Omijacha

ITA. About the only time Lee Hi got the amount of attention she deserved from YG was when she first debuted and had a hit song that dominated the charts for almost a full month. At that time, I think YG was quite excited because: (1) She made him look good by having the most successful debut for a Kpop Star graduate; (2) She was like a shiny new toy that YG had just acquired; and (3) The Kpop Star fanbase was massively behind her. But as time has gone by, it seems like YG just put her into the "old toys" bin and sometimes it seems like he forgets that she's under contract with YGE. (He is also obsessed with the idea that no girl can be too thin, so anyone with a naturally curvy body type like Lee Hi is probably constantly being harassed about her weight. I was shocked to see how thin Katie Kim was the last time she appeared in public. She looked like she was waaaay below the healthy body weight for her body type. But that's the way that YG likes it.)

Even if she were allowed to release full albums at least once every year or every 1.5 years, she should still be allowed to also do at least a few OSTs every year. (Her OST songs for Scarlet Heart/Moon Lovers were fantastic.) It's a huge waste for YG to keep her from doing things like that. A few featurings each year are not enough. (Better than nothing, but....) I do like some of what she's doing with rappers and Code Kunst and such, but I'm starting to worry that she's being stuck in a role of just being a hook singer and accessory for the male hip-hop acts. She can do that. And she's great at it. But she is able to do so much more and we should be getting a lot more Lee Hi singles, Lee Hi mini-albums, Lee Hi OSTs and Lee Hi full albums. It's ridiculous when there's a singer who has that much proven talent, proven appeal to a broad cross-section of the public and has so much obvious potential...and we have to settle for no releases, just a few featurings here and there in unpromoted, niche releases on other artists non-title/no music video b-side tracks ... and just a few fancam videos of some of her public performances in low-fidelity sound... for years at a time. YG has a mental block that gets on my nerves.

Welcome back! I think that's the same thing that Hayi said last year: "I'm back after 3 years." Unfortunately, I'm starting to worry that we'll have to again wait another 3 years before she gets another chance to release any more music. This thread is almost dead, it seems. We've been on the same page 615 for more than 3 months now. She does have that show with Dara and Suhyun coming up around the end of this month, so maybe there will be more news and more going on then. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some kind of comeback later this year.

HanByeol has a lot of potential. It'll be interesting to see what she ends up doing at YG. Of course we probably won't see her again for another 7 years or more (unless she goes into child acting right away and works on the acting/modeling side of YGE). Bang Yedam was about the same age when he went into YG and other than performing that one time with AKMU and Lee Hi during the Mix & Match series, he's been nowhere to be seen for the past 5 years.

Oh man....don't get me started on the botox obsession that the producers have in TV-land. Because that will also lead to me ranting for hours about the stupid obsession they have for forcing all the girls to wear ridiculously ugly ultra-high, high-heels in every performance...and that will lead to me ranting about the pasty, glossy, grossly overdone make-up that they put on everyone...and that will lead me to ranting about the obsession for stick-figure thinness. And all of those things get worse, the closer they get to the final episode. I guess I may be the weird one, but the aesthetic/beauty sensibilities that prevail among TV show producers bring me literally to the verge of puking. The way that they can take some of the most naturally cute/beautiful/sexy people you can find anywhere and give them botox-swollen faces, spackled over with shiny make-up and have them in high-heels that are so high that you can see them struggling just to keep their balance...and they think they're doing the contestants a favor when they do that???

