The headache she could have avoided if the song was just called Hate_My_Idol, people would have been intigued by the title and streamed

People knew what the concept was about. But she and her team used pictures of the real artist(Olivia's image belongs to her discography btw), references to her music videos and a hashtag named hate rodrigo to promote the song just days before Olivia dropped her new music too Lets not be dense, the criticism made sense. It was a terrible decision that they tried to justify by saying she is just very inspired by her and loves her so much, but that didn't help them when Olivia's team reacted back If the concept revolved around hate and envy it could have been for a fake celebrity made up for the mv, there were many other ways to go around it. Saying she was misunderstood doesn't clean up the mess of a terrible marketing and producing decision that they had a lot of time and sessions pre comeback to think through However it doesn't mean her career should be shunned forever or anything like that just hope that her company and her learn from this mistake in the next ones, the korean public seems a lot more forgiving lately, but she needs a stronger fanbase before pulling risky moves like this

even stayc's 'cute' songs like bubble and teddy bear has strong meanings like knowing being different and wrong is not the same, chasing your dreams even though you fear judgement and don't want worry about messing up because its everyone 1rst life and were all trying our best. they stay true to thier teenfresh/star to a young culture theme very well. even LIT their japanese single has themes of living your life and getting the most out of it. they are good at conveying deeper messages in a light hearted way.

i find it interesting how stayc's title tracks are bubbly but the bsides are almost sombre and like a reality check of the harsher realities of life. its consistent throughout staydom, stereotype youngluv with songs like love fool, i'll be there slow down, youngluv, love, beautiful monster. the bsides are more personal like a diary and only for those who truly want to get to know them and those who stay.

ngl the bsides apart from licorice mine and bahama was boring again this is my opinion but i prefer if aespa just released a ballad album instead of forcing slow songs on what otherwise could of been a very interesting album. had the same problem with drama mini but the bsides were so good but just didn't match the vibes.

They koreanized black music why don’t we see that as a problem?

I think that tomboy and queencard are pure camp, but I'm not a huge neverland so I don't know if soyeon intended them to be camp or not.

great video

Holy shit! And here I was just talking about if there is anyone out there who is the Necrit of K-pop, and then I watched this vid.

This isn’t just about aespa or kpop albums specifically. Pop albums in general aren’t made with cohesiveness in mind. That being said i do enjoy albums that are more cohesive. So many bsides in kpop albums are extremely generic and filler songs that add nothing to the groups whole concept. Aespa is one of my fave groups but they don’t have one single album that i fully like. No it’s not selfish to want cohesive albums. Because outside of pop music albums are pretty much always supposed to be cohesive, mainly sound-wise ofc. However being cohesive would be harder for aespa than it is for some other groups. Like for kpop groups who always release upbeat cutesy fun songs as tts and have a standard concept, it’s easier for them to keep up the cohesiveness.

It’s really not an issue. It’s just some fans feel “betrayed” the second a Kpop group explores genres and sounds. (Example. NMIXX). Having a full album full of songs that sound the same is a problem, hence why aespa’s first full album is doing so well in Korea right now, it’s because there’s songs for everyone.

I really miss signal, candy pop, "what is love" album type of songs but I understand they eventually will change their style.

you are so good at putting things into words!

Dunno, I like SM albums, they are not "cohesive" in western sense, but I get bored with those pretty fast🤷

why tf would she use olivia's last name 😭

couldn't they have just divided armageddon into side A and side B lol

this makes sense to why i dont listen to all tracks of an album religiously

I don't understand why Sticker is considered as a very controversial song. I get why people won't like it but if you just remove the flute.... it wouldn't have received the insane attention it got.

