Kpop music thread. Stan talent, Stan-all.

ITZY - Boys Like You

A fun English song. This is a pre-release to their upcoming album.

MAMAMOO - 1,2,3 Eoi!

B-side to ILLELLA. I love it when they make songs like this- they make it seem so casual and slightly silly, but they're so technically proficient throughout that it's a bit like they're just showing off.

Just in time for spooky season:

Pink Fantasy - Get Out

Pink Fantasy - The Game (Dance Video)

Throwback Thursday has arrived once again! To start, a new ALICE (formerly ELRIS) video was just released!

ALICE - DANCE ON

I'm digging it! No subtitles on the video so I can't really comment on the lyrics but it's got some bop and everyone looks great.

In some sadder news, it seems like Cube Entertainment has reduced the number of members in Lightsum from 8 to 6; Jian and Huiyeon will no longer be promoting with the group. Man, feels bad. Cube has been doing their groups kinda dirty for a while now.

Well, let's do a throwback to another Cube group; that's right, it's time for some CLC! I'm dedicating this one to Jian and Huiyeon, the disbanded CLC members (Yujin ended up pretty well off so maybe she can sit this one out), and any other members of groups who had the rug pulled out from under them by poor management. Us fans are still out here, and we hope you are doing well and continue to be healthy and happy. Your time in the spotlight may be over, but while it was happening, we liked it!

CLC - I Like It

That's always been one of my favorite CLC songs. I'm still bummed that they disbanded this year.

I'll throwback to a song by Sistar19, a Sistar subgroup with Hyolyn and Bora. It's a fairly simple song, but it always gets stuck in my head for days after hearing it. Also an easy recommend if you're into body rolls

Sistar19 - Ma Boy

I love CLC and it bummed me out watching them get neglected by their company. Black Dress is one of my early discoveries after finding K-pop and still one of my favorites. I looked back at the start of this thread and didn't see that it had ever been posted here, so here it is:

"Me" and "Devil" are another couple songs I love and I couldn't believe they weren't released on Itunes until many months after their release. Then just one day they appeared there and they shot to the top of the charts. I remember Jeff Benjamin (Kpop and Pop music reporter for Billboard) tweeting a confused question about why these older songs were suddenly topping the kpop charts. According to wikipedia, "Me" was the second best selling song that week- second only to BTS's Black Swan. And that's from releasing it at least 9 months after any promotion for the song.

Yeah, I never heard why CLC wasn't available on Itunes during that period of time. I was confused about it as well, but did eventually pick the albums up once Cube finally relented and put them back on the storefront. For me, Oh No No was the first CLC song that caught my attention. I was quite surprised at the shift in concept when they released Hobgoblin, but eventually I came around, although Hobgoblin never climbed very high on my list.

As for Sistar19, yes! Ma Boy is totally a classic. Still prefer the full group to the sub-unit; Bora is stunning and great on variety shows but she's not bringing a ton to the table musically. Maybe when summer rolls back around we can re-visit Sistar and some of their classics.

A couple more pre-release songs from BiBi. Itunes shows the full album should be out Nov 18th.

BiBi - Sweet Sorrow of Mother

BiBi - MotoSpeed 24

It's been pretty quiet this week for releases and such; especially after the Itaewon tragedy it seems everyone is keeping their heads down. I almost forgot to post for Throwback Thursday but technically there's still an hour and a half before Friday so here we go.

Time for another all-time favorite of mine, this is a collaboration release between AKMU's Suhyun and Lee Hi from 2014. It also features Bobby from iKON and the video has a cameo from Blackpink's Jisoo. Talk about stacking up the talent! The song grooves and the video is hilarious. Please enjoy.

HI SUHYUN - 나는 달라(I'M DIFFERENT) (ft. BOBBY)

OMG. That was a fun song and video. I love it.

Nature is the one comeback this week that I was keeping an eye out for. I think it got delayed until the 6th so it wouldn't be released during the period of mourning.

Here's a few comebacks coming out now:

NATURE - LIMBO!

VIVIZ - Rum Pum Pum

YooA (Oh My Girl) - Lay Low

another Yooa track from her upcoming solo mini-album just dropped:

Yooa - Melody

gotta be honest, as much of a fan as I am of Oh My Girl, Yooa's solo stuff has not been hitting for me the way I would want it to. And the new Viviz song posted above...kinda feel the same. If you are gonna name your song Rum Pum Pum, it has to at least be as good as the f(x) song and this one isn't quite cutting the mustard (technically the f(x) song is titled Rum Pum Pum Pum, but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of the Viviz song...anyway, check out the f(x) song if you're not familiar with it, it's pretty great).