I bet the Super Star K producers were really pissed off at Brad when he spilled the beans. I wouldn't be surprised if he got threatened with lawsuits and such (because the participants probably have to sign confidentiality agreements before they can go on the show). That was really interesting though to get some truth from someone who was on the inside. I'm glad he did spill the beans. I'm always hoping that more contestants will do something like that (not because I hate those shows, but just to help the general public stop being so damn gullible about everything they see on TV). Unfortunately, I think the entertainment/media business usually has really tight control (combination of incentives and threats for contestants) and can usually prevent leaks. Brad was probably a really rare case of someone who was harder to keep on a short leash. When you watch Kpop Star and other shows with this kind of background in mind, it's often easy to see how things are being manipulated. There were a lot of times when you could tell that the producers pulled out all the stops to make a successful performance (possibly including staging a lip-synced performance, using a a perfect studio-recorded track for the audio in the broadcast). Sometimes, if you pay attention, you can hear that the contestant is singing along to MR using voice doubling and tripling to make the sound really full and impressive. Ma Eun-Jin's voice is beautiful and I hope she goes far in the business. I do wonder though if her breakout performance of "you" (in the episode before the Top 10 phase started) was one of those that the producer pre-determined was going to be the highlight of the episode. The sound was just perfect. The singing was flawless from beginning to end. Then in the last rounds, it really started looking like the Minari girl group was scripted to get knocked out before the KWINS group. Then in later episodes, you could tell that her story arc in the show was coming to a pre-planned end. Meanwhile for Soomin, Minju and Ara, in their first performance as Minari, the sound was so bad and the vocal channel so muffled that you could hardly even hear them in the broadcast...and in both episodes that they appeared in, they were given the plainest, mono-color outfits. It looked like they were also playing the part of the "just not quite good enough" team in the script. These are just some possible examples of how they manipulate things to support a scripted outcome.

Boyfriend captured the hearts of several million mommys and older sisters throughout the nation...and they weren't going to let their babies lose no matter what. Performance wise, they were really good...for their age. They weren't really better in any way than KWINS were. If you had the exact same performances by boy trainees the same age as the KWINS girls, they would have lost. But they always had the "for their age" advantage. I think just in the last episode alone, the judges used the phrase "for their age" (the Korean equivalent) at least half a dozen times to praise them. So, in the end, they definitely discounted the KWINS score because the KWINS members were experienced trainees and older and they added points for Boyfriend to take into account their age. It's not really in the Kpop Star rules to do that...but then the producers can pretty much do whatever they want anyway. It's also possible that the girls' companies don't really want to have the girls get involved in further complicated business relationships with JYP, Antenna and YG (which would have been inevitable if KWINS had won), so maybe this is exactly the outcome that everyone wanted. With Boyfriend as the winners, it's clean and easy. The three companies only need to work on producing a few songs for the boys, probably in cooperation with SBS. They don't have to sign either of the boys to any long-term contracts. If the boys turn out to be wildly popular, one or both of them will likely be signed up by JYP or YG. (It also wouldn't surprise me if they get split up and recruited by different companies later on...or it's possible that only Hyun Jin will eventually get recruited.

I was able to find out what uniforms they're wearing. They're wearing the Hanlim Multi Art High School uniforms. So I guess that means that Minju went to the same school as Nam Taehyun, Song Min-ho, Park Jimin, Baek Yerin, etc. This photo looks like it was taken when Minju auditioned at YG (and probably almost a year before she appeared in Kpop Star S2).

I haven't been active on YouTube. So far, I've mostly looked for Hayi news on this site (particularly this thread), the DCINSIDE site and the Daum starzone site. But this thread seems to have been mostly abandoned, the Daum fansite seems to have faded a lot and the DCINSIDE site is still relatively active, but not anything like it was in the past. Unfortunately, I think that 3-year hiatus almost killed most of the fansites that were previously very active. But if everyone has moved to Twitter, maybe that's a big part of the reason. (I'm not very active on Twitter.) Her comeback last year (already more than a year ago) seemed like it was starting to revive some of the activity. But the comeback period was too short and we've already had a full year of very little activity. But it has been better than all of the blank space during the 3-year hiatus. We've at least gotten a couple of collaboration songs and those Scarlet Heart OST songs. I think Hayi should be actively doing OSTs for dramas in general. But it looks like the only reason that YG let her do the Scarlet Heart OST song is because YG participated in the production of the Drama. I guess we can't look forward to any more OST songs unless YG produces another drama in the future.

