Posts by bbgc

Quote from WhyKnock

She had invited OMG's Choi Hyojung and Hyun Seunghee to her studio. I wonder who she will invite after she is done with the filming in probably late Jul.

That is why I am thinking, she can and should build up to be an 'arbitrator of taste/success' in Kpop, outside of the big companies and award ceremonies.

Being the most successful outside the Big-3/4, she projects an impression of independence. I think many acts cite her as the role model, ideal type etc., because she is not a part of the Big-4 and they can do so safely without triggering trouble/fan wars.

So being noticed by IU, invited by IU to her show, or covered by IU - can become recognition by itself to most aspiring acts, who are not on the top tier of fame. And that will further solidify her standing.

There are not many in Kpop who can do that.

YJS can - but he is not considered a K-pop act.

YHY and Sketchbook maybe - but IU is far more popular,

Rest are all too associated to the companies and their rivalries.

So a future where IU will award her own versions of Daesangs and Bonsangs :), how about that?

Quote from WhyKnock

Chaewon tries to get the Senior Singer's attention for many moons but the latter has commented nothing, for whatever reason.

Seems her favour of the season is to "oh my girl"

Quote from WhyKnock

What happened is Korean society became very atomized so it is quite hard for an act to win all segments of pop. So it has become possible for three generations of KPop, plus the trottists, to coexist at the same time.

Well it is true of many countries. Decades old acts are still active in US and popular at that,

For example: Beyonce debuted in 2003 and still dominant.

Quote from WhyKnock

Well, that's what most of my writings are. Most of them mention the Senior Singer one way or another

And in other news I*ZONE's Chaewon pays tribute to the Senior Singer, with a cover of 'Hold My Hand'

Is "Hold my hand' the most covered song by K-pop artists in the last year or what?

Eunji, Sejeon .. the list gets longer by the day.

While charts and sales are one kind of metric - the majority of the public/fandom would not be able to fully appreciate the artistry,

but when others in the same field, who would know the effort, the skill that goes into the work, make such covers/reproduction, that is indeed a great affirmation of the artists' work.

This and Kingdom-Mayfly's choice of 'Love Poem', IU has them both - Popular acclaim and Peer recognition.

Has not anyone called you "Senior Uaena" yet :)

But why is IU the only grandmother - there are Taeyeon, Shinee, Big Bang all still around and competing. Maybe she is the most successful in terms of charting consistently, otherwise there are quite a few 2nd gen acts around.

And her age is what makes it interesting, for that overlaps with 3rd gen.

Anyway in terms of Music, more the merrier and eventually only those which appeal to people in terms of quality will survive.

Quote from WhyKnock

And it looks like her last hurrah since it appears she will probably have to alter her song styles to suit her age

Well now we definitely know it was a fantastic 'hurrah', whether it will be the last, only time will tell.

As to 'altering styles', every artist should do that, both because they themselves are changing - age being one of the factors and because the market tastes are also constantly changing.

Yet the alteration should not be so drastic in case of established acts like 'IU', that it discomfits those who are comfortable with the artist's perceived style. And Lilac seems to have achieved that balance reasonably well.

If they don't and keep reproducing the same style again and again, they won't last. And 'lasting' is what IU has been doing perfectly for a decade now.

I do hope she produces 'mature' music, it will be irritating to see her sing Boo or Marshmallow kind of songs and she knows that, has retired them.

The Overton window of Kpop itself might slowly move to older ages, acts like BTS, IU, Brave girls all will cause that. If it was teenagers who drove Kpop in 1990s-2000s - they are now in their 30s and 40s and IU anyway already has built her audience far broader than the teens.

Like fashion, musical tastes are often cyclic, you have already noted the rise of trottists, that is a moving away from the visual dazzle business of K-pop, and among K-pops IU's genre is far close to trot than others, so if at all she might adapt better to the cyclic shift.

It all depends on what you define as "K-pop", after all "pop" stands for "popular", so anything popular which can't be distinctly categorized as a genre, is pop.

