This is my top current irritation with Kpop groups. So many new boy groups popping up these days, all with a good concept.
The girls however, seem to be going down with their new concepts.
Let’s start with 4Minute, I wasn’t a fan of their Musik concept, I’m liking What A Girl Wants much more. However, they were unique (-well, not so much anymore, but they the ones that brought the “is she a girl?” thing out-), now they they are just going mainstream. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I imagine their fans that have been following them from the start might be disappointed. The school uniform looking outfits reminded me of Morning Musume and AKB48, two j-pop groups that I can’t stand. Ignoring the outfits, the song is quite good. Gayoon needed a song to show off her vocal skills! Props to them!
Now 2NE1. What happened to the independent women power that they had? Performing Pretty Boy totally ruined their image. Fire and In The Club were good songs, nothing special to mention about them. I Don’t Care was the song that made them bigger. It’s a song that shows that independent women exist, and more women should become independent. Pretty Boy ruined that all.
“Be more manly, show your individuality”
A guy being manly means he’s showing individuality?
“I like bad boys, soldier, tight”
Like I said, after I Don’t Care 2NE1 got more popular, more fanboys, “I like bad boys” what message are they sending? The fanboys that go head over heels for them will think they need to be “bad boys”.
“What I need is a black knight”
That is the line that contradicted their concept. Damsel in distress? It’s fine to have that in a song, it’s fine to have a damsel in distress concept, but having that in the same mini album as I Don’t Care?
“When out, you act like a tough gangster boy but back home you turn back into a mama’s boy”
What to say about that… Like, is it wrong for a guy to do that? Isn’t it normal?
“What we want is a man that acts like a man”
That p*ssed me off almost as much as “what I need is a black knight”. They’re saying that they don’t like “nice boys”? Worst, are they saying guys should “act like a man”? What does “act like a man” even mean?
Some people that like the song might read this, just to get things clear, I’m fine with the song itself, I like the group. I just don’t think that it fits their “independent” concept. It’s not their fault for having that song in that album.
f(x). What to say… The Jung sisters thing is what’s promoting them. I’ll talk about the sisters later, I have tons to say about that. Besides the fact that they’re using SNSD’s success to promote themselves (I’m not an anti, I do not think that way of all the “siblings” in the industry, just in this case), what’s up with Chu~♡ ? Where’s the song? Lachata wasn’t much of a song either, but at least it had lyrics. What’s their current concept? There’s not even a clear answer to that!
Rainbow. They just debuted, I don’t even know who’s who yet. Their black, dark outfits work really well with the colorful background on their stages, show’s off “rainbow”. There’s not much to say about them yet, one song isn’t enough to have a full opinion with reasonable arguments.
Kara, i really liked Pretty Girl, Wanna was also really catchy if you ignore the bad English. Mister… the lyrics are “blah”, the butt dance is really catchy. The fact that they even said that they had to lose weight to perform that song.. what’s up with that? Hara seems to be naturally skinny, but the others… not so much. If the dance wasn’t provocative enough, are they sending a message saying “be thin”, “being thin is what’s hot” or something like that? Society already has so much bull concerning females’ weight, Kara is going down that road as well? May I remind you that those girls are around 15 years old? It’s not healthy to be super skinny, some immature fans might think that they need to be skinny, and might even become bulimic for it. Again, being skinny is a society thing, it’s only reasonable that they needed to have nice bodies to dance to Mister, but they didn’t need to say that in interviews, specially saying it over and over again, it’s too much.
I ended up talking about the concepts itself, when what I wanted to say was about how there is the need of a girl group to keep up with the new boy groups. They all seem to have “sexy” as one of their concepts. I’d love to see the day that a girl group openly stating that they have a sexy concept while not being slutty.
Currently the only girl group that seems to have “sexy” upfront is SNSD. They used to have a “clean” and “innocent” concept, changing that much in only two years seems a bit much. SMent realized that the “innocent” concept wouldn’t sell, so they changed it. What I think would be a good move from SMent would be to let SNSD grow up on it’s own speed. ITTNW, then Girls Generation, those were both songs that they were girls, and young. Then there was Kissing You, wtf? 19 year old girls with baby like clothes with a lollipop? Seems like the Japanese concept of female idol, that they need to look like little kids in order to be popular. Gee was the song that brought them to popularity. Why not stay with the Gee type of lyrics? Genie was so… mature. Gee was more flirty, it fit their ages. Genie with the super short shorts, that even the girls themselves said it was too short and embarrassing to wear.
Urg~ I’m really p*ssed with the girl groups. SNSD used to be my favorite, but recently I’ve been leaning to ship over to Wonder Girls. They seem to be the only girl group that doesn’t go over the top with unnecessary things.
