It’s been about a month since I’ve posted here. There actually have been a lot of releases in that time, but none of them stood out to me as mega hits. Even a lot of my favs like GFriend came back with Apple, Hwasa came back with Maria, but none of it was really different or new. Just more of what you expect from people you already like.
I have been watching a lot of newer less popular groups to see what they are up to. Most of it is… not great. While some are better than others, all their music feels like clones of other existing KPop groups. Like here’s five new boys with another banger and some sick dancing.
It’s interesting because it’s sort of the opposite of what you see in other artistic fields. In gaming, the small indie developers are the ones that innovate and have new ideas. The big names are about big budgets a polish, but not making major innovations in gameplay.
In KPop, although there hasn’t been much new just recently, the big groups have the loyal fanbase to support them. They can try a new concept or a new genre to see how it goes, and survive to release another song. The smaller groups are just trying to stay alive, so most of them mimic existing successful groups.
That being said, there are two absolutely huge things that are coming out effectively right now.
EXO used to be the boy group at the literal top along with BTS, but clearly fell behind at some point in the past few years. They also lost members to military service, which BTS has not (yet). So they put together an all-star crew of boys from all their top groups including EXO, Shinee, NCT, and WayV. They called it Super M. I may have posted about them before? Super M released some music earlier, but now they are really making their big push with this comeback. They are doing the pre-release single thing right now, and they performed it for GMA.
https://youtu.be/MHoxVWPcYBc
BTS on the other hand, has been hyping up their new release “Dynamite”. Just last night I get in bed and open the YouTube app to see what’s what. I notice this highlighted video at the top of my subscription page. By sheer luck it was the premiere of the Dynamite music video that happened at midnight. I didn’t even know what day it was coming, but I was there for the premiere by complete chance. If you want to see it, here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdZLi9oWNZg
The big thing is that apparently, this premiere alone, meaning people who watched it along with me, simultaneously at midnight, had 4 million viewers. 4 million unique people watching this for the first time at the same time. No other premiere of a YouTube video even comes close. Until now first place was held by a BlackPink music video that didn’t even reach 2 million viewers at its premiere.
This reminds me of back in the day when Michael Jackson premiere “Black or White” with a special program after The Simpsons in '91. I watched that at the premiere also. Good or bad song, I kind of like treating a new music video release from a top artist as a big event.
