Notes on K-pop • 21st January 2025

2024 K-pop Year in Review Big 4 Company Scorecard

As I mentioned in my year-end check-in post, I'm never quite sure what I want to accomplish with this newsletter, but I keep working on it. I could write yet another newsletter about the messiness of the business and legal sides of K-pop last year, or go on about trends we saw last year, or major moments that deserve way more thoughtful discourse than we've seen before (topics like BIGBANG's return, PLAVE's ascent, the response to the new Fifty Fifty, etc.) But... Instead... I'm going to try so...

Notes on K-pop • 2nd January 2025

Looking back at writing in 2024, and forward to 2025

It is very late on January 1, 2025, and I'm just sitting down to write up my 2024 year-in-review pieces for Notes on K-pop after taking a break from newsletter writing accidentally these past few days. I hope everyone had a very happy end-of-2024 season, and hope that the new year brings you health, happiness, and a world that is perhaps less messy than last year's (though I doubt it). I have a few 2024 retrospectives I'd like to share, but due to day job/life, I'm constantly behind on this new...

Notes on K-pop • 24th December 2024

Art, Protest, and Lightsticks

Happy holidays, and happy end of 2024. I hope lightsticks help light a way to a better 2025, and future for us all. I'm a bit late on sharing thoughts about the recent protests against now-impeached South Korean president Yoon, but I started writing this a few weeks ago and as many of us around the world are about to spend the next week or so celebrating holidays of light and joy, or just taking some time off, I wanted to reflect a bit on how important art and pop culture are to me, and, honestl...

Notes on K-pop • 16th December 2024

Chaos & Introspection At Mark Lee Lookalike Contest

I never in my entire life thought I’d die at 33 in Washington Square Park, but for a brief second on Friday afternoon around 2PM I thought it was a possibility. I tripped, and really imagined for a split second that I might get trampled as Mark Lee was swarmed by fans rushing him, as he raised hands together, showing both appreciation for them and simultaneously seeming to ask them to step back. This was my overly anxious brain working in overtime, and there was never a real danger, but it took...

Notes on K-pop • 1st December 2024

Emotional Support K-pop Gift Guide

2024 has been a rather tumultuous year, whether Mini Note #7: The Reason I Became a Witch or in the K-pop realm. Inspired by that, this year's Notes on K-pop gift guide is built around the ideals of finding comfort for yourself and those around you, and making space for the softer, sweeter moments of life. While albums and seasons greetings are amazing gifts, here are some other suggestions to help you through all the days ahead. If you're interested in more suggestions, please check out last y...

Notes on K-pop • 29th November 2024

NewJeans Never Die vs. The K-pop Paradigm

What a timeline we’re living in. This year has been full of great music from the world of K-pop, but all of the hits have been simultaneously awash in drama and messiness. Rosé being asked in an interview about NewJeans’ situation while promoting her upcoming album really honed in on the fact that the music has taken a backseat in 2024. And that, to some degree, is at the heart of NewJeans’ decision to attempt to part ways with Hybe subsidiary Ador, under which they were formed and are currently...

Notes on K-pop • 25th November 2024

Everything is AKB: A Convo with Patrick St. Michel

If you're a K-pop fan, or someone interested in the world of K-pop and therefore reading this newsletter, you probably know a bit about the world of J-pop, and likely know the brand name "AKB48," and know that some K-pop acts and companies have taken nods from AKB48. Nothing was as big of a moment as 2018's Produce 48, the third edition of Mnet's Produce series where dozens of K-pop hopefuls would compete (despite the series' ultimately being rigged). Produce 48, or P48, brought contestants fro...

Notes on K-pop • 10th November 2024

Mini Note #7: The Reason I Became a Witch

For many years when I went to karaoke/noraebang with friends, one of my go-to's was a song called "The Reason I Became a Witch" by NS Yoon-G/Yoon-ji, now known as actress Yunjee Kim. It's an intensely 2010s song that's very of the moment of its release musically, and features a female perspective focused on being bitter and aggressive while simultaneously sexy and empowering in its revenge dreams. Although it's about love and, perhaps embarrassingly, I've never been in love, I have been pissed...

8th November 2024

YUTA's Road To 'Depth': How The NCT Member Created A Clean Slate For His Solo Debut | GRAMMY.com

NCT 127 .body-text { max-width: inherit; } .body-text strong > a { font-weight: 600; } Photo courtesy of SM Entertainment FacebookTwitterE-mailNCT 127 Essential Songs: 14 Tracks You Need To Know From The K-Pop JuggernautsFacebookTwitterEmailEight years after their debut, NCT 127 have released their sixth studio album, 'WALK.' Before you dive in, press play on this chronological list of NCT 127 hits and deep cuts that show...

Notes on K-pop • 5th November 2024

Hybe's Burn Book Culture

I was out with a few industry folks last week, celebrating the release of my friend Ilana Kaplan's book on Nora Ephron. A bunch of entertainment and music journalists were there, and someone who I had never met before heard that I covered K-pop for about a decade now. "Are you a fan?" they asked. "I am," I said. "Wow, I've never met anyone who covers K-pop who is a fan before," they responded. While that threw me off quite a bit, I did understand the sentiment: dealing with K-pop - the industr...

