#First Round K-pop Debut Songs Poll | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dailykoreanpop · 2 years

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[WhosPICK:View] "Because ATEEZ has a captain" The Best Leader in K-pop Who Makes Everyone Happy Like a Summer BBQ : ATEEZ Hongjoong

Group ATEEZ’s Hongjoong topped the list for best K-pop leader who makes everyone happy like a summer BBQ.

From July 12th to July 18th, the global K-Pop fandom platform ‘Whosfan’ ran a poll with the topic, ‘[WhosPICK] Who is the best leader in K-pop who makes everyone happy like a summer BBQ?’

Based on the fans’ recommendation on Whosfan’s official social media account, the poll’s nominees included leaders who work hard to lead their groups. The nominees included Girls Generation’s Taeyeon, BTS’s RM, IVE’s Yujin, Stray Kids’ Bangchan, ATEEZ’s Hongjoong, OMEGA X’s Jaehan, SEVENTEEN’s S.Coups, ENHYPEN’s Jungwon, TWICE's Jihyo, TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s Soobin, (G)I-DLE’s Soyeon, and TNX’s Taehun.

As the result of the poll, Hongjoong won with a voting rate of 42.42%. The ranking was followed by Bangchan (32.09%) and Jaehan (7.85%) in 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

To this, ‘WhosPICK:VIEW’ looked closer into Captain Hongjoong’s strong leader moments.

ATEEZ continues their pirate concept universe as the title of their debut song was ‘Pirate King.’ Hongjoong, the leader, is called ‘Captain’ to match the concept of the universe and is working hard to lead the ATEEZ members.

Hongjoong said that the things he says most as the leader of ATEEZ are “stop,” “please,” and “no.” As the members are usually high in energy and the atmosphere becomes chaotic in video content such as V LIVE, he can often be seen controlling them.

Seonghwa said, “When I was a trainee and I practiced alone until dawn, the member who was always with me was Hongjoong. Looking at Hongjoong’s efforts and mindset, I knew there would be nothing to fear if he was the leader of the team.” He thought that Hongjoong would be the best as the leader even before their debut.

Mingi says that he always takes Hongjoong’s side outside. Expressing trust in leader Hongjoong, saying, “Because he is the leader of the team, I try to follow Hongjoong unconditionally even if there are opinions that I disagree with.”

▶ Became the captain with endless effort

The fact that Hongjoong became a leader also had to do with the fact that he is a hard worker. In an interview about Hongjoong, composer Eden, who has worked with Hongjoong, had this to say.

When Eden first met Hongjoong, he said that he had never formally learned music, so he didn’t want to teach anyone. So, he intentionally showed Hongjoong an online encyclopedia containing 200 words related to composition and gave him the hard homework of memorizing them before the next day. However, contrary to the expectation that he would just give up music because it was hard, Hongjoong memorized it all night and was able to become Eden’s first pupil through that effort.

Eden said that when Hongjoong first became a trainee, he was on base zero in both rap and dance. However, he wanted to help Hongjoong to grow after watching him practice nonstop even during breaks. It was with this effort that Hongjoong stood out both when working on his songs and on the stage.

This is why the members also follow Hongjoong for song making. Even before his official debut, Hongjoong composed ‘FROM’ during his U.S. training session, recording it with his members and releasing it as content. Hongjoong’s self-composed songs have also been included in albums since his debut and cover songs he worked on himself through his personal content called ‘BY. HONGJOONG’ has been released to ATINY (fandom name). Hongjoong shows the literal meaning of ‘all-round leader’ in that he plans not just songs, but also concepts and outfits as well, and the members are always presenting great performances under the leadership of Hongjoong, too.

▶ Filling the stage with the captain’s presence

Hongjoong also shows his presence as a captain on ATEEZ stages.

If you look closely at Hongjoong’s stage outfit, you can often see an armband on his right arm. This means that he is the captain of ATEEZ and Hongjoong is the only one who wears it.

In particular, Hongjoong especially stands out on stage. On Mnet’s ‘Kingdom,’ they decorated many stages that connected ATEEZ’s universe with Hongjoong always appearing as the leading role, leaving a strong impression on many viewers as a ‘captain.’

Whosfan will run a pop-up ad on the app for a week for Hongjoong who placed 1st in this poll. Whosfan can be downloaded from the mobile App Store, Play Store, and Galaxy Store.

The topic of this week’s ‘WhosPICK’ is ‘Which idol is the representative refreshing vocalist?’ with idols who have voices that make you feel refreshed just by listening to them. The fans are also paying a lot of attention to the ‘WhosPICK’ poll that runs from July 19th to July 25th.

