storkmidzy

[storkmidzy]

[VARIOUS CRASHING NOISES AS GIRL GROUP/DREAMCATCHER ANON SCREECHES IN HERE SUMMONED BY THE MENTION OF ARTMS]

hi sorry i’ve been meaning to send this for days and just haven’t had the time/energy to get down all my thoughts. oh MAN where to even begin.

1. just in terms of the music - if icarus is not your thing, i would still recommend giving their debut virtual angel a try! it’s a lot more upbeat while still retaining some of the ~mystical qualities + provides a feel for what their sound is when there’s more energy to it. (if you watch the mv, i strongly recommend making sure that it’s tagged with “human eye version” bc the other version’s editing deploys a much more extreme level of flashing.) you also might like their song birth - it’s another slowish track, but the sound leans much more towards distorted rock vibes + is v spooky tonally. plus! THAT mv incorporates more of the cool creepy illustrations :D

2. while artms’s lore can definitely be appreciated by itself, it’s also heavily informed/influenced by lore from the “parent group” loona. (tbh: loona’s fictional lore AND irl-events-that-actually-happened lore are complex enough that i’m having A Time figuring out how to explain this next part w/o excess detail and i apologize if it’s confusing.)

very VERY long story short: the og loonaverse lore was essentially about the members being split into 3 subunits across individual worlds, and trying to find a way to unite across dimensions — they had really surreal mvs and a lot of their early fanbase was built through people getting interested in their intricate clue-based storytelling just to figure out wtf was going on. in 2019 jaden jeong, their original producer/creative director/guy in charge of all this, parted ways with the group’s old company blockberry creative. jj outright said that this was due to creative differences and bbc wanting to pull back on how much the lore influenced group activities. (after his departure loona *did* continue to release abstract mvs with references to the establised lore, but the fandom was and remains really divided on if any of those added something of substance to the storyline/themes or not.)

THEN: in late 2022-2023, the loona members successfully sued bbc to get out of their exploitative contracts. artms is made up of the girls who chose to redebut with modhaus, the agency jj established himself a few years ago - they’ve talked at length about maintaining a good relationship with him even after he left bbc, and about their creative reunion now being really meaningful for everyone involved. the members frequently describe artms as their second chance, and afaik the majority of their fandom is made up of longer-term stans who found them through loona. also, jj’s made comments over the years about having a much bigger plan for the loonaverse’s narrative + being really disappointed that he couldn’t continue with it.

all of that maths out to artms’s lore including a lot of loona in its dna — the odd eye circle subunit, filming mysterious teasers in iceland, etc. like i said before, artms can 100% be appreciated and analyzed by itself (it would be suuuuuch a poor marketing choice if any potential new artms fans had to engage with roughly 6-7 years of loonaverse backlog omg), but if you or the anon who initially recced icarus were wondering about the context of a seemingly rookie girl group releasing an elaborate bizarro short film with cool visuals…………..here it is, lmao.

that all being said: i’m so sorry about the length of this unsolicited essay + just gonna send a separate message wrt my itzy thoughts haha. i hope you’re doing well! have a good week <3

First, than you for sending me this very fascinating lore & band backstory. I love that the girls successfully sued the company and went with the producer that had the more interesting creative vision. The fact that they took a risk (Idols, and I would say especially female idols taking things to court can result in some very serious backlash) in order to keep working with the OG producer says good things about everyone all around.

Alas, I think I just don't like this sound - the soft dulcet female voices harmonizing prettily .... is just not my thing. I'm very much trying to figure out now why it is I feel so intrigued by and into Itzy when I don't feel as drawn to either Red Velvet or Artms's sound. I need to get stuck into it soon, because obviously there's something there in Itzy that's doing it for me, and I'd like to know what that is.

I'm sad I can't follow you into artms fandom. It looks like it's a really good time, especially because of the overlap between the determination and unity (yes?) within the actual people in the band and the story they're telling with their lore.