I would love to hear your opinion on Pew Pew Pew by TMC. I *cannot tell* whether they are serious about that or not lol

i think thats my biggest criticism of the album i wish everything from Bahama and after was a summer mini album it would've been so cute however like you said having them on a song called Armageddon is jarring. I wouldn't mind if Aespa released minis or project with an even blend or only brighter sounding songs. For example Freesm by CLC had a few different songs with different sounds but it didn't throw me off. Another thing is that this is Aespa's first album I wish it could've been cohesive all the way threw because that was done with The Red by Red Velvet and it became a classic album to revisit. None of the songs are bad tho and I still enjoy the album

Surely no one represents camp more than early NMIXX when they open with O.O, Tank and DICE. The Mixxpop concept is dead serious and although they've gotten better at it (Sonar is like O.O done right), the early days definitely were not received they way they intended.

a great example is Karlie Kloss “looking camp right in the eye” photo caption only for her to show up at the met gala looking in a regular short dress. that was unintentionally camp

YoY was my first comeback with TWICE 😭

I think nmixx - dice, jinjin & rocky - just breath, itzy - sneakers and crayon pop - jumpin fit into this camp style, I think.

keep up the hard work

I know a lot of people weren’t around for this but I remember when the F(X)fanbase was clowning saying that the end of the 4 walls video actually connects to their debut track music video and then when goblin came out I saw a lot of people saying that it was connected to that. I miss those times

I think Sulli was the roof of this 4 wall home and when she left the house collapsed. This could be observed as seeing how the removal or the leaving of one member can affect a group's dynamic completely. It shows that a group's dynamic runs much deeper than presenting as teammates but as people who love one another and work better together. When one is removed from the house collapses and the cup shatters. It also goes to show to the general public that when someone leaves the group it can permanently change the way a group is forever and (in another cases) the erasure of that group member doesn't mean anything when the members are affected by it. I think this also shows the power of cause and effect. When someone leaves everything Is different the house looks different. It can collapse or it can turn into a pyramid if the group survives. But it can never return to a house because the most essential dimension is gone forever.

An F(x) theory in 2024 is surprising but so welcome. Thank you for covering this!

idk about everyone else but I really enjoy the fact that we get different types of songs in their albums.. drama is my fav bc it’s just the most enjoyable for me and there’s a different type of sound for each song, I like how the album has dark songs but also fun and enjoyable and slower sounds even tho a lot of people don’t like the bsides.. I know they also do this with my world and savage but there’s atleast a miss for me in the albums, so that’s why I love drama

I think Ring Ding Dong is camp but maybe not a "pure" example, though it was definitely done without irony at least at first and it absolutely took off and made SHINee blow up in a big way

Something I’ve noticed a lot in kpop: They focus on 1 to 2 songs and they play crazy, over the bend with the rest of the tracks just to “fill up” the tracklist and call it an “album”. That’s how Aespa’s albums have been sounding like. I only enjoyed “Supernova” and “Armageddon”, which unapologetically were the ones supposed to be liked by majority of people bc they were well worked. Matter fact, the kpop industry doesn’t have the same view or conception of an “Album” as we do western side.

You can't westernize k-pop. They just want Joe Bob in his trailer park to talk about the chinamen dancing on the news. Any exposure is good exposure.

savage was 100% their most cohesive album and the drama album as a whole was kinda disappointing for me... i LOVED drama but it felt like the bsides were just thrown in and trick or trick was the only cohesive one. I feel like the armageddon album flowed exceptionally well from supernova to licorice, and then bahama gave more of a mid way mark for the album, but then long chat, prologue and live my life went a completely DIFFERENT direction which didn't really make sense. I will say melody is just the typical SM ballad at the end of the album and probably my favorite ballad from them

Out of all their album, Savage EP is defo their peak, a great way to introduce to aespa's futuristic concept, which makes aespa so unique. The rest of them are simply hot mess, it was cohesive at one point but then they had to add some random songs, destroying the whole album. But honestly, not just aespa, I feel like this is another kpop flaw. Companies don't care about cohesiveness, most of them would just mix bunches of different genre in one album so it would appeal to everyone's taste. All in all, I doubt kpop in general actually care the cohesiveness of the album, but I wish if companies could put that much thoughts about the aesthetic, maybe invest more on the artistry too 😩