Notes on K-pop • 16th October 2024

Who Protects K-pop stars?

Bonus newsletter for the week! Because I may not have a chance to write next week, but also because I have a lot of thoughts on my mind. This question, "who protects K-pop stars?" may seem facetious: K-pop stars, at least the ones at the top of the field, are rich people, richly invested in by major companies. They're accompanied by managers and security guards, and they often live in apartments owned or leased by their company. Then there are the less fortunate K-pop stars, the "nugu" stars -...

Notes on K-pop • 15th October 2024

The power of locality even when K-pop aims for "global" reach

On October 11, it was announced that RIIZE's Seunghan would return to the group after nearly a year's hiatus, and would perform again for the first time in November. On October 13, he withdrew from the group permanently. The shocking speed of things is somehow not the most surprising part of this news story, but the reason: some fans were so upset that Seunghan was returning to the group that they sent funeral wreaths to SM Entertainment, RIIZE's company, in protest. A gruesome metaphor and in...

Teen Vogue • 11th October 2024

Seunghan to Permanently Leave RIIZE

Update, on October 14, 2024:Just days after news of Seunghan's return to RIIZE broke, it has been announced that the idol will now permanently leave the group.Seunghan's departure from RIIZE was made public on October 13, 2024, with a statement posted on the group's official X account signed off by Wizard Production's directors Kim Hyeongguk and Lee Sangmin. (Wizard Production is one of six production centers unveiled by SM Entertainment in 2023, which manages RIIZE, EXO, and Super Junior.)In th...

Teen Vogue • 11th October 2024

Seunghan Is Officially Returning to RIIZE After a Year Hiatus

K-group RIIZE will reunite as seven members with the return of Seunghan next month.Seunghan went on an indefinite hiatus last November following a series of viral negative stories about his personal life.Through a lengthy statement on social media on October 11 in South Korea (October 10 in the US), RIIZE’s management team at SM Entertainment announced his return.“We poured our heart and soul into planning out RIIZE even before their debut, and we have determined that RIIZE’s next chapter would...

Notes on K-pop • 8th October 2024

Here come the career regrets

A little trigger warning right here that Tamar Is Getting Very Personal in this Newsletter. Feel free not to read. I'll be back with normal, a bit more fun programming, next week (hopefully!) In my email to myself about a month ago, I wrote, "Eaj, Elul, and long overdue apologies and regrets". While the first two words may seem like a bit of an alliterative word jumble, I was reminding myself that I wanted to write a bit of a reflective newsletter about career failings and regrets. Breaking it...

Notes on K-pop • 23rd September 2024

K-pop reading recs: September 2024

And by life, I mean my phone and computer. I'm infamous among my friends and peers for screenshotting my computer to reveal a hundred-plus tabs open on my browser. What most people don't realize is that I actually have two browsers open (Chrome for general use, Safari for fandom use so I don't accidentally Zoom share a ridiculous fanmade meme) and my phone has taken to telling me it can't open more tabs because I've reached the maximum 500. A lot of these tabs are open because I read something...

Notes on K-pop • 15th September 2024

The precarity of being a hit K-pop girl group in 2024

Since April, we have witnessed brewing tension between Hybe, the biggest entertainment company in South Korea, and Min Hee-jin, then the CEO of Hybe subsidiary, now former CEO. A very dirty, very public battle has since played out in the court of public opinion, one of several this year, which is why I've dubbed 2024 the K-pop Year of Mess. On Wednesday (September 11), NewJeans' members appeared in a livestream on a new YouTube channel, where they shared their thoughts and feelings about the si...

Notes on K-pop • 11th September 2024

The emotional support K-pop boys vs "there are no good men" divide

Art means something, and the dolphin meme overlaid with the word "shibal" means something especially lately for some K-pop fans. "Shibal," or "ssibal" (씨발), is Korean for F**k, and this happy-go-lucky, Lisa Frank-esque meme overlaid by the curse feels like the exact mood someone feels when the world of fandom funsies crashes around them. This has been the mood for a lot of 2024, which has been a particularly intense year for K-pop, full of drama, lawsuits, internal business fighting, and scand...

NME • 28th August 2024

Jaehyun – ‘J’ review: a tantalisingly sweet tease

Not everyone could live up to being born on Valentine’s Day, but K-pop star Jaehyun makes it very clear that he is indeed a man who understands love and all its complexities. On his debut album, ‘J’, the NCT singer spends most of its length submerged in impassioned R&B, revelling in his multifaceted voice, never shying away from falsettos or weaving his lower registers into layered harmonies, while navigating through the ups and downs of romance. As someone who’s been a part of a boyband for the...

Notes on K-pop • 27th August 2024

Forget chart-topping hits: Everyone wants a "superfan"

Do you really need a No.1 nowadays? Or do you just need No. 1 fans? A few months ago, everywhere I went I felt like I was hearing the latest music industry buzzword: superfan. The idea of superfandom features in so many press releases that fill my inbox lately. I'd listen to a podcast or read some article, and there'd it be. Even in a documentary or two that I'd watch. Fans are no longer just fans or stans, they're Super. This isn't a new term at all, but it feels like 2024 is certainly the y...