I love cross-cultural music collaborations, oh yes I do.

When Wang Lee Hom had L-Lim and Rain (both Korean) in the track "Wan Mei de Hu Dong" (Perfect Interaction), I was thrilled to hear a good mixture of American street slang, Mandarin and Korean.

So imagine when I stumbled upon SCANDAL, a collaboration effort between Vanness Wu (famous for being part of F4 in Meteor Garden) and Kangta (member of Korean band, H.O.T), I was pretty excited. I love how English, Korean and Mandarin are rojaked into the tracks, "Scandal" and "Good Vibration."

It's interesting to hear how some ppl frown upon this as some marketing scheme: Pull together two hot and popular representatives of 2 Asian markets - Taiwan and Korea, slap some R&B/Rap, give it a sexy title and make sure the two guys look hot and sexy. Of course, hot and sexy are subjective and are a matter of personal taste.

I think Kangta and Vanness look pretty good although I can't help but wonder whether some of these model pictures edge a little too close to....eh yaoi fangirl service? For innocent folks out there, yaoi forms a large mainstream market in Japan, which focuses on male-male sexual or romantic relationships in anime, manga and fanfiction. It has expanded into a subculture in U.S. and I'm wondering whether it's starting to eerily creep into other Asian markets. I think I already hear readers running out from this blog screaming....

Anyway, did anyone seriously think that there was no yaoi marketing manuever when they casted Gackt and Hyde (two popular JRockers) together in the movie MoonChild? Or maybe I've been so corrupted by my past flings with yaoi that I can't help overreading hints that were never there in the first place? Arghhh.....gah. (>_<);;

Additionally, after watching the music video of SCANDAL, I also noticed the R&B/Rap themes (i.e. Sexy chicks dancing in the clubs, breaking the law, acting "tough and cool.") Is just me or is Asian popular music as a whole, headed towards becoming saturated with sex, obscenities, and cool crime as seen in U.S. popular music?

..............

Wait a minute, isn't this reflective of being "cross-cultural" in the first place? *laughs* I guess this is the price we pay for venturing into other cultures.

Ah well, for the record, I'm tempted to study the Korean language now, but I still have to deal with Mandarin first.