How many members do you think your fave could lose and still sound like your fave?

I was worried when Wonho left Monsta X, because he worked on quite a few of their songs and because his voice was so distinctive. But I was happy to discover that MX still sounds like MX post-Wonho and I still love them. And now, even with Shownu in the military, I think their sound is still amazing and distinctively "them".

With EXO, they started with 12 and have promoted with as few as 6 and still sounded like EXO.

Do you think your faves would sound like themselves after losing a member? Two? Half of the group?

Quote from killthisfenty

If BP loses one member it would be so weird

Yeah, it would be hard on groups that don't have many to spare. It's hard enough going from 5 down to 4 like Winner (and BB now). 4 to 3 would be brutal.

Quote from Pikachu-Senpai

Once’s don’t kill me but we could probably stand to lose 1-2 members and still sound like Twice.

Though of course OT9 is where it’s at

Don't get me wrong, i love ot7 MX, i just love them with fewer too.

Now, EXO.....

Well, I don't miss a couple of them lol

Quote from KingGD

Bigbang and Winner can't afford to lose any members at this point.

iKON can lose a vocalist and still be alright.

In Treasure's case I am not sure and I don't want to jinx it.

I think the thing with ikon isn't the number but which member. Losing BI huuuuurt

Quote from the101

I think it's less the number of members and more about which members.

I'll take WayV, for example. The group was missing two members on its most recent song but it still felt like a WayV song because the main vocalists were still there.

This is honestly the structure of every WayV song to some degree: soft, delicate Kun's voice into one of the more stronger and powerful vocals, Ten and/or Xiaojun. Xiaojun is the power vocal here so usually the closer. Ten rides a sweet space between the two. Here it's Kun > Ten > all three (and you can hear all three in the vocal blend). Then again at 2:59, we get Kun > Xiaojun > all three.

External Content youtu.be

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Display all external content

Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

So if two vocalists are missing or even one, it would not sound like WayV.

Here's a song with 5 members - the order has been slightly shuffled in that 1-2-3, now Ten is leading in to Kun, then again to Xiaojun closing but it still sounds like WayV.

External Content youtu.be

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Display all external content

Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

Display More

Ah, true. Some groups have a member line that forms kinda a "backbone" of their sound. With MX, I would argue that their backbone is Joohoney, Kihyun, and I.M. MX would not sound like MX without them. That's not to say the other members aren't talented or that they don't contribute, but those three are a huge part of their sound, especially since JH and IM compose so much now. And it would be difficult to replace them cuz they sound so distinctive

Quote from Ves

BTS - none. They all have very distinct vocal tones.

So does MX tho. I think they absorbed the loss of Wonho really well. Shownu was harder simply cuz he was their other lead vocalist, so they lost both of their leads recently.

Quote from centen

It's interesting because FT Island has been my favorite group for years, and I thought of this like American rock bands where they sometimes replace the lead singer, and still sound like themselves. I think the difficult thing with them losing Hongki's voice is that he's such an emotional carry on their rock ballad sound, and beyond that, most of their music is created with the involvement of Hong's Tower, which is a group of people who are connected to Hongki in different ways.

So I honestly think that their entire instrumental line (Jaejin and Minhwan at this point) could turn over, and FT Island could continue because their music hinges so much on Hongki himself. I think if Jaejin or Minhwan left, though, they'd probably disband entirely and Hongki would just go solo full-time, but from a true rock band approach, Hongki could choose to have both his band and be a soloist (e.g. like Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath).

Hongki is a vocal force. I can't even imagine trying to replace him.