SM is one of the biggest KPop companies. Despite having shortage of dramas, scandals, and troubles, they somehow have a nearly 100% hit rate. Every single group they put together finds commercial success. Part of that is they have a winning formula. The other part is that any group with the SM label on it gets a booster rocket of free attention when they debut.
Another factor is that they are extremely careful. They don’t make a lot of groups. Instead, they wait many years to make sure they are confident in their product before they put it out there. This also makes it a bigger deal when they do have a new group.
And today, they do have a new group. Even though Aespa still feels like a brand new group to me, it’s already five years old. Usually the gap between their groups is about six years, so this is a little ahead of schedule. Anyway say hello to Hearts2Hearts.
First of all, eight members, wow. They haven’t made a big girl group since Girls’ Generation. f(x), Red Velvet, and Aespa are all four or five members. Very curious about this strategy to go big again when smaller groups have been dominant. Maybe it’s a matter of being different on purpose to stand out.
Second of all, yep, the youngest member is 14, and will be 15 in April. They haven’t change their ways in terms of child labor at all.
As for the music. I like it more than Aespa. My ear actively rejects a lot of Aespa’s music. Hearts2Hearts isn’t unpleasant to listen to, but it’s also not exciting either. Perfectly serviceable background music. Still waiting for KPop to return to the musical theater, EDM drops, and catchy hooks that made me a fan to begin with.
Also, the video is one of the worse I’ve ever seen. Just dancing around and singing in an empty computer generated near future city of some kind. There’s nothing to it.
Even so, I ab absolutely confident that this group will be a big deal. SM has never failed before, so I’m not betting against them now.