Omijacha

April 12! Looking forward to it. Maybe teasers for her second half of the album will come out around then. I don't really know anything about Park Boram, but I hope it will be a fun show and a good opportunity for Hayi.

Happy to hear that the second half (and full physical album) will be coming soon. I really want to get my hands on the full physical album. OTOH, it's weird that YG isn't promoting the second half better. If it's coming in just a couple of weeks from now, there should be more news about it now. Instead, we're only learning about that schedule in a sentence that is buried in an article announcing AKMU's come back. So, at best, I guess there will be some announcements for Hayi just one week before the second half come out and then pre-comeback promotions for AKMU will start just a few days after Hayi's second half comes out. So far, there's not even any mention of Katie. It would be ridiculous to promote and release music for Katie right in the middle of Hayi's and AKMU's already-overlapping releases and promotions. Maybe Katie agreed to a delay. The last episode of Kpop Star is next week, so if YG intended to do something for Katie this month, it should already have started. Maybe Katie will get something in the summer. In any case, it does look like YG just wants to rush through the artists recruited from Kpop Star. I predict that the second half of this year will be back to the YG sausage fest for the most part.

Does anyone else think it's weird how they skipped the "top 3" round this year? In all of the previous seasons, there was a top 4 round followed by the top 3 episode and then the final episode was between the top 2. I wonder why they decided to just dump both LSE and Mazinger S at the same time and got rid of the top 3 round this year.

Based on total views and likes on Kpop Star 5's official naver page, Ye Eun is currently overwhelmingly favored by the publc, even though the judges' voting (especially JYP) heavily favored Soo-Jung. I don't think JYP or YG would have any place for Ye Eun or would even know what to do with her. Their focus is so much on producing idol groups that they don't even have much interest in solo artists at all...let alone a quirky "indie" style artist like Ye Eun. Soo-Jung is much more mainstream with regard to the type of pop that JYP and YG prefer. But unless she gets put into an idol group, she'll be lucky if she can release 1 album in a decade at JYP or YG. As for Antenna, I agree. YHY seems to be a genuinely nice and decent person. But, as you indicated, Antenna already has a backlog of Kpop Star artists (Lee Jin-Ah, Jung Seung-Hwan, Kwon Jin-Ah, Sam Kim) and so far the first debut will be Sam Kim next week (and that's only for a single release AFAIK). In the short term, it's hard to imagine Ye Eun getting much promotion right away. I guess she would be the first winner to select Antenna though. So, technically, there would be a contractual obligation for her to debut within 1 year. I think if Antenna were to hold concerts with all of Antenna's Kpop Star members participating in the same concert, they may be popular enough to make some money. So far Antenna does not have any significant track record to look at with regard to promoting artists under its label and it's hard to predict. Antenna could surprise everyone and suddenly come alive like gangbusters and start energetically promoting their artists within the next couple of years...or....they may just continue as is and almost nothing happens until Kpop Star ends as a show and then Antenna just fades away.

Yes, it seems like there are so many other possible song choices that would have been much better to show off their strengths. It's things like this that make me wonder sometimes if everything that happens in a show like this is 75% to 90% scripted. Like, the judges and producers decide in advance that a particular contestant is going to be eliminated, so to make it less obvious that they're being arbitrary, they force an innappropriate song choice on them and "set the stage for failure" in other words. Sometimes, it's really weird how bad the sound system gets for some performances too. Right at the beginning of the show, I had the feeling that Mazinger S had been pre-selected for elimination. The first hint was the way they were dressed. In past performances, they always had really interesting, colorful costumes and themes that added a lot of interest. In this one, they were all dressed in unflattering, uninteresting, plain white dresses. (Incidentally, white is the official funeral color in Korea.) They were also assigned the number 4 (and I won't go into the significance of the number 4 in Korea, lest I get too conspiratorial. lol). I remember a couple of years ago, one of the members of Busker Busker mentioned in an interview that in their audition show, the producers would tell them in advance who is going to win and who is going to lose. Busker Busker was supposed to lose, but became so popular that the producers had to change their plan in order to avoid getting excessive hate from the viewing public. I really doubt most of the time in Kpop Star that it's actually the contestants who are making their own song choices. Even though they will often have some "interview" where the contestant explains why they "chose" the song, I think those are probably really misleading and, at best, the producers gave them a short list of songs and the contestant had to "choose" only from that short list. One factor that supports this hypothesis is the fact that the song choices are very often actually the same song "choices" that were made several times in past seasons by other contestants. Another indicator is when you consider that in every season (actually almost every episode) so many JYP songs are selected. I sometimes wonder if it's part of JYP's contract with the show to get x number of his own songs promoted every season. )