Credit: Hanteo News

#ateez #hongjoong #kim hongjoong #kq entertainment #hanteo news #whosfan

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zoraheading0-blog · 5 years

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ITunes Top a hundred Pop Songs 2019

Music actually began to split into completely different categories throughout the Modern era (1910-2000). But Nashville hasn't always been welcoming toward pop and digital music. Within the early 2000s, now-defunct file sellers Cat's Music made a killing off Drum Machines Have No Soul" bumper stickers, a rallying cry for Volvo-driving rockists throughout the Midstate. In 2008, when a particularly rowdy Lady Speak present at Cannery Ballroom ended with a busted stage and flooded places of work below, the venue's homeowners stepped away from reserving non-rock gigs. We are a rock 'n' roll venue, and we're going to play rock 'n' roll shows from here on out," Todd Ohlhauser told the since-folded local entertainment weekly All of the Rage on the time. 4. 42% of individuals polled on which decade has produced the worst pop music for the reason that 1970s voted for the 2010s. These folks were not from a specific getting old demographic at all - all age groups polled, together with 18-29 year olds, appear to really feel unanimously that the 2010s are when pop music turned worst. This may clarify a rising development of younger millennials, for example, digging round for now 15-30 yr-old music on YouTube frequently. It isn't just the older individuals who take heed to the Nineteen Eighties and 1990s on YouTube and different streaming providers it appears - much youthful individuals do it too. The strictly calculated music of Nomeda Valančiūtė (b.1961) is, nonetheless, absolutely not technological in its nature - her compositions are all based mostly on some not simply defined inventive impulses that are later matured by methodical work with sound materials and then given a precisely polished type. Valančiūtė's minimalist idiom is said to a point to the medieval isorhythmic methods. A more in-depth look to the composer's works and their conceptual stimuli reveals a steadiness of inside opposites: open emotion - and its suppression through uncompromisingly rigid structures; a crystal clarity - and the aware avoidance of 'magnificence' (the usage of sharp dissonances, intentional 'out of tune' sound of ready piano, and many others); the stance of a 'pure music' adept - and the multidimensional picturesqueness of her music, its oddly theatrical expression, and a certain 'bittersweet' glamour. Okay-pop has at all times been a strange hybrid of Korean and Western tradition. The music has drawn on US genres, however the excessive work ethic and bobserle3266.wikidot.com administration system are a product of Korean tradition and economy. The brand new management of Big Hit Entertainment appears to be an surprising swing in direction of extra US-type norms, which may unintentionally be helping BTS to break that market. The fact that they co-wrote the music would positively be a big issue within the US market, particularly for individuals who value ‘authenticity' in music and would not listen to K-pop out of disapproval," Kim argues. But I do not assume that was actually a deliberate plan by the corporate". Streaming has been a bit of a monkey wrench within the gears, as we saw a very explicit sort of hip-hop come to dominate the charts to a level that's almost excessive, and the charts still look like that now. The vast majority of songs on the Billboard charts now are that sort of hip-hop, as a result of the style dominates streaming. And while it was attention-grabbing to see the previous guard of pop this decade get uprooted, it isn't essentially the most interesting music to replace it. I wish to have some stage of musical diversity on the pop charts, and streaming tends to stagnate the charts a lot. This is the reason Drake breaks records every time he releases a brand new single, despite the fact that the songs are mediocre at greatest. Moreover, "Rockstar" by Submit Malone has been caught near the highest of the Spotify Top 50 for almost a year now.