She looks too young for S2. She was born in 1994 and would have been 18 years old when S2 started. Those uniforms look like high-school uniforms (probably from one of the fine arts high schools) and the sign next to her says: "Jeon Min Ju, Practical Dance Department, 3rd. Year: Scheduled for Final Audition) . From this photo, It looks like she was involved in some kind audition event sponsored by YG prior to her first appearance on Kpop Star S2. I always hate to be Benny Bubblepopper and keep reminding people that reality shows are very fake and scripted. They're like TV dramas with actors playing the role of contestants. Some are scripted to be the "winners" and some are scripted to be "losers" depending on how the Producers want to play out the drama and depending on what the producers think will please the viewers the most. When I say "fake," I don't mean that the talents and abilities of the performers are faked. Usually, they are very talented. But most everything else, including competition outcomes, behind-the-scenes relationships and deals of contestants with producers, judges, etc. are most likely very, very different from what the viewers are led to believe when they just watch the show on TV. Sometimes contestants will get a huge amount of production support (best costumes, best backing music, best choreography, best possible sound, etc.), if they are scripted to be the winners. Other times, if they're scripted to come in second, or third or whatever, they'll get the type of production support, instruction and direction that virtually guarantees the scripted outcome will be believable to the audience..even though the audience members themselves will often scratch their heads, asking questions like: "What were they thinking making that terrible song choice?" or "Gee, the wardrobe person must have been an 'anti'!" or "Why was the sound so muffled?" or "They could have done so many better things with the choreography! I'm surprised they did such a conventional and boring dance routine." ...and so on and so forth. (Psst.. I'll let people in on a big secret: Most of the time, it's not the contestants who are making these performance-related decisions. It's the producers and staff.) I believe actually, in some competition shows, when a particular performer is scripted to be doing a knock-out performance, they are allowed to do multiple takes (recordings) until they get it just perfect. The other contestants are required to act as though they're not really watching the 4th or 5th take...and the producers will just edit in reaction clips of reactions that best support the illusion. For example, it is highly likely that most of the top contestants are actually recruited by the shows producers ... possibly even through names and lists of talented people provided by the entertainment companies (such as YG, JYP, etc.). Then, if they get a deal, they agree to play the role of a contestant who was just an ordinary person who just showed up at, in this case, the Kpop Star public auditions and got in. I've seen the judges sometimes clumsily pretend like they didn't have a clue who a particular contestant was, when previously they were caught talking about the contestant in a way that made it obvious that they already knew who the contestant was. Doesn't mean it's not fun to watch. And because the talent is usually real, shows like Kpop Star are a good way for talented people to get more recognition. Just don't get too invested in the idea that the competitions and relationships are really what they are portrayed to the public as being. In terms of overall reality, when the public sees the show, they're seeing about 1% of what's really going on behind the scenes between the contestants, directors, judges, producers and so on...and that 1% is often highly manipulated and misleading. The general viewing public doesn't have the slightest idea or sliver of real knowlege about the remaining 99% of what really goes on behind the scenes.

Did this thread die? Or is there just so little activity by Hayi these days that there's no news to report or check on?

Thanks for the news. It could be that both Katie and Lee Soojeong wanted to take care of other things like finishing schooling and stuff. If so, no problem. This is, however, the first time that I've heard that they changed the rule after Kpop Star 3. Is that based on an official announcement or are people just guessing that they changed the rule because they see that no winner has debuted after Kpop Star 3? That's kind of my complaint about the failure of Katie to debut. If there's a good reason and she's fine with it, I don't really care about that, but Kpop Star (and YG) should say something about it. Maybe even have a short video clip letting us know what the winners are up to. If they showed Katie back at Berklee College of Music and had a short interview about what she's got going on (and the same thing for Lee Soojeong), it would answer all of the biggest questions and everybody would be happy. But just shoving them down the memory hole and not saying anything to their fans or to the larger Kpop Star audience about what's happened to them just comes across as a bit shady.

Has anyone heard any news about what is going on with Soojeong (the winner of Kpop Star season 5)? According to the rules of the past seasons, she was supposed to debut within 1 year after winning. There are only a few weeks to go and still no news. I wonder if Antenna will surprise us with a debut for her sometime during the next few weeks. If not, I guess she'll join Katie Kim in the forgotten winner category. YG: "Katie who? Winner of what? Debut? Who ever said anything about...what did you call it? De glue? Dayblue? Never heard of this Katie person. Why are you asking me about her?"

