Kpop music thread. Stan talent, Stan-all.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...

My Momoland Fan Meeting tickets just got refunded. No official word, but Momoland concerts in South America and in Canada this summer were canceled, so likely the LA one is canceled to.

Not enough sad faces to express

Edit: Just got the official cancelation email. So here’s an extra sad face.

Ah damn, sorry. That sucks

Aw man, that sucks. Hopefully you get another chance someday.

I'd heard this when it first came out, then couldn't find it again until today.

The YG Entertainment scandal has erupted with YG and his brother CEO resigning. Things are going to get really crazy now.

Wow. I hadn't heard that yet. I knew about B.I. leaving iKon because it was revealed he was trying to buy LSD or something, and knew it's just been a bad year in general for YG Entertainment.

Hopefully this doesn't effect BlackPink and some of YG's soloist too badly.

Tscott wrote:

Wow. I hadn't heard that yet. I knew about B.I. leaving iKon because it was revealed he was trying to buy LSD or something, and knew it's just been a bad year in general for YG Entertainment.

Hopefully this doesn't effect BlackPink and some of YG's soloist too badly.

The Seungri scandal led to some serious dark sh*t this year.

Here's a new voice that I'm finding quite interesting: BiBi with the song Binu

That came out abount a month ago, and here's a new song already:

I found Binu on Itunes, but the new song (part of a 4 song EP) says that it's not currently available in the US which is frustrating me. Which reminds me that I still haven't found CLC's Me available to download anywhere- it's on streaming platforms, but I can't find a way to purchase the MP3 to add to my collection on my ipod.

Last few days I’ve done a real dive into LOONA. There’s a lot there to like but I think I appreciate most their attention to detail and what appears like advance planning. Seeing snips of other MVs or Loonatic being nothing but clips from other songs was such a treat now that I have a better reference for it. I think the feel I get most is high-budget, indie-artistic.

Yeah, there's a lot of little neat things to discover when you look deeper into some of the LOONA videos. One thing I found was that:
Yves (the 1st member of YYXY) has Vivi in her video (the 4th member of LOONA 1/3*)
Chuu (the 2nd member) has Haseul in her video (the 3rd member of 1/3)
Go Won (the 3rd member) has a brief shot of a cat in her video (the cat is the animal of Hyunjin, the 2nd member of 1/3)
and Olivia Hye (the 4th member) has Heejin at the end of her video (the 1st member)

So it was like they were counting down to the beginning at the end.

Also, if you watch Butterfly after knowing all the videos you can pick up on a lot of references in the scenes with the non-LOONA members.

*Vivi's the 5th member of LOONA, but since Yeojin wasn't a part of 1/3, Vivi's the 4th member of that.

Woooo! Are you ready for this? Zimzalabim!

First listen, I really wasn’t sure, but a few more in and I think it’s growing on me. Some of the B sides are pretty good too.

Do not like that song at all. B-sides, don't let me down.

The song is pretty overwhelming on first listen. By the third listen I was in love with it. I've given the rest of the album a couple listens and overall it's great.

BTW, I was shocked that the video had English captions. Red Velvet songs NEVER have English captions. For my first listen I even turned the captions off, just so I could take in the music and not be distracted trying to read, listen and take in those costumes that they're wearing all at the same time.

Further BTW:
I don't know if I love that I hate their outfits, or if I hate that I love their outfits. Either way, it's very Red Velvet, and thus awesome.

SM has been captioning in English recently. See also the mini album comeback for Yesung,'s (of Super Junior) Pink Magic for another example. It's a smart move.

Not sure what I think of RV's comeback. I'm more of a Velvet side fan though.

Red Velvet has always been very hit or miss for my taste. I have a few songs I love and then the rest I can barely get through a first listen.

Today at work I had my Kpop Title Tracks playlist going on shuffle. At one point it played Red Velvet's Russian Roulette, Rookie, RBB (Really Bad Boy) and Ice Cream Cake all in a row. It was incredible.

I preordered the normal version of the ReVe Festival Mini Album. They also have a deluxe version that comes in 5 different covers, one for each member and has a few Festival themed items thrown in. I'm tempted to order one, but I don't have a strong bias on which member to get, and I'm not spending $100 to get all five.

EDIT: Annnd, I ordered the deluxe version with Wendy's cover.

More Red Velvet. Combining Kpop in public with a dance practice video.

The two cameos are well known youtubers from Korea (although I had to google both of them after reading their names in the comments). The little girl is Na Haeun and she does dance covers and even has her own song and music video - She's 10. The guy is Go Toe, and he apparently does Kpop mashups and such.

Good stuff in this one. I think it covers well why Zim— didn’t take with me until a few listens in.

Bfgp wrote:

Not sure what I think of RV's comeback. I'm more of a Velvet side fan though.

I am too. I still not a fan of Zimzalabim, but the rest of the EP is quite good. Sunny Side Up, Parade, and LP are some of my favorite B-sides from them in quite some time.

New G-Idle comeback! This has a late 90's/early 00's vibe, like EXID's Lady. I love it.

I'm also enjoying Chung Ha's new comeback. Good song, good dancing, and awesome visual aesthetics.

I'm liking Chung Ha's whole EP. Very nice. (G)I-dle comeback is fine. Not their strongest song but it's okay.

I don't think GWSN (a.k.a. Girls In The Park) have been mentioned here yet. I really enjoyed their debut last year, Puzzle Moon.

