When I was much younger I read a book from A.J. Cronin, an author who is now seldom read, called the Stars Look Down.
tl. dr. Davey, a miner's son, does not like the treatment of miners in northern England in the earlier part of 20th century.
He goes to study, has his ups and downs, and later becomes a Member of Parliament but in the end he has lost everything and returns to his hometown a defeated man.
The Mine owner, his long time adversary, goes to 'welcome' Davey, addressing him as "Hey Mr MP, what are you doing here?" with full of derision, and all the men accompanying him, some of them Davey's former allies, but now all of them having to pander to the Mine owner to keep their jobs, all nodding. Davey goes to his old adobe saying tomorrow will be another day, but the Mine owner didn't finish Davey off only because he knows it is not even worth that . He knows Davey is finished and not worth an effort.
Member of Parliament or not, in that town, the Mine owner was the King of the town, and even if Davey did become Prime Minister or something like that, the Mine owner would still have treated Davey the same way since as long as the mine was there the town, and everything in there, was the Mine owner's.
There was a movie made on it, but it was 1940, with all these working class people having to man antiaircraft equipment to deal with the Luftwaffe, it stops far short of its harsh conclusion and ends with something of a hopeful note.
Although it is mostly a forgotten book now, some people did remember and inserted a song named after the book at the beginning of the Billy Elliot Musical.
Moral: No matter what you do, the local powerful laughs in the end.
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It is likely that aespa's Supernova, practically the only hit song of 2024 (with Illit's Magnetic a distant second), will take the #1 in the Gallup polls at the end of the year.
However, given the weak showings of aespa, Illit, etc in the Gallup polls, they are not likely to win #1 in the gallup polls.
New Jeans' 2024 was, I have to say, not that impressive with its creator arguably being more popular in Korea han the act itself.
That leaves a certain 1,345 years old, whose concert is the largest concert to be held in Korea during the 2020s (it used to be her concert in 2022 but Lim Youngwoong's concert was larger, so she had to up the ante to beat him), to take the #1 singer title at around Dec 18 or so. She is the only singer in recent times to retake the throne, having been #1 singer on 2014 and then 2017.
Whyknock will be very, very and very unhappy if she reaches #1 at the year end gallup polls, which seems quite likely since NewJeans is unlikely to come back soon after the disastrous summer, and aespa and Illit were not really popular among the general public.
In the end, all the conquests of KPop was in vain. For nothing.
As long as the digitals were controlled by Kakao and its champion, the 1,345 years old singer, it was for nought.
The 1,345 years old never really respected the KPop conquest of the world, although she did not hesitate from trying to profit from it. She was not impressed, as seen by her recent meetings with Akmu, Hyukoh and a Taiwanese band , then Jo Jungsuk, none of them too likely to cause a stir outside of Korea.
She now feels there is no more need for her to hide her disdain of KPop . I don't know who will be in her soccer stadium concert, but there will be lots of photos of her meeting the guests after the concert is over, and given who she takes the trouble to be photographed with, it will show a direction of KPop. I did see that she did take photo with Rothy and Gyubin, soloists who are not really going anywhere but still kinda carrying the 1,345 years old's spirit against KPop. If qwer shows up the 1,345 years old will probably take a photo with them since they are no threat to her and are unlikely to challenge the world.
She was the only singer who did NOT believe in the Kpop conquest of the globe, and it seems she is likely to have the last laugh.
What she will do at the soccer stadium would be saying the acts which conquered the world, "Hey world conquerors, what the h are you doing in my local concert?"
For the years 2018-2023 Kpop conquered the world. However the people of Korea rejected KPop, and are about to put someone who contributed very little toward to it back to power, where she is going to reverse and negate all the achievements of KPop and will revert Korean pop to songs she likes, i.e. not likely to make any mark around the world.
