Firestar

Cube did the same thing as every other company, up until another celeb stepped in, won the court of public opinion then won in actual court. That was a true rarity in that a well liked former child actress ended up in the group of accusers. If it had just been nobodies they'd have done what every company does, bury her in lawsuits until she gives up, claim that the idol was wronged and send her back out with the group.

yeah, I mean this is what every company does, but saying "confirms it's untrue" is misleading. They didn't confirm anything, they just did the classic company move, threaten to sue anyone and everyone, that happens whether stuff is true or not. Of course that's because even if it is true, Korea's libel laws and court system make it pretty easy to bully most people into a retraction (not saying it is or isn't true, just that the company doesn't care either way and would react the same, they put a bunch of money into this girl and group, unless it's a (g)i-dle type situation where one of the accusers is also a celebrity they're gonna react the same way). Anyone taking a company release and lawsuit threat as any indication of truth or fiction is being delusional. We'll likely never know, and she'll debut and her fans won't care, that's pretty consistently how these things go.

yeah, it's impossible to say, I just understand why companies are willing to chase trends once a couple albums don't make enough profit.

Streams don't really matter honestly. Weeekly was selling around 40k albums, and they didn't really get a bump post After School (the album after only sold like 42k I think?), they sold 80k first week with the new one. The key for groups long term success is albums and Korean popularity, it's why so many groups are chasing the trend, because it's what is selling right now in Korea.

They Weeekly'd me. Put out cool cinematic trailers then the song was kind of generic trend following. I guess it's what sells, but c'mon, let groups have their own identities in songs please.

Haven't seen anything more reputable, but considering she's been carrying that group and company on her back for a while now I wouldn't be surprised.

If you mean the giving her number to the recruiter story, that was some obvious misrepresentation/wishcasting by people. It was clear in the context of the interview that she meant it as the woman was non-threatening and didn't seem like a fake, not "I wanted to date her", it came out of one of the other girls (yuna?) mentioning a staff member who is really small and cute. Ryujin is a tough read overall, she seems very much like she was a tomboy early on (through into mixnine) which got her a lot of "girl crush" attention and she knows how to play into it, but it's not totally clear to me if she's interested in girls, or just that's the role she is given to play, like some other "girl crush" idols who got given that role despite being obviously straight. I could go either way on her. Of course as with all of these, it's important to remember that anything we see is something they want people to see, you're not really going to figure out much anyway on idols, since almost all the intra-group stuff is just fanservice.

I've noticed that basically every song produced by The HUB (this, Weeekly's VenPara) sounds way better with a live band, because it strips out all the mushy effects, autotune and other garbage that they layer on top. I think this song is poorly written as well, but I think NMIXX has shown a lot of talent, so I'm hopeful for their future work (hopefully with better producers/writers).

I think you have basically no understanding of the NK/SK conflict and the roles the US and China play in it. Extra conscripted troops is not a factor at all, it's all show. Yoon ran on a platform that heavily involved the idea that men were being discriminated against and women's rights and access to government assistance should be rolled back. He most definitely DID NOT run on the idea of lengthening service time (if he had he'd have lost, one thing SK young men hate more than the idea that women will get jobs ahead of them is mandatory service, it's part of what plays into the whole gender divide. Men feel like they lose time to mandatory service, where they make basically no money, get treated poorly, then when they get out they have to compete with women for jobs, on a scale that their fathers didn't. But rather than fix the issues with mandatory service, the answer has been... treat women worse. Yoon is a classic right wing authoritarian, his entire platform is one of exclusion, he's probably more hardline on his opponent on NK, but only in the posturing kind of way, he and everyone else in power knows that NK is just a posturer of their own, who exists as a buffer with China. NK has no actual interest in war with the South, it would be suicide given the involvement of the US, they have an interest in show pony power to prop up their dictator. Edit- a much better case is that he won because he capitalized on the anger of young men, and he got enough votes from older women who are concerned more about housing prices than the rights of younger women. There's a reason the possibility of extending the length of military service wasn't part of the campaign.

