Each symbol of STF speech corresponds to a letter of the English alphabet, so it’s a simple substitution cipher. I worked it out for myself, but of course you can also find translations online.

This is how you get away with major-level swearing in your comic 😂 Just kidding, there’s plenty of swearing in English, too.

This is a great time out year to check out Paper Girls because it has a lot of Halloween vibes, being that it starts on the morning after Halloween, which the girls term “Hell Day.” Between that, the young kids, and the 80s setting, it does initially feel a bit like Stranger Things, but that comparison is really only skin deep. (For reference, the Paper Girls comic began publishing in Oct 2015; Stranger Things came out in July 2016.)

One last note: being from Northeast Ohio, I loved the setting! Vaughn is from Rocky River, a suburb of Cleveland, which you can see has clearly been fictionalized as Stony Stream. It was really cool seeing so many familiar locations in the comic (and the TV show did Ohio pretty well too haha).

Overall, I’d give the TV show a 6-7 rating out of 10, and the comic an 8. Once I’d watched the TV show with my husband I was thrilled to find that my library had unlimited copies of the complete collected comic via the Libby app. I’d recommend either/both versions of the story, and then I’d recommend Saga. 😉