It’s hard to believe there was a time people scoffed at the idea of a male Produce 101. But even for the less skeptical, Wanna One has had an astounding amount of success. They literally dominated August, from charts to music shows to even variety show viewership ratings. I did a profile on them, and my list of their variety show appearances literally doubled my site traffic. And my friend who visited Seoul confirmed they were everywhere. Basically, they’re so successful that they’re potentially damaging the way things work in K-pop. Not only was their debut wildly popular, but it was also really good – and it proved these young men are indeed super rookies to keep an eye on.Continue reading “Wanna One Debut Review: “Energetic” and “Burn it Up””
SNSD Comeback Review: “Holiday” and “All Night”
These are turbulent times for K-pop’s second generation, especially for female idols. In the past year, we’ve seen so many iconic girl groups disband: Kara, 4minute, 2NE1, Wonder Girls, and my personal favorite Sistar (*sobs*). With all these unexpected goodbyes, it’s kind of a miracle Girls’ Generation made it to the ten year mark. The revelation that they’re negotiating their contracts ruined it a bit, and I think we’re all still better about that one week of promotions. Nonetheless, we still got to celebrate with their first album in two years. And though many agree this comeback wasn’t up to par for such a special anniversary, both songs are still fun.
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That Time I Went to see Monsta X: Beautiful Tour in Paris 2017
I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since Monsta X was here! I’m usually not much of a concert goer, but I’m pretty flexible when it comes to K-pop groups. They don’t often come to Paris and they never come to Boston, so I gotta see my faves when I can. And Monsta X was high on my list! They were one of the first groups I discovered, and they’ve been in my Top 5 ever since. (I literally change favorites all the time, so in my world that’s a big deal) Plus I really liked Beautiful, which I think is their best album and title track so far. So suffice it to say that I was super excited for this.
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Group Profile Update – Wanna One added!
Hi again! I want to apologize to frequent visitors for the lack of activity on this blog – this summer’s been a busy one! I have a lot of different posts in the works, but I still have to edit most of them. In the meantime, I’ve been working on building up my Group Profile page, and I just did one for Wanna One! I plan to follow their activities closely, so I hope that this will be a good resource for fans and people who want to check them out.
A little update on what’s coming: The next post I will do will definitely be about the Monsta X concert, because I’ve been slacking off on that for like a week now. After that, I will get back to reviews because it’s been a while! I will definitely do Wanna One, and I’ll also do SNSD even though their promotions ended abruptly and there’s all that contract renewal drama. I haven’t decided which other groups I will cover yet because there are so many, but I’m happy to take any requests!
– K
New Twitter Account!
Hi all! I’ve been thinking about making a Twitter account for this blog for a while, and I’ve been putting it off because I’m lazy. But I’m headed to the Monsta X concert tonight, and I wanted a place to share photos and thoughts.
SO! If you want to follow me, you can now find me at @katdoeskpop 🙂
In the meantime, I’ll make a post about my concert experience in the next couple of days!
– K
Favorites of 2017: July
I had my suspicions before, but July proved I’m heavily biased towards SM artists. It’s more of a “I like their music/style” thing rather than a “SM is the best/blindly following the company” thing, but there it is. I always try to be diverse, since there are so many other groups out there to love. But when Red Velvet and EXO both had comebacks this month, my preferences were clear. “Red Flavor” and “Ko Ko Bop” were by far my most played songs, and I was way more enthusiastic about them than anyone else. But at the same time, I do think there were several groups that had quality music.
Favorites of 2017: June
June is my favorite month! To be fair, that’s really because I was born in June (Gemini all the way, baby). It’s probably because I’m biased, but it always seems like only good things happen this month. And June has given me some of my absolute favorite K-pop songs. While I favored some of the up and coming rookies, a lot of older groups also came out with some catchy music that intrigued me. And there were a lot of upbeat dance tracks, which are my favorite kind.
Favorites of 2017: May
Oh my gosh, May feels like forever ago. K-pop moves so darn fast. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in the beginning (because of elections?), but the last week brought a whole rush of comebacks that threw me off schedule. I considered skipping this post altogether because it’s been so long, but ultimately my perfectionism need to be consistent won out. Plus there were a lot of great songs this month. May may not have had a lot of new music, but there was a lot of diversity. All of my favorite songs this month are very different in terms of sound, and I’m loving it.
Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 11 Recap: I Hope I Get It
(I’ve been waiting three months to use that A Chorus Line reference) I’ve finally made it to the end! Well the show finished like a month ago…but besides me just being slow, I think I’ve needed this long to process the final results. Season 1 was fun, but Season 2 took me on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. I became deeply invested in what this group would become, and it took more of a toll on me than I’d like to admit. But ultimately, I think both Wanna One and the eliminated finalists are going to be just fine.
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Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 10 Recap: Voters are Pretty Unpredictable
This season has had some very interesting and stressful eliminations. I really don’t remember Season 1 being like this! It always seemed like the rankings were pretty logical every week, with the girls’ actions pretty much corresponding to their level of popularity. I was still nervous for the finale, but it was pretty easy to guess who would make it. There are a few trainees this season who manage to stay on top, but their rankings fluctuate so much it’s hard to keep up. At least we only have one more episode after this…I don’t think I can take much more stress!
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Katherine Does K-POP 