STAYC girls, it's going down!!

 One of my biggest regrets in my K-Pop history is that I have been unable to stan my favorites from the beginning. I had unwittingly missed the narrow window of joining the GFRIEND fandom early on, even though T. Noona had already presented it to me on a silver platter. 😓

 

As a result, Sad Eunha is sad.. 😅

I admit that I am a big sucker for stories of organic growth and development, so I decided that I would not let another opportunity to stan a worthwhile group (from debut) to pass me by. Admittedly, the process is now made a little easier with some companies (particularly the more enterprising, smaller ones) revealing the abilities of their soon-to-debut trainees months before the actual debut stage. A couple of prime examples of this would be  365 Practice from RBW (now renamed as the still-to-debut Purple Kiss), and the Highup Girls by High Up Entertainment who eventually made their debut as power rookie group STAYC (스테이씨; Seuteissi, acronym for Star To A Young Culture).

Despite the fact that they had put out some of the aforementioned predebut content, I admit that I only came across their teaser videos shortly after the release of their first title track entitled So Bad.

 

It's definitely going down 😎

When I first heard and saw the MV for So Bad, I thought to myself that "Dang, THIS is how pull off a proper debut for a girl group!" It veered away from the tried and tested formula of going for the totally sweet and innocent concept (see SNSD, GFRIEND) but didn't swing wildly the other way either by going full-on girl crush (see BLACKPINK, ITZY) or ultra sexy (see Nine Muses) from the very beginning. Instead, they seem to have found a solid middle ground wherein they could plant their flag safely. Oh, and it helped that the debut stage performances weren't sloppy either (Sorry T-ARA 😅)

I wouldn't say that it's just a safe song, but it is definitely a SOLID song. Riding the current retro wave, the song starts off by giving this very 80s synthesizer music vibe, something that is also reflected in the Tron-like visuals seen in the CD box (and throughout the MV as well).

 

Yup, very much 80s..

Although the line distribution is unbalanced, the title track gives listeners a fairly good sampling of each member's different vocal capabilities. The most surprising was the very deep vocal tone (? not really a music guy, sorry 😅) pulled off by their maknae, J. 

J = This young lady.

The discography is still understandably slim though, since the  single only contains a pair of songs: The aforementioned So Bad, and a slower, more melancholy track called Like This.

 

Not to be confused with this 👆 Wonder Girls song of the same name 😅

Kpop insiders may argue that despite being from a small company, the girls are geared for success from the get-go, since they are the first girl group created by legendary K-pop producer duo Black Eyed Pilseung, who were the masterminds behind such awesome tracks like APink's Dumhdurum and a number of widely successful songs by a group  called TWICE, maybe you have heard of them? 😅 No wonder So Bad is just so good! 😜

Despite my positive response to the MV, i was still a little apprehensive whether I should follow this group or not. All that changed when I watched their live stages, and man, they were AMAZING!! These girls seem to make it a point to sing LIVE. No matter the imperfections, they are not afraid to go in microphones on, and rock the stage with minimal background vocal support! 😲

It's just a shame that they were not invited to the year-end events.. but then again, their debut was a little late in the year.. Hey, wait a minute! Aespa had their debut much later but still got invited.. I smell an unfair bias.. 😒, but more on that some other time..

After a round of music show appearances, the STAYC girls were hard at work, making various variety appearances and interviews to present themselves to the public. Then the new year came, and with it, was a performance by STAYC that I feel was nothing short of legendary...

Much to the delight of my SONE heart, STAYC did an epic cover of SNSD's Way to Go (Himnae), and being true to form, they did it with LIVE vocals!!! It was just incredible that they could dance that energetically while singing that well! I wasn't absolutely perfect, as you are really expected to pant a bit while singing and dancing at the same time, but that it what made the performance so special, and more importantly, so REAL!

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better,  STAYC came out with an acoustic version, as well as a remixed version of So Bad in a more sultry tone and with a powerful dance break.

It seems that STAYC has all the right fundamentals to make a solid push towards superstardom in the years to come. They have a solidly talented and highly visual member lineup, a very supportive and successful CEO/producer team with a lot of clout in the industry, and even an officially-named fandom this early on in their carrers, although I don't think I'm actually ready to call myself a SWITH just yet. The name still needs to grow on me a bit. 😅 I am now looking forward to their inevitable first comeback sometime this year (hopefully), and maybe get a hold of their official lightstick when it comes out. 😁

- B. Oppa

6960 Magic - Yeoja Chingu

 I decided to do away with the chronological order of my involvement in fandoms because I  figured it would take too long and thus push the more current content too far back for them to be relevant. I have covered my first two major ones anyway, and now I shall be discussing my current (and most passionate to date) K-Pop obsession: the wonderful ladies of GFRIEND (여자친구).

