If the Dragonball Z scouter cameo wasn’t enough reason for Yubin’s just-released Thank U Soooo Much to jump the line for a feature, its gorgeous 80's-inspired music surely is.
Thank U Soooo Much (hereby referred to as TUSM) is Yubin’s second solo release, following Lady which came out in June of this year. Even the quickest of glances between Lady and TUSM reveals that Yubin has settled on a style, for now: nostalgically lo-fi, inspired by Japanese city pop and synthwave but still maintaining some K-Pop tropes.
Yubin is one of the members of the former Wonder Girls who stuck around in K-Pop after the group’s 2017 dissolution. Here’s a little-known fact among casual listeners: Yubin wasn’t originally a part of the Wonder Girls as the group was conceived, but was brought in for their second album when HyunA left the group not long after their debut. HyunA would go on to be a part of 4minute under a new agency, and after that group’s dissolution, one of the most successful Korean solo artists of all time.
Yubin’s pre-Wonder Girls history is even more interesting: she was part of a group called Five Girls that never saw the light of day, as the management company behind them went belly-up prior to their debut. Five Girls would’ve included not only Yubin, but many other trainees that would go on to become K-Pop leaders: UEE from After School, Hyosung from Secret, solo artist G.NA and Yang Ji Won of Spica (and later UNI.T). How would have K-Pop history changed if this group—and its impressive lineup—had been allowed to debut? We will never know.