#akmu icons

[gyustarzzi2]

ⵌ 🪷 ﹒ ！

ⵌ 🫧 ﹒ ！

[2013kpop]

akmu - Love Lee MV

[snoooze]

[pixeljinki]

Random gg icons ❁

[ecile]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀✦ ⠀⠀⠀⠀꒷ ⠀⠀⠀⠀✰⠀⠀⠀⠀🕊⠀⠀⠀⠀⭑

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀✦ ⠀⠀⠀⠀꒷ ⠀⠀⠀⠀✰⠀⠀⠀⠀🕊⠀⠀⠀⠀⭑

[staincastle]

⠀⠀⠀★ rina's message is here! suhyun & yukika icons

[snowii]

— 𝐒𝘂𝗵𝘆𝘂𝗻 ✦ AKMU

⪩⪨ lockscreens

♡ or ↻ if you save/use ‹3

don't repost !

[sailorjisunq]

류진 + 악동뮤지션

[lovelyhdff]

꒰ა 눈빛만 봐도 알면서 my love ♡ ໒꒱

[mi-anhae]

L E A S E 🌱🎐

╰ ୨🍵୧ ╯ 𓂃𓇼𓂃 ⁺ —

[justawritingducky]

💕

[chaeqmin]

[guangchuans]

hey adam what did you think of the metamorph concert? oh funny you should ask! here :3

hi guys. i’ll pretend i know staging directing and anything more about music than “i like sounds” here 👍

first, critique:

the concert felt and was rather short. i understand why, but it was still sad to had it end so soon lol

my personal opinion here: i wish we got more older songs other than the iconic ones, but again, this is the guilty album concert, so i understand

he really did not do well on “not over you” and i’m glad he acknowledged it too, not just moving past a subpar performance

“want” also wasn’t the nicest imo? he sang that weirdly low, or at least that’s what i heard

maybe again, just my audio, but it really didn’t sound as if he actually Sung “advice” lol

this one i’ve said before but honestly, even taemin can’t do “move” now - the dance i mean. maybe it was the clothing here though bc on the show with akmu it was great. but yeah the red cloth outfit didn’t pair well with “move” imo and made the key hip movement look messy

this is not about taemin; the beyond live style of concert kind of deprived us of actual cinematography of it :/ like tell me why strings and black rose looked so much better on random fancams from 7 rows behind than… on the actual screen lol

general commentary:

he was so nervous. really. like i get why, again, i understand it all, and even that didn’t stop him from delivering some absolutely delicious stages, but ohhh brother he was nervous

why was the audience so. dead. like why did you hype up my man when he did good huh. i have to do everything in this house myself next time i’ll be the hype man nr 1

this is my lukewarm take: i didn’t enjoy the “criminal” rock version that much. it was very boring? the chord progression of the guitar sounded too much like a sample without much twist, and there were better ways to incorporate rock into that song imo

i think overall the ratio of lip sync to backing track to no backing track was reasonable and i do like that he didn’t try to lip sync much, just letting everyone see “yeah this is playback”

and now <3 praise and what i enjoyed <3

even though i really don’t like “the rizzness”, that opening was fucking insane. imagine starting a concert while hanging upside down. and singing while it. wow!

all the ment segments were so precious. it was clear he missed the audience for his solo stuff too. i know he’s