It's been the same pattern all over the world, if you tell men that the reason their lives are going poorly is that women, minorities and LGBT people are getting too much and that they should be punished, those men will vote for you. People have been voting against their own interests forever as long as you tell them they can look down on someone else.

Lol this made me laugh, her answer made it seem like she was running through their interactions in her head like "wait? Am I dating?"

After School being in the bio when Nana has been the only member since 2019, and none of the others are even with the agency anymore.

Basically every "ranking" ends up as "Which big 3 group is my favorite".

Sounds like they want to buy up shares, then use that to get more shares until they are controlling shareholders, but nothing is done yet

Having listened to this more, my one takeaway more than anything is that even if they continue with this type of sound, I hope they don't feel the need to work with this production team again because of the sales success. The bizarre use of autotune, and muddled mids and highs throughout the chorus is something I both really dislike, and think is evidence of a poor producer. You can do a more aggressive style like this with a better producer and get a better song. I noticed the same thing in this production team's other work (NMIXX for example), they just absolutely stink at vocal mixing, embarrassingly so.

Kwangya was going to be their entry into NFTs right? I mean the whole thing seems like a classic NFT setup, then they bailed on the NFT portion when other companies attempted it and found it was maybe the one bridge even kpop stans were unwilling to buy. So now it's just kind of there.

Not my preferred mode for them, but well executed. The B-sides are strong as well.

Really amazing that she and the company were so dumb honestly. She should have either ignored the rumors or just given a half assed apology and she'd be fine, plenty of idols have done that (Irene was a particularly notable one since it was present day not the past and an iffy apology moved her past it quickly), but instead she and the company tried to bully the victims into retracting by suing them, which brought the actress into it with her vague statement, that was a warning shot, instead of backing off they tried to press someone who has her own company, and PR experience and her coming out with clear statements backing up others basically ended Soojin's career in Korea. And the reaction of her fans in their gross attacks on the actress meant there was no coming back, it seems pretty clear that the actress being roped in is what really blew it up. Real question will be does it damage the group even after cutting here.

I really like the two b-sides. I have some concerns about the title track. I really liked that Weeekly was a counter-trend group, and Ven Para sounds like it's going to be the same generic "latin influenced girl crush" sound that every other group is doing. I guess you gotta sell albums in Korea, and they had the problem that their singles particularly After School did really well on spotify (mostly non-Korean audience) but not Korea and Korean sales/wins are more important to a non-big 3 company. I'm sure the songs will all be well executed, they have consistently good writing and production, and a lot of vocal talent.... I just wonder if going generic is going to hurt more than help, they had some momentum going it felt like as the counter-trend group with a clearly identifiable sound.

I'm surprised... I mean I think it's a bad song, but I also thought the company-stan machine would chug along like usual where the quality of songs has rarely mattered.

Viviz I only put as maybe because that EP has only been out like a week, I agree they are less. Brave girls the chart I was looking at was messed up, it transposed their singles on the early EPs with the EPs so it was showing 600k on their first EP, when it was their first single. So basically all the other groups are similar, they all sell less EPs than Kep1er's debut but had a lot more success on singles.

Their EP sold pretty well, better than any EP from Loona, WJSN or Hyolyn (including Sistar), not as well as Brave Girls, probably will be better than Viviz (and GFriend). On the other hand their only single tanked, everyone on the show has more successful singles, most have a lot of much more successful singles. Mnet (CJ ENM) is definitely pushing Kep1er, because the show wasn't very successful, and the album sales were okay, but not amazing based on the expectations for a survival show group, and the single performed very poorly, so they want to find a way to stop that momentum loss, and build up for the eventual comeback, given it's a time limited group.

Not bad. Kep1er was a given, CJ ENM wants to get their money's worth out of them. Girls Planet 999 was very very disappointing in terms of ratings for them, and then the group's first single didn't chart like previous survival show group debut singles had. Dropping them into Queendom was always the logical way to get them a second bite at the apple. Would have liked to see Dreamcatcher since they have a very different feel from the rest and variety would be nice.

Full on Sailor Guardian vibes.... LOVE IT

very few things have made me want to go full delusional shipper more than Jennie and Deb Never (out Korean American singer). The Halloween couple costume was bad enough, this CK shoot.... whew.