2nd gen boy groups are pure camp to me, thinking of infinite, early big bang, be2st, 2pm heartbeat!! the overdramatic nature of the mv, song and lyrics, yearning for the one that got away in their skinny jeans and bowl cut hair dancing in front of a futuristic box style set..like it really was that serious to them and I miss it everyday

who cares bro

Just ask members of Dreamcatcher if they think Love Shake by Minx feels like camp 😂

i have always looooooved that kpop is what western pop isn’t. i loved how it was completely shameless in its pursuit of theatrical concepts, how there are groups that sing playful melodies over sugary synthpop beats and dance along in cute clothes and its completely acceptable within the genre. i don’t hate western releases but i hate when it completely destroys the essence of what made the group special. i hate bts’ generic american songs written by ed sheeran, like cmon the whole point of bts at their musical peak (at least what i think of as their musical peak anyways) was that they do these theatrical tumblr-esque aesthetics in music videos and have such a signature sound bighit (rip) made for them. they had such a strong image in 2015-2018. i’m almost glad my favorite boy group from that time, exo, is not making clear moves to promote in the west because i love them so much for what they are and their sound, style and appeal is so specific to kpop. you cant do that same thing in america.

I have always thought Exo’s “wolf” was campy because SM was pretty serious about this song and the concept. Now, idk if its pure camp because while it was never confirmed, it is rumored that the exo members disliked the song so much that they purposely sang the demo horribly. Regardless as far as i know, the exo members have always treated the song pretty serious, even though it became like a meme between the fandom 😅

I THINK THE FACT THAT YOU SAID ''How westernization harms groups like Twice'' IS ALREADY A PROBLEM AND YOU ARE ALREADY GOING IN CIRCLES FROM HERE

Je croyais être la seule à avoir remarqué le manque de cohérence dans cet album. C’était la première fois que j’essayais d’écouter un de leurs albums en entier (je suis juste une auditrice occasionnelle de k pop) et j’ai été déçue. L’album manque de structure, on n’a pas l’impression qu’il y une idée commune qui traverse tout le projet et qui raconte une seule histoire, c’est dommage, Drama, Supernova et Armaggedon m’avaient donné envie de suivre leur carrière pourtant.

TWICE is the K-Pop girl group with the most: - Sales (Korea, Japan, USA) - #1 hits (Korea, Japan, USA) - Streams (Korea, Japan, USA) - Daesang awards - Total awards - Music certifications - Revenue (all-time) Until any other K-Pop girl group matches this, TWICE will remain the queens of K-POP!

It feels like all the effort went into the title tracks, and the rest of the project was an afterthought. It does feel like 2 minis stitched into one, but weirdly enough that shouldn't be a problem for aespa - their concept and lore set them up perfectly to explore a variety of soundscapes through KWANGYA (gritty, edgy, industrial) and REAL WORLD (lively, playful, sentimental), kinda like Red Velvet (and their exemplary execution of the duality concept between 'The Red' and 'Perfect Velvet'). The 2 title tracks definitely suggest there was intention to blend these 2 dimensions. And aespa have done songs that walk the line like Yeppi Yeppi or Drama. There's surely room to move between these different sounds on a full-length album. For me the first half works, and they even have a great transition track in Licorice to tone down the edge and up the fun. Where it went wrong is the second half deviated too much from Supernova. Supernova's sound evokes Spicy's REAL WORLD, upbeat, campy, FUN!! Track #6 - #10 sounds like the REAL WORLD of Life's Too Short or Better Things - softer, more intimate, cheesy. The energy just doesn't match and it feels jarring even though they anticipated that and had Licorice sandwiched between the 2 halves. It doesn't help that the production quality was dropping steadily from Bahama - makes the tracks sound even more like filler. And I say all that even though I do like Bahama and Long Chat quite a bit on their own.

Idk I also think this is a bad look as Koreans are known to hate and have racist tendencies towards Filipinos and from face value there is a lil taste to that

Their album def feels fractured. I like how you explained it. I love the songs and they feel like two different vibes. When I add the album into my playlist there are 2 set tones that I play with. Honestly though, I don't care too much. Generally in kpop, album progression doesn't always feel thought out. Even when unified by concept, it's often just group concept rather than a theme of the album. Your idea of having it be two different themes could work. I think the themes and styles they use are in some ways, two different camps to me that it makes me wonder... How do you blend it? What could be an album story line or exploration that blends it. I think themes and emotions could be another way. Like coming down from the kwanga to irl and stuff. Or revving up to it. Idk.