The Shorties were close to perfect at the beginning of the season. They seemed to have very close bonds of friendship and an excellent working relationship. Their voices were perfectly matched to create fantastic-sounding harmonies. They didn't seem to have any troubles at all...until they were "cast" by YG during the casting part of the season. YG started making nonsensical criticisms about them "needing to have someone be the clear leader of the group." (I guess he never heard the saying "if it ain't broken, don't try to fix it..") Actually, Najin was the unofficial leader and everyone seemed happy about it. But YG seemed to be psychologically messing with their natural chemistry by unnaturally focusing too much attention on the question of "who should be the official boss of the group." Then during the casting phase, YG also gave them a really strange song "choice" (not really a choice, but an assignment from YG) that made them lose in the unofficial competition shown on TV. It was an old Seo Taiji and Boys song that was completely inappropriate for a harmony group like the Shorties. After it became obvious that YG had sabotaged them with a really crappy song selection, he just played it off like it was no big deal. Like, "Oops! My bad. Just a harmless experiment I wanted to do." And then when the Top 10 lives started, the Shorties started getting unjustifiably low scores from the judges until they got bumped out in the final four. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the mind games that YG played against them eventually caused them to split up as a group (or caused Park Najin to leave). The new version of the Shorties sounds good. But it doesn't have the magic blend of voices that made the original Shorties' harmonies so great. The new girl just is too close in vocal tone and color to the other girls and her voice doesn't have the edge that Najin's voice has. Najin's voice was an essential ingredient in making the Shorties sound. If the original Shorties was a banana and coconut cream pie. The new version just became a banana and banana cream pie.

It does seem like Kpop Star is possibly becoming less relevant -- especially this year. TBH, last year many of the people they eliminated before the top 10 were generating more public interest and enthusiasm in Korea than any of the people who were in the top 6 this year, except for maybe An Ye-Eun. It seems like kind of a lackluster field overall this year and, perhaps more importantly, it's starting to become obvious that the companies involved just aren't capable of even decently promoting the people they already have from the previous 4 seasons. It's hard to say what kind of fan base Katie Kim got last year. I kind of get the impression that the fan bases for the different contestants the past few years are not that loyal over a long period of time. Both Hayi and AKMU earned very intense loyal fan bases during Kpop Star that made a big impact when they debuted. But the Kpop Star fan bases for the winners since then don't seem to have the same level of loyalty and enthusiasm.

That's right. I almost forgot that they were quite excited about Jung Jinwoo too during the earlier part of the season. Soo Jung probably would fit in well at HighGrnd or the other sub-label. YG is such a bottleneck nowadays and favors promoting the boy idol groups so much, though. It's hard to imagine anyone from Kpop Star getting a decent amount of promotion time at YG. Soo Jung would have to sign directly with one of the sub-labels to even hope to avoid YG's bottleneck. And then there's Mazinga S. I think it's becoming clear now that no group will ever win on Kpop Star. They actually broke up SuPearls after just a couple of performances in S1. Raccoon Boys were doing quite well in S2, but started getting downplayed a lot toward the end. You-You had a great start and a lot of fans, but didn't go far. In S3, I would have picked the Shorties to go all the way, but they started getting downplayed by the judges as soon as they made it into the top 10. (I don't count AKMU because they're a brother and sister and just became too popular to be ignored.) Last year had another group that fizzled out about halfway through the top 10. My guess is that none of the companies really wants to sign up a whole group. They're good for the ratings of Kpop Star. But unless they become wildly popular with the public (and that wasn't even enough for the Shorties), the judges and producers find ways to push them off to the side before the finale comes.

