A new group just appeared named bugAboo with a debut and title track of the same name. Though well executed, the song, dance, and aesthetic are very standard KPop for 2021. I don’t see anything to make them stand out from any other group. So why were they worth posting about in this thread?
First off, the leader of this group is Kim Choyeon. The fire eyeball Kim Choyeon from Produce 48, who I was rooting for, but did not even come close to winning. Though we do know that the vote was literally rigged, it’s unlikely she would have won with a legitimate vote. What I can say is that if you watch the show, you can clearly see that even years ago she was more talented than many of her peers. You can see on the show the other girls coming to her for help, because they can recognize she knows what she’s doing even if the voting audience does not.
You’ll also notice she comes alone from A Team entertainment, which was, and still is, a very small company. They have a handful of artists, including the boy group VAV, but bugAboo is their first girl group. What’s notable is that the CEO of that company is Ryan Jhun. Ryan is a producer who has written a very large number of top hit KPop songs over the past decade. The dude is an absolute hit machine.
The last thing that caught my attention is that despite the forgettable song, the mixing on the audio track is unbelievable. They did something very unusual for 2021. The vocals are extremely clear and way way forward. At least to my ear it’s even to a greater extent than with other vocal-centric acts like MAMAMOO. Not only that, but the chorus is very old style. None of that 2021 pure instrumental chorus here. They sing the whole chorus and sing a good portion of it in unison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU7ZmbUs9Zo
For now they’re still a small unpopular group, and are likely to remain that way. But if Ryan gives them a hit song, and they get the necessary luck, they could suddenly become a big deal at any moment. That’s true for just about any group, but I think they pretty much have everything but luck and money stacked in their favor, and they just started.