"A Mmnt w/ MMLND" by Daniel R.

“When you hear our music you can be healed and feel happy.”
-Ahin

The Bscs
Momoland (often stylized as MOMOLAND or MMLND) are a South Korean girl group comprised of nine members: Hyebin, Yeonwoo, Jane, Taeha, Nayun, Daisy, Jooe, Ahin, and Nancy. Momoland were formed through the reality program Finding Momoland and the group debuted on November 10, 2016. Momoland’s debut mini album Welcome to MOMOLAND, was released on the same day. Momoland’s second mini album, Freeze!, was released August 2, 2017. (Source: generasia)

One of the unifying threads omnipresent throughout Momoland’s music is the precise production. All of Momoland’s songs are textured and complicated soundscapes. The percussion is industrial and hard-hitting, sparkling synths shimmer, snag, and screech, while multi-layered, pitch-shifted vocals float above the production like seraphic spun-sugar. The whole experience is a bit like being delightfully punched in the face with candied brass knuckles. 

As such, it should be noted that when I refer to Momoland throughout this essay, I am not only referring to the visible members, but to the entire creative team behind Momoland, including producers, writers, composers,  costumers, choreographers, musicians, and so on.

Momoland.

Intrdctn
While it is easy to be distracted by the cheery colors, merry music, and active aesthetic of Momoland’s artistic output, I would argue that Momoland, through their specifically and expertly crafted musical and visual performances, utilize the literary traditions of the carnivalesque and Mennipean Satire genres to form intellectually dense and philosophically deep pop art… often with terrifying precision.

In his book Rabelais and His World, philosopher, literary critic, and semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin broadly describes the carnival as a place that is  “vividly felt as an escape from the usual way of life… [a] utopian realm.” (Rabelais, p.8-9) Furthermore, in Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, he outlines the genre of Mennipean Satire, stating, “The most important characteristic of the menippea as a genre is the fact that its bold and unrestrained use of the fantastic.” (Poetics, p.114) In this essay I will be using Bakhtin’s outlines of these genres as lenses through which to view Momoland’s pristine pop art.

I will be analyzing and discussing three of Momoland’s songs: “Welcome to MOMOLAND,” “JJan! Koong! Kwang!,” and “Freeze.” I will also be discussing the music videos for “JJan! Koong! Kawng!” and “Freeze.”

Wlcm to MMLND
Arranged by: Jake K
Lyrics by: Duble Sidekick, Yong Hee
Produced by: Duble Sidekick






“Carnival images closely resemble certain artistic forms, namely the spectacle… [which] belongs to the borderline between art and life. In reality, it is life itself.” (Rabelais, p. 7)

Momoland’s name suggests they are more a dreamlike destination than a pop group… a singular and sensational spectacle. Their song “Welcome to MOMOLAND” strongly supports that observation and, not surprisingly, acts as a good introduction to the marvelous and monumental Momoland. 

“Welcome to MOMOLAND” is one of Momoland’s more idiosyncratic and stylized songs. The sounds of a cozy calliope, blithe bells, whimsical whistles and cheery chimes set the stage while an enthusiastic emcee beckons, “Ladies and gentlemen, get your tickets fast! Wanna ride Momoland!” 

Within the first twenty five seconds the audience is overloaded with the sounds of the circus and carnival. Let’s deconstruct this a bit.

The calliope is a large steam powered instrument that can be heard for miles. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the calliope was used to advertise circuses. Furthermore, the emcee brings to mind a ringmaster, the hyperbolic host of a circus. Both the calliope and ringmaster entice the audience to temporarily escape their menial lives through Momoland’s music. These sonic references to the circus support the “MOMOLAND as spectacle” concept and serve as the beginning of our journey into the carnival world. 

Momoland.

“Carnival does not… acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators… Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates.” (Rabelais, p.7)

The surreal lyrics to “Welcome to MOMOLAND” blur the line between actor and admirer. The listener is initially treated as an outsider being welcomed to Momoland, only to later find out that things are “So strange” in MOMOLAND and that “this world is filled with you.” The listener is simultaneously the perceiver and the perceived. Momoland further embrace the canrivalesque unification of actor and audience, singing, “You can make anything with your imagination/ This space is for you.” On the surface this may seem like escapist fantasy, but the sentiment of “you are everything and can make anything” is one shared by philosopher Alan Watts, who has said, “You are this universe. And you are creating it at every moment. Because, you see, it starts now. It didn’t begin in the past, there was no past.” (Source: It Starts Now)

Momoland have hidden urgent existentialism within chirpy and convivial carnival soundscapes. However, this is just the beginning of our journey into the deeper and darker themes at play within MOMOLAND. Next stop... Momland’s relationship to reality itself. 