Some highlights for me this season: (1) Yu Jin-ee's first performance ("When We Were Young") (2) The collaboration stage of Shannon and Yu Jin-ee ("Ain't No Other Man") (Still noticing that the solo performers had much fewer collaboration stages than in past seasons. I guess that was to make more time for the trainees' various collaborations.) (3) Yoon-hee's "Officially Missing You" stage. (4) Ma Eun-jin's "You" stage. Several of the girl-group collaboration stages deserve honorable mention. In terms of dancing/choreography, this is probably the best season of Kpop Star (mostly due to the focus on the idol trainees). In terms of vocal performances/musicality, it probably is the season with the fewest really great performances. I had high hopes for Yu Jin-ee at the beginning. I hope she sticks with it. She has the potential to be great. As the season progressed, though, it became obvious that she's still very undeveloped as a singer. Beautiful tone and great power. She had some bad habits that became easy to spot after having the opportunity to listen to several of her performances. She usually mumbled through a lot of the lyrics in almost all of her performances. It was like she just wanted to get those parts over with, so she could knock everyone over with the climax lines. In her first performance, it wasn't too noticeable and could be mistaken for an artistic interpretation of how the lines should be sung. But in subsequent performances, it got really bad at times. She also had a hard time making her songs flow. It was like she was singing a collection of separate parts. But those are habits that she can easily correct with a year or two of effort if she decides to pursue singing very seriously in the future. Even though the judges on several occasions compared Jin-ee to her sister, Jay (season 5), and said that Jin-ee was better, I think Jay is actually the better singer by a long shot. They both of course have the potential to be phenomenal singers in the future. Unfortunately, talent alone is often not enough. They need the backing of a solid company. Unfortunately, there's a strong possibility that they will not be heard from again in any major way (as has been the case with the vast majority of promising talent that has appeared on Kpop Star during the past 6 seasons).

One thing that I find interesting is that for the final groupings: (1) They put both girls who are currently not under contract with any agency (Soomin and Minju) together with Ara (who may currently be the only trainee who has a definitely scheduled debut planned); and (2) In the other group are three girls who are all signed up with agencies, but have no definite debut plans. It's not crazy conspiracy theorizing to realize a basic fact of life, namely that there is always a lot going on behind the scenes in every large organization (governmental, corporate, NGOs...pretty much any organization). Some of it is shady and dubious. Some of it just relates to dealings that are legitimate, but may attract a lot of criticism from different directions, if it becomes public. Going through life believing in the notion that we almost always have 100% transparency and full disclosure of everything important that happens in every significant company or organization would be extremely naive at best. That said, the following are some questions and points that merit discussion : a) Who decided the final groupings for the GG teams and why? In the broadcast of course, they made it look like it was a total surprise to the girls themselves. Maybe it was. b) The girls who are not signed with any agency have the least bargaining power in dealing with Kpop Star producers. c) For Ara's company, the national exposure and promotion gained for her through participation in Kpop Star S6 is probably enough. If she were to be part of the winning group, there could be scheduling conflicts, time-commitment conflicts with her already scheduled debut with the group that is to be launched by her company. It is entirely possible that her company would rather not have her be part of the winning group. She's already has star power just from being such a prominent contestant for the past 5 months on a popular TV show on SBS. d) It's important to remember that all of the girls who are signed with other companies would have been represented by their companies in all dealings, negotiations and contracts signed with SBS/Kpop Star before they even participated as contestants ... and continuing all the way through with regard to any continuing negotiations. Obviously, their companies want to get the most out of it that they can. If they don't have any definite debut schedules, respectively, for Kriesha, Sohee and Hyerim, they would likely very much want their girls to be members of the winning group and benefit from having their girls participate in music releases produced by (and at the expense of ) JYP, YG, YHY and SBS (Kpop Star), as well as having the bragging rights that come with being part of a winning group. e) Based on the above, it's entirely reasonable to low-key speculate on the possibility that SBS put Ara together with the unrepresented girls (in Minari) because Ara's company didn't care so much about having her in the winning group and the unrepresented girls had no company backing to get them a better deal with SBS. Which may explain a lot of things, when you think about how things went for that group in the past two episodes. f) There still may be some question as to whether Kwins or Boyfriend will be the ultimate winner. Boyfriend's fanbase is the hugest and most intense. I think they are also unrepresented (i.e. aren't yet signed with any other companies). It may depend on what kind of deal the KWINS girls' companies have. Or it may actually just come down to who performs better, without any shady manipulations being involved at all. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

