I LUV IT
Hey, Pineapple Pen guy!
Who is dude in the white suit staring at the camera?
https://twitter.com/OH_mes/status/866853543482978304
I haven’t seen many people for whom SISTAR is their #1 favorite group, but I also haven’t seen many people who don’t like them. All KPop fans know that when it’s summer, it’s SISTAR. They reliably come back every summer with a jam that makes everyone feel good. I think they have some ridiculously long streak where every one of their singles reached the top of the chart since “So Cool.”
At least it seems like Hyolin and Soyou will keep having solo music careers while Bora and Dasom will go do something else like acting. Still sucks that there won’t be any more summers after 2017.
M2 channel posted a bunch of their old performances last night once the news was made official.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Tz0NTfNF0&t=0s
Here is my favorite SISTAR stage of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZPBWM98RNU
They really knew how to have a good time.
There have been so many disbandments recently, that there aren’t many older girl groups that are still active. f(x) still technically exists, but is seemingly in big trouble. T-ARA lost two members and has a lot of drama with their company. AOA is on slightly shaky ground. SNSD’s 10th anniversary is this year, and they are up to something, but everyone is hoping beyond hope that they don’t end it afterwards. APink and Girl’s Day seem to be the only ones who are keeping their shit together.
Not a lot of new material going on right now since its TWICE Season. Next few weeks there will be more action. However, there have been some really killer live performances recently.
IU and PSY appeared on the TV show “Fantastic Duo” together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHbNaFNoHCY
Also, the kickass Luna, (of f(x)), performed at some random festival. This song is a year old, but its her best performance of it I’ve seen. She doesn’t seem to be doing much lately, but when she gets a job she gives it everything she’s got.
There’s actual big-ish news, and releases from popular groups, in KPop land, but I don’t give any shits.
WALWARI IS BACK
G-Dragon’s solo album has dominated the world. All-Kill on Korean charts, of course. Also the #1 Album on iTunes charts in 39 different countries.
They chose this ballad for the title track and music video, which is ok…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kaCAbIXuyg
I like the other songs better.
Normally I wouldn’t post here again so soon, but we have an emergency situation.
Produce 101 Season 2 (AKA Broduce 101) is over. The live stream of the finale was today. My boy Kang Daniel, who I selected even before the first episode, is the winnar!!! I was rooting for Somi in season 1, and she was also the winner. I’m two for two on this show! The rest of the results were also great, except for Samuel not making the cut.
Also the final group’s name is gonna be “WANNA ONE” which sounds like 101 when you say it. Not bad. But the group name from season one was I.O.I. and we really wanted the name for season 2 to be B.O.I.
Both MAMAMOO and BLACKPINK had huge new releases today.
BLACKPINK is really new, and so far they’ve only had hits. But this new song sounds like an album teaser. If they had just made three or four separate songs, it would be great. But combining them all into one is… weird. Parts of it are good, like Lisa’s rap and the intro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amq-qlqbjYA
Still, this is not the first time this has happened. We all said similar things about SNSD - I Got a Boy when it was first released. It’s just as true now as it was then, but the song was a hit.
More importantly, MAMAMOO is back! Because of company biz BLACKPINK only appears on Inkigayo, so I linked their MV. MAMAMOO was on M Countdown, so I’m going to link the special 4k official “fan” cams which are much mroe fun.
Their title song is what you expect from them. Really good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj26bxllbpY
The real hit is AZE GAG, their secondary track. The song consists entirely of dad jokes. Even as someone who can’t understand Korean, the performance is still so fun. Hwasa’s facial expressions are the best. I’m sure some fans will release a subtitled version soon that explains all the jokes.
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BoA!!!
Killin’ it.
Those videos were super entertaining. The audience is perfectly trained.
It’s like that for every popular group. The fan clubs create the chants, distribute them online, and everyone practices them in advance. The tickets for the music show audience are distributed based on fan club membership. You just don’t hear the chants on TV because they turn them down in the mix. On the fancam you can hear everything. At the arena concerts, you can hardly hear the actual music the chants are so loud.
If you like MAMAMOO, just search for them on YouTube. There is a lot of content there. Here is my fav:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BvVLwa1BDI&index=2&list=FL9gPptRMHHEomcnF96Q1VBw
Fun fact: Moo is the Korean word for radish. That is why their official light stick is radish-shaped, and why that stage is radish-themed.
Heize is currently completely dominating the charts with a song that Koreans are apparently madly in love with, but I don’t care for at all. It’s just some standard rainy day ballad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afxLaQiLu-o
What I do care about is that the queen Lee Hyori is back in business. FYI she was a very very big deal. But awhile back she went on hiatus to go live in the woods with her husband. I guess she finally got the urge to come and make more music. The song doesn’t excite me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64gu8qqeiM
What does excite me is her new variety show. Hyori’s Bed & Breakfast, which is literally just people coming to hang out at her house in the woods. Also IU is there. Available online with legal subs! Only two episodes out so far.
http://www.ondemandkorea.com/hyoris-bed-and-breakfast-e1.html
The only other important news is that BTS put out a remake of a Seo Taji’s track “Come Back Home.” It’s really good. I find it interesting that they filmed a music video for this, but none of the members of BTS appear in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJFn10XLQM
Also of note. BTS stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan. This translates literally to Bulletproof Boy Scouts, and that is how people refer to them in English. They are also sometimes called Bangtan Boys.
They have just announced they are changing their brand image. So now in English they are officially called “Beyond the Scene”. This is a really big WTF.
While I was at CTCon, Red Velvet dropped their new album. This is the title track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyiIGEHQP8o
It has a nice summer jam energy, but this “bluh bleh bluh bleh” noise is extremely distracting and wtf.
EXO came back and, obviously, splashed everyone else out of the pool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdssuxDdqKk
I can’t not hear “Coco Puff”
And how is a song like this on an album titled “The War”?
PSY is still doing his thing, for some reason I really like this particular song. Also features TAEYANG of good boy fame.
Big time action today. Huge episode of M Countdown. You can find links to all the performances here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/kpop/wiki/award-shows/kcon/20170720
EXO’s comeback stage. The Eve is better than Ko Ko Bop. Those fangirls on the fancam. Wow!
KARD finally officially debuts! Those cute kids. They’re coming to NYC in September. Maybe I’ll go see them.
CNBLUE’s leader Jung Yong-Hwa brings some more solo work. I really love this dude when he appears on TV shows, and he’s actually musically talented.
RED VELVET wins again. You would think they would stop now that EXO is here, but they are actually #1 on the chart, and EXO is #3. MAMAMOO and APink stopped promoting just in time to get out of the way.
Not appearing on M Countdown, but releasing a new MV today is AKMU. The title track just makes me want to say “Oh no, not you too AKMU!” All the KPop tracks these days are doing the same tropical house thing. I kinda like KARD doing it, since they built their entire concept around it. But AKMU is supposed to be real music. At least the MV is cute with the dinosaur/E.T. story.
At least the other tracks on the album are more typical AKMU music. I think they are just rushing out music lately because Chan-hyuk is going to go to do his mandatory military service. Will be very interesting to see what happens when he gets back and what Su-hyun does while he’s away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RyevWpDqZ0
In other news GFriend is confirmed to come back on August 1st.
Taeyang is having a concert in NYC, but I’ll be at PAX West.
And the biggest news of all, of course.
SNSD - 10th Anniversary - August 5
Bonus content: What do actual Korean people on the street think about KPop? See what they think of the new EXO music video.
In four days…
They’re making me feel the heat.