I have to shamefully admit that I came to the party quite late, only becoming a part of the BUDDY fandom earlier last year.. (shame on me!) T. Noona had actually shown me this group around the time after their debut 6 years ago, and one of the main points was that SinB bore an uncanny resemblance to SNSD's Jessica (at the time). However, the group was introduced to me in the midst of my kpop black hole (around 2014-2019), so I didn't really pay much attention at the time because I was too wrapped up in real-world stuff to care. I guess I will be discussing the black hole in a future post.

It was probably due to the pandemic, along with changes to my daily routine  because of my entry into further training, that granted me more free time and eventually sparked my interest and re-entry into the K-Pop rabbithole. I had earlier set aside some GFRIEND videos for T. Noona more as a favor for her than for my own personal consumption. When I began watching out of curiosity though, I was totally blown away...

 Ok, so maybe the above GIF I found does not capture the essence of what I wanted to say, but I can't really one that showcases their excellent stage blocking when they were moving about. I eventually found out that they were well known for their synchronization, but more on that later.

 

Heck, I didn't even know Yuju (bottom of the pile) did a backward-moving split in this sequence until it was pointed out to me much later!

 

See? 😅

Watching Me Gustas Tu, I was awestruck by Yuju's highnote, (and top notch vocals all around as well), and she became my first-ever bias in GFRIEND. 😍 She was a bit chubbier at the time with those chipmunk-like cheeks, which she sadly lost as she transformed into a sophisticated pole-dancing beauty. 😅

To set the timeline straight, this was early-to-mid 2020, so Crossroads and Labyrinth had already come out. I soon delved deep into their discography..

Glass Bead was a strong debut song.It had all the elements that made Into the New World a good start for SNSD. Vocals, visuals, and dancing were all on point. The MV was simple and straightforward though, nothing too fancy, which is understandable considering Source Music's financial situation at that time. People have criticized GFRIEND for having simple, tacky-looking uniforms for their stage outfits. but this is a testament to their very humble beginnings coming from a small, relatively unknown company on the brink of bankruptcy.. It was admittedly a bit difficult to tell them apart during this debut era, since they all sported the same long black hair, with only SinB really sticking out visually due to her Jessica-ness. 😅

Released in 2016, Rough (or "Running Through Time" as some purists would argue 😅) was a visual and auditory spectacle for me. 😍 It really reinforced the Powerful Innocence concept that they were going for, with impressive vocals, sharp snappy dance moves, and an overwhelming orchestra-like accompaniment. Hey, and the lyrics were pretty good too! It is not hard to understand how they would score their first win with this, and shatter records by winning 15 times at music shows. The winter school uniforms were actually quite cute as well. 😍

 

Such an impressive setpiece! No wonder they cried when they first saw how the MV came out! It was just MAGNIFICENT!

 

 

This "time travel clock" ending sequence will never get old for me. It just totally blew my mind when I first saw them moving out in sequence like that!

Ok, I think I posted enough GIFs of Rough. 😅 Moving on along my discovery of their discography was NAVILLERA.

At first, NAVILLERA did not really catch my attention. Sure, it was a high energy song with retro vibes and excellent choreography (again), which in hindsight was really right up my alley. 😅 My guess is that I was still at that point where I was hung up on the fact that their songs all kinda sounded alike.. 😓 It left quite an impression when I saw the intro when they did it at 2x speed though..

 

I mean, DAMN son..😲

So yeah, I was looking around the rabbithole, but my Yuju bias nonwithstanding, I didn't think I was ready to commit myself to full time fanboying again after the events of the black hole era, but then I encountered this...

Just when I thought GFRIEND performances could not get any more epic, there was Time For The Moon Night.. The title struck me humorously as a bit of "Engrish", but wow,  the song itself was serious stuff! It even had another Yuju highnote!

 

Daebak!! 😲😲😲 

 

It was an incredible hit, and it possessed an even grander quality than Rough. At this point I was contemplating already whether to fully stan them, then I came across this performance of TFTMN at Dream Concert 2019..

 

So. Much. EPICNESS!!! 😱

Needless to say, I was HOOKED. And thus started my path to being a full-time BUDDY. I greedily ate up the rest of the discography like a crazed hound. They had so many good songs! And the B-sides were no joke either!!

Fingertip got a lot of undeserved hate from a fickle Korean public that thought it was too different from what GFRIEND was known for, but at the same time they also criticized the girls for playing it safe by doing similar songs. WTF is wrong with you people?? Anyway, Fingertip has one of the most epic (though really short) dance breaks I have ever seen. The dance itself was notthing fancy compared to what other groups can do, but the buildup leading to it just gets you going!