[storkmidzy]

If you are interested in girl groups, may I recommend Red Velvet? They have an interesting concept, their discography is divided into the red songs (mainly pop, some electronic and funk elements) and the velvet songs (r&b, ballads, some hip hop elements).

While visually they are a more "typical" idol group in the sense that they blend a little into each other, I find their music and concepts very interesting. I'll warn you now, this is going to be long with a lot of recomendations. Also, I think it goes without saying, but only check out something if it catches your eye!! I'm just giving so many recomendations because it's what i look for when I'm introduced to a new artist and you said (or so I understood) that you didn't mind if people recommend you music.

Soooo, recommendations:

Feel my rythm samples Air on the G string and is in my opinion one of the best kpop songs that samples classical music, plus the music video is clearly inspired in the garden of earthly delights, it's beautiful.

Red flavour will always be to me the quintessential kpop summer song. Really weird music video though, lots of fruits.

They have a creepy vibe going on in their videos that is honestly very entertaining. Like in russian roulette, peek-a-boo, chill kill. It often involves murder or attempted murder. Also, the music video for cosmic is basically midsommar.

Their concept photos also tend to be very artistic and pleasing to look at. For chill kill they worked with photographer cho giseok (i think that's the romanization?? the name is 조 기석) and those concept photos are some of my favourite.

If you want to check out some of their more experimental/weird music go for zimzalabim, birthday or RBB. Just please note that these songs are weird, not just for a girl group but in general. I like them but a lit of people don't.

They have slower songs that are also very beautiful, like One of these nights (in korean 7월 7일), automatic or kingdom come (i love these three so much).

A funny fact is that I discovered red velvet long before i discovered ateez, and before knowing their names jongho was ateez's wendy to me, because wendy is a vocal powerhouse.You WILL know who she is just by listening. She was in a lee mujin service episode where she sings Whitney Houston's I have nothing, and in my opinion does the original justice, if you want to check it out.

Seulgi is the one that grabbed my attention since the beginning. She has a voice that is more smokey? not necessarily deeper but it feels like it carries a certain weight to it. I loved her solo release 28 reasons. And she's also in a subunit with Irene. I loved naughty and monster. As a song i prefer monster, but the naughty choreography is incredible. It's tutting, so not only it looks super cool but also very difficult (at least to me, but I'm not a dancer so I may be wrong)

They have a killing voice episode if you want to get a broad idea of what type of music they do, and honestly that episode really highlights one of their strongest points, which is their harmonies. (ateez I'm begging you please pleaaaase do more wave-style harmonies, cover a red velvet song or somethiiinggg. san said once he wanted to cover red velvet and it still hasn't happened😭😭)

I'll also send an itzy ask to compensate for torturing you with my red velvet fangirling😅

I do appreciate music recommendations! I listen to a handful of Taemin songs a lot because someone recommended Taemin to me via our joint Ateez fandom. So yeah, I'm open to music recommendations. However, I'm worried about how to respond when I don't like the recommendation. You for example put so much work and care into trying to teach me what to listen for in this band. So this is a me problem - If they've been around for 11 years, for example, they must be doing a lot of things really right.

I've heard of Red Velvet but I couldn't name you a single song. I went to Spotify and gave a listen through their top five songs (most played on Spoitfy, anyway) and see, I think what I keep learning is that I really don't like kpop overall. I also listened to the songs you specified. The sound is just so unsticky to me, and I feel this way about most of kpop. This must be why I've been able to just not know anything about the genre overall all this time.

Thank you very much for the detailed recommendation. I wish I could join you in your enthusiasm but I think Red Velvet is a pass for me.

I really might just be an Edenary fan, in the final analysis.

[storkmidzy]

official_artms:

#ATEEZ #성화 님과 함께 fly away 🖤🤍🪽

[storkmidzy]

RYUJIN GWBG (250613)

[storkmidzy]

- itzy ryujin lockscreens

- follow for more

- reblog and like

[storkmidzy]

itzy: girls will be girls

[storkmidzy]

Hello muffin! ARTMS recommender here. I am here with more recommendations about girl groups 🫣.

