I’m going to watch this episode just to see all the wet idols.
The Barefoot Friends members have been keeping cool during the summer by practicing diving into a pool. On the next episode, idols such as Lee Joon, Dasom, Junho, Jo Kwon, Nichkhun, Taecyeon, Infinite and more will be joining the original crew for a high dive competition. Who will be able to display the best form in the upcoming episode? With all the hot idols participating, the audience will need to cool themselves off as well.
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SOURCE: DelightLS
Spring is almost here–did everyone remember to roll forward your clocks yesterday for daylight saving? It was a fun weekend in Hawaii, as fans were able to see the Infinity Challenge cast (Yoo Jae-suk, Park Myung-soo, Jung Jun-ha, Noh Hong-chul, Jung Hyung-don, HaHa, and Gil) and crew land in Hawaii to film a special–too bad the day they came was the start of two days or torrential rains–hopefully they’ll still have a successful shoot.
We said “goodbye” to February and “hello” to March last week and with the forthcoming K-pop Spring in the air it’s time to say goodbye to the deep chill of Winter. Has the K-pop scene also been heating up? So far, so good–I think March is gonna be a great month. A couple of things that just missed the cut: J-Min‘s newest Japanese release “Heart Theater,” The Nuts‘ new song “Love Note,” Amoeba Culture teasing a Zion T song “Two Melodies” featuring Crush, the cute-but-anti-climatic ending of the K-drama Flower Boy Next Door, and this great interview of Big Bang‘s G-Dragon by Dazed Digital.
Palm trees means love!
They were no big metamorphoses as K-pop moves into Spring as last week was still a fairly quiet week in K-pop, but I have hope that more K-pop blossoming is in store. Some of the Things that just missed the cut: SHINee making friends with Lee Hi, this great photo shoot of C.N. Blue’s Kang Min-hyuk in Nylon, and what I’m going to have to dub “manner bulge” as C.N. Blue‘s Lee Jong-hyun is the only one (out of 10 men) to grab someone else’s jacket during a stretching game on the last episode of Running Man to cover his ‘man-parts’–I mean what was the show thinking making them stretch like that in fairly tight pants?! Anyway, this leads me to believe that he has seen some of the pervy-er sites by K-pop fans which is really a bit funny–or embarrassing–I can’t make up my mind.
With Expectation, we hear the highlights of a group that hasn’t quite identified their signature sound and isn’t entirely sure how to go forward. We hear tracks like “Expectation” which are marketable yet unremarkable, tracks like “Oh Great” which are lovely yet unmarketable, and otherwise redeemable tracks like “Twinkle Twinkle” that suffered from a poor visual interpretation of K-pop trends. There’s no question that the group is talented, but there is still a sense that Dream Tea Entertainment is struggling to find the best outlet for that talent.
Hello and welcome back to another Seoulbeats Roundtable!
Now to actually answering the question: An obvious pick would be BEG‘s “Abracadabra” because that MV took that song to all sorts of heights I would have never imagined just by listening to the song (I guess “Gangnam Style” fits this category too…though I don’t love that song per se) A unique favorite of mine is Kim Hyun-joong‘s “Lucky Guy” which is a song I don’t think I would have liked as much without the MV. For the longest time, I never understood why people loved Hyun-joong so much, and that was the MV that made me understand. He’s certainly charming, and I thought the storyline was entertaining and added some depth to the song. Not the “Cleansing Cream” kind of depth, but the retro feel of the MV helped me enjoy the song more.
Ambika:
Amy:
Mark:
And being a very visual person myself (as in, my understanding of the world is in a visual context, I am not a visual), I find that, unlike Shweta, Leslie and Ambika there are MVs which make me appreciate a song much, much more. A recent example of this would be Lee Hi‘s “It’s Over:” I found it meandering, but the cute, bright and funny visuals presented in the MV really improved my perception of the song. Sure, the MV doesn’t have a definite narrative either, but it was a lot more entertaining and the music suited it.
Nicholas:
Another group whose MVs really help to make their music pop would be Orange Caramel, especially their releases tend to be a bit more creatively (or heavily) themed than your typical smorgasbord of K-pop love angst. Of course, since most international fans aren’t fluent in Korean (and let’s be honest, most of the time we don’t even bother looking up the lyrics) we all rely on the MV to show us what exactly a song is supposed to be about.