» Someone in MTV Iggy has a crush on themTHE KOXX MAKE TROUBLE IN SEOUL By Suyeon Kim Low moral standards. In a nutshell, that’s what Korean electro darlings THE KOXX are peddling with their cheeky live shows, their bowties, and their synth solos. College-age Korean girls (who seem to make up their entire fanbase, hmm), beware.
The dirty rock and roll facts: Exhibit A: Their videos. The sum of THE KOXX’ visual oeuvre confirms the open secret that behind our deep bowing and our state-of-the-art cell phones, the Korean people are srrrious party animalz. A perfect example is the video for – the name says it all – the song “Troublemaker”: This is also a great video, for “12:00″ (12 as in midnight, as in the deadline for desperate attempts at hooking up before last call). Lead singer Hyunsong follows a girl into a bathroom stall and…I’ll let you watch it. Exhibit B: Their band name. Yeah, I think we can stop there. Exhibit C: Hyunsong and lead guitarist Sooryun are more or less the Korean Mick and Keith. Look at Hyunsong’s debonair convulsions, and Sooryun’s bored expression during his vicious guitar solos: it’s the dynamic that launched the Rolling Stones into the stratosphere! Hyunsong and Sooryun are poised to rise to superstardom, get tons of girls, and eventually one of them will steal the drummer’s wife. You heard it here first. Exhibit D: Their leering ode to dancing girls, “Oriental Girl,” which shows that Asian people are just as good at turning Asian women into sexual objects as the rest of the world is. I’m actually proud of this, because yes, as an Asian myself, I am just that competitive. Speaking of competitive. Sooryun and Hyunsong, along with keyboardist Shaun, drummer Saron, and bassist Sunbin, are great musicians. They studied something called “applied music” at the same college, which is how they met. “Troublemaker” is the second song they ever wrote, and their debut album ACCESS OK is brimming with frenetic, high energy tracks that test their chops. So while they obviously love to party and get wasted, and write songs that facilitate these acts, THE KOXX sing about losing their minds over a very tight, musical groove. It’ll be interesting to see what happens as their career goes on. Could their K-electro rock ever topple the dominance of K-pop? Real instruments on stage, and actual musicians playing them — might this be the future of Korean pop music? Who knows. In the meantime, I have an idea. THE KOXX should hold a global dance rock summit with Two Door Cinema Club, Foster The People, and maybe Phoenix. They’ll broker peace in the electro world, and afterwards THE KOXX will take their new allies clubbing in Seoul. And they can all do sake bombs and hit on Korean girls deep into the night. (Source: mtviggy.com)
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