The identical factor is occurring in nation music. There have been by no means many minority singers however a number of girls. Up to now few years bro-nation has largely pushed ladies off nation radio and labels aren't offering a lot help to women. Feminine artists have gotten frustrated and it will not be to stunning if many can be women country singers switch to other genres. Bro-country is more widespread with men so nation might start to lose ladies as each listeners and http://www.magicaudiotools.com/ artists if the labels and country stations do not make an effort to encourage range.A few weeks in the past, Ted Gioia wrote a piece for The Day by day Beast taking trendy music criticism to job, specializing in his remark that folks who would have once written about a musician's sound and approach are now targeted on the star's way of life and fame. Then, this past weekend, the New York Occasions Magazine featured an essay by Saul Austerlitz about poptimism, " deriding the development of music critics agreeing too readily with the taste of 13-yr-olds." In their own methods, both essays make the purpose that at present's pop is getting a cross. In that narrative, there existed a superb-previous-days time when critics had been unswayed by the lure of pop. Immediately, they argue, quite a lot of factors — perhaps a desire to reclaim the concept of a mass tradition despite the fracturing affect of the Web; maybe the economics of getting the maximum number of clicks on an article — have conspired to let pop off that hook.The genere that influenced each standard genere after its growth, the one in have been virtually every artist participated is the Disco. It is a subgenere if R&B and pop, with roots in the soul and funk, that dominated the charts in the late 70s. And too, albums like Saturday Evening Fever, Random Access Memories, Brothers In Arms, Thriller, Like A Virgin, and a lot of "greatest hits" of bands like Pink Floyd (Another Brick In The Wall), Kiss (I Was Made For Loving You), and much more have been Disco, or have been influenced by Disco. It is probably not so beloved as othe generes, but this subgenere of Pop, is essentially the most succesful and one of the crucial influential of all time.If pop's sound is becoming blasé and in want of disruption, so is its subject matter. Nearly with out fail, the songs that dominated 2017 ignored the 12 months's dominant social and political themes in favor of zoned-out life-style music. Pop has at all times served an escapist function, but it surely has also been one of many simpler delivery strategies for significant content material. So at a time of extreme national turmoil, it was surprising to not hear a single protest tune amongst 2017's greatest hits (though bless her coronary heart, no less than Katy Perry tried). Nor had been there any large singles addressing gun violence or the opioid crisis, until you rely Publish Malone glamorizing drive-by shootings and popping pillies." Though pop stars aligned for a lot of charity concerts in response to terrorism, hurricanes, and lethal racist demonstrations, the music itself mostly sidestepped weighty subjects.BLACKPINK's DDU-DU DDU-DU" is the best-profile music video that went lacking from the video sharing website. It currently holds the title of essentially the most-considered music video by a K-pop woman group of all time at 604 million views. The video not too long ago broke the record for the quickest music video to achieve 600 million views - a number of days after BTS grew to become the first Korean group to achieve that view depend with DNA." For a while, DDU-DU DDU-DU" additionally staked its place as essentially the most-considered 24-hour debut from a Korean artist.

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bangtan · 6 years

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BTS Speaks Out In Seoul: The K-Pop Megastars Get Candid About Representing a New Generation