The arrangement is the same and even a lot of the words (not all, but maybe about half) are the same. I guess the Boyfriend members contributed some lines of rap, but I'd guess they also got a lot of help behind the scenes from the producers for the overall design plan for the performance -- and actually for pretty much every aspect of the performance. My best guess is that the song was chosen for them. This of course does not take away from the fact that they are indeed very talented boys who can perform the assigned song well, can do the choreography amazingly well, can memorize their lines, have a solid work ethic and so on. They're very good performers for their age. I just think the show sometimes goes overboard in trying to imply and manipulate audiences into thinking that the kids were totally in charge of the whole creative process for the performance, when it's highly unlikely at best. They call shows like this "reality shows". But as we all know, the reality is that reality shows are produced and scripted and edited. So as viewers, there always has to be a question as to how real the "reality" is that is being presented. I've had a hunch for the past several years that most of the song "choices" aren't really made by the performers. Because I'm sure that the contestants are all subject to confidentiality agreements and legally can't say much publicly about what actually happens behind the scenes in these types of shows, it will be hard to get "smoking gun" type evidence. But after years of observing the show, I'm actually increasingly convinced that most of the song selections are made for the performers and not by the performers. Making it seem like the performers always make their own song choices and have total creative control over their performances is just part of the show.

It's weird. I usually try to play a little mental game with myself and pick the results at the beginning of the show and see how close I get. I'm often quite close and sometimes I get surprised. But this one turned out to be so predictable. At the very beginning, I almost knew with a certainty that Shannon and Minari weren't going to make it. First hint was wardrobe-related: Shannon in basic white and Minari in basic black. Boyfriend and Kwins much more colorful and attention-getting/stage-presence-y. Second hint was order of appearance. In big shows, people have come to expect that the best comes last, while openers and warm-up acts come earlier. Then, as the show progressed, everything kept reinforcing my initial intuition. Shannon picked another JYP song and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Minari picked a song that (at least in my opinion) doesn't have any highlights or particularly interesting hooks at all. (Soo Min in her parts actually made it sound a bit better than the original, but it wasn't enough to overcome the song-choice fail.) Then, of course, Boyfriend got a huge build-up and the highest scores from the judges. (TBH, I wasn't that impressed. The arrangement was obviously provided by YG as a hand-me down from the Mix & Match show where Bobby, Jun-Hoe and Hanna Jang did such a great job with that song. I was surprised though to see the judges (especially YG) pretending like it was some completely new arrangement.) At the beginning, the only question I really had in my mind was whether Kwins or Boyfriend would come out on top. I was expecting Boyfriend, but there was some doubt in my mind...until I saw the judges reaction to Boyfriend's performance. I then knew that Kwins were going to have to settle for 2nd place. I really like Shannon and the Minari members. Shannon is a great singer and I trust she'll be hugely successful in the future. Ara really grew on me throughout the season. I hardly even notice her in the early episodes, but as things progressed I realized that she has a really unique charisma and combine that with her all-around skill set...I think she's got a bright future. Min-Joo is adorable and talented and seems to bring some polish to every group she performs with. I hope she'll start getting the recognition she deserves in the future. Soo Min is really soooo talented and gorgeous. But even more than that, my impression is that she's incredibly smart and deep..and level-headed. It's almost easier for me to imagine her actually owning and running a hugely successful company in the future, than it is to see her spend the next several years just dancing and singing on stage. (I would suggest SM Entertainment as a name, but somebody already took the "SM" initials as a name.) But I guess for now the singing and dancing is what makes her happy. This is the weirdest season end for me (after watching all 6 seasons). Usually, I always had definite favorites all the way to the end. This year, I like them all equally. I'm always happy for the ones that make it through to the next round, but really disappointed to see the others get disqualified.

That's actually what I was thinking when I saw Shannon and the other 6 girls all lined up like that. If any of the big companies was smart enough to put them all together as a 7-person group, they would kick a** in a major way. Vocals? check. Dancing? check Visuals? check. Give them excellent songs to work with and the sky would be the limit. I don't think there's any girl group out there now that is as solid across the board as these seven girls would be as a group.

There's always the possibility that they'll have one of those big group performances during the last episode (as they have done in the past seasons), where they bring back not only the top 10, but also many who were eliminated before the top 10. If they do, she'll probably be brought back to sing a few lines in that.