 

This.

After being criticized heavily (but still getting a pair of wins in the process 😎), they shifted back to something a bit more familiar..

 

Don't let the serene appearance fool you. Love Whisper is a song trainees on Kpop survival shows dread to get, because the choreography is too damn complex. A lot of crazy footwork is needed, not to mention a lot of upper body/lower body isolation. 

T. Noona told me that Fever was her favorite GFRIEND track. It was a bit experimental of them to be honest, but I guess at this point in their careers they were already attempting to break with the innocent concepts that they were known for. Remember that this came after TFTMN and Sunny Summer, which reminds me..

 

I don't think I have seen a more fitting title for a song. Sunny Summer is just that, a fresh, sunny, summer track. 😅 Brimming with the cutesy vibe that GFRIEND pulls off so well, it is like a breath of fresh air from the overwhelmingly theatrical (?) (but no less epic) performances seen in their discography.

 

Despite having summer in the name, Summer Rain was of a different tone. It came out in 2017 after Love Whisper and headlines the Rainbow reissue EP.. I find it very melancholic, and is included in my chill-out playlist.

 

Sunrise was their first title track in 2019,  and marked a return to the grandiose-sounding atmosphere that their tracks were known for, but was very much "singable" by the average guy (I MAY have sang along a number of times while driving to work 😅)

 

As I had mentioned earlier, I joined the fandom after the Crossroads promotion. It was on reviewing the videos that I noticed that there seemed to be some kind of linear storytelling going on..

 

Especially in this "time-travel" scene where Eunha is apparently crossing the different eras..

 

.. and didn't she fall like this off a building in Fingertip as well??

 After doing a bit of research (actually, YouTube fan theory videos were very helpful 😅), I discovered an apparent attempt to create a unified GFRIEND storyline, where all the videos were somehow inexplicably linked together, either by chronology of events, or recurrent symbolisms.

Of course, you cant\'t mention Crossroads without mentioning Labyrinth as well. Even though it did not have its own music video, this was the first time GFRIEND did a double title track, and occasionally performed both during music show appearances during the promotional period. I also believe Hitman Bang  co-produced Labyrinth as well, as this album marked their first involvement under BigHit Entertainment after it had acquired Source Music as a subsidiary label.

 It seems as though I had joined the fandom at the nick of time, because after a couple of months, they began rolling out teasers for the Song of the Sirens album, and so I waited impatiently for this new track that they had dubbed Apple..

From the opening scene with Eunha eating a poisoned (?) apple, I knew this was going to be a bit different.. but I think I wasn't prepared for what came next..

 

What the heck just happened??

 

Ok, so this is definitely different..

 

Holy SH******!!!! 😱😱😱😱

 Damn1 This is a completely different image!! GFRIEND are no longer sweet, dainty girls. No sir! They have now become the most epic witches I have ever seen!!

 

😲😲😲

 

This is both epic and downright terrifying 😨

 

We O Wawawawa! 🔥🔥🔥

WOW... 😳  It was just too bad that they had such a short promotional period.. but 3 wins in two weeks ain't half bad, considering that other groups have been trying to get that elusive first win for years but still fall short every time.. The album promotion confirmed a lot of people's suspicions. There was a booklet that came with the album which explained the narrative of 6 young friends who met in school and gained magic powers that were granted by a lake. Everything suddenly just tied together! The fan theories were right!! 😅

After a few months, word got out that there was going to be a November comeback. I remember thinking: After coming out with Apple, how the hell are they going to be able to top that?? Then came the teasers..

 

😲

 These girls left my mouth ajar for a second time. 😅 This new comeback was gonna be crazy different again! I couldn't wait for the MV to drop!

 

WAY different..😲

 The video eventually came out, and damn, I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED!!!

I honestly thought I wouldn't get excited about K-Pop going retro again, since I felt that T-ARA already set the bar pretty high with Roly Poly. Boy, was I ever wrong.. 😅

 

My life is waiting for you! Yes, you! 😍😍😍

 

Holy sh*t Yuju!!! 😱 Are you CLC's Helicopter? 🚁😅

 

Such epic.. I cannot even..

In addition to the super addictive title track MAGO, the Walpurgis Night album also featured the girls doing subunit tracks for the first time (Hug Hug and World Peace don't really count, do they? 😅). As an added bonus, they wrote these songs themselves, although they have been actively involved in writing their songs since Apple.

The SinRin subunit came up with Secret Diary, a light, bubbly track which goes back to GFRIEND's roots (or at least, that's what Yerin said they were going for).