Right now, I think Ye Eun is preferred by Antenna and a majority of the Kpop Star viewers in Korea. (If you look at the official Kpop Star Season 5 video site on Naver, Ye Eun is so far ahead in number of views and likes that it's not even close.) Soo-jung is preferred by JYP and YG.

Unless something has gone on behind the scenes that we are unaware of, I'd say it's almost 100% certain that Ahn Ye Eun would choose Antenna. And I'd say it's almost 90% certain that Soo-jung would choose Antenna. I'm not quite as certain about Soo-jung only because she's a type of singer that JYP or YG could use and she may think that she can debut faster with JYP or YG, since Antenna is still new and doesn't yet have any track record for launching debuts. (Of course, JYP and YG really don't invest much effort into promoting their Kpop Star recruits--compared to how much they invest in their idol groups.) TBH, I've gotten the feeling that JYP and YG aren't particularly interested in any of the contestants this year. They seemed to be excited about Yoo Jei for a while, but she wasn't able to deliver consistently good performances and actually peaked about 3 months ago. Neither of them wanted a balladeer like Lee Si-Eun. Neither of them would know what to do with Ahn Ye Eun. With Soo-jung, maybe YG could work her into the new YG GG. (But who knows when or if there really will be a new YG GG?)

That's exactly what's happening. Bernard Park performed today and next week is reserved for JYP and Sam Kim. No mention of AKMU or Katie Kim...and only a 2-second appearance by Lee Hi (sitting in the audience). Didn't they used to have a "top 3" episode between the "top 4" and the "top 2"? This year it's going straight from the top 4 to the finale.

She was in the audience at Kpop Star, wearing that pink suit. So I guess that's where she was. The camera just focused on her for a second...and you could hear huge cheers from the audience. I guess nobody from YG is going to perform on Kpop Star this year. Didn't they usually have a final 3 episode in past seasons? They're skipping the final 3 this year. Instead, they're going straight from the final 4 (today) to the final 2 next week. Sam Kim and JYP are scheduled to be performing next week. No mention of Katie Kim or AKMU and, of course, for Hayi, we only get to see her sitting in the audience for a few seconds. Where did people ever get the idea that YG is great at promoting? I think he's good at recruiting popular artists...but he doesn't really make much effort to promote them (except for his own boy groups).

Yes, if you look at other groups and solos, they're usually doing things all year long, with a few breaks. Like IU seems to release things quite often and when she's not promoting, she's appearing in various shows, collaborations, etc. Davichi seems to be releasing music all the time. But if you're a popular solo singer at YG, what does YG do for you? YG rejects collaboration offers. YG rejects shows. YG lets you appear on a few standard TV music shows and radio shows for 2~3 weeks (after a 3-year hiatus), but only to perform title tracks. Then YG makes you disappear again and discourages you from having any contact with fans. YG refuses to put up any news about you on official YG sites. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to collaborate with Hayi (just as Yoo Hee Yeol mentioned in Sketchbook) and a huge number of talented songwriters/composers who want Hayi to do their songs. But Yang Hyun Suk probably doesn't even take the time to examine any of the proposals or offers. She's just a "female solo" in his mind, so in his mind it's not worth investing much significant time or effort for her. His bias is so easy to see ... and is so wrong. OTOH, if you're a YG boy group, YG finds every CF opportunity possible. YG creates a 4-month TV show just to promote you. YG puts you on Running Man and other shows. YG sets aside 4 to 5 months out of the year just for your multiple video releases. YG puts out different versions of physical albums. YG sets up multiple fan meetings and events. YG budgets for MV filming in expensive overseas locations. YG puts up dozens, if not hundreds, of news items about you on the official YG sites every month. YG produces big concerts and gives free tickets. Even when the boy groups aren't actively promoting specific songs or albums, they have a lot of scheduled events all year long. It's easy to see why Hayi had a hard time with Yoo Hee Yeol's question on sketchbook (when he basically asked whether she would choose YG again if she had the chance). I think 4 years ago, if someone asked her that question, she would have unhesitatingly said "yes, of course." Now, she can only say, in effect: "well, if I don't answer correctly, I may not be allowed to have any comeback for another 3 years."