The carnival’s relationship to reality is one that could be summed up as ‘nowness’, namely the “starting point for understanding, evaluating, and shaping reality, is the living present, often even the very day.” (Poetics, p.108) Momoland have followed suit in “Welcome to MOMOLAND” with the lyrics, “Our game is about to start now/ Even if you know, pretend you don’t/ Today is a secret.” Momoland’s insistence that today is a secret, or a game about to start may seem juvenile, but things in MOMOLAND are never what they seem and often run deeper than they first appear.  

It may seem that Momoland have created a rather irreverent relationship to reality meant to elicit the audience deeper into their carnival realm. Yet, Momoland are doing just the opposite. They are illuminating a basic human condition, namely, one can only experience the present, and only the present fuels our understanding of reality. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte’s takes this thought to its logical conclusion: “There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.” (Soruce: brainyquote)

The last literary example found within “Welcome to MOMOLAND,” is one of the Mennipean Satire genre. Specifically, their creation of utopian locations which are incorporated “in the form of dreams or journeys to unknown lands.” (Poetics, p.118) In the last verse, Momoland implores the listener: “Let’s ride the train of imagination/ It’ll be all right even if we go to the end/ Whatever you want, it will be fulfilled.” 

In summation, “Welcome to MOMOLAND” acts as a thrilling and theatrical thesis to the spectacle that is MOMOLAND. A spectacle that is advertised as, and truly starts out as, extravagant escapism. Though, this specific spectacle is one that that sharply turns into a gripping and thought-provoking thrill ride. 

“Ladies and gentlemen. Get your tickets fast. Wanna ride, MOMOLAND!” 

짠쿵쾅 (Jjn!Kng!Kwng!)
Composed by: Tenzo and Tasco, Seion
Arranged by: Tenzo and Tasco
Produced by: Duble Sidekick


Throughout the mind-bending music video for “JJan! Koong! Kwang!,” Momoland make use of the perspective and scale shifting Ames Room optical illusion. The Ames Room optical illusion has been widely employed in carnival and circus funhouses due to its disorienting effect, and while Momoland’s use of the Ames Room is another homage to carnival imagery, it is also used in the Mennipean tradition of “experimental fantasticality.” Specifically, “observation from some unusual point of view… which results in a radical change in the scale of the observed phenomena of life.” (Poetics, p.116) Let’s take a look at the Ames Room and what it reveals about human perception.

Momoland in the Ames Room.

The Ames Room was invented by the American scientist Adelbert Ames Jr.and challenges our notions of human perception, namely, the accuracy and fallibility of our own perceptions. The Ames Room exemplifies the hypothesis of “transactional ambiguity.” Transactional ambiguity is the concept that a “viewer’s mental expectation… could alter the actual perception of ambiguous stimuli… [and] could affect one’s feelings and conclusions about stimuli.” (Source: wikipedia) Essentially, because of one’s expectation of what a room looks like, the Ames Room optical illusion successfully pulls off its scale-altering effect. 

Hidden within Momoland’s use of the Ames Room optical illusion is an imperative intimation that one cannot wholly rely on one’s own perceptions. This theme of confusion and unreliability is further explored within the lyrics. 


A surreal scene from "Jjan! Koong! Kwang!"
The lyrics for “Jjan! Koong! Kwang!” are distorted, dreamlike, and desperate… a decadent discourse on human desire. Lines such as “Makes no sense/ Saw it only in my dreams,” suggest that Momoland are aware in their struggle to make sense of the world. This confusion is further examined in the songs chorus, each concluding in a startling existential query, “Tell me, are you really human?” 

Viewed independently, this seems oddly confrontational and unsettling for pop music. When viewed through the lens of the Mennipean Satire genre, though, this quizzical query makes a bit more sense, insofar that Mennipean Satire “is a genre of ‘ultimate questions’.” (Poetics, p.115) Questions don’t get much more ultimate than challenging one’s humanness. Moreover, as Momoland’s most interesting song, “Freeze,” will show, this isn’t the last time Momoland pose such a dire and dreadful question. 

