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Everything posted by Yknocker
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BTS'V and Parasite's Woo Shik hanging out in L.A
Yknocker replied to Chemist's topic in Celebrity News & Gossip
Taehyung hanging around the Canadian actor is kinda surprising. (Eddy Choi is a Canadian citizen.) -
concept GFRIEND "回: LABYRINTH" - ALBUM DETAILS
Yknocker replied to speedthief's topic in Celebrity Photos & Videos
I am only interested upon how few lines Yuju will get (probably smaller than Sowon) and how many lines will Eunha, who was put into the group by Hitman Bang's recommendation, will get. If Big Hit has any mercy, it is time to release Yuju from GFriend without further ado. -
GFriend debuted on Jan 2015, but at first it garnered very little attention. However, Choi Yuna lifted GFriend up, literally, from the gutter to the top tier with the famous falling incident. It became famous because three things aligned perfectly. 1. Yuju happened to wear a kneepad so it got people's attention 2. It was Yuju who fell all the time 3. Yuju's vocals were probably the best in the 3rd gen of girl groups. So Rough became 2016's most played song, and for some time GFriend was at a par with Twice. But, a lot of things happened, like defeat by Wonder Girls, Fingertip, etc. On 2018, GFriend's owner parted ways with Iggy-Yongbae, who had produced all seven of its releases, and transformed into a fandom based group. Eunha became the vocalist, Yuju was marginalized and the buddies were happy since Eunha had the most fans in GFriend and Yuju had the fewest. GFriend did not do great digitally, but its sales grew gradually and it is probably going to break 100,000 this time. After GFriend's purchase by Big Hit, SinB, a former Big Hit trainee, has become the leader for all practical purposes, and Eunha, who was put into the group with Mr. Bang's direct recommendation, has completely become the face of the group, while Yuju is begging to other members and the buddies to stay in the group. She is only retained because she is still young enough to move on to another group and possibly lift it up so Mr. Bang does not want that to happen when a Big Hit Girl Group, produced by GFriend's former owner and a former SM exec specializing at GGs, will probably debut next year and Yuju might spill her beans to wherever she goes to counter that new act. GFriend was able to make its move from a popular based group to a fandom based group, because its owner was ruthless. He didn't mind suing the two trainees who fled GFriend before it debuted, and he successfully transformed the group to appeal only to the buddies, because the days of popular songs dominating the industry had passed and all the income came from attacking the fandom which would be only people wiling to spend money on the act. So, as the industry transformed, good vocals like Yuju were no longer needed, and people like Eunha who could appeal to the fanbase became the mainstream. The owner of GFriend was ruthless enough to strip Yuju most of her lines and good parts and pushed her to the sideline where she is expected to spend the rest of her GFriend career as long as the group lasts (although she might leave when the contract ends either late next year or early 2022), while putting Eunha, who appealed to the fanbase, to the position of main vocalist and chief draw. Times for good vocals have passed; fanbase is all it counts.
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I will exclude BTS. Chungha will do the best since she fills a niche.
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Let's keep the records straight. GFriend's breakout moment was the famous falling incident. Before that, its future was not certain.
