The Kpop thread. - LEGGO

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b0x said:
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Kpop industry is a modern capitalist slavery. If they get even ,10% I will be honest, they are fucking lucky. Labels don't give shit to their members at all. Even if their contract obligates them to do so. Whatever gig they do, it goes to paying down their debt or whatever fee the label charges them. It is the most asinine industry I have ever seen and yet everyone wants to be a Kpop sensation. A fucking waitress makes more money than 99% of the Kpop "celebrities". Your best bet is some fucking gig OUTSIDE of the shit that label gives you. At least then you get to keep most of it and believe me it's a lot.

Lisa probably makes several hundreds of thousands of dollars but again it's a fraction of billions that the company is making. It's fucking incredible.
 
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2021 has been such a lackluster year for K-pop but in all honestly, it feels like things have been going downhill since the baton was passed onto BTS, Blackpink, and Twice. BTS outperforming EXO led to the dark ages for male groups and an overabundance of boys to try and get some of that ARMY money so they all sound the same or at least angle for similar concepts previously covered by BTS. And having the top two performing girl groups be directionless copy-pastes on the side of production and concept has lead to this really weird space where every girl group is a combination of the girl crush concept, the bad girl concept, and the cute girl concept, with no duality or even a proper flow between the two sides.

Having those three as the respective icons of the K-pop space right now is laughable when they're all chasing America money, and an American sound, and American tropes. Whilst singing in English, because who needs the K in K-pop anyway.

BTS sold out by the end of their Love Yourself series. Mic Drop (Steve's remix) and DNA were strong numbers. Fake Love was a rehash of a lot of tropes (the music video was horrendous with its blatant 'easter egg' nature) and some of that Blood, Sweat and Tears flavour and felt ultimately forgettable but inoffensive. They had a slew of great songs from that era (Go Go, Anpanman, Airplane pt. 2), but IDOL was the moment they began sniffing their own farts. It's been downhill since then.

I didn't care for Map of the Soul quite honestly, it felt like sleepwalking through everything that had done before but better. But Dynamite kills me inside. Butter even more so. Maybe it's because they're entirely in English, maybe it's because I can barely stand whatever the fuck keeps happening over the vocalists voices in these songs, maybe it's because they feel like the most soulless pop I've heard since JYP's attention at cornering America with the Wonder Girls.

So I suppose it's apt that my favorite song from them in years is their collaboration with Coldplay. Forcing them into some other artists niche was a breath of fresh air, weirdly enough. But it's clear as day that BIGHIT is scrambling with enlistment on the horizon.

Blackpink has been releasing the same song since DDU-DU DDU-DU, which isn't saying much since they started with 2NE1 scraps. All of K-pop is manufactured, don't get me wrong here, but Blackpink is a shining example of marketing surpassing anything the group has actually done. They only released their first album in 2020, four years into their lifespan, and it was an 8-track offering that has features doing what the group's existing vocalists and rappers should have been more than capable of doing by that point. In contrast, Red Velvet debuted in 2014 and had 2 full albums under their belt by their fourth year. Twice (2015) had only 1 album in 4 years along with 4 mini albums. And I'm fairly certain none of those release had features but correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaking of Twice, they were gutted the moment Itzy was announced and it shows. Whenever I hear a Twice song now, I feel like I'm listening to an S.E.S. comeback. Which would be admirable for S.E.S., maybe, but it's pretty sad for a girl group who hasn't quite hit year seven. JYP doesn't know what the fuck to do with them. Their music videos lately have been rehashes of older content, as if the label's relying on nostalgia because their songs are forgettable, albeit inoffensive. And they all meld together after Likey (probably starting with Signal, if I'm being honest). JYP mistakenly fast-tracked their mature sound because Itzy had to be the vibrant young girls of the company and have been fumbling with what the hell to do with this group since. The Feels truly is just Dynamite with a female group paint job. Jeongyeon seems to be about as done with this bullshit as I am.

So basically, what the media touts as the greats of current day K-pop are all floundering messes of various degrees, deemed the genres trailblazers when in actuality, the only musicians here to have come into popularity with a somewhat distinct sound was BTS, who can now only copy their past achievements and spin their wheels while being walking, talking tourist attractions for South Korea.

Still, I did have a couple of songs and albums I came to love this year. I suppose as the scene gets bigger and bigger, it starts to feel more like American pop and even J-pop; you take what you like and ignore the rest. It's simply odd because K-pop felt so much more contained a few years ago - or perhaps I just had more time on my hands to pay attention.
 
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Cactus Concerto said:
If anyone can explain to me how in the fucking world this came to be, I would be eternally grateful:

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Likely just taking the Babymetal approach of taking idol trainees and stuffing them into a genre full of typically older scruffy bands, except instead of metal, it's butt rock. It's not the worst song that came out of kpop in 2021, and their marketing gimmick is probably going to get more eyes on their debut than if it was just another middling JYP boy group.
 
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Would it be a stretch to say this is similar to the approach SM seems to be taking with Aespa? Less so in terms of taking a different genre and injecting it with pop and the K-pop visual flare but more so the "we're high concept, low everything else, love us juseyo!"
 
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Cactus Concerto said:
Would it be a stretch to say this is similar to the approach SM seems to be taking with Aespa? Less so in terms of taking a different genre and injecting it with pop and the K-pop visual flare but more so the "we're high concept, low everything else, love us juseyo!"
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Aespas so much a ripoff of K/DA its absurd.

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b0x said:
Aespas so much a ripoff of K/DA its absurd.
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Oh that's blatantly obvious. I would much prefer another computed generator idol group with a bunch of borrowed voices than having to deal with the bland Aespa girls who don't just drown in their concept, but actively drag it down. I can only assume SM directs them to be as emotionless as possible in MVs to try and match up with the CGI but my god, they've got less personality than stick figure drawings.

I was actually kind of excited for another KDA when Aespa was first announced but the reality was a massive disappointment. Another super group borrowing from SM's existing talent rather than a new group would have been more engaging. Like a combination of BT21 and KDA.

But all they've got to separate themselves from the rest of K-pop proper is their anime avatars and they have no personality on their own, so what the fuck am I supposed to care about when KDA offers arguably better music, production quality, and much more engaging characters - even without knowing about their source game material, they have such distinct visual personalities people have latched onto them. Vocaloids manages this ages ago as well.
 
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