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Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Catallena
Oh, Orange Caramel, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You’re a sub-unit of After School, the best girl group of all time; You are wonderfully quirky and always manage to subvert my expectations with every new release; Everything you do is ridiculously catchy, from the one I decided to feature here…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Running In The Sky
It’s hard to imagine another song that fits so well with its title; when you listen to Running In The Sky, it’s easy to picture yourself above the clouds, soaring and leaping your way through the air. Huh Gak is another Korean singer who rose through fame through a survival competition, much like Akdong Musician…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Still
A.N.JELL isn’t a real band, sadly. This song, on the other hand, is very real. Still is actually part of the soundtrack for You’re Beautiful, a Korean television drama from 2009. The central conceit revolved around the protagonist, Park Shin Hye, as a victim of a gender switcheroo and accidentally finding herself as part of…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Hot Pink
While Up & Down may have catapulted EXID into instant stardom, Hot Pink is my favorite track of theirs. (Those cowbells!) The story of EXID’s meteoric rise is something straight out of 21st-century millennial fanfiction: struggling in obscurity since their debut in 2012, the girl group hit belated gold when a fan-taken video of one…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: You Are To Me, I Am To You
Okay, let’s go back in time. You Are To Me, I Am To You is a 2003 song that was featured as part of the soundtrack for The Classic, an incredibly popular film that boosted Son Ye Jin to fame — and this song, as well. This is a bit of a personal song for…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Dally
If Sistar had to die for Hyolyn to live, that might be something I would eventually come to terms with. Hyolyn is probably one of the few K-Pop artists that I could compare to, say, Beyoncé and not feel a small twang of guilt. She has a stage presence that compares to precious few others…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Give Love
Akdong Musician (sometimes stylized as AKMU) is like nothing else in K-Pop, which is honestly some of the highest praise anyone can give to a K-Pop artist. This brother-sister duo of Chanhyuk and Suhyun rose to fame through season 2 of K-Pop Star, a talent elimination show, and promptly signed on to YG Entertainment. Since…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: EASY
MAMAMOO’s Whee In has gone solo, and the world is a better (and jazzier) place for it. Given that MAMAMOO tends to favor jazz in its many incarnations for their own title tracks, it’s not a surprise that Whee In decided to go in that direction for her solo debut with EASY. And it works…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Good Day
Watched any K-dramas recently? Then you know this song. Good Day came along at the perfect time for IU (real name: Lee Ji Eun). She had already built up a respectable following with Marshmallow and Nagging, her duet with 2AM’s Seulong, but needed that one last push to propel her to the big leagues. This…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Nillili Mambo
Hey, look, it’s the perfect workout song! I only slightly exaggerate; Block B’s Nillili Mambo is probably one of the most energetic and motivational K-Pop songs out there. (If you have any more recommendations, shout them out in the comments!) Block B is a seven-member boy band who have endured their fair share of dramatic…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Hands Up
What time is it? It’s 2PM. (No joke: I started writing this post at 2PM for my own amusement. Gotta get your kicks somehow.) At the time of its release, Hands Up was a bit of a controversial track, coming from a group that was known (at the time) for their aggressive choreography, slightly depressing…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: What Is Love?
That sound you’ve been hearing today? That’s the sound of TWICE fans pressing the replay button on this video. (8.2 million views at the time of this writing, Jesus.) As you might’ve guessed, TWICE — far and away the nation’s most popular girl group right now — has returned with What Is Love?, their newest…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: A Song For First-Time Lovers
To fully appreciate A Song For First-Time Lovers, you need to hear the backstory behind this incredibly chill ode to the acoustic guitar. There used to be a television show in Korea called We Got Married, where two celebrities would pair up to show their fictional dating life. It was pure fanfiction-bait, but at the…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Don’t Be Shy
Did you know Korean reggae was a thing? How about Korean reggae with a healthy dose of melancholy? Now, how about Korean reggae… with a healthy dose of melancholy… with a music video featuring Pokémon cards and spooky dolls, of all things? Reggae is a bit of an experiment for PRIMARY. He’s a prolific Korean…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Red Flavor
Yes, a South Korean girl group performed in front of Kim Jong Un and his North Korean cadres over the weekend. At least they listened to a bop? Red Velvet debuted in 2014 from SM Entertainment. They originally started off with four members, with Yeri being added a year later. Happiness, their first release, is…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: The Gloomy Song
Jung Hyung Don and Defconn are a comedian-rapper duo, respectively, best-known for their long-running variety program, Weekly Idol. Given the recent news that these two uber-popular hosts will be departing their show, it only felt appropriate to showcase one of their songs. Weekly Idol is something of a halo program among idol group fans; it’s…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: We Like
I have a love-hate relationship with Pristin, the latest girl group to come out of Pledis Entertainment. I love them because, well, they’re great! We Like is ridiculously catchy, and I’ve been waiting for Xiyeon to debut for nearly a decade (you can catch a glimpse of her as a young trainee here at 0:26).…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Notorious
If you didn’t know SM Entertainment housed a rock band called TRAX, you’re forgiven — it sometimes feels like they’re the proverbial ugly duckling of the bunch, given their erratic, near-nonexistent releases. It’s a shame because if nothing else, K-Pop could use more rock. Thankfully, the benevolent powers-that-be saw fit to release this band from…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Goodbye For You, Not For Me
Ready to feel melancholy? You’ve come to the right place. It’s time to listen to the ultimate break-up song. Standing Egg is a bit of a curiosity in the Korean indie-pop community. All of the group members remain anonymous; if you look them up on Wikipedia, the musicians are simply credited as Eggs 1, 2,…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Bo Peep Bo Peep
While contemporary T-ara is little more than a footnote in the vast, vast history of Korean pop music, they used to be a driving force behind K-Pop trends in the early-to-mid-2010s, and it all started here with Bo Peep Bo Peep, perhaps the ultimate definition of a “earworm”. The circumstances behind their eventual fall from…
By Seung Park
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