That new Nature track seems pretty good though, and I think I recognize at least one of the members from some show I watched previously. (EDIT: I looked it up, Sohee was in a drama about a kpop group called Girls Next Door that featured Moonbyul from Mamamoo, Seulgi from Red Velvet, and (coincidentally) Yooa from Oh My Girl, among several others. Check out the single Deep Blue Eyes from that show, it's good stuff). I haven't paid much attention to this group before now but I think that might have to change...

I'm sort of agreed with your assessment of YooA and Viviz, except I really like the YooA track you posted (I don't think it was out when I posted early this morning).

Nature is a group I've been enjoying for a while. Their biggest hit is called Girls and they released a normal M/V and a "uncensored" version of it with more blood and sharp objects. Feel free to search "nature girls uncensored" and hope it gives you the right results (or click the link here). They've also got "Some (You'll Be Mine)", "Oopsie My Bad" and "I'm So Pretty" that I love and are all worth checking out.

apparently this debut release from a group called tripleS has been climbing the charts. I enjoyed it quite a bit; it's got some nice horns and a good beat. It kind of peters out at the end, I wish it had a bit more build-up/progression as it gets toward the end of the song. Also, it's pretty short, about 2:40, so there was definitely room for a build-up but it kind of just...ends. Still, all in all it's a decent listen, and a good first release that leaves you wanting more, so I guess that's a plus.

tripleS - Generation

I've heard talk of TripleS, but hadn't checked them out. What I've inferred about them is they may be like an NCT127 with a bunch of members that release in different sub-units. So AAA (or Acid Angel from Asia) must be the name of this current sub-unit.

Song was okay. The strict teacher at the start was giving me LOONA YYXY "Love4eva" vibes. It's interesting to see these newer groups (LE SERRAFIM, NEW JEANS, TripleS) using a more 'real world' shot in the streets sort of vibe to their videos.

Tscott wrote:

I've heard talk of TripleS, but hadn't checked them out. What I've inferred about them is they may be like an NCT127 with a bunch of members that release in different sub-units. So AAA (or Acid Angel from Asia) must be the name of this current sub-unit.

Sounds confusing. I'll play it by ear for now, but rotating members will really put a damper on my enthusiasm for the group. I have a hard enough time learning the names of the members as it is! But if the songs are good that'll be the motivator I suppose.

Anyway, I just found out that Lim Kim put out a new single a few days ago. I really liked her first album, Goodbye 20, which came out in 2013, and one of y'all mentioned her back earlier in the thread with her song Awoo from 2015, but her more recent releases have varied wildly from the tone of that original record, and unfortunately her popularity has (as far as I've been able to tell) waned since that time as well. The new track is interesting; it doesn't have the hooks or catchy vibes of most Kpop releases these days, but it feels like she's not really interested in that. I doubt she'd even refer to her music these days as Kpop. Anyway, the new track:

Lim Kim - Veil

And for the Throwback Thursday track, let's jump back to that original album, with a song that seems appropriate to the season (at least where I'm living). If you dig this song, go check out the rest of the album, there's a few great ones on there.

Lim Kim - Rain

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EDIT: hot off the American Song Contest, Alexa's new comeback single just came out and it's great!

Alexa - Back In Vogue

I adore Lim Kim's Rain. Nice choice for Throwback Thursday.

I was just coming to post AleXa's "Back In Vogue" but I was watching it a few times first.

So instead, I guess I'll submit this for Throwback Thursday, Gugudan's subunit OGUOGU (consisting of Mina and Hyeyeon) and their song Ice Chu, in which they actually vogue in the dance break (see what I did there?).

Gugudan (OGUOGU) - ICE CHU

Tscott wrote:

...I guess I'll submit this for Throwback Thursday, Gugudan's subunit OGUOGU (consisting of Mina and Hyeyeon) and their song Ice Chu, in which they actually vogue in the dance break (see what I did there?).

I forgot how bonkers this video was. Like, they're totally criminals in the ice cream world, but then at the end they get turned INTO ice cream?! Not really sure. Definitely a nice track, strong Orange Caramel vibes coming off of it which you don't see too much anymore; I think the WJSN Chocome subunit is the last time I remember it coming around.

The title track to YooA's new EP is out now.

YooA - Selfish

saw this on Twitter, apparently this group called Artbeat has been posting dance covers on Youtube for a while now (at least three years, I got tired of scrolling after that so it might be longer) but they have finally put out their own original debut track and music video and it's actually pretty good. The production quality on it is a bit sparse but I thought it was kinda catchy. You be the judge, here it is:

ARTBEAT - MAGIC

first off, new music from woo!ah!

woo!ah! - Rollercoaster

I think this is one of their better releases; Nana in particular really sounds nice on this track. Hopefully they get some good sales and have strong promotions off of it.