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A Beautiful Mind is about the eccentric mathematician John Nash, but instead of following his troubled life closely, it makes the movie as if it is a thriller. Imitation Game is about Alan Turing, but again it has only used the more important aspects of his life which are used as backgrounds only, and concentrated on the relationship of someone who was 'different' (no. It was not about his homosexuality, but his inability to adapt to human emotions) to ordinary people. It seems the story of IU, whose long history of menacing, undermining and trying to destroy KPop, could be made into a movie as well. At first, IU began as someone who was a nemesis to KPop, someone who would end all the achievements and conquests and make Kpop revert to its old, isolationist past. IU fought SM for years, was shunned for Grand Prize for most of her height, and her hatred against KPop grew every day and she sang songs to undermine it every time she could. As late as Sept 2017, her remake of a 1991 song prevented BTS from reaching #1 in Melon. But , after that and she finally won a Grand Prize on Jan 2018, it seems Lee JIeun has transformed from a sworn enemy of KPop to someone who does not fight it. Money is not a motive since most of her income was earned in Korea and she had become the highest earning figure of Korean Pop in 2017 when she had a grand total of one (yes, ONE) concert outside of Korea. Like Na Hoonah, who travels to various cities of Korea even when he is over 70, Lee Jieun could have remained in Korea and make money by releasing more songs. But, she mostly refrained from singing since then, and only released songs in the slower times of the year. She even got to release a Kpop song (BBiBBi), the first time in her life, in 2018. It seems that the Kpop figures paying respect to her, and treating her as a Senior Singer despite of her lack of contribution to the growth of KPop and her long history of undermining it, might have changed her mind. The most staunch communist fighters who took over China in 1949 became the most greedy capitalists of all; the descendants of communist bigwigs, including Xi Jinping, are called the Princelings and they are indeed quite richer than a lot of princes, dominating China's lucrative industries. It might be a demonstration of absolute power corrupting absolutely. But, in IU's case, the younger singers paying respect to her might indeed have softened her hostility to KPop . She said she is going to concentrate on acting and would not release an album this year, probably; she appears to have abandon the fight against KPop, and since she was the most serious enemy of KPop in Korea and the trottists have not been able to overthrow the KPoppers (although long term they have the edge because of demography), for the time being Kpop can breathe easier. How someone who spent her entire life fighting KPop transformed into someone who is now benign to it would be worth a movie, in my opinion.
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It is kind of ironical that it is harder to fill the Chamshil main olympic stadium (hereafter 'Chamshil' ; it is recently spelled as Jamsil, but I prefer the old spelling.) than major stadiums in Japan and other countries. Other than Big Bang (concert at Sang'am Soccer Stadium, as big as Chamshil), JYJ, Exo and BTS, even the major KPop acts have had difficulties filling the Chamshil. X1 disbanded, and other than Seventeen, which has not even graduated to the Gochuck (its 2019 concert was at the Gymnastics for 3 days, 36,900 total - Gochuck holds 19,000 so a 2 day event is 38,000), I do not see an act which can attack Chamshil. Ifonically, the only singer, in my opinion, who might be capable of attacking Chamshil is a Senior Singer, Lee Jieun. (Technically Na Hoonah, who is over 70 and the King of Trot, could also do a concert at Chamshil like Cho Yongpil did, but Na Hoonah prefers to set the stage in his own way and chooses relatively smaller venues in more Korean cities.) It is expected that IU would go to Gochuck this year, and probably 2021, and Chamshil in 2022 because a lot of fans have trouble getting her tickets even though she did concerts in a few Korean cities and Southeast Asia. IZone might have had its chance but... I will spare words. New CJ audition groups are expected to perform at the CJ Arena at Koyang, exclusively as part of the deal, although no one knows when it will be finished. In short, I do not see an act in the horizon which will graduate to the very top of KPop tier, which is cemented by performing at Chamshil(or, more rarely, the Sang'am soccer stadium) . Maybe it might take time, but because there are fewer younger people in KPop, newer acts will grow more slowly and existing acts will continue their grip. When the Senior Singer of Kpop, who would be in her 15th year in 2022, performs at the Chamshil worldwide Kpop fans should lament because all these newer acts did not grow enough to beat a Senior Singer, who would be technically the grandmother of all the acts debuting after 2018 because she is a 2nd generation idol while the newer gens belong to the 4th, to the Chamshil.