And I also enjoy their comeback, Pinky Star (Run).

I'd been wanting their CDs for a while now, but they kept getting put on the back burner- until finally I noticed they were Out of Stock at Choice Music LA. Amazon to the rescue- I found them there for a decent price and prime shipping. Beautiful packaging and a bunch of extras.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/XEvaHhz.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/BHKrYCW.jpg)

I also got Red Velvet's "The ReVe Festival Day 1" (normal version) today. I got Seulgi's photocard and a standup cutout of Wendy in that outfit.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/EvKBUXh.jpg)

Zimzalabim!

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/hr6qxk3.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/BTppH63.jpg)

My previous thoughts on Gfriend have been it's pleasant music, but not for me. But for some reason their newest song has got its hooks in me. I must have watched this video over a dozen times since it premiered yesterday.

I’m just going to spoiler all of this. Trigger Warning, sexual assault warning.

Spoiler:

Momoland was in Mexico this past weekend for a Fan Meet, sold out 3,000 seat venue, and some male attendees were shouting sexist/sexualized things at them and one was even arrested for masturbating during the show.

Tweet with article link

Ugh!

I’m sure this is the kind of crap every female celebrity, every female deals with to all sorts of degrees, and it mostly goes unreported and ignored. This one hits me hard because Momoland is my group, and it makes me so pissed off that crap like this happens to them and at all to anyone.

Tscott wrote:

I don't think GWSN (a.k.a. Girls In The Park) have been mentioned here yet. I really enjoyed their debut last year, Puzzle Moon.

I just skimmed back through the thread because I'm really surprised I didn't link to Puzzle Moon in here. That was one of my favorite songs from last year. I didn't like Pinky Star as much, but it's still pretty good. I haven't checked out their B-side stuff yet.

Tscott wrote:

My previous thoughts on Gfriend have been it's pleasant music, but not for me. But for some reason their newest song has got its hooks in me. I must have watched this video over a dozen times since it premiered yesterday.

That's interesting. I like the song, but it isn't one of my favorites for them. I think I'm a little worn out on tropical bass and largely instrumental choruses, especially for GFriend as their vocal choruses tend to be some of my favorites. Nevertheless, I'm happy to see them branch out and try some new styles. The last time they did that was with Fingertip, which I loved even though it fell flat for the K-pop community at large.

Ailee just released her first comeback in a couple years. She has been known primarily for her power vocals and upbeat pop songs, so this a pretty big departure from her normal style:

Some of her big previous releases include I Will Show You, Don't Touch Me, and Home.

Antichulius wrote:

I’m just going to spoiler all of this. Trigger Warning, sexual assault warning.

Yuck. That's terrible I've read plenty of stories about bad fans, but that's a new low.

Dyni wrote:

That's interesting. I like the song, but it isn't one of my favorites for them.

I'll be honest and say that's it more the video and the visuals that have drawn me in, but the song is growing on me.

Speaking of songs growing on me, the other day I found myself driving with the windows down and with (G)I-dle's latest song, Uh Oh, on high volume and really enjoying it. I think I was pretty cold about it when I first heard it.

Nothing really of vvalue to add here beyond the observation that K-Pop fans online are some of the most.... let's just say "intense" fans I've ever seen in my life.

I work for a TV station that has begun occasionally having on members of K-Pop bands during one of our shows, and I can tell when we've had a K-Pop band on because when I come in and check our social media, our mentions are just overflowing with fans all freaking day, to the point that it genuinely makes it challenging to do my job.

It is both terrifying and amazing.

Yeah. Kpop has a way of making fans feel very loyal and protective of the idols they follow. It can be intense sometimes. One example I'm very familiar with is I'll see someone with a small youtube channel (under 1000 subs) react to a Loona video for the first time. Then all of a sudden they've got a video with more views than all their other videos combined and tons of comments from Loona fans. They'll all be positive, but they'll also all be strongly suggesting that they now react to all 12 solo videos- in order, and the sub-unit videos and maybe the dance practices and, oh yeah, all the teaser videos because they also add more to the "Loonaverse".

An extreme example that sticks out for me (should I preface this with: "not all BTS fans"?) is when FBE/React did a BTS Boy with Love reaction, they mentioned how Blackpink broke the youtube record of most views in the 1st 24hours, and then BTS broke the record a couple weeks later, and asked reactors their opinion of the popularity of Kpop. On twitter there were angry comments replying to FBE saying that they shouldn't have mentioned Blackpink or any other Kpop in the video, and that Kpop as an industry has done BTS wrong- and thus no true BTS fan could also be a fan of any other Kpop groups.

The videos are starting to bother me a little. They're all doing almost exactly the same things in almost exactly the same ways.... it's formulaic to the point of being a little scary. It's obvious that there's a KPop Music Machine churning out a formula, and while at least they're picking good talent, the regimented nature of, well, everything worries me.

I'm really not sure that scene is healthy for the performers; I think it may be much worse for them than the American music industry ever was, and we all know how bad that could be.

I really admire the talent, but I think it may be getting chewed up and spit out.

ReacttotheK have put together this well done classical medley of 42 kpop songs in 6 movements. Video was produced, directed and edited by Form of Therapy.

Turn on subtitles to see which songs are being played by which instruments.

A really beautiful piece even if you aren't familiar with the source the melodies were taken from.