No sound on the planet inspires as obsessive a fandom as K-pop. The “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of BTS have (finally, for real) imported that mania to America -- all in Korean, as they rally dissatisfied millennials around the globe. Built in 1957 as a reception hall for South Korea’s fledgling postwar government to entertain foreign dignitaries, the Korea House is a quiet oasis amid the tumult of Seoul, with a photogenic courtyard and collection of old-school Korean houses known as hanoks. Normally it’s the setting for historical TV dramas or weddings, but on this bright, cold mid-January morning, it’s a hideaway for the seven-man Korean pop group BTS, whose celebrity has expanded past K-pop’s traditional sphere of influence and, especially during the last six months, moved into the United States as well. When I arrive, the band is sequestered in a room within a room, behind paper doors manned by a security detail. In the outer room, over 20 groomers, publicists and other handlers from the group’s management agency, BigHit Entertainment, mill about, grazing on the provided snacks and drinks. Everyone speaks in low tones. The members of BTS need an extra 15 minutes before the scheduled photo shoot, I’m told. They are, understandably, exhausted: Their schedule has been packed since New Year’s Eve with performances, TV appearances, commercials and meet-and-greets. I flew into Seoul expressly to meet them for this rare opening in their calendar. The first to emerge from the room is J-Hope, 23, the former street dancer from the city of Gwangju, who capers down the steps, then doubles back to get RM, also 23, the group’s leader and English-speaking ambassador. The rest soon file out wearing similarly dark Saint Laurent-heavy outfits: Suga, 24, the idealistic and soulful rapper; Jimin, 22, the baby-faced modern dancer; V, 22, the master impressionist; Jungkook, 20, the golden maknae (youngest member, a sort of privileged position in K-pop) who’s good at everything; and Jin, 25, who’s known as “Worldwide Handsome.” They form a semicircle of multicolored bowl cuts, and RM comments on how tall I am (6 feet) and that I can speak Korean (like a 10-year-old). They’re photo-ready but groggy enough that I wish they’d taken another 15 minutes to rest. But time is money, and these guys are worth a lot. It’s reasonable that BigHit would handle the members like prized jewels. They’re among the biggest stars in K-pop -- their last album, 2017’s Love Yourself: Her, has sold 1.58 million physical copies around the globe, according to BigHit. And while it may not be a household name in the United States, BTS -- which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan and roughly translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” -- is pulling unprecedented numbers for a group that mainly sings in Korean to an American populace that has long resisted K-pop’s charms. Love Yourself: Her debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 in September 2017, and BTS claims the two highest-charting songs for a K-pop group ever, “DNA” (which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the Steve Aoki remix of “Mic Drop,” featuring Desiigner (No. 28). In the States alone, BTS has sold 1.6 million song downloads and clocked 1.5 billion-with-a-“B” on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music. BTS has connected with millennials around the globe even though -- or really, because -- the act seems to challenge boy-band and K-pop orthodoxies. Sure, it’s got love songs and dance moves. But BTS’ music, which the members have helped write since the beginning, has regularly leveled criticism against a myopic educational system, materialism and the media, venting about a structure seemingly gamed against the younger generation. “Honestly, from our standpoint, every day is stressful for our generation. It’s hard to get a job, it’s harder to attend college now more than ever,” says RM, until recently known as Rap Monster. “Adults need to create policies that can facilitate that overall social change. Right now, the privileged class, the upper class needs to change the way they think.” Suga jumps in: “And this isn't just Korea, but the rest of the world. The reason why our music resonates with people around the world who are in their teens, 20s and 30s is because of these issues.” The shoot’s done, and we’re sitting on couches in a small living room-like space amid the production studios at the BigHit offices, the members changed into cozy but still-stylish jackets and knitwear. Here at home, speaking in Korean, they’re calmer and less eager to impress than they were on their recent, occasionally awkward American press tour, where they did the rounds on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where RM gamely evaded questions about dating. Today, their voices are noticeably deeper, more sonorous. RM does, as usual, a lot of the talking, sometimes throwing questions out to the quieter members. But Suga is a surprise: garrulous and thoughtful, seemingly primed for a socially conscious rap battle. Rabid K-pop fandom is, by now, a pop-culture cliche. Even in a world where supporters of American stars engineer efforts to goose chart positions and feud with rival fandoms -- Beatlemania multiplied by the internet, basically -- K-pop stans are legendarily devoted and influential. The BTS ARMY (that’s short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”) is the engine powering the phenomenon: It translates lyrics and Korean media appearances; rallies clicks, views, likes and retweets to get BTS trending on Twitter and YouTube; and overwhelms online polls and competitions. BigHit says that it makes sure to disseminate news and updates about the band on the fan cafe, so as not to arouse the wrath of the ARMY. The global fan base is why a group you may never have heard of is attaining the upper ranks of the U.S. charts; playing late-night slots; appearing at the Billboard Music Awards, where it picked up the fan-voted top social artist trophy in 2017; and performing on the American Music Awards. (“The AMAs were the biggest gift we could have gotten from our fans,” says Suga.) Purely in terms of social media, they’re just about the biggest thing going, driving BTS to 58 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart, a total that’s second only to Justin Bieber’s, and more than doubles the number of weeks scored by the third-place act -- none other than Taylor Swift. The ARMY doesn't merely idolize the members of BTS, it identifies with them. When the group debuted in 2013 with 2 Kool 4 Skool, the members talked about the pressures familiar to any Korean student: the need to study hard, get into college and find a stable job. Their first singles, “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” castigated peers who attended classes like zombies without a sense of purpose. What was all this education for, they asked -- to become “the No. 1 government worker?” The tracks were a throwback to Korean pop acts like H.O.T. and Seo Taiji & Boys, only updated for a generation saddled with debt in an increasingly competitive economy. “I was talking about my past self,” says RM, confessing that he was one of those drones. “There was nothing I wanted to do; just that I wanted to make a lot of money. I started the song by thinking about it as a letter written to friends who were like me in the past.” “College is presented like some sort of cure-all,” says Suga. “They say that if you go, your life will be set. They even say you’ll lose weight, get taller...” RM: “That you’ll get a girlfriend...” Jin: “That you’ll become better-looking...” Suga: “But this isn't the reality, and they realize that was all a lie. No one else can take responsibility for you at that point. “If we don’t talk about these issues, who will?” continues Suga. “Our parents? Adults? So isn't it up to us? That’s the kind of conversations we have [in the band]: Who knows best and can talk about the difficulty our generation faces? It’s us.” As they become increasingly famous, though, the