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For whatever reason, people in Asia, especially Japan and Korea, like to group things by 3. Although no one really has the authority to assign the title, there is an unwritten general consensus. There were 3 major actresses in the 1970s, possibly 1980s and 1990s, but not in the 2000s as male actors got all the attention and not too many female ones did. In 2010s, two of the three I am going to describe began to become quite prominent. Lim Yoon-A, Born May 30, 1990 so technically under 30 now, although not for long (You are my destiny, at age 18) Yoona in Zhao Yun, at age 26. Probably her masterpiece. And then, Bae Suzy (Oct 10, 1994) came about. (Probably taken around the time she did Architecture 101, still her masterpiece, at the age of 18) The problem is , Yoona (SM) had won a lot of Grand Prizes as SNSD, and Suzy(JYP) had won one at MAMA on 2010. So both had made a name as singers before they shot high as actresses. (Yoona's You are my destiny was before SNSD hit the top but after that , because of the SNSD activities, Yoona's acting had taken some hiatus) Unfortunately, the younger actresses of their age fizzled, and only in 2018 or 2019, depending on who to ask, there was a third actress who filled the gap, Lee Jieun (Born May 16, 1993). (Hotel Del Luna, when Lee Jieun was 26) But, like the first two, Lee Jieun also won a Grand Prize in the Golden Disk on 2018. Granted, she was senior to both Yoona and Suzy because she had received a lifetime achievement award at MAMA on 2014, but in terms of acting she was less prominent than Yoona and Suzy. Still, Lee Jieun (Loen/Fave/KakaoM/and now Edam) , well known for her sheer lack of contribution to the expansion of KPop worldwide, followed Yoona and Suzy into acting, and she became one of the 3 most renowned younger actress of the 2020s. Yoona and Suzy might not accept Lee Jieun, who is not from one of the 3 major companies, as one of their own but it cannot be avoided that the 3 major younger actresses of Korea all had extensive careers as singers.
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At that time relationship between Korean and Japan was not good and the Koreans would not have liked a Japanese at the center all the time. However, LVER was the only song which emphasized the Center, and since further activities of IZOne will progress in directions not intended by the original 'creators', the concept of Center will be deemphasized.
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Unlike Jpop, in Kpop the Center status is not important. In Japan , the Center stays at the center and everyone else just dances around. In KPop choreography, everyone gets to be a center, at least a short while.
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It is already done. IFPI chart only stays in wikipedia but this is the chart everyone sees. http://www.mediatraffic.de/year-end-albums.htm Thanks txt
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IZOne was going to fight KPop's Greatest Anachronism on last November, but a bunch of things happened and it was instead KPop's Greatest Anachronism who dominated November .... and December. Now IZOne is returning, there will be a lot of people who won't like that. I think that within this month, whoever is running IZOne should announce that it is having a concert at the Gochuck Dome, where no female singer ever had a 2 day concert. (Katy Perry and Ariana Grande had one day concerts at there, but they were paid by Hyundai.) It's likely that KPop's most uber-reactionary singer will have a concert at there later this year. On 2018, BlackPink had a concert at the Gymnastics Area (aka KSPO dome but every Korean still calls it the Gymanstics) , one week before KPop's Greatest Anachronism, to spite the soloist. Although that event, sponsored by a credit card company, was said to be short and had a lot of unpaid seats (it was one of the perk for people who used that brand of credit card), BlackPink jumped ahead of Kpop's Greatest Anachronism because they beat her to Gymnastics. Since IZOne's fans are loyal and dedicated, it should have a concert at the Gochuck (capacity about 19,000 so a 2 day concert would be 38,000) to show the world how powerful they are, and also to humiliate Kpop's Greatest Anachronism, who thinks she is KPop's premier female act despite of the inconvenient fact that she only sang one single Kpop song during her entire careeer. When IZone holds a concert at the Gochuck, it will show to the entire world that it is superior to Kpop's Greatest Anachronism, who will spend most of this year filming a movie, and will silence all of its critics.
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Thanks to txt, Billie Eilish beat BTS for the best selling album of the world title. She has a lot to thank to txt.
