Idols/Music
20110107_seoulbeats_kpopgenderinversion

Gender Inversion in Kpop

14
Written by On January 7, 2011

There is not a chance that those of you, who managed to watch performances from this year’s SBS Gayo Daejun, forgot this precious moment:

I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Beast, T-ara, or the song “Yayaya” (even though I find it ridiculously addictive), but I found this performance not only so cute that I have probably contracted diabetes,but an interesting look into the possible gender inversions in kpop. With males tackling feminine vocals, choreography, and concept (or vice versa) it only changes the way one views the song, but for me  it broadens the appreciation of the song, as well as the group originally responsible for the song and the group recreating the song in an inverted gender. This isn’t anything new, last year’s SBS Gayo Daejun boasted MANY performances like 2PM performing T-ara’s “Bo Peep Bo Peep” to CL performing G-Dragon‘s “Heartbreaker,” but for some reason or another the thought struck me now. I let this idea soak in my brain and hit the internet, curious to hear how some of my favorite kpop songs sound when sung by the opposite gender.

I like what I found. YouTube, being the ever so generous resource that it is, boasts many videos where uploaders take songs and change the pitch, to make it sound as if the opposite gender were singing them. Though this doesn’t really work for male to female pitch change (it just ends up sounding chipmunky), some of the female to male songs provided some food for thought. Here are some of my personal favorites but you should all check it out:  The harmonizations never caught my attention before. Not to mention it doesn’t sound too different from Beast’s performance.

Can you imagine Big Bang rocking “Go Away” at the Big Show?

2AM covered this song at this year’s MBC’s Chuseok Special, but I much prefer this version sans the lolathon worthy change in JYP‘s voice.

So what are your thoughts of these gender bending musical mix ups?

(KpopMusicx, XxXChangminLoveXxX, iBlueHolic, Ji4yi)

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  • http://mixtapesandlinernotesl.blogspot.com mellowyel

    as a concept it seems off. A blogger I know wrote about it, and it generally expresses my issues with the whole “cross-dressing’” girl group parody thing.

    http://eccentricyoruba.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/when-male-idols-become-female-idols/

    http://eccentricyoruba.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/when-female-idols-become-male-idols/

    As you can see in the comments, at first i was like “nah, it’s totally cool”. now, i’m like “is it necessary? why is it this particular thing we keep coming back to?” it’s not all bad, but it definitely makes me wonder why exactly girl group parodies are so popular. it makes the feminist part of my brain uncomfortable.

  • http://mixtapesandlinernotesl.blogspot.com mellowyel

    I dunno – girl group parodies always make me uncomfortable. it’s like “let’s dress up as chicks! yeah that’ll be hilarious!” if anyone said that in real life i’d give them a serious side eye, but for some reason it’s super popular in k-pop. i just don’t understand it. a serious cover, i can get with, but the ones done for laughs or to win competitions on variety shows irk me.

  • boom

    I actually find it cool when they just interpret the song without really dressing straight up like a girl or a guy, like what SNSD did with Sorry Sorry, 2ne1 with Last Farewell and CL’s Heartbreaker to some extent. I’m not a big fan of them guys actually dressing up as a girl group, though. Some are funny and they could pull it off actually but I could only take so much of it.

  • oh why

    the whole idol gender switch thing was WAAAAY popular last year, but i think it died down a bit in 2010.

    i remember the entirety of gayo daejun last year was the whole gender switching entertainment…and i think after a while everyone just got tired of it…

    poor SHINee…that picture/that show will haunt them FOREVER, lol.

    the only people who i think still go all out with gender switching is Super Junior…i think they might just like to do it for themselves now, hahaha!

  • JW

    Yayaya sounds surprisingly good!!!!
    I was impressed with b2st’s performance =D

  • Joanna

    Girl group parodies reinforce the idea that women can’t be taken seriously (while there have been boy band parodies, they’re not as pervasive). Why else would it be so funny?

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  • Mimichan

    If male groups decide to parody girl groups, then they should at least keep it entertaining and hilariously acceptable. For example, 2AM parodied 4Minute’s “Hot Issue” and that made my stomach hurt. xD

  • http://vntsound.net/ Annie

    I hate when boy groups do parodies of girl songs. It’s so disrespectful and sexist the way they do it. When the girls perform the boy’ songs they are always serious and do a good job while the boys who do girl songs just giggle and make a big joke out of the whole thing. Ugh.

    • loversinjapan

      Well, the other way you can look at it is that it’s far more outrageous for a man to act effeminate than it is for a woman to act manly.

  • Christopher

    I have to admit I like these performances especially when the guys aren’t trying to be girls and dress like them but are just showing that even though they’re guys they can do that song and dance too. Plus, my impression of top girl songs are that many of them are really cutsy and it’s cool seeing the guys doing the silly/cute moves. The guys do have some songs like that but they’re usually not as popular as when the girls are silly and cute.

    Usually, I don’t think that they’re mocking the girls but rather the girls just have a cute and silly song. Bo Peep Bo Peep is kind of silly whether the guys do it or the girls. It’s supposed to be silly, over-the-top, and cute.

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