Kpop 2018

wow that's awful and shocking, absurd that dating scandals are still such a thing and that companies can react like this over them

It just seems incredibly short-sighted. Hyuna was probably popular enough to ride out any dating scandals, while E'Dawn was a rising star. Good luck Cube imo.

i've seen some suggest that the issue was that Cube denied the dating rumours only for Hyuna & E'Dawn to publicly confirm they were dating afterwards and it seems Cube really didn't like that they did that

Yeah Cube's shares tanked after they went public (and is tanking now after this latest announcement).

I feel bad for Pentagon though - they were just starting to make waves. They don't deserve this.

lololol what a mess

[UPDATE] A senior official from CUBE Entertainment said the withdrawal of HyunA & E'Dawn is not final yet. The agency officials are having an urgent meeting & will gather the opinions from their artists as well https://t.co/yZlkxg3xhw pic.twitter.com/weppSv4c3U

— The Seoul Story (@theseoulstory) September 13, 2018

If the point was to show Hyuna and E'Dawn who's boss, it backfired big time.

Pentagon are promoting right now and the song is pretty bad, but that might be because E'Dawn is not there to sell his Shine pt 2 co-write

The main thinh OMG's Remember Me reminds me of is f(x)'s Pinocchio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RUeTYiJCyA

I've never really been able to get into GOT7 but that's quite nice.

I like it, it kinda sounds like Teenager (fan favorite off the last album): https://youtu.be/MPhAEcLaiNs

I think I'd like it more if it was just a touch more relaxed

dirrrrrrrty bass (but the chorus is poppy):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YROy48zGzW4

Doesn't quite stick the landing but I love the first 2 minutes of this...

https://soundcloud.com/bangtan/seesawxineedu

i like this way more than the components

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ekJOWBejSU

this is a very good r&b track with a great keyboard solo that i'd completely missed until now

listened to the GOT7 album and it's really great, one of the best kpop full lengths i've heard. nearly every track could have been the single

this is one of the highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6rhxI80-FY

Oh yeah Lee Jin Ah pitched as this piano genius could be very noodle-y but she's shown a great pop sensibility too, even in the songs where she IS doing jazz piano throughout

Like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnniajBkORg

Her album this year is beautiful

I've been listening to a lot of Lee Jin Ah on my jazz(y) Kpop odyssey this year, it's bubbling up from the Korean underground to the idol scene.

Random is my favorite Lee Jin Ah track.

yeah her album was quite enjoyable too

Working toward a theory of how these idol groups are positioned for an audience... not just on a cute/sexy axis for girlgroups (or a puppy love/possessive love axis for boygroups), but thinking about that axis in terms of the (sexual) agency allowed to the artist (the x axis), and also adding another axis for the age/sophistication of the target audience (the y axis).

So you can have a group with a pretty sophisticated presentation, using sounds from the indie scene or otherwise outside the idol scene, with MVs that use indie film tropes (clever transitions, artsy black and white, unexpected juxtapositions, or maybe tried indie tropes like filing at the laundromat), but because the artists are young, the target audience is also young (or are people who are into "young") - so the portrayal of the relationship will lack agency on the part of the artist, and they will be in the bottom left corner of the graph. (Ex: Infinite forever complaining about how they are controlled by Bad Girls, IU adding musical complexity while still appealing to the uncle fans, Stellar going meta about how they are objectified while being poked by computer mice in the music video).

The ultimate goal of this exercise is escape to the quadrant in the bottom right, where you can have a sophisticated image (y-axis) AND sexual agency (x-axis), the only way to retain fans after aging out of your original image, whatever it was (young and sophisticated, young and cute, or sexy but in a simplistic, 1-dimensional way). Because as an older artist, you not only want to be more true to your actual lived experience, but you also can't compete with the younger artists to be MORE cute or MORE inexperienced or in a MORE kdrama-rama relationship, right?

This isn't to say that the bottom right quadrant is actually more sophisticated or sexy, more that it's a Justin Timberlake going to "Suit and Tie" type of deal, where you successfully keep your audience into adulthood.

So examples of artists who succeeded here might be G.o.D, IU, Suzy from Miss A (and actually, Miss A as a whole, although they disbanded shortly thereafter), Taeyeon from Girls Generation, EXO-CBX and the other EXO subunits, Red Velvet, VIXX, Minah from Girl's Day, Sistar both as a group and as individual artists, Big Bang (maybe, they can also be self-reflective without being emotionally mature).

Just a thought, and since the pop culture website I used to write for went under, I figured I'd put it here.