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Digitals had been the greatest obstacle of Kpop acts trying to conquer the world. The digital monsters, popular only in K-O-R-E-A, acted as if they were in the same league with the internationally relevant acts. However, the prestige of the digitals weakened in Korea because of all the cheating by dubious balladists, and as a results the digital monsters were tainted. BTS winning the Digitals Grand Prize in the Golden Disk means BTS wins all of this year's Grand Prizes, and also signifies the end of the reign of the digital monsters who emphasized conquering Korea and ignoring the foreign markets which are much bigger. The digimons thought as long as they controlled the digitals, their niche was secure; but now that is no longer the case. == Until 2006, only one Grand Prize was given to all awards. However, because music awards in other countries gave Grand Prizes for individual songs, KPop music awards followed the trend and began to award Grand Prizes for digitals. In addition, following the tradition of King of Singers set up by MBC in 1965, awards were also given as the best singer of the year, a practice not seen in US or UK. Initially, the Digitals Grand Prize (sometimes called Song of the Year Award) was seen as a Junior Grand Prize to the Albums Grand Prize, but with SNSD's Gee given the Digitals Grand Prize, it was legitimized as a Prize in the same league with the Albums Grand Prize, which in my opinion is the only legitimate Grand prize since it shows who had the most power in the music industry. Thanks to a certain singer whom I mentioned too many times in here and other forums, Digitals became as powerful as an indicator as Physical Album Sales in the Kpop world, and since female acts, other than SNSD at its height, tended to sell less albums than male acts the Digital Grand Prize represented their interests as well. But, now, the digitals are tainted by all these rigging and cheating scandals, and ballads by lesser known singers continued to infest digital charts , crowding out many acts anyways. BTS winning both the Digitals and Physical Awards means the digitals are no longer relevant in KPop. It should have been the way long time ago, but thanks to a singer whose name I will not mention today, the relevancy of the digitals were extended for a period far longer than anyone else had expected. But it has finally ended. Trot singers will dominate Korea's events. Digital monsters will not have songs which will captivate all of K-O-R-E-A enough to stand chart against the boy groups which can sell a lot of physicals. What BTS did is equivalent to Napoleon landing in England, capturing the King and his cohorts, and sending them to Reunion Island. (Reunion is a French island in the western Indian ocean near Africa; historically, several Kings of Vietnam were sent there after they tried to remove the French from Vietnam.) BTS did the impossible, breaking the power of digitals. Now the digital monsters will be relegated to their own league, ignored by foreign fans of Kpop. Unfortunately, it is likely that the singer who extended the life of the digitals in Kpop significantly will once again escape the consequence of her actions, since her physicals did grow a lot in her album last year.
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When KPop emphasized slower ballads, only-for Korea songs and put Korea-only singers ahead of internationally relevant acts. She being as highly regarded as other internationally more relevant acts led to an isolationism on Kpop.
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IU led KPop to turn inward, and because of her, all KPop acts who could instead have promoted more in the overseas had to watch their back since Iu was popping their bubble from Korea. In fact, it is IU who led KPop to its darker age from 2012 to 2017 when BTS finally broke the darkness set up by her
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There is a famous Jewish folk tale. A very rich Jewish businessman, living in a faraway land, sent his son to Jerusalem to study Torah. The businessman suddenly got sick and died. He willed everything to a slave, and told the slave to go to Jerusalem and tell the son that the son can only have one thing from the father's estate. The slave quickly set sail to Jerusalem and met the son, who was obviously quite angry. Not knowing what to do, the son went to see a wise rabbi. The rabbi told the son something, and after that the son showed up before the slave and told he wanted the slave from his father's estate. During these days, whatever a slave owned was considered to be the property of the master, so the son reclaimed all of the father's properties as well as the slave. The tale ends there so we don't know what the slave might have felt. === BTS's exploits around the world is well known. But its inability to subdue its enemies in Korea makes a lot of Koreans think that BTS is not as great as it is seen. BTS' most dogged opponent in Korea is none other than our old friend IU, about whom I wrote more than 2,000 pieces in a few bulletin boards. Having fought SNSD and Exo all her life, she is not directly fighting BTS because she knows she stands no chance in a direct encounter, but she is biding her time to reclaim her throne in Korea. A lot of Koreans think IU is the singer of the decade, because she dominated Korean Pop from 2010 (she had #1 songs every year except 2016, when she did not release a new song) while BTS was dominant only from around 2016. As far as the world is concerned, BTS is more dominant for 2010s. IU's first and only Kpop song, BBiBBI, came out on 2018 But by the logic expressed in the tale above, some Koreans think IU was above BTS in the 2010s since she owned Korea. Korea is actually kind of inside-looking country, more concerned in its domestic dramas (political, criminal, etc) than what is happening around the world. Its people listen to the songs of IU, Akmu and people like Paul Kim than BTS and other internationally famous KPop acts. Lee Jieun is very aware of that fact, and the unfortunate situation that because she is dominant in Korea she is seen as important as BTS in there. The domesticity and provincialism of Koreans make a domestic singer to be seen as important as an international star act.
