Musical Monday – Dementia Prevention

I, in my advancing years, have decided to justify my love of Kpop as a  way to prevent the onset of dementia. Hear me out, I swear it will make perfect sense. Learning new things, like languages, and doing puzzles and word games builds new neural pathways and further develop parts of the brain that can help delay or avoid different types of dementia. These are proven facts. In lots of studies…not just my hopes and dreams. Kpop, and the obsessive love thereof, requires some element of language study and learning millions and millions of new names and faces and putting them together like a puzzle. Becoming an uber fan is actually healthy. Like really healthy. It’s science.

After admitting to still only knowing five members (and that was generous) of Seventeen in my post last Monday, my idol tutor re-doubled her efforts to ensure that I would be up to a solid eight by the end of the week. I studied hard (it was grueling to look at pictures and gifs of Joshua and DK over and over and over) and I passed my test on Thursday…even with the trick shot of Jeonghan that didn’t look like him at all. I was super proud. I swear to all that is good and pure that I felt a new neural pathway forming. My study group, tutor included, and I have decided that we will tackle Pentagon as our next project.They are adorable fools, goofy idiots with angel faces, glorious voices, and little common sense. Perfect for us.

They released the song Beautiful in May and quite honestly, none of us fell in love with it instantly. It was…kind of generic boyband ballad. Notice I used the word ‘was’ there. Frankly, I adore the song now. It could be (absolutely is) because it was the perfect MV to help me learn the members and I watched it repeatedly. I watched it to the point where I might have fallen asleep singing the song to myself last night. The MV is just a giant grid of the members with the one or two singing popping up to the top of the screen. The subber took the time to actually name the member(s) as they are being highlighted (as well as adding some perceptive and honest commentary) which served to very clearly demarcate each individual. It’s fantastic. Somewhere around the 7th or 8th listen I kinda fell in absolute love with them. I am really struggling to pick a bias…though Hui at 2’35” makes a VERY strong argument for why it should be him and Kino in that green hoodie and Yuto looking like my super hot neighborhood mechanic will not be denied.  

Is this video going to rock your world. Probably not. Is it super enjoyable boy pop. Yes.

Next on the list of boy bands as dementia prophylaxis is Golden Child. There are eleven members and when they debut, you’d better believe I’ll be featuring them. I already want to open a boarding house and have them all move in and be like their dorm mom or something…give them a bedtime, make them eat veggies, provide band aids when required.

Pentagon, Beautiful