The brainchild and leader of the electronica and house group Clazziquai, DJ Clazzi, has put together a new song for us right before the of the year. His new single, Sexy Doll, features the two main vocalists of Sunny Hill, Jubi and Kota, as well as the musical stylings of rapper MYK. The song is a fun, upbeat mix of beats and synthesizers, with a catchy, Madonna-esque chorus to match. It’s not your typical K-pop song. In fact, this is not a K-pop song at all. This genre of music is hardly ever heard in the realm of mainstream K-pop.
While synthesizers and riffs and digital noise are all the rage right now in K-pop, heard in the background of many of our favorite songs or inserted inappropriately for a small dance interlude during special performances, they do little to pay any respect to the electronica genre of music. Unfortunately, real and thoughtful electronica music is hardly heard of or heartily promoted. DJ Clazzi, however, has embarked on a few solo activities and has began to recruit some talented mainstream idols to feature in his songs and bring some attention his way. For example, just last month he teamed up with 2AM’s Seulong to put out the phenomenal but seriously unhyped digital single, How We Feel.
Electronica and house songs are songs that are easy to keep on repeat all day. They’re not so all-up-in-your-face-look-at-how-cute-I-am like typical pop, but they’re not so relaxed that you don’t notice the unique and lively digital nuances. It’s not as appealing or stimulating to the ear as pop is for some, and thus the genre entertains a smaller musical niche of fans. Its obvious, though, that DJ Clazzi is trying to bring more awareness to his music by picking up the likes of Seulong and Sunny Hill. And he obviously chose carefully, as his featured idols are of significant vocal talent. Whereas I would usually be wary in most cases in which underground music starts to play with the likes of mainstream, I have a lot of faith in DJ Clazzi. It’s not like Clazziquai was never in the K-pop spotlight, and DJ Clazzi is kind of a musical genius, so there is no reason to believe these projects will produce any negative effects on the quality of his music.
For me, it’s exciting and refreshing to hear a new kind of music on the scene than the usual bubble gum pop, as I so often refer to it. Sexy Doll and How We Feel are solid singles and good indicators of the what we can expect from DJ Clazzi when his solo album releases in January 2012. Hopefully DJ Clazzi is able bring more attention to his own solo work as well as electronica and house music in general. It’s a nice change of pace from what we usually hear, so it’s worth taking the time to stop and take a listen.