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Now for my Throwback Thursday selection, I'm going waaaayyy back to 2009. The singer I'm picking is around 22-23 at the time of this album's release; the crazy thing is that she's already an 8-year veteran of the Korean music scene by then, and her company, SM Entertainment, has decided she should try to break into the US music scene with this self-titled album. The song slaps and the video is fun; she literally dances so hard the room explodes! You all know her, she's been brought up in the thread several times before and is a true icon of the early Kpop scene; this is the one and only BoA.

BoA - Eat You Up

oops, edit

New(ish?) girl group CSR

CSR - Pop? Pop!

CSR - Loveticon

I will never be able to see/hear the name CSR and not have my brain spit out 'Customer Service Representative' but yeah, I just got done watching their new LoveTiCon music video and it's super cute. Reminds me of some of Weeekly's first releases; I'm really enjoying it.

BiBi - Vengence MV

Catch up time!

gurusloth wrote:

HI SUHYUN - 나는 달라(I'M DIFFERENT) (ft. BOBBY)

Oh, I love this song. I think it was my introduction to Lee Hi as well.

Tscott wrote:

NATURE - LIMBO!

I was pretty let down by Nature's last comeback (Rica Rica) after really enjoying their previous one (Girls), so I'm happy to say that I quite enjoy this one on first listen. It strikes me as one that might grow on me even more after a few more listens.

gurusloth wrote:

Lim Kim - Veil

I'm not sure I've ever heard anything from Lim Kim before, but I quite like the vibe of this song. I may have to check out some of her other stuff.

Since I haven't posted the last few weeks, I'm gonna triple down for Throwback Thursday. I'll piggyback from your BoA video with my favorite from that era.

BoA - The Shadow

I don't think Stellar has been posted in this thread yet. They are most well known for being one of the groups of that era embracing the "sexy" concept (though sadly, not necessarily by choice), which often overshadows the fact that they have some really great music. Vibrato is probably their most popular track, but Sting is my favorite. The videos are honestly nothing crazy compared to a lot of western MVs, but by K-pop standards, they're definitely risque... especially the bridge in Vibrato. Obligatory NSFW warning.

Stellar - Vibrato

Stellar - Sting

I'd be a bit surprised if any regulars here haven't seen this video, but it hasn't been posted yet, so let's cover our bases. This remains one of my favorite performance videos in K-pop.

CL - Hello B*tches

Edit:

Tscott wrote:

BiBi - Vengence

Dyni wrote:

Goddamn, I love BiBi.

Another girl group debut from a small company. It's got a very pleasant sound.

Fifty Fifty - Higher

A new solo release from Lovelyz member Ryu Sejeong dropped a couple days ago, and it's pretty good! It has kind of a city pop feel to it and seems like it suits her a bit more than her previous solo release, Tiger Eyes. Check it out:

Ryu Sejeong - Pink Moon

Happy Thanksgiving (to those who are celebrating) and Happy Throwback Thursday! Just wanted to pop in and say hi to everyone who might be reading this; I don't know if we have lurkers on this page so the audience for this message might be pretty small, but I hope you're doing well and have a lot to be thankful for this year.

I found this video a while back, and honestly I don't know much about the group or what else they've done, or even if they're still making music. But this video is just a three minute bundle of good vibes, and it cheers me up every time I watch it. Have a good holiday (or just a good day) and I wish for you many happy things.

J Rabbit - Happy Things

Hope everyone who celebrates it had a good Thanksgiving.

I am waking up to the awful news that Chuu is no longer in Loona. Given the lawsuit followed by her lack of involvement over the past several months, this isn't too surprising. What is surprising though is that Loona's company, Blockberry Creative is accusing her of "abusive behavior" to other employees.

Fans are having a hard time reconciling this accusation with what we know and have seen from Chuu in the past. Many are speculating that this abusive behavior from Blockberry's perspective, might be just her standing up for her rights and what she thinks was best for her. Or more insidiously, this may be BBC's way of trying to sabotage Chuu's promising solo career. Without more detail it's hard to say. But given interactions I've seen between her and Sunmi and ChungHa and others and how they respect and care for her, I'm leaning towards giving Chuu the benefit of the doubt and want to wish her the best going forward.

Also I wish the best for all the members of Loona and their future too.

Link to full translation of the BBC notice for anyone who'd like to see it. LOONA's Subbits is a twitter account/youtube channel who has been faithfully translating/providing subtitles to Loona content for at least 4 years and I trust this is as accurate a translation as possible.