ANyway in the young but sophisticated (but lacking agency) quadrant we have MXM, who I am enjoying quite a bit these days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFszwM0WhNg

Or it could be that this is the new young-and-cute puppy love quadrant, updated with what the kids are actually into these days.

And speaking of that sexy/tasteful quadrant, here's another one for the Continued Mainstreaming of Jazz Piano Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcwJvgs53Ng

Interesting theory, but time to get to paint and start filling in the names so we can tell you why we disagree

Much as I dig Red Velvet not sure they've escaped to the bottom right just yet? Sophisticated presentation, but lacking agency, a bit all over the place, still very much dancing at the whims of SM. They're also just a few years old.

Lee Hyori is/was the ultimate example, I guess, going from a squarely cute 'n innocent concept group to major success in the mature phase of her career as something completely different and now in the 'do what she pleases' phase. Although she's mostly done with music by now.

Yeah, for Red Velvet actually I think you are right, they are bouncing back and forth between the top left (cute & upbeat) and top right (sexy bad girls) as a group, as planned from the start of their careers. Because when you establish from the beginning that you're going to be switching up your image, it makes the final transition easier & more credible.

Seulgi as a solo artist might be a better candidate for escaping to the bottom right, and SM Station in general seems to be an outlet for SM artists to try out some different sounds and maybe gain credibility as mature artists so they can escape whatever image they started out with.

For boy groups, I think the textbook example would be VIXX - they were video game characters at debut, then did some Jekyll/Hyde concept switch stuff, and now are playing up the 'sexy, mature, tasteful, and/or musically adventurous' image both as a group and in their solo releases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0xDI5R50E

Subbed, but IU's difficult to translate, puns and poetry aplenty

The song is great. Surprisingly catchy.

^ i love this one! thanks for pointing it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX-e5rvmtas

APRIL have moved away from their usual cutesy innocent sound here with great results. 80s-influenced but still pretty distinctive in sound and it flows fantastically

woo

https://youtu.be/AX3Bsiq-13k

oh it didnt embed, but ^ thats the new dua lipa x blackpink song

wow that song really sux

duua lia x blackpink obviously, not APRIL or IU. We don't even get Lisa rapping in English! Total money grab.

The John Legend x Wendy rnballad is superior in every way and an actual collab.

The APRIL song is really good... the production is hypnotic and it really suits their (lighter) voices.

The song kind of sounds like something Wondergirls or TWICE would do, with a vaporwave (or the 80s Jpop sound that inspired vaporwave) sensibility and updated with modern production.

re APRIL: love how movie trends tend to permeate throughout k-pop - a few years ago, it was all the Batman stuff, now clearly it's Clueless (see also, LOOΠΔ/yyxy's look/MVs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4tBlQ5yTwY

I've actually never heard of this group - came across via Youtube autoplay. Extremely enjoyable!

They're from the survival show Idol School, I think. Kind of CJ E&M's answer to Mnet's Produce 101 or KBS's The Unit, but not as popular as either of those. I think this is the first fromis_9 track that's gotten any traction with the general public.

Love Bomb is quite good, much better than the previous fromis_9 singles i'd heard which i barely remember at all

the Batman trend in kpop videos was really so odd

EXO doing some crowd-pleasing current hip hop trends, but then there's an extended barbershop call and response bridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwd8N6K-sLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAKsZ26SabQ

new TWICE is fun, certainly one of their best singles. feels kinda Kylie-ish?

Really like 'Tempo'

Me too Frederirk, me too.

I think TWICE might repeat the chorus many one or two too many times, but it's pretty enjoyable. TT is their best song I think.

Speaking of songs that will please fans, Key x Soyou is everything you'd want and expect from that collaboration, they both have such nice/contrasting voices and the song sounds like it could have been a b side on the last SHINee album.

https://youtu.be/BJUjR2N0aEM

Also, my boys MXM out there doing their MXM thing, I love how consistent they are with the shout vocals, simple hooks and indie visuals:

https://youtu.be/_Xgyys2zZc8

Both songs are simple but I like them.

Forever Yours is fun!

my top three TWICE singles are pretty easily Likey, Yes or Yes, and What Is Love?

I'm really glad Key is doing well in this post-Jonghyun world - for a while there, it seemed like he might have been the hardest hit by the loss.

Yes or Yes is great, and more Clueless-esque plaid skirts and berets! I like Tempo too, not least because SM has finally realised how popular Sehun is and decided to give him double the number of his usual lines haha.

Have I mentioned before that I'm into the jazz trend in Kpop? Because I'm into the jazz trend in Kpop. US producers, you need to get on this.

That's a collab between Park Jiyeon (ex-GLAM) and Park Kyung, by the way.