YG always gets members of the boy groups on shows like Running Man. There's already a news article at YG Life saying that two members of Winner are scheduled to be on Running Man soon. Maybe he's afraid Lee Hi will throw shade at him if she ever gets on any TV shows (and of course he would deserve it). It's kind of funny. Supposedly, the past 2~3 weeks were supposed to be mainly focused on promoting Lee Hi (first serious promotions for her in more than 3 years), but even during this period there have been about 5 times more "news" items about the boy groups posted on the YG site than anything about Lee Hi. Oh well, I guess that's just business as usual at YG. If we have to wait forever for her full album, I'm going to make a Yang Hyun Suck voodoo doll and start shrinking the voodoo doll version of that hat he always wears...just keep squeezing and squeezing on that voodoo doll head...until he starts mentioning headaches on Kpop Star and remembers that he's actually supposed to care about what happens to Lee Hi. Then I'll ease up on that voodoo doll.

Thnx. Even though it's not pleasant, I think it's sometimes better to confront them when they're saying ridiculous things and making groundless attacks. Otherwise, they start thinking that everyone supports their nonsense and they just keep taking it further.

Hayi is so cute, adorable and pretty! I like everything about her natural, comfortable look here. I saw a gif from this show that showed her moving around and she was wearing just regular sneakers (no high, high, high heels). I think she should do that more often when she's on stage too. Sure, she's short...but she's so adorably and cutely short. I think it's really a plus for her to have so much cuteness and power vocals in such a small package...and there's no need for her to feel like she has to wear ultra-high high heels all the time. She just looks so happy and comfortable whenever she's wearing regular, comfortable shoes. (I don't know. Maybe high heels are another thing that Yang Hyun Suk pressures her to do. )

Just as many of us worried, it looks like she's getting only about 3 weeks of basic promotions and soon we're going to be back to wondering when we'll ever see her or hear from her again. I hope I'm wrong...and I don't want to say it...but I have a feeling Yang Hyun Suck just wants to rush through the releases for Hayi, AKMU and Katie as fast as possible and get them over with very quickly, so that he can go back to doing monthly video releases and non-stop promotions for the boy groups for the rest of the year.

They're just childish haters who can't find anything really to criticize, so they just keep repeating nonsense. What's she supposed to do, tear her hair out and make happy and sad clown face expressions?

IKR! I can't believe some of the ultra-low-IQ people out there who think that if they find even two similar sounding notes in another song that they've discovered some huge plagiarism scandal. It's like someone taught them a big word, but never taught them what the word really means. They seem to think that it means that anything that is similar is plagiarism. Like: "Hey, they're making sounds in this song and sometimes the sound goes up and sometimes it goes down...and, uh, I found another song where the person is making sounds and sometimes the sound goes up and sometimes it goes down...that's plagiarism...yep, uh-huh, plagiarism...uh, is there somewhere that I can wipe my boogers? I'm not hungry right now."

