under the skin in the mirror

This blog reviews images from my waking life that influenced the imagery of my dreams.

Today's post relates to images in this entry of my dream journal, Maboroshi no Yume.

The image of the hospital gown was probably the most striking image for me.

The fact that I was undoing the gown to reveal more of the girl's body probably relates to this image from the music video for the song "I Feel You," by K-pop group Wonder Girls. At this moment, Wonder Girls member Sunmi undoes her jean shorts to reveal another scene where all the girls in the band are playing their instruments.

Here's the whole MV for "I Feel You," so you can see how things happen.

I personally never liked the song "I Feel You," so I never paid much attention to the video. But I ended up watching it again last night and thinking it was really sexy, even though I'm still not crazy about the song.

I watched the music video after having watched this video from the ReacttotheK YouTube channel, where university students majoring in classical music react to K-pop videos. In this video, they react to the Wonder Girls songs "I Feel You" and "Why So Lonely" (which is one of my favorite K-pop songs ever).

The ReacttotheK YouTube channel is pretty cool. The videos are a little too long. And it feels like sometimes the enthusiasm for the songs is a bit forced. But it's cool to hear a fresh perspective on the songs and to hear how classical musicians pull apart the inner workings of the songs.

Personally, I'd prefer to see fewer people reacting, shorter, more encapsulated react times, and then maybe a bit of a "challenge time" where the musicians try to reproduce some of the music they heard.

Anyway, I think the image of the color-changing floor in the restaurant in my third dream also comes from the Wonder Girls "I Feel You" MV. But I think it also comes from the music video for Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

I do think my unconscious linked the ReacttotheK video and the "I Feel You" MV to "Billie Jean." I've been thinking about K-pop and J-pop a lot, especially about how each form grounds itself in the history of pop music. I wrote a Twitter thread about it here.

One thing I didn't mention in my Twitter thread -- and I might add this note -- is that K-pop really showed its devotion to the history of pop music recently when SMTOWN held a 30th anniversary celebration of the song -- one song! -- "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson. There are, of course, nowadays, so many reasons for us to remember that song. But it's incredible that SMTOWN honored Michael Jackson, "Man in the Mirror" co-writer Siedah Garrett, and the history of pop music by celebrating the anniversary of one song.

So it was really cool to hear the ReacttotheK kids talking about K-pop songs from a classical music perspective. But it just reminded me that K-pop itself is always closely studying the history of pop music and working to fit itself into that history.

It's also definitely worth checking out this video from SMTOWN, where "Man in the Mirror" co-writer Siedah Garrett and K-pop singer BoA perform the song.