"Pop/Stars" by K/DA

This song was composed for the 2018 League of Legends tournament and ended up on Billboard's Top 40. I love that - League of Legends always made really great music for their character releases and tournaments, but it's rare that video game music makes the charts. Guess that means gaming is mainstream, eh? Anyway, K/DA (short for "Kill/Death Assist," which is LoL lingo) is a fake band comprised of two members from the Korean girl group (G)I-DLE and American artists Jaira Burns and Madison Beer. Technically, that makes KDA a "superband," which is what they call it when already successful artists form a new group. Examples of superbands include A Perfect Circle, Audioslave, Amaranthe, Journey, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, just to name a few.

I've been listening to "Pop/stars" a lot. It's a good song to dance to, especially when you're pissed off and need to get some energy out. I throw in a lot of punches and kicks, just because. I've been running on my own steam lately, I need some sort of outlet. Dancing has been it. It helps that the video has a bit of a routine to try and copy. No, I haven't nailed the moves yet but I will. My favorite part is Jeon So-yeon's rap break. I couldn't explain why - as I've said before, good rap is no different than poetry. If it's performed right, it conveys an emotion as unique as the words. Even though I don't understand Korean, it speaks to me. After looking up the translation, now I get why I like it:

See me anytime; using magic

Just once, I can get you

My spirit never dies, uh!

Pow-pow, you don’t know anything

It’s irresistible even if you don’t want it

I can tell from your face what you want

Love it! That's dark goddess energy right there....even earlier in the song, the lyrics refer to Akali being a "goddess with a blade." Anyway, the rap lyrics are from the point of view of Ahri, one of my favorite characters to play in LoL (when I played). Ahri is supposed to be based off the Korean Kumiho spirit, which is similar to other Japanese (Kitsune) and Chinese (Huli Jing) legends. These are spirits that appear as foxes - sometimes with 9 tails - but can transform into other things. Most notably, they can turn into beautiful women who seduce young men and eat their hearts. They live a long time, thousands of years. Depending on the legend, they can be friendly and kind but in most tales, they're bloodthirsty and malicious. Naturally, this is one of my favorite spirits. In LoL, one of Ahri's abilities is to blow a kiss that stuns her target and makes them move towards her, regardless of their free will. The kiss also drains their health a little bit. Sounds like a good ability to have.

Since I'm rambling about kitsune, komiho, and other fox-related nonsense, I'll recommend a book for those interested. It's called "The Sacred Book of the Werewolf" by Victor Pelevin. Pelevin is a Russian novelist so it takes place in post-Soviet Moscow (an interesting landscape, to say the least). Basically, a kitsune falls in love with a werewolf. However, it gets weird and highly philosophical, because two thousand year old monsters think way too much. But it's funny (if you're a fan of black comedy) and is an interesting twist on what is essentially the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I will caution - even though they keep it in the Horror section of the bookstore, it is not Horror, it is very much high-brow narrative literature inspired by the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. It's dark, but a different kind of dark than what you're probably used to.

Here's the official video for "Pop/stars" - it's better than the videos for most songs, nowadays, in my opinion but I like it when fictional characters put out music. I'm not sure there's enough out there to a whole month, but I'll figure something out. Enjoy!

"Pop/Stars" Video