Oh dang, I remember it being easy to get. Now Google can only find citations, but not the actual thing. A library could probably help.
New songs today from Chungha and NCT 127. Both of them are good, but also sort of standard for KPop. There’s nothing in particular that stands out to me as special or interesting after one listen of each. For Chungha this is her first full album, so I’m expecting to find some other songs that are great. Also looking forward to seeing the choreography, which isn’t easy to see in the MV. For NCT I just liked their previous release more.
Huge KPop news.
SHINEE’s back
I’m maybe being unfair to SHINEE but I haven’t given them a chance. I’m still bitter about:
SHINEE’s only crime is sharing a name with that song.
They don’t share a name with that song. The song is named shine, like it’s spelled.
SHINEE is pronounced Shiny.
Never heard it pronounced
SHINEE’S BACK
Even though IU is still dominating, she’s no longer #1 on every single chart, just most of them. Other people are starting to release more music. Of course, that was just a pre-release for IU, the full album is coming soon…
Anyway, SUNMI is here again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aui0ZKIaXVc
And here’s a special Pokemon stage from MAMAMOO
There appears to be a dispute between Kakao M and Spotify resulting in a very large number of popular KPop artists completely disappearing from Spotify. There is speculation it might be related to Spotify’s launch on South Korea. If it doesn’t get resolved, Spotify stands to lose a lot of KPop fan subscribers.
March 25th is the IU comeback. Get your releases out now, or hold off, it’s a full album.
In the meantime, Rose from BLACKPINK had her long awaited solo debut release today. I kinda like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKZvWhCqx1s
It reminds me a lot of Taeyang’s “Eyes, Nose, Lips.” A verse that builds up and then drops a power ballad-ish chorus, and then repeat that a few times. Of course TEDDY is a songwriter on both as he’s involved in every major YG track. They should really just make him the CEO at this point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwuAPyOImoI
Next, we have to talk about Brave Girls, but to talk about Brave Girls, we have to first talk about EXID.
EXID was a group started by a guy named Shinsadong Tiger. Tiger had produced many truly legendary KPop hits for other groups. Then he decided he should just start his own group so he could eat the cake as well as bake it. That group was EXID. EXID did not do well for many years, despite having a lot of talent. They tried to use sexy concepts to get attention. One day a sexy fancam of them (Hani specifically) performing their amazing song “Up & Down” went viral years after the song was released. This made them an overnight sensation even though they were pretty close to just calling it quits. They managed to sustain the group for a few more years and made some other good releases before eventually breaking up.
Now Shinsadong Tiger and LE (a member of EXID who was also a songwriter) have produced a new girl group TRI.BE (pronounced “try be”) that just debuted. Their song is fun, though they aren’t successful yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsuC2S2mdT0
Ok, so back to Brave Girls. There were some KPop producers named Brave Brothers. They produced so many legendary hits for other KPop groups, especially for 4Minute. One day they decided they should just start their own group so they could eat the cake they were baking. The group was Brave Girls. It wallowed in obscurity for many years and tried to use overly sexy concepts to get attention. The group has lost members over time, and was basically on the verge of disbandment. Recently a compilation of their performances of one of their older songs “Rollin’” went viral on YouTube and became an overnight sensation.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing. EXID was extremely talented, especially vocally. Their songs were really good as well. Brave Girls, IMHO, not so much. I’m not a fan of any of their songs, especially not this one that is a big hit. I don’t know why it became popular. I find it to be more annoying than earworm, but you can judge for yourself. Even though the song is several years old, it’s such a hit now that they have come back to the music shows to perform it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552lOyCQTFg
The level of virality right now is ridiculous. They have achieved the perfect all kill and IU is in second place (for now). Unlike with EXID, I think this group will have no staying power. They’re going to collect their 15 minutes of fame on this song, and maybe try to stay in the public eye with another release or two before giving it up. More power to them if they can prove me wrong. Still, a really fascinating story.
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IU is here as promised.
Somehow the mania surrounding Brave Girls - Rollin’ is continuing. It’s really out of control. Will be very interesting to see if IU takes it down or not.
Another very interesting thing is happening in KPop right now.
Most KPop idols are Korean, but many come from other places. There are several big name KPop idols that are from other countries. Most frequently, but not exclusively, they are from nearby countries like Japan, China, Thailand, etc.
Recently a lot of big name global brands have banded together to denounce China for some of its human rights violations, especially regarding Uyghur genocide.
As a result, there are boycotts against these brands in China. Many KPop idols who are Chinese are either sincerely supporting China, or we suspect, fear for themselves as Chinese residents/citizens if they do not publicly support China. If they have endorsement deals with the brands in question, they are terminating their contracts publicly.
These are very famous idols, not small time people. The fact that they had these deals in the first place shows how famous and popular they are.
There’s one more piece to this story. I don’t know what the reaction is in Korea or anywhere else. However, the reaction among the English-speaking KPop fandom is very negative. These idols are being cancelled and losing fans because they are publicly showing support for genocide, regardless of whether that support is forced or sincere (there’s no way for us to know).
Kind of similar to Russian athletes and Putin.
There’s this Korean clothing label called odg. They mostly focus on children’s clothing. Seems like all of it is very basic clothing with either their name “odg” and/or their slogan “you were a kid once” on it.