Yes, I saw that. It made me realize how much of an impact Hayi's strong low notes (in addition to her high notes) have on making Breathe so powerful. The contestant (LSE) is technically a good singer in the higher register, but she doesn't have any particularly distinctive style and I don't think she can do anything really other than standard ballads. (At least I haven't really seen her do anything else so far on Kpop Star.) I kind of cringed when I saw that she was going to do Breathe -- partly because I expected LSE's fans from this season to drag Hayi's name into the comments section to try to build up LSE. But last time I checked, the response even from LSE's fans was just lukewarm. They were just happy that she made it through to the next round. Like you said, her arrangement was all over the place. I think she felt like she needed to change some things here and there so that the judges wouldn't accuse her of just copying the song without any originality. But the arrangement didn't really work that well in my opinion and a lot of the emotional impact was lost. Whereas Hayi's focus is always on using her voice to bring out the beauty of a song, the impression I got from LSE's version was that she was just using the song to demonstrate her singing technique. When Hayi sings it, her voice hits you from the very first note and pulls you right into the song. LSE's voice was too soft and unsupported throughout the whole beginning and build up and therefore had no real impact at all at the beginning. It was like she was thinking: "Okay, I just have to get through this unimportant beginning part so that I can start belting my high notes toward the end." But she didn't realize that the beginning was just as important as the rest of the song and that when you just start belting all over the place without using phrasing that connects to the words of the song, you're just showing off belting technique and that's all the audience is reacting to.

Hayi has spoiled me so much with her voice. I try to listen to a lot of music and discover other artists that I like too. But after Hayi came along, I find that so many of the popular female singers don't even seem to sound like adult women. Their voices are thin and sound like little-girl voices. Some can really hit some high notes with impressive power for the climax of their song. But then when they have to sing the main body of the song and the build-up, they just can't do justice on the lower and mid-range notes. Just today, I was trying to get into some other singers and after several listens, I was just like....okay...that's enough wispy, little-girl singing. I need to go listen to some Lee Hi songs, starting with "Fxxk Wit Us" ...

Unfortunately, Yang Hyun Suk definitely has a priority system in his mind and he will actually suppress artists who violate the priority system. Idol groups created by YG always take higher priority. Among idol groups created by YG, boy groups take priority over girl groups. Solos from Kpop Star and other acts like AKMU from Kpop Star will likely always be the last priority and mainly exist to support the idol groups or to be promoted in the gaps between the idol group promotions. AKMU and Lee Hi, with just the minimal amount of attention and support provided, have proven over and over that they are very popular with the general public. But Yang Hyun Suk actually does not want them to ever be the best-known or most popular acts in YG, so Yang Hyun Suk will always make sure that they "know their place" and stay in their subordinate place by ensuring that they get the least promotional attention. At present, it's hard to know where 2NE1 (coming to the end of their contract period) fits into things in Yang Hyun Suk's priority system. When it was mainly just Big Bang, 2NE1, Se7en and Gummy, the priorities were clearly BB>>>>2NE1>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Se7en and Gummy. But it's hard to say what YG's intentions for 2NE1 are now. I guess when YG finally decides to launch his new GG or GGs, they will get heavy promotions. Maybe not as much as the boys, but much,much more than the Kpop Star recruits. But YG seriously needs to make sure that Hayi's full physical album comes out before the end of the summer. The 3-year hiatus was ridiculous and it's fantastic that she's finally back after 3 years. But there still is no full album and no physical album and it will be totally inexcusable if six months or even another year or two go by and she still has no physical album.

The Breathe video just went over 5 million.

One of the interesting parts of her conversation with YHY is the part where YHY says: "Hayi has such a special and unique voice that there are really so many collaboration proposals for her..." We know of a few of them (like Lee Moon Sae and I remember rumors about IU proposing something back when Hayi debuted), but I think this comment from YHY indicates that top people in the business are probably aware that she's gotten dozens (and dozens) of collaboration offers from big-name singers during the past 3 or 4 years...and Yang Hyun Suk has probably rejected them all. I can hardly imagine how frustrating that must have been for Hayi. How many beautiful collaborations have we actually missed out on thanks to you know who... I wonder.

Here is a video showing Hayi's short cover of "That Is My Whole World" and conversations with YHY and Epik High. https://youtu.be/UvUAdsjK9II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvUAdsjK9II#t=338