Kpop: Gain - Paradise Lost

Gain from Brown Eyed Girls has long been the one female in kpop who has been threading the border of what's accepted in regards to female sexuality in a commercialized korean pop industry controlled by men. A few examples are "Bloom" that was celebrated as the first main-stream kpop video about the female orgasm, and Fxxk U a really dark video about violent relationships.

• Gain - Paradise Lost

Kpop: Gain - Truth or Dare (진실 혹은 대담)

After Gain's comeback song "Fxxk U" which was obviously meant to provoke and create some stir, comes the follow-up "Truth or Dare" which as much about image-building as music as lots of its 7+ minutes is  spent on people commenting on her. Beyond label people, we find IU and Show Luo (from Taiwan, more about him later) commenting on Gain's personality. Most of it is kind of bad critique, but of course it just builds up her public persona as pop's own Madonna even further.

• Gain - Truth or Dare (진실 혹은 대담, mv starts for real at 2:38)
• Gain - Truth or Dare (regular version, with subtitles)
• Gain - Truth or Dare (audio version)

Kpop: Gain - Fxxk U

While in some sense Gain could be seen only in the perspective as the latest and most explicit example of this winters new wave of more open sexualized kpop videos, she has a credibility in this area that stretches beyond and before this. Her Bloom is en excellent example of that. For contrast, one could compare her with Hyuna and her part in for example the recent "Now" (in the duo Troublemaker). While Hyuna provokes and explores these sexual boundaries that kpop and korean media culture has created, she does so from inside somehow. Gain, on the other hand, is to Hyuna what Madonna is to Britney Spears - she projects a sexuality that implies that she is in the center and that it is about her, not only for you as a viewer. If Bloom it was about life-affirming lust, "Fxxk U" is the complete opposite, but without the somehow glorification of Troublemakers "Now". In the video we can see all the terrible phases of an abusive and destructive relationship, and while there is explicit scenes they don't feel quite as objectified as one would expect normally from kpop, rather they suit the mood. The song is not that memorable, but the video confirms Ga-In as the woman who dares explore the sexual boundaries of kpop like no-one else does.

• Gain ft Bumkey - Fxxk U

Veckans kpop: Gain (가인)

Son Ga-In, numera känd endast som Ga-In, blev känd via gruppen Brown Eyed Girls som hon fortfarande är en del av, men har numera dessutom en egen solokarriär. Senaste singeln är Bloom, en typisk koreansk video där själva musikdelen som du skulle höra på radio bara utgör ungefär hälften av hela musikvideon. 

• Ga-In - Truth or Dare
• Ga-In - Paradise Lost
• Ga-In - Fxxk U
• Ga-In - Irreversible
• Ga-In - Bloom (피어나)
• Ga-In - Carnival (The Last Day)
• Ga-In och JY Park - Someone else