I presume in order to market the clothing they started a YouTube channel. Rarely is it doing this directly. Usually they are just making YouTube videos in which children happen to be wearing odg clothing. The video will have nothing to do with the clothing at all.
Even if they produce a very cliche YouTube video like “Korean kids react to Sailor Moon” they have a very different atmosphere than typical YouTube fare. Every video on the channel is sincere and wholesome. Intended to give you the feeling of “you were a kid once” just like the company slogan. This does a very good job of associating those feelings with their clothing label. I honestly have no idea of the clothing is good, and I’m not selling it. Nor have I, or will I, buy any.
What this is about is a particular series of videos they produce where they have Korean celebrities come in to meet children. It’s a small-ish cast of recurring children they have for this that are mostly child actors. Sometimes the children recognize the famous person, often they don’t. These videos are a lot of fun because not only do you experience the wonder of a child meeting a celebrity, but you also get to see the celebrities on camera acting much more real than they do when on broadcast/cable television. It’s at least partially scripted, but far more genuine than a Korean variety show. There’s a genuine interaction there that you can feel like you are a part of.
There are a lot of good videos on that channel I could link to, but they recently uploaded the two best videos I have ever seen from them. And if the rest of this thread hasn’t made you realize it already, IU is the BIGGEST deal. A Korean kid meeting IU is the equivalent of an American kid seeing Michael Jordan in the '90s. Watch both of these in order for it to make sense. I think it is well worth your time.
He said he was gonna do it in 2016.
It’s now happening.
In a surprise to most everybody, one of my few remaining KPop favs, GFRIEND, have not renewed their contracts, which expire in 4 days.
Source Music was their original company, and they were the only successful group to come out of it. They somewhat recently got bought by HYBE (formerly known as BigHit) which is the BTS company. At the time I wrongly believed that they had renewed or extended their deal. Otherwise, why get bought just to do a handful of releases and be done?
The groups popularity has been waning from their peak, but they are still bigger, more successful, and more talented than most. Though, I did read somewhere they were not profitable as of late, which could have something to do with this.
HYBE did not show any lack of support for the group right up until the end. Even if they hadn’t ended things, they were currently on a break between their usual promotion cycles. Yet, there is new content on their YouTube and VLive channels as recently as yesterday. HYBE actually opened a little museum tourist attraction recently, and GFRIEND was featured at least equally with the company’s other groups that aren’t BTS.
The way I see things the key feature of GFRIEND is teamwork. A lot of groups out there have a few, or just one, member with extreme star power who carries the team. In GFRIEND none of the members are particularly individually famous. The group as a whole is famous, particularly for their synchronized choreography. If they split up, I don’t see them failing miserably, since they are all talented and hard working. But I don’t see any of them become individually immensely successful either. I’m sure they have plenty of money to ride things out, though.
There are whispers, from desperately hopeful fans, that the group could stay together. They all left the company together, so they could all collectively sign somewhere else. It’s not impossible, but nobody should hold their breath for that. It’s extremely rare for that to happen in the KPop world.
If this is really the end, and it probably is, they had a great run. They released way more music and content than most groups do over an equal amount of time. Several full albums, A nice pile of EPs and singles. A few Japanese releases in there as well. They had releases what feels like 3 times a year most years.
It’s also sad that their run ended during COVID times. Their final performances were all digital without a big crowd of fans.
What I’m looking forward to is how well this group is remembered years from now. The previous set of KPop groups, like Girls Generation, etc. started around the time YouTube came into existence. A lot of their content is on YouTube, but a lot of their early stuff isn’t. They also didn’t produce a lot of extra Internet video content, mostly just TV appearances. GFRIEND started at just the right time such that they have a metric fuckton of Internet video content. I don’t even want to guess how many hours of it are out there across several platforms. You could probably spend months watching official video from them without having to rewatch anything. A new fan could discover them 5, 10, 15 years from now and relive every step of their career through YouTube.
It’s also going to be interesting to see what happens with MAMAMOO. 3 of the 4 members have renewed their contracts, and the 4th recently had a solo release. They’re currently teasing their comeback with will have all four members, but because we have not officially heard that the fourth member has renewed, there is speculation this could be their finale as a group.
Anyway, let’s just say goodbye to GFRIEND by embedding some videos.
My favorite GFRIEND song, which is actually a b-side. It really is a great example of their signature so-called “powerful innocence” sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUn5o-8GWko
GFRIEND dancing blindfolded in perfect synchronization (mostly).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHNlahJRDA
Dancing at 2X speed, a trend they started, and executed better than most everyone else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO9G_w5tM9s
Their song with the most difficult and eye-catching choreography. There are a lot of YouTube videos of pro dancers shocked at this footwork.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BryESQvnfoc
The fancam that made them popular in the first place. They had a really good song, but people hadn’t heard it. After this stage where they (mostly Yuju) kept falling and getting back up, everyone heard the song and realized how good it was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag2R7Mt8yI8
Their final music video.
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There’s a lot of new music releases going on. No point in sharing all of them. Just stick to the noteworthy ones.
HEIZE is finally back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJPLgrfBiBo
TAEMIN has some advice, for himself. Proably the last we will see of him before he goes off to mandatory conscription.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQg4VCB3bYw
Oh, and I guess these guys released a song today.