The Yujuna/Vocal line subunit composed and sang Night Drive, which, true to it's name, is surprisingly appropriate for my long drive home at night. 😅

 

My personal favorite among the subunit tracks was created by the mother-daughter LeaMak subunit of Sowon and Umji. Better Me suited their voices so well! It was high  time we heard best leader Sowon sing that much! 😍

 I did not include the Japanese tracks here because they did not really catch my fancy that much, though I think I may eventually feature them here in a separate post. Same goes for GFRIEND's awesome library of B-side tracks, as I just can't fit them all here.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane detailing how I got into GFRIEND so much.

 - B. Oppa

 

*Oh, and by the way, I now have a Bamhaneulbong! 😉

The Follow-up - T-ARA

Image credit: Soompi

 After I had spazzed over SNSD for quite a bit, I began to take note of other K-Pop acts that were active during the time period. Hyomin did a fantastic job on Invincible Youth, because that was what eventually lead me to stan the powerhouse group known as T-ARA (티아라).

I entered the fandom during the Lovey Dovey era. It was a fun, catchy song, and I'm kind of a sucker for solid EDM beats. 😜 Then I discovered the masterpiece that was Roly-Poly...

 Just when you thought a song couldn't get any more addictive, they had put out a retro disco track! T-ARA did the kpop retro wave before it was cool (see Dynamite, et al.). 

 The Cry Cry comeback coincided with SNSD's The Boys, and since I was a hardcore SONE back then, I kinda backed off from the group because I found them to be a threat. Real mature.. 😅

Eventually, I was able to outgrow my apprehensions and dive into the fandom (thanks to Roly Poly, and its' second incarnation, Roly Poly in Copacabana)

There's just something about those karate chops 😜

As I sifted through the different performances and MVs that fansites usually have, I came across their debut stage with "Lies".

Just to be clear, this is NOT the debut stage, but the MV

The debut stage was... how do I put this nicely?.. Lacking.. Vocals were a little weak (even Soyeon), choreo was not in sync, and the costumes were atrocious to be honest.. People are hating on GFRIEND for having cheap-looking costumes early on, but at least they were neat and pretty. T-ARA's debut costumes made me pity them..

 

I didn't like Bo Peep at all, despite the fact that it as the song that got people talking about them. I just wasn't comfortable with the seemingly feline fetish concept. 😕

 

I wont be mentioning all the songs here anymore, since they have had quite an extensive discography. Let's just focus on those that I recall easily.

 

Kpop girls fighting with swords!

One of the most memorable chracteristics of T-ARA for me was the fact that they did movie-type MVs for a while, and that these videos are sometimes interconnected (see Lovey Dovey + Day by Day). 

Everything seemed to go well for a while, then they started adding members. Ahreum was a welcome addition (that girl be crazy talented with her vocal power!), but I draw the line at adding Dani. In a totally WTF move, CCM decided to cast a 12 year old Korean-American kid as a reserve member of T-ARA. Then the shit hit the fan.

The T-ARA bullying scandal totally decimated them, resulting in them lying low and putting out some weird ass concepts like that T-ARA N4 thing, The seventh member was a total snake, and I'm glad T-ARA was eventually vindicated in the end prior to going their separate ways. I just wish they never got the hate that they never deserved. They could have dominated and stood toe-to-toe with SNSD, but that was not to be.. The bullying scandal ruined them, and they were never the same again..

Sexy Love was the first comeback after the scandal broke and the snake was removed. It was a bop, and you gotta give props to the girls for soldiering on in spite of everything, but public opinion had already turned against them, especially since the management barely lifted a finger to protect the group.

I was really happy when Number 9 came out. It was like they were cautiously trying the waters to see if the public would still respond favorably to them While they never achieved the same levels that they had before, a whole lotta love was going their way. In fact, things got better with the next release..

I get chills when I imagine what things could have been had they come out with Sugar Free if they didn't get into the scandal. This was definitely a runaway hit! Unfortunately it didn't win number 1 at the music shows, since the backlash against them was still alive and well..

A few years later, the employees at MBK entertainment finally couldn't stand it anymore and exposed the snake and her equally snakey twin for what they really were, effectively clearing the name of the girls, but it was too little too late. OT6 was whittled down to 4 after Boram and Soyeon's contracts expired, but at least they were able to have one final hurrah, as What's My Name bagged them their first music show win in 5 years, and then they finally went their separate ways.. 😕

I find it irritating that MBK desperately tried to snatch the name T-ARA by copyright, but I'm glad the courts ruled in the girls' favor.. Listening to their extensive discography is always kind of a roller coaster ride for me. There are the fun disco parts, but there is also the deeply emotional part that I will forever associate with their last ever release as a group.. Will they ever get back together for an OT6 reunion project 5 years down the line? We can only hope and pray..

- B. Oppa