I really like i-dle (formerly g-idle). I think you should give a listen to 'oh my god' by them. It's got really cool symbolism. The girls take on the roles of angel, devil, god, sinners. It's about giving in to temptation and is also super sapphic. (I really want to write it down like a story narrative but i keep putting it off.)

Again, I am not super well versed in their songs but I do find myself rewatching the mv's. The 'nxde' mv is really well done.

The girls feel distinct to me. I really like the distinct nasally style of rapping that soyeon does. She sounds like you don't want to be on her bad side, it's badass.

I do agree that the ARTMS girls do blend into each other they are all perfect in the same way (in terms of appearance, at least to the first time watcher which I happen to be, but I will be finding more about them.) When I first saw the icarus mv, I honestly did not realise they were different girls switching parts and not just one girl dancing alone.

Also what drew you to itzy? I have been looking for more girl groups and I have not heard anything by them other than the most popular songs which come up on shuffle-play (I say this currently listening to wannabe).

Is it a bother if I randomly crop up with song recommendations? Not groups as such just kpop songs that I think might be to your liking. I completely understand if you want to focus on ateez though.

I-dle's song Good Thing is the dance I'm being taught in my once a week kpop dance class and it's kind of sounds old school in a good way to me. It sounds like 2NE1, with the rapper girl sounding very CL esque to me. I'm getting to learn the song, so I guess I'll see if they grow on me.

If it's about girlgroups can I ask that you put it to my @storkmidzy account? I haven't been able to do any writing about Itzy on it yet, but I would like to, and maybe getting an ask or two can jumpstart my fangirling for Itzy.

I got into Itzy because I started my kpop involvement with Stray Kids. I liked the hand motion dance for 특, and Itzy's Yeji and Ryujin (especially Ryujin) did a dance challenge for that song where they looked so charming doing it. I was very taken with Ryujin just on first viewing, so I followed the algorithm further. Itzy seemed to function like a sister group to Stray Kids. Hyunjin does a lot of dance things with Yeji, and Changbin has Changbin-style sisterly-brotherly connection with Chaeryeong.

Changbin produced a song for them, Vay, on their previous album, where the girls all came in one at a time to record with him. I liked Vay a lot, as a song.

So far I'm most interested in Ryujin. She's very beautiful but has an extremely natural look and her voice is just as distinctive. That seems like a rarity in kpop. I also liked Chaeryeong's high pitched sweetness. I was interested in how such a delicate looking girl could actually be friends with Changbin.

I know of Yeji and I understand she's the leader. I'm so sorry but the other two are still kind of indistinct to me. I don't rule anything out though, because Yunho is also indistinct in the Idols Look Like That way such that I either confused him with Jongho or didn't take any notice of him at all until suddenly he was my bias so.... Never say never.

I like the Itzy songs for not being so high pitched all the time, for having clearly pronounced lyrics, and their dances are delivered with a lot of energy and force, which I think girl groups don't always manage to do. I have a hard time actually enjoying the boastful type of "I wear six figure watches' type of lyrics, or the whingey love songs, and Itzy manages to avoid both extremes, which I appreciate.

[storkmidzy]

Itzy performing Stray Kids

[storkmidzy]

Excited for this and taking this opportunity to try to learn all the names other than Ryujin and Chaeryong.

New Midzy reporting for duty.

[storkmidzy]

ITZY ☆ ‘GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS’ TRAILER

[storkmidzy]

Coming out as a newly minted Midzy. Also this is allowed by Hongjoong so I'm in the clear.

Also JYP sent me the thing they said they would send me on time. Ahem. KQ???

[storkmidzy]

Tom Ford Beauty

[storkmidzy]

ryujin checking in girls what was the question huh. "which one did you like most"? "which did you spend the most time with"? either way that's very 🏳️‍🌈 of you.

[storkmidzy]

RYUJIN 'GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS' TRAILER