Red Sleeve, Episode 17
The King (Junho of 2PM) is holding his son, the Crown Prince, who just died.
In attendance are the Dowager Queen, the King's step-grandmother, who is still holding up since she is the Senior Person of the Palace, and the King's mother (who was not a queen - a loooong story). sobbing.
The drama deliberately omitted the King's official wife since that would complicate the story more, but if she had appeared in that drama she would be in attendance too.
However, the child's real mother, played by Lee Seyoung, is NOT allowed there since she is of a concubine status and did not qualify to be in attendance for such event.
This is a real event which occurred in year 1786, and the child's mother died later in that year because of some unknown disease, partially caused by grief.
The child was the King's first child who was born when the King was 30, not a young age back then, and with his death the King was without a heir. (He would eventually have a heir from another woman a few years later but that was it, and that son, the next King, only had one son whose mostly fictionalized story is told in the drama Love in the Moonlight. That son died young in history, leaving a single son, who died at 22 years old and the Official Royal Line died there, subsequent kings found from very distantly related families which made the kingdom even weaker until Japan annexed it in 1910.)
Since the child's death meant the King was without a heir for the time being, it shook the whole basis of the kingdom which is why all the important ladies of the Royal Court was in attendance.
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The songs of New Jeans not making into Billboard Hot 100 , to me, is tragic.
KPop songs who made the Billboard Hot 100 this first half of the year
(The Jennie collabo with The Weeknd and Johnny Depp's daughter is not counted since it is mostly an Abel Tesfaye song.)
Le Sserafim - Easy - peak position 99
Kim Taehyung - FRI(END)S - peak position 65
Illit - Magnetic - peak 91
Stray Kids , feat Charlie Puth - Lose my Breath - peak 90
JK - Never let go - 97
I am sure Christopher Bang and Felix Lee probably expected to have a higher position than 90 when they managed to get Charlie Puth involved, but that's the best they can do
It is surprising that Taehyung's song did better than everyone else. I don't know why.
And it shows Jungkook's stars have gotten a lot dimmer than before , with a whooping #97 in the Hot 100, which JK's fans tried to explain away as being a 'fan song'.
And it seems Jimin's new release is doing worse than that of Pranpriya Manobal.
All these songs have one thing in common - they spent exactly 1 week in the Hot 100, no more.
Songs who were important in Korea and did NOT make the Hot 100
(list not exhaustive)
Bam Yanggang - Bibi
Supernova - aespa.
Out of these only Bibi has a shot of getting into the Hot 100 in the future, but given that she was given the Best New Actress award in the Baeksang (Korea's Emmys), she will probably concentrate more on acting.
Out of songs which went somewhere in Korea, only Illit charted.
KPop is clearly on a retreat mode, and the decline is more serious than most people are willing to stomach, as its peak has passed and a very steep fall, as shown by the poor showings of the new singles of JK and Jimin, has taken place.
It also shows BTS' return in late 2025 or early 2026 might be much less impressive than some people imagine now.
We have to admit that KPop is in full retreat, and it won't be easy to turn that around.
People outside of Korea have lost interest in KPop.