So Whyknock should not retire, but continue the threads with historical analogies. Though I don't share your sentiments regarding IU, I thoroughly enjoy the posts.

And I hope IU as well continues to 'inspire;' you.

Quote from Jirachier

Not really, IU has a lot of hits, big ones at that. but from what I know the only song on this level by her is TTN, I'm talking about songs that will top the decade chart.

Quote

Melon has released its overall chart results for the past decade!

On December 1, Melon—Korea’s largest music streaming service—revealed its chart of the top 100 songs of the 2010s (the 10 years from 2010 to 2019).

IU was the artist who landed the most songs on the chart by far, with 11 of her songs making it into the top 100. BOL4 came in second place with five songs, while TWICE and Park Hyo Shin tied for third with four songs on the list each. BTS, BLACKPINK, Paul Kim, and Busker Busker came next, with each artist landing three songs on the chart.

So even if you want to compare overlapping periods, IU still would have 9 songs since 2013.

Quote from WhyKnock

At that stage she was trying to curry the favor of older singers. She stopped doing that after she became a Senior Singer on Dec 03, 2014, at MAMA.

whether you call it "currying favour or honouring", depends on the bias one has.

But it was an astute move, but such collaborations and remakes, she gained a massive new audience among the older demographics. And she did it respectfully as well, that even this year the ODG kid said she became a fan seeing IU's interaction with Choi Baek Ho.

And the veterans generally do seem to be impressed by her reaching out to them.

And she did Flower Bookmark 2 in 2017, though it was a remake and not a collab, 2014 MAMA isn't much of a factor.

I like the ones she collaborates with veteran male voices like Choi Baek Ho or Kim Chang wan - nice contrasting feel to the songs.

WhyKnock will accuse her of reviving the careers of old has-beens and therefore hampering K-pop's world conquest.

Yet one likes what one likes.

Quote from chat-2

EDAM Entertainment : IU

WhyKnock would say it is IU who has EDAM and not EDAM IU :)

Quote from omnimorphism

Blocked by Autumn Morning released on the same day.

Does not IU herself have hits which did not make #1, Gaon(?)

Hold My Hand - Reverse running hit.

Merry Christmas in Advance - every year few weeks in #100

I don't think even 'Meaning of you' hit Gaon #1.

Better to have long periods in #100, than #1 upon release - though both would be nice.

Valid post. Even within charts, there is highly idiotic data-slicing/dicing to somehow get a high.

Take for example 'fastest', an utterly useless parameter - if BTS or IU accidentally release a recording of them coughing or gargling, it might still end up climbing the chart fastest or something. This is not some track and field athletic event.. to bother about being the fastest hah..

Even PAKs based on hourly/daily/weekly aren't that reliable indicator, at least not by hitting it once, which could be purely circumstantial,

ULs are a far better indicator and longevity - both are far better correlations to actual sales. Charts do provide that information, not during the mad-rush around release, but eventually.

At least the artists seem to be well aware of what matters and the mature ones do say that they are far prefer longevity.

Weeks at top #100, for how long since the release date, that top 100 ranking is maintained is perhaps the best quantitative indicator.

With most fields, the flash in the pan onetime top ranking and then never heard of - people and products are all too common.

Still charts play the game to feed the emotional frenzy of shallow fandom.

I have stopped checking any release which is not at least a month old.

Quote from SunnySun

I don't see more than 5%, i don't see LSM giving the majority of the shares, even so 8% of the shares is a small amount, even if Kakao M gets 8% they don't get to decide anything, the majority votes decide.

The only person which gets to truly decide if they hold more than 50% of shares of a company. If the majority shareholder holds voting shares, they dictate the direction of the company through their voting power which is far from whats happening here.

Simplistically it is 51% yes, but corporate structures are complicated. Public investors, institutional investors etc. and there are varieties of stocks themselves. So in reality one need not have 50+% to dictate the direction of the company, it is only needed for drastic decisions like take overs, mergers etc., or on fictional stuff like dramas.

After all LSM has been deciding direction with 18%.