꼼짝마 (Frz)
Composed by: Duble Sidekick, Jinli
Arranged by: WiKEED, Glory Face
Lyrics by: Duble Sidekick, WiKEED, Jinli, Glory Face
Produced by: Duble Sidekick


There are several carnival examples found within the song and music video for “Freeze,” including homages to marionettes, carnival games, and impalement arts, By focusing on the sonic soundscapes and lyrical themes of the song, let’s explore how they relate to the carnivalesque and, more interestingly, to the “ultimate questions” asked within Mennipean Satire. 

Momoland as a carnival shooting game.

“Freeze” plays out like a wistful and playful game, but the song is haunted by spectral synths and disembodied moans lurking in the periphery. The lyrics reveal “Freeze” to be a slightly sinister game of hide-and-seek. In his book, The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity,  philosopher Alan Watts expounds on the idea that polarity is merely a myth. There is no distinction between background and foreground, they are essentially just two sides of a coin. One cannot exist without the other. This bears a striking resemblance to the carnivalesque merging of spectacle and spectator.

Furthermore, Watts suggests that “behind almost all myth [including the fallacy of polarity] lies the… game of hide-and-seek.” (Polarity, p.31) He then proposes a three-part structure for this mythic game of hide-and -seek, which can be found within “Freeze.”

Part 1: The introduction of the status quo. “Freeze” begins with the audience hiding, “Where are you hiding? Be prepared” while Momoland searches for them “I’m gonna find you.” It would seem that the status quo has been set. To put it in primal terms, the audience is the prey and Momoland are the predator. 

Part 2: The upsetting of the status quo. Shortly after the status quo is established, we find Momoland in a bit of a panic, “Without any warning/ This seems like breaking the rules/ You caressed my hair/ That electric moment everything stopped.” The audience has taken control, and Momoland seems genuinely upended. The song continues, finding Momoland “confused” and “falling for you.” Though, only temporarily…

Part 3: The restoration of the status quo. The song concludes “I’m Looking for your traces/ You better hide, I might find you/ What a fun game.” The audience is once again the prey and attempting to escape Momoland. The song has thematically looped in on itself. 

This may appear to be a hopeless cycle for the audience, though, one mustn’t despair necessarily, as this could just be a fact of existence. Watts would argue that this endless repetition is “taken from the cyclic rhythm of sun, season, and vegetation. Its eternal fascination seems to be at the very roots of human nature.” (Polarity, p.32) Furthermore, if there is indeed no distinction between actor and audience in the carnival, then there is no distinction between the listener and Momoland. Could this game really be a metaphor for discovering one’s self? 

Momoland have lyrically and thematically created an endless game, continuing in that uniquely human fascination with the eternal cycle of the self, and more boradly, the universe. Momoland have also reinforced this cyclic concept sonically in “Freeze” through the use of the military march “Entrance of the Gladiators” (originally titled “Grande Marche Chromatique”) by Julius Fučík.


In 1901, Fučík’s “Entrance of the Gladiators” was arranged by composer Louise-Phillips Laurendeau and published by Carl Fischer under the name “Thunder and Blazes.” It was this version that became immortalized as a screamer march for the circus. (Source: wikipedia) While Momoland’s use of “Entrance of the Gladiators” may seem like an obvious homage to carnival imagery at first glance, the way Momoland have used “Entrance of the Gladiators” is much more clever than it may initially appear. 

At first, “Entrance of the Gladiators” is used as an independent element to introduce the song “Freeze.” As the song moves along, “Entrance” is weaved in and out of the song and becomes more and more enmeshed with the sound and structure of the song. Eventually, the two songs seem inseparable, until “Freeze” itself eventually fades away, leaving no trace. Nothing remains but a looping and decaying “Entrance of the Gladiators” to conclude the song. 

“Freeze” starts and ends with “Entrance of the Gladiators”… ending with a beginning… which marches towards the ending… which is a beginning… which is an ending… We find ourselves once again in Watts’ proposed fascinating and eternal game of hide-and seek.

Furthermore,with the contradiction of ending a song with an entrance, Momoland have followed along in a characteristic carnival tradition. Namely,  “Carnivals are dualistic; they unite within themselves both poles of change and crisis: birth and death,… blessing and curse,… praise and abuse, youth and old age, top and bottom, face and backside, stupidity and wisdom. Also characteristic is the utilization of things in reverse… This is a special instance of the carnival category of eccentricity, the violation of the usual and the generally accepted… life drawn out of its usual rut.” (Poetics, p. 126) 

It seems we have found ourselves yet again in a captivating, and continual topsy-turn game. However, around the minute and a half mark of the song, the fun and games come to an abrupt and unnerving end. “Freeze” quickly crumbles underfoot, pushing the listener over a razor’s edge into a dark precipice. The music has completely faded, and the only lifeline is a terrifying and existential confrontation: Who. Are. You? 


