Two Interviews with Jackson

[snowphone.livejournal.com]

.@JacksonWang852 plays a bit of a “Different Game” – he trained to be an Olympic athlete before making the switch to music. After performing around the world and collaborating with the likes of Gucci Mane, he hopes to share more of his story with his new album #JourneyToTheWest pic.twitter.com/j8DI4CVZqI

— MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) March 18, 2019

Source: BuzzFeed Celeb | @MTVNEWS

Comments

[scionofawhisper.livejournal.com]

'Jackson from China'? He doesn't introduce himself as 'Jackson from got7'?

Has Jackson always had such a try-hard vibe in interviews? His music has always been that, but... man. When he said 'Wow by Post Malone' and then made a pose like 'aren't I the coolest' I nearly just collapsed, lmfao

Edit: Just watched the second interview.
Man, I don't get it. Like he talks so passionately about his music, but his music feels... substanceless? Like he's just chasing the trends and putting things he hears and thinks is cool into his music.

His recent song faded - like a girlfriend only caring when she's 'faded' is something you can hear a fair bit in rap music in America... I feel like I've heard it a fair bit. And there are times it's done really well, but with Jackson it doesn't feel like there is anything else beneath the surface. And the way he managed to get in the word 'flexing' or driving in his new whip... Like he collects all these buzzwords and makes a try-hard stew from them.

And yet he cares so much about his music? Like he feels a lot and yet...??? I just don't get it.

[henolam.livejournal.com]

faded lyrics sound like they were made up by a rap song generator

[scionofawhisper.livejournal.com]

lmfao, yeah, they do.

Will Jackson ever have a wake-up moment and realize it?

[henolam.livejournal.com]

not if his fans keep lying to him

[donaldjdrumpf.livejournal.com]

lmao nah that would require self-awareness which, if he had, he wouldn't try to "rap" in the first place.

[snowphone.livejournal.com]

yeah, slavish imitation does not make good lyrics, i have no idea what he's thinking.

[daynr.livejournal.com]

I feel this entire comment so hard.

And it's confusing because he used to seem so genuine. And now it's like he's chasing ephemeral stuff instead of substance.

[snowphone.livejournal.com]

i still get the feeling that he's genuine, though, so idk what goes on. does he just have extremely bad taste in music and poor skills?

[daynr.livejournal.com]

The extreme hephap stuff and defensiveness, especially, don't feel as genuine to me. Like, I think he still experiences the world very emotionally, but he doesn't seem as connected to a varied experience or something. Maybe genuineness isn't the word.

[snowphone.livejournal.com]

yeah, his music definitely strikes me as extremely insincere, and i'm sure everyone would agree. maybe he's just not confident in his own abilities and so he falls back on tired formulae

[daynr.livejournal.com]

His music and his persona. I mean, his music is ----, but his presentation of who he is is less....

[ohcrepe.livejournal.com]

'i still get the feeling that he's genuine'

Me too and I've been waiting for that side of him to come out in his music... but nothing so far. He wrote eloquently about his grandparents, an ode to his luggage yet he's not utilising that skill for his song lyrics idgi??

[donaldjdrumpf.livejournal.com]

Hdu sis Papillon is pure heartfelt poetry!

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

i mean you can be passionate with what you like/doing while still it's cool to be like anyone else/following the trend so... i feel like he's that kind of person, you know, like he likes to be on trend

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

so did he really just spill that he has a gf or was that a joke

[10135.livejournal.com]

I'm sure this might sound biased as fuck, because he's my bias. However, I don't even listen to his music because it's not my style, so I'm genuinely not that biased. But just because he values music, and music is his passion, etc. doesn't mean he has to make some poetic masterpiece when he puts out songs. He could be doing that just because he has fun and he thinks it sounds good. You can take your music seriously and still put out music you were just feeling at the time. I mean, I love music and I value it, but I wrote songs when I was younger that when I look back at now seems really cheesy but if I had a career back then, I probably would've made that into a video/song and marketed it. Plus, he has a lot of room to grow. The only thing that bothered me was when people had genuine criticisms of him and he passed it up as them being 'haters'. He probably hasn't gotten rid of that mindset, which sucks.

[snowphone.livejournal.com]

i take your point, and i do wonder, like i commented above, if he just has really bad taste? like you said, he thinks it sounds good. i do think that what people find most off-putting about his music is it seems like he is adopting a persona, and that is definitely unfortunate, since lots of people (including me) like him as he is.

[10135.livejournal.com]

If I had to take a guess, it would be that he's following all the things he's influenced by, and it's not coming out right. He wants a certain style, a certain way about himself. And he'll go about that way regardless of his true self. Could be insecurity based like some people said. idk. I think he takes his music seriously because he puts his heart into what he does, so to him, he's very confident in his work and he takes pride in it. Like, what he makes is his baby. However, to us, we can tell as consumers that something isn't quite right. There's a difficult connection between him and his music. And it's probably because, yeah, it isn't quite right. He's adopting all these personas, like you said, and he doesn't have his style yet. He might even be too critical of his work. Wanting it to sound a certain way and instead of him making his own way, he will change it etc. I mean, I could go on and on about this, clearly. LOL. I still think people are too critical on him. He clearly likes the music he makes, which is good enough to me as a consumer (albeit, a consumer that doesn't like his music that much, but to each their own).

[myungung.livejournal.com]

I'm still confused over the part about his lyrics though. Like he definitely speaks a lot of English, but the lyrics that he writes are quite basic. and he is able to articulate himself well and write well in posts, so what exactly is stopping him from writing good lyrics?
I do get it if he doesn't rap/sing in Mandarin because it's not a language he's strong at, but it feels like his Korean lyrics are also better than English ones

[10135.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly not sure why it's like this! The only thing I could say is that maybe he's at different levels with his creative process in different languages? It's very possible since he trained in Korea that while learning Korean he learned more creative processes with the Korean language? I genuinely don't know because I'm not fluent in any other languages besides English. So I can't quite speak for someone who is as multilingual as Jackson is. But that's the only thing I could think of.