But anyway, all in realm of speculation. % of stocks and whether KakaoM seeks to alter the direction - we won't know yet.

Quote from SunnySun

coordinate their schedule timing? lol SM don't care about their own artists timing, let alone other 100 kakao m artists, collaborations won't change, Kakao M will have a small part of their shares, SM isn't becoming a Kakao M subsidiary

"small" depends on the set up of the management, seems LSM has 18% and rest majors have 8%, so if Small is 8%+ , KakaoM might get to decide things, if not, then it is just an investment.

If SM is doing so bad in coordinating their assets, maybe they do need some change to their management.

Thing about 'emotions' is that it is two way, and the reason different people have different favorites.

Like 'virality' there is no freaking way to verify or measure 'emotional connect', and once an artist gets some reputation of emotional delivery, newer audience will mostly prime their own emotions to imagine emotions in the singing of that artist.

And once an artist is dubbed emotionless, many will be primed against the artist.

Yes there are certain vocal combos which are emotionally appealing to the general public and anyone executing those consistently well will be appealing to the public. And those combos are not always the best in terms of vocal technique.

So there is really nothing to argue about this, either a song evokes something in the listener or not - vocal skills are rather peripheral and that changes from listener to listener, or even each time of listening That is why a song by a loved family member or friend is enjoyed, even if it is just decent :)

More number of people clicked into the emotional priming for an artists, more the artist is considered an emotional singer.

Like charisma, there is no charts or scale to measure it.

Popular compared to what, on what scale, which market?

What is the total music sales/market today - all combined - kpop, trot, classical, folk etc. and what what percentage is Kpop?

And do the same in 2009-2013 period, then you would know.

It is nonsensical to compare absolute numbers or new markets like the US.

The whole paradigm has changed to assume the same context, social media explosion, digital and stream platforms all will skew such comparison.

So only good measure is 2nd gen kpop share of market % in Korea during their peak VS. 3rd gen Kpop share of market % in Korea during its peak.

I doubt there would be much difference.

Quote from BUTTERBOYS

Madonna pushed boundaries and challenged society, church. Became spokeperson of gay people when everyone looked down on them and stood for hiv patients , when it was called gay disease.

She pushed her sexuality to extreme and sold a sex book lol

She went dangerous

She wasnt making safe music and staying in her saint image. Iu comparison makes no sense.

Can iu push boundaries like Madonna and still have a career? Na. She is good at what she does

But she is no Madonna either music diversity wise or image wise jeez

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Pushing boundaries in music is what matters, not social activism, which after all could be for promotional purposes.

Madonna recently got stomped for trying to play the woke-victim of masculinity-card.

And anyway to compare that, you have to consider the cultural setting too, S.Korea is far more a sane-conservative society, than the loony-liberalism of the US. Where it is gotten so worse, that a N.Korean escapee is reminded of the censorship in N.Korea, while studying in Columbia.

In US culture, to go against/rebel against the traditions-history of the country/culture is valued, that is not the case with S.Korea to a comparable extent.

It is futile to compare artists or anyone outside their core skill, what next - that Madonna can lift more weights than IU?

Wonder how the data will look if soloists are added, IU herself will drastically change things, then there is Paul Kim.Ailee maybe. The solo careers of G-Dragon and Taeyeon.

It would be good have the data with soloists and without soloists.

Quote from chounim

I don't understand these butthurt posts. This is not about SM buying other agencies, nor is Kakao buying SM, they only acquired stake in the company and we don't even know the size yet. What's the difference between this and Naver acquiring shares in SM and YGE and HYBE subsidiaries before? So what you're doing here is a fake equivalency.

True, but it matters in the sense that "acts" under aligned interests can better coordinate their schedule timings, to maximize impact-profit, collaborate better etc.

Keeping fan-wars going with grander coalitions/consolidations, with an occasional rebellion works well for profits.

I am sure enough Jungkook IU shippers would already be writing that the star-crossed lovers are going to be in opposing camps of the galactic war..

will be amusing... but good for profits of both camps.