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With 1 days and change remaining in the 2010s, I think this is a good time to determine which song represents KPop better in the 2010s BTS - Boy with Luv (with Halsey) 2019 654M views as of today. The song which finally crowned BTS as the world's premier act, and the highest sales worldwide vs Lee Jieun - Through the Night 2017 72M views as of today. The epitome of the antiKpop, sleepy and self centered. Not one word of English in it. The singer in question, who usually writes most of her lyrics, began to add some English after this to keep with the times, but in my opinion, it is too little and too late.
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That is because non-Western venues' numbers are harder to estimate since data is not too transparent. The venues in Mexico and Brazil have some influence from Western outfits so their numbers are more reliable.
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This year is not over yet. We don't know where BTS will go, but if Billy Joel and Maroon 5 can go to Mexico City BTS can as well, and since the Sao Paolo concert at Allianz was filled, Morumbi would be next. (The Maracana at Rio is too dilapidated, in my opinion.)
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Wikipedia lists the list of the biggest stadiums of the world. However, like the Nungrado in North Korea or some college football venues in the southeastern part of USA, they are off limits or are in locations not exactly populated with people likely to attend concerts. The Touring data twitter listed this Touring Data @touringdata .@Venues_Now's Top Venues of the Decade (+30,000 cap.): #1 @MetLifeStadium #2 Foro Sol #3 @WembleyStadium #4 @GilletteStadium #5 @CruijffArena #6 @StadeFrance #7 Estádio do Morumbi #8 Etihad Stadium #9 @SoldierField #10 @AllianzParque Metlife Staidum - New Jersey, USA. 82,000 (digits after thousand are dropped.) Foro Sol : Mexico City, Mexico. Usually 25,000 but since it is mostly used as a racetrack, for concert purposes it could expand for 50,000. Although it usually hosts Mexican singers, next year people like Billy Joel and Maroon5 will also have concerts there. Wembley; London, UK. up to 90,000 Gillette Stadium: Massachusetts, USA. up to 65,000 (normally used as the home ground for New England Patriots football) Cruijff Arena: Amsterdam, Holland. 55,000 Stade de France, Paris, France 81,000 Estadio do Morumbi: Sao Paolo, Brazil 67,000 (A soccer stadium in Sao Paolo) Etihad Stadium- Manchester, UK. 55,000. (Normally used for Manchester City soccer team) Soldiers Field - Illinois, USA. 61,000. Allianz Parque, Sao Paolo, Brazil 55,000 Out of these, BTS performed at the MetLife, Wembley, Stade de Paris, Soldiers Field and Allianz Parque. BTS did not perform at the Mexican racetrack, the one at Holland, the Morumbi at Sao Paolo, the football field at Massachusetts and the home of Man City. BTS might go to Foro Sol in Mexico and the Morumbi at Brazil next year but the rest might have to wait, since after concerts at New York, London and Paris, they might not fill Boston, Manchester and Amsterdam. P.S. But none of these will apply to KPop's Most Reactionary Singer, who might be the only singer who debuted in this century to fill the Chamshil while not going anywhere near to the places listed above.