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Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: I’m A Butterfly
Let’s kick start things with some rock-n-roll. If I’m A Butterfly doesn’t get you psyched to tackled the rest of the week, you’ve got issues that music can’t solve (and those are grave issues indeed). YB, formerly as the Yoon Do Hyun band, debuted in 1997 under their eponymous lead vocalist. Like so many of…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: I Swear
Sistar was, is, and always will be, the undisputed queen of the summer song. I Swear is just one example of their dominance when it comes to the season of swimsuits, pool parties and sunscreen. There’s also Loving U, with its dazzlingly saturated music video, and Touch My Body, and Shake It, and we would’ve…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Breathless
We’ve all wondered what it would be like to be a bottle of soda at some point in our lives, right? If this music video is accurate (and why wouldn’t it be?), we’d all be happy-go-lucky pop idols livin’ it up in air-conditioned comfort until we, uh, get drunk by a cute girl with pigtails.…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Hot Summer
Apt title for these dog days, don’t you think? (I never went outside today.) Korean entertainment agencies have a curious fascination with debuting groups set up as “counterparts” to others within their company. YG Entertainment did it with 2NE1 and Big Bang, JYP Entertainment (perhaps most egregiously) with 2PM and 2AM, and SM Entertainment with…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Darling
Welcome to Summer Songs Week, where we attempt to stave off the heat that’s slowly killing us all with beachy, refreshing tunes. Yup, it’s summer. You know what that means: popsicles, beach days, A/C on full blast… and the annual dose of K-Pop groups clamoring to nab a slice of that sweet, sweet summer release…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Magic Carpet Ride
Jaurim is one of Korea’s longest-running bands, having officially debuted in 1997—and active in the indie community prior to that date. The above is the highest-quality video I could find of Magic Carpet Ride, part of their 2000 album The Wonderland, from an official source. If you’d like to see the music video, albeit in…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Dolls
Nine Muses is one of those groups that exist in that uncomfortable grey area between success and failure: never really achieving breakout status, but also never stumbling badly enough that their agency decides to cut its losses. So they struggle on, quietly debuting one solid bop after another, hoping for the day when they will…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: You Are A Girl, I Am A Boy
If your exposure to K-Pop so far has only been through title tracks and their accompanying music videos, you’re missing out on some premium quality pop. Here’s an example of what I mean. B1A4 designated Sweet Girl as their title track for their sixth extended play album in 2015. The song is… fine. It’s a…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Power Up
Red Velvet is very quickly becoming one of my favorite groups, and Power Up might just be their best song yet. When they debuted with Happiness in 2014, I had a hunch that they would turn out to be one of K-Pop’s more unique and inventive artists, and I was right. From their spins on…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: I’m A Loner
I’m A Loner is an uncommonly good debut track, and it set the tone for CNBLUE’s rise as one of the premier rock bands in South Korea. As with many other K-Pop groups, CNBLUE debuted with a gimmick: every member stood for a letter of the word BLUE. He wasn’t just Jonghyun, the guitarist; he…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: One More Time
Ten years ago, before Twice and Red Velvet and Girls’ Generation and 2NE1 and Wonder Girls, there was Jewelry. In the mid-to-late 2000s, Jewelry was all the rage; coming hot off the successful Superstar three years prior, they would release, in 2008, one of K-Pop’s watershed tracks: One More Time One More Time embodied Jewelry…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Soulmate
Block B’s rapper Zico has had one of the more interesting careers for a mainstream K-Pop artist. He actually got his start in Korea’s underground rap world, becoming a respected rapper alongside several crews before his debut as an idol. Soulmate, his latest solo track, is a collaboration with IU (who we’ve covered in this…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Dance The Night Away
The last time I featured Twice, I asked someone to wake me when they decided to show some progression in their music. No one followed my directions, it seems, because I was asleep for this one. Dance The Night Away is a refreshing change of pace for Twice, long known for their addictive, cutesy hook…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Mr Chu
Korean girl group concepts exist along a spectrum of cute to sexy. There are outliers, and a group may move up or down this spectrum along the course of their lifespans, but generally speaking, most of them can be neatly categorized along this line: they’re either on the cuter side, or the sexier side, and…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Dream High
K-Drama soundtracks are often hidden gems for picking out great K-Pop tracks. And when said K-Drama in question is about K-Pop, well, you know you’re in for a treat. Dream High was a 2011 drama about a fictional performing arts high school, and the students who came from various backgrounds to achieve their dreams. We’ve…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Step
Along with Wonder Girls and Girls’ Generation, KARA was one of the most iconic girl groups active in Korea in the late 2000s to the early 2010s. While they were the first to disband among them, their influence on K-Pop (and J-Pop) trends can’t be underestimated. Although Mister was the track that gave them the…
By Seung Park -
Kotaku EastK-Pop Pick Of The Day: Loner
If I followed any random group of young Koreans to a karaoke room in the late 2000s, I would bet my bottom dollar that this song would find its way into the rotation before the end of the night. Loner was, and is, somewhat of a rite of passage for karaoke excursions. The song’s lyrics,…
By Seung Park