artists have also become wary of saying what might be perceived as the wrong or “political” thing. Suga is the most outspoken. When I ask them about the massive candlelight protests calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation in Seoul last winter, Suga readily takes on the topic: “Moving past right and wrong, truth and falsehood, citizens coming together and raising their voice is something that I actively support.” RM, on the other hand, is more alert to potential sensitivities. On the recent death of Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last December, he says, “We went to give our condolences that morning. I couldn't sleep at all that night. It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events. He was so successful.” Adds Suga, “It was a shock to everyone, and I really sympathized with him,” and then RM moves to end the conversation: “That’s about all we can say.” But Suga goes on. “I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them.” I later bring up a tweet that RM wrote in March 2013, saying that when he understood what the lyrics to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ gay-marriage anthem, “Same Love,” were about, he liked the song twice as much. BTS fans naturally took this to mean that BTS openly supported gay rights -- a rarity in K-pop. Today, he’s slightly circumspect on the topic: “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.” Suga, though, is clear on where he stands: “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.” BTS’ meteoric rise was something of a surprise, even in Korea. Three years into its career -- eons in the K-pop life cycle -- the group finally gained traction in 2016 with hits like “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and “Burn It Up.” Part of the reason is that BTS is the first major act to come out of BigHit Entertainment, an anomaly simply in that it is not one of the “Big Three” entertainment companies -- YG, JYP and SM -- that control the Korean music industry, producing most of the past decade’s notable pop acts, including Girls’ Generation, BIGBANG, Super Junior, Wonder Girls and 2NE1. And BTS simply didn't have the same feel as factory-fresh groups created to dominate the Asian music markets. Bang Si-hyuk, the founder/CEO of BigHit, cut his teeth at JYP, working alongside Park Jin-yong and writing and producing hits for Rain, 2AM and Baek Ji-young. “Even the people around me didn't believe in me,” he says, recalling the early days with BTS. “Even though they acknowledged that I had been successful in the past, they didn't believe I could take this boy group to the top.” Like the other companies, BigHit oversees everything from recording to distribution to marketing to events for its acts. He says that people thought the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” name had a North Korean feel, but he felt that they would become a metaphorical bulletproof vest for their generation. Bang originally wanted to create a hip-hop group -- “like Migos,” according to RM. He first listened to RM’s demo tape in 2010 and still remembers some of the lines. (He cites, “My heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him.”) “It was shocking to me,” says Bang. “RM is extremely self-reflective, sophisticated and philosophical, considering his age.” RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, was only 15 at the time. Bang signed him immediately. Back then, though, “idol groups” -- boy bands and girl groups -- like Super Junior and SNSD were ascendant. So Bang created an act that would meld the honesty of hip-hop with the visual flair and charisma of a boy band in the vein of BIGBANG. During the next couple of years, he recruited Suga, a rapper he describes as having an “I don’t give a fuck” magnetism masking a humble core, and then J-Hope, the street dancer. BigHit then held extensive auditions. A casting director chased Jin after seeing him get off a bus and convinced him to try out for the group; he eventually made the team alongside V and Jungkook. Jimin was the last to join, after a BigHit agent scouted him at a modern dance school. In the beginning, each of the members tried their hand at rhyming. “I went so far as to learn how to rap,” says Jimin, who, like Jungkook, now sings. “But after they had me do it once, they were like, ‘Let’s just work harder on vocals.’” RM nods -- “It was the wise choice,” he says -- and everyone bursts out laughing. These were BigHit’s ragtag champions, and they have a sense of unity. Early on, they lived together in one small room, sleeping in bunk beds and learning one another’s sleep habits. (Jimin does strange contortions in bed, and Jungkook has started snoring. “It’s TMI,” acknowledges RM.) They still live together, just with a little more space -- J-Hope and Jimin sharing the biggest room -- and plan to keep doing so. “When we’re at home, we go around to everyone’s room,” says Jin. “Even when I go home [to see family], I get bored, honestly,” adds Suga. “And if there’s a problem or someone has hurt feelings, we don’t just leave it, we talk about it then and there.” “So if Hope and Jin fight, it’s not just the two of them that resolve it,” explains Jungkook. “It’s all seven of us!” says Suga. “Everyone gathers together,” says RM, ever the intellectual. “It’s like an agora in ancient Greece: We gather and we ask: ‘What happened?’” After the interview, RM takes me to his production studio, a small room at the end of a hall decorated with giant KAWS figurines in glass boxes, a Supreme poster of Mike Tyson and skateboards. Inside, the walls are lined with his own KAWS toys and a model version of the Banksy piece “Rage, Flower Thrower” that he admits paying a hefty sum for. Other than that, there’s just a typical workstation: a pullout chair, giant monitor and the most precious item of all, his laptop. In BTS’ lyrics, there’s a motif of the baepsae, a squat, fluffy bird native to Korea and known as the crow-tit. A Korean expression says that if a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it’ll tear its own legs. It’s a cautionary tale -- a suggestion that you shouldn't try too hard or be something that you’re not. But BTS deploys it as a brag, a declaration of a small, striving bird. In “Silver Spoon,” Suga puts a cheeky, boastful spin on it: “Our generation has had it hard/We’ll chase them fast/Because of the storks the crotch of my pants is stretched tight/So call me baepsa e.” Now that they are, almost in a literal sense, on top of the world, can they still claim to be underdogs? “We’re very careful about calling ourselves baepsaes now,” says Suga. “But the reality is that that’s where we started and that’s where our roots are.” And RM points out that they still consider themselves agents for change: “If there are problems, we’ll bring it up so that our voices can get louder, so that the climate changes and we can talk about it more freely.” BTS is the K-pop group of the moment because it balances the contradictions inherent to the genre on a genuinely global scale: The act is breaking through in America singing and rapping in Korean, creating intimacy through wide exposure on social media, expressing political ideas without stirring up controversy and inspiring fervent obsession with mild-mannered wholesomeness. It is the underdog that has arrived. But the group would rather you not ask what’s next. Its members and producers are skillfully evasive when it comes to questions about the next BTS album -- although they apparently have no immediate plans for an English-language release, intuiting that such a move would alienate their core fan base. Instead, they seem content to keep doing what they do. RM, of course, is philosophical about it. “In Korean, the word ‘future’ is made up of two parts,” he explains, proposing a sort of riddle about how far the band has come and how far it might yet go. “The first part means ‘not,’ and the second means ‘to come.’ In that sense, ‘future’ means something that will not come. This is to say: The future is now, and our now is us living our future.”