I think it is still possible, with the right song choice and a great performance (so long as they don't get messed up by technical/production issues by a sloppy SBS production crew or weirdly low, over-compensating scoring by the judges). In terms of fan support, I think they're at least even with Shannon or possibly even ahead, since each GG has three members who each have fanbases. Boyfriend has the largest fanbase by far...and if you look at the stats on Naver (linked to the comments), their fans are 70% female and more than half of them are in their thirties or older. So it's a very protective, motherly fanbase....meaning that Boyfriend will have a big advantage and will have to screw up in a major way to lose that advantage. OTOH, if one of the GGs remains for the final, there's a good possibility that the other GG's fans will get behind the remaining group. TBH, I think Boyfriend are talented for their age and cute. But I haven't been seeing anything particularly remarkable in their last several performances. Similar choreography each time, similar facial expressions. Plus it seems like an imbalance is developing between Hyun Jin and Jong Seop. Hyun Jin seems to still be improving in skills bit by bit. But Jong Seop seems to be pretty much at the same level that he was when they started. Their huge fanbase is really the main thing that's carrying them now, as far as I can tell.. and of course the judges and the producers don't want to make that fanbase angry.

I don't like the double elimination format. It knocks out too many too fast, without giving them many chances and makes the Top 10 phase of the show seem too rushed and frantic overall. IIRC, in seasons 1 and 2 there was only 1 elimination per week for the Top 10, so there was a top 9 episode, top 8, top 7, top 6...and so on. The performers got more chances to show what they could do and more chances to pick up new fans. Now, it just seems like the producers are just trying to get it over with as quickly as possible, without even taking the time to get their sound systems operating correctly for the lives. If they aren't going to do a top 3 episode, there are only two more shows remaining...and the lives only started yesterday. I noticed yesterday that they were putting in a lot of filler (kind of pointless extra video clips, like most of the "booth" scenes, where they spent so much time showing the contestants being really surprised by something, but didn't even show what they were surprised by, and also the overly long "eating with JYP" segment.) In past seasons they would start having special stages and other artists coming in around the top 6 point in the season. It kind of feels like the producers are just trying to coast to the finish line without putting in much effort and they're not concerned about investing much in the Kpop Star brand value anymore.

Actually, I think that was the fault of the SBS production team. They (SBS) messed up on the sound mixing board. There was no excuse for the singers' microphones to turned down so low that you could hardly even hear the singer's voices. I think they corrected the balance better in part 2 of the show. They always have some problems getting the balances perfect for the live shows, but the sound technicians really screwed up for Minari's stage. (I'm not even slightly biased. At this point in the competition, I'm having a hard time picking a favorite. I like all of the contestants and I hate to see anyone get eliminated. But right at the start of Minari's performance I knew that something was horribly wrong with the sound balance...and that wasn't Minari's fault in any way.)

I don't think so. If I recall correctly, they split up Soomin and Sohee and then assigned Hyerim and Chrisha to Sohee's group. Ara and Minju are with Soomin.

Hopefully, Antenna will recruit at least one or two of the non GG contestants. (I can easily see Eun Jin and Yunhee going to Antenna. And Antenna maybe will keep an eye on Sung Eun over the next two years and eventually recruit her if she continues to show promise.) As for YG and JYP, I think they've just decided to go 100% all-in for the sexy girl-group concept and boy-group idol factory template for the entertainment business. I don't think they really care at all about the contestants who are not idol trainees this season. (YG still hasn't even found time to produce any music for Katie Kim after she won Season 4 two years ago.) It seems like the whole point of the show for them is the boy group ("Boy Friend") and the trainee girls. The others are just fillers to give drama to the show (because they have to keep eliminating people.) They openly sneer at ballads. Anyone who "just" sings ballads will be disqualified. (If they applied this same standard in Season 4 Jung Seung Hwan would have been eliminated before the top 10.)

But, TBH, that's what I was thinking about Boyfriend. There really was nothing new or improved in their rematch song. In fact, it had a lot less interesting going on than their main song. There was no great singing involved at all. Their moves were pretty much the same types of moves that we've seen in their past several performances. Nothing particularly impressive about the rap contents. I get that they're very talented for their age and cute and popular and all...but it seems like the judges were really selling too hard for them, while excessively downplaying Eunjin and Shannon's performances. I think they realized that they couldn't lose Boyfriend at this stage because they are so popular, so Boyfriend was going to be safe as long as they didn't make any huge screw up in their performance. (For example, they got way too much praise just for not forgetting any of the words to their rap lines.) Meanwhile, I thought that Eunjin's performance was quite beautiful and more than dramatic and dynamic enough. I'm always amazed at how easy it is for the judges to influence the perceptions of the audience. Since the judges weren't the decision makers in this round, I think it would have been more interesting to have them just stay out of it and see what the voting would have been without the judges making faces and trying to influence the audience one way or the other with their comments.