The first time I listened to this song (via watching the music video), I was wholly unprepared for this confrontation. My stomach dropped. I was momentarily overcome with disorienting and dizzying hysteria. If the song were a rollercoaster, then at this moment I was unaware that I was precariously perched at the top of the chain-lift, and before I realized what was happening, had plummeted down the first-drop… without a lap bar.

I realized that I can offer no real answer to the question “Who are you?” I thought it better, and more fun, to look at what a few other, and smarter, people have said on the subject, starting with the abstract and fantastic and moving towards the (relatively) concrete and realistic. 

When asked this question by a hookah-smoking caterpillar in Wonderland, the titular Alice replied, “rather shyly, ‘I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then’.” (Wonderland

Throughout “Freeze,” Momoland asks the audience to “tell me who you are” no less than eight times. Why would this question need to be asked eight times in a three-minute period of time? Are Momoland expecting a different answer each time? Or maybe, like Alice, Momoland themselves have changed several times throughout the song with each changed version asking anew.

Philosopher and author Alan Watts has said, “The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real, deep down you is the whole universe.” (Source: The Real You Lecture) Philosopher and author Julian Baggini agrees with Watts, though to a lesser extent. To summarize, Baggini posits that throughout one’s life one accumulates memories, desires, beliefs, knowledge, and experiences. However, there is no “you” at the heart of all these experiences. It is you. The true self is not there to discover, but to create. (Source: Is There a Real You?)

Interestingly, Watts and Baggini bring us back to the theme of “you are everything” first found in “Welcome to MOMOLAND.” This theme is further explored in the the music video for “Freeze.” Both Momoland (collectively) and the outsider male character, are cast in several dualistic roles throughout the music video. Audience/actor, puppet/puppeteer, hero/villain, prey/predator, and so on. It is hard to discern who is truly in control (though I have a feeling that it is Momoland who are truly the puppet masters). The music video seems to be exploring the “myth of duality” discussed earlier. Namely, without an audience there can be no actor, no puppeteer without a puppet, no hero without a villain, and so on. In order to answer the question “Who are you?” you must also know who you aren’t. 

However, not everyone takes such an interconnected and metaphysical approach to identity and existence. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte’s ideas are much more concrete and realistic, “Man simply is… Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.” (Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism Lecture) Sarte’s thoughts take me to my last posturing on identity which doesn’t have to do with Momoland’s art, but rather, Momoland themselves. 


K-Pop embraces large performance groups, more so than Western pop music. There are currently nine members of Momoland, and those are only the visible members. Having so many members in a pop group makes my Western ideals of individuality a bit queasy, if only on a subconscious level. However, psychiatrist Carl Jung would find the community that is Momoland as an affirmation of the self: “The self could be characterized as a kind of compensation of the conflict between the inside and outside.. so too the self is our life goal, for it is the completest expression of that combination we call individuality, the full flowering not only of the single individuals but of the group, in which each adds his portion to the whole.” (The Collected Works of Carl Jung, Volume 7, Part 2) Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that one cannot answer the question “Who are you?” in isolation. One must fully realize their identity within the larger collective group, whether that be family, community, friends, or a K-Pop girl group. 

With “Freeze,” Momoland have created, and subsequently guided us through, an existential labyrinth, explicitly through their musical and visual performances and implicitly by being, simply, Momoland. 

Momoland.

Cnclsn
“This carnival sense of the world possesses a mighty life-creating and transforming power, an indestructible vitality… the sensitive ear will always catch even the most distant echoes of a carnival sense of the world.” (Poetics, p. 107)

These echoes can be clearly heard reverberating throughout Momoland’s meticulously created pop art. Momoland have created thrilling, hard-hitting, dread-inducing, stomach-turning, infectious pop music… all with a mischievous smile and wink.

Momoland do indeed create informed, intelligent and immersive music… explicitly following in the tradition of the genres of the carnival and Menniepean satire, though not limited to said genres.  

Pop music, specifically K-Pop music, has the potential to be “high art.” It can challenge perceived notions, it can even challenge one’s existence. It can, and does, possess that “mighty life-creating and transforming power,” all while getting one to shake their ass on the dance floor.






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