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#bangtan #bts #v #jin #suga #rm #jimin #jhope #jungkook #t:article #180215

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bechi6715 · 6 years

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No sound on the planet inspires as obsessive a fandom as K-pop. The “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of BTS have (finally, for real) imported that mania to America – all in Korean, as they rally dissatisfied millennials around the globe.

Built in 1957 as a reception hall for South Korea’s fledgling postwar government to entertain foreign dignitaries, the Korea House is a quiet oasis amid the tumult of Seoul, with a photogenic courtyard and collection of old-school Korean houses known as hanoks. Normally it’s the setting for historical TV dramas or weddings, but on this bright, cold mid-January morning, it’s a hideaway for the seven-man Korean pop group BTS, whose celebrity has expanded past K-pop’s traditional sphere of influence and, especially during the last six months, moved into the United States as well.

When I arrive, the band is sequestered in a room within a room, behind paper doors manned by a security detail. In the outer room, over 20 groomers, publicists and other handlers from the group’s management agency, BigHit Entertainment, mill about, grazing on the provided snacks and drinks. Everyone speaks in low tones. The members of BTS need an extra 15 minutes before the scheduled photo shoot, I’m told. They are, understandably, exhausted: Their schedule has been packed since New Year’s Eve with performances, TV appearances, commercials and meet-and-greets. I flew into Seoul expressly to meet them for this rare opening in their calendar.

The first to emerge from the room is J-Hope, 23, the former street dancer from the city of Gwangju, who capers down the steps, then doubles back to get RM, also 23, the group’s leader and English-speaking ambassador. The rest soon file out wearing similarly dark Saint Laurent-heavy outfits: Suga, 24, the idealistic and soulful rapper; Jimin, 22, the baby-faced modern dancer; V, 22, the master impressionist; Jungkook, 20, the golden maknae (youngest member, a sort of privileged position in K-pop) who’s good at everything; and Jin, 25, who’s known as “Worldwide Handsome.” They form a semicircle of multicolored bowl cuts, and RM comments on how tall I am (6 feet) and that I can speak Korean (like a 10-year-old). They’re photo-ready but groggy enough that I wish they’d taken another 15 minutes to rest. But time is money, and these guys are worth a lot.

It’s reasonable that BigHit would handle the members like prized jewels. They’re among the biggest stars in K-pop – their last album, 2017’s Love Yourself: Her, has sold 1.58 million physical copies around the globe, according to BigHit. And while it may not be a household name in the United States, BTS – which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan and roughly translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” – is pulling unprecedented numbers for a group that mainly sings in Korean to an American populace that has long resisted K-pop’s charms. Love Yourself: Her debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 in September 2017, and BTS claims the two highest-charting songs for a K-pop group ever, “DNA” (which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the Steve Aoki remix of “Mic Drop,” featuring Desiigner (No. 28). In the States alone, BTS has sold 1.6 million song downloads and clocked 1.5 billion-with-a-“B” on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music.

BTS has connected with millennials around the globe even though – or really, because – the act seems to challenge boy-band and K-pop orthodoxies. Sure, it’s got love songs and dance moves. But BTS’ music, which the members have helped write since the beginning, has regularly leveled criticism against a myopic educational system, materialism and the media, venting about a structure seemingly gamed against the younger generation. “Honestly, from our standpoint, every day is stressful for our generation. It’s hard to get a job, it’s harder to attend college now more than ever,” says RM, until recently known as Rap Monster. “Adults need to create policies that can facilitate that overall social change. Right now, the privileged class, the upper class needs to change the way they think.” Suga jumps in: “And this isn’t just Korea, but the rest of the world. The reason why our music resonates with people around the world who are in their teens, 20s and 30s is because of these issues.”

The shoot’s done, and we’re sitting on couches in a small living room-like space amid the production studios at the BigHit offices, the members changed into cozy but still-stylish jackets and knitwear. Here at home, speaking in Korean, they’re calmer and less eager to impress than they were on their recent, occasionally awkward American press tour, where they did the rounds on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where RM gamely evaded questions about dating. Today, their voices are noticeably deeper, more sonorous. RM does, as usual, a lot of the talking, sometimes throwing questions out to the quieter members. But Suga is a surprise: garrulous and thoughtful, seemingly primed for a socially conscious rap battle.

Rabid K-pop fandom is, by now, a pop-culture cliche. Even in a world where supporters of American stars engineer efforts to goose chart positions and feud with rival fandoms – Beatlemania multiplied by the internet, basically – K-pop stans are legendarily devoted and influential. The BTS ARMY (that’s short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”) is the engine powering the phenomenon: It translates lyrics and Korean media appearances; rallies clicks, views, likes and retweets to get BTS trending on Twitter and YouTube; and overwhelms online polls and competitions. BigHit says that it makes sure to disseminate news and updates about the band on the fan cafe, so as not to arouse the wrath of the ARMY.

The global fan base is why a group you may never have heard of is attaining the upper ranks of the U.S. charts; playing late-night slots; appearing at the Billboard Music Awards, where it picked up the fan-voted top social artist trophy in 2017; and performing on the American Music Awards. (“The AMAs were the biggest gift we could have gotten from our fans,” says Suga.) Purely in terms of social media, they’re just about the biggest thing going, driving BTS to 58 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart, a total that’s second only to Justin Bieber’s, and more than doubles the number of weeks scored by the third-place act – none other than Taylor Swift.

The ARMY doesn’t merely idolize the members of BTS, it identifies with them. When the group debuted in 2013 with 2 Kool 4 Skool, the members talked about the pressures familiar to any Korean student: the need to study hard, get into college and find a stable job. Their first singles, “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” castigated peers who attended classes like zombies without a sense of purpose. What was all this education for, they asked – to become “the No. 1 government worker?” The tracks were a throwback to Korean pop acts like H.O.T. and Seo Taiji & Boys, only updated for a generation saddled with debt in an increasingly competitive economy.

“I was talking about my past self,” says RM, confessing that he was one of those drones. “There was nothing I wanted to do; just that I wanted to make a lot of money. I started the song by thinking about it as a letter written to friends who were like me in the past.”

“College is presented like some sort of cure-all,” says Suga. “They say that if you go, your life will be set. They even say you’ll lose weight, get taller…”

RM: “That you’ll get a girlfriend…”

Jin: “That you’ll become better-looking…”

Suga: “But this isn’t the reality, and they realize that was all a lie. No one else can take responsibility for you at that point.

“If we don’t talk about these issues, who will?” continues Suga. “Our parents? Adults? So isn’t it up to us? That’s the kind of conversations we have [in the band]: Who knows best and can talk about the difficulty our generation faces? It’s us.”

As they become increasingly famous, though, the artists have also become wary of saying what might be perceived as the wrong or “political” thing. Suga is the most outspoken. When I ask them about the massive candlelight protests calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation in Seoul last winter, Suga readily takes on the topic: “Moving past right and wrong, truth and falsehood, citizens coming together and raising their voice is something that I actively support.”

RM, on the other hand, is more alert to potential sensitivities. On the recent death of Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last December, he says, “We went to give our condolences that morning. I couldn’t sleep at all that night. It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events. He was so successful.” Adds Suga, “It was a shock to everyone, and I really sympathized with him,” and then RM moves to end the conversation: “That’s about all we can say.”

But Suga goes on. “I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them.”

I later bring up a tweet that RM wrote in March 2013, saying that when he understood what the lyrics to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ gay-marriage anthem, “Same Love,” were about, he liked the song twice as much. BTS fans naturally took this to mean that BTS openly supported gay rights – a rarity in K-pop. Today, he’s slightly circumspect on the topic: “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.” Suga, though, is clear on where he stands: “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.”

BTS’ meteoric rise was something of a surprise, even in Korea. Three years into its career – eons in the K-pop life cycle – the group finally gained traction in 2016 with hits like “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and “Burn It Up.” Part of the reason is that BTS is the first major act to come out of BigHit Entertainment, an anomaly simply in that it is not one of the “Big Three” entertainment companies – YG, JYP and SM – that control the Korean music industry, producing most of the past decade’s notable pop acts, including Girls’ Generation, BIGBANG, Super Junior, Wonder Girls and 2NE1. And BTS simply didn’t have the same feel as factory-fresh groups created to dominate the Asian music markets.

Bang Si-hyuk, the founder/CEO of BigHit, cut his teeth at JYP, working alongside Park Jin-yong and writing and producing hits for Rain, 2AM and Baek Ji-young. “Even the people around me didn’t believe in me,” he says, recalling the early days with BTS. “Even though they acknowledged that I had been successful in the past, they didn’t believe I could take this boy group to the top.” Like the other companies, BigHit oversees everything from recording to distribution to marketing to events for its acts. He says that people thought the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” name had a North Korean feel, but he felt that they would become a metaphorical bulletproof vest for their generation.

Bang originally wanted to create a hip-hop group – “like Migos,” according to RM. He first listened to RM’s demo tape in 2010 and still remembers some of the lines. (He cites, “My heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him.”) “It was shocking to me,” says Bang. “RM is extremely self-reflective, sophisticated and philosophical, considering his age.” RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, was only 15 at the time. Bang signed him immediately.

Back then, though, “idol groups” – boy bands and girl groups – like Super Junior and SNSD were ascendant. So Bang created an act that would meld the honesty of hip-hop with the visual flair and charisma of a boy band in the vein of BIGBANG. During the next couple of years, he recruited Suga, a rapper he describes as having an “I don’t give a fuck” magnetism masking a humble core, and then J-Hope, the street dancer. BigHit then held extensive auditions. A casting director chased Jin after seeing him get off a bus and convinced him to try out for the group; he eventually made the team alongside V and Jungkook. Jimin was the last to join, after a BigHit agent scouted him at a modern dance school.

In the beginning, each of the members tried their hand at rhyming. “I went so far as to learn how to rap,” says Jimin, who, like Jungkook, now sings. “But after they had me do it once, they were like, ‘Let’s just work harder on vocals.’” RM nods – “It was the wise choice,” he says – and everyone bursts out laughing.

These were BigHit’s ragtag champions, and they have a sense of unity. Early on, they lived together in one small room, sleeping in bunk beds and learning one another’s sleep habits. (Jimin does strange contortions in bed, and Jungkook has started snoring. “It’s TMI,” acknowledges RM.) They still live together, just with a little more space – J-Hope and Jimin sharing the biggest room – and plan to keep doing so.

“When we’re at home, we go around to everyone’s room,” says Jin. “Even when I go home [to see family], I get bored, honestly,” adds Suga. “And if there’s a problem or someone has hurt feelings, we don’t just leave it, we talk about it then and there.”

“So if Hope and Jin fight, it’s not just the two of them that resolve it,” explains Jungkook. “It’s all seven of us!” says Suga.

“Everyone gathers together,” says RM, ever the intellectual. “It’s like an agora in ancient Greece: We gather and we ask: ‘What happened?’”

After the interview, RM takes me to his production studio, a small room at the end of a hall decorated with giant KAWS figurines in glass boxes, a Supreme poster of Mike Tyson and skateboards. Inside, the walls are lined with his own KAWS toys and a model version of the Banksy piece “Rage, Flower Thrower” that he admits paying a hefty sum for. Other than that, there’s just a typical workstation: a pullout chair, giant monitor and the most precious item of all, his laptop.

In BTS’ lyrics, there’s a motif of the baepsae, a squat, fluffy bird native to Korea and known as the crow-tit. A Korean expression says that if a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it’ll tear its own legs. It’s a cautionary tale – a suggestion that you shouldn’t try too hard or be something that you’re not. But BTS deploys it as a brag, a declaration of a small, striving bird. In “Silver Spoon,” Suga puts a cheeky, boastful spin on it: “Our generation has had it hard/We’ll chase them fast/Because of the storks the crotch of my pants is stretched tight/So call me baepsae.”

Now that they are, almost in a literal sense, on top of the world, can they still claim to be underdogs? “We’re very careful about calling ourselves baepsaes now,” says Suga. “But the reality is that that’s where we started and that’s where our roots are.” And RM points out that they still consider themselves agents for change: “If there are problems, we’ll bring it up so that our voices can get louder, so that the climate changes and we can talk about it more freely.”

BTS is the K-pop group of the moment because it balances the contradictions inherent to the genre on a genuinely global scale: The act is breaking through in America singing and rapping in Korean, creating intimacy through wide exposure on social media, expressing political ideas without stirring up controversy and inspiring fervent obsession with mild-mannered wholesomeness. It is the underdog that has arrived.

But the group would rather you not ask what’s next. Its members and producers are skillfully evasive when it comes to questions about the next BTS album – although they apparently have no immediate plans for an English-language release, intuiting that such a move would alienate their core fan base. Instead, they seem content to keep doing what they do. RM, of course, is philosophical about it. “In Korean, the word ‘future’ is made up of two parts,” he explains, proposing a sort of riddle about how far the band has come and how far it might yet go. “The first part means ‘not,’ and the second means ‘to come.’ In that sense, ‘future’ means something that will not come. This is to say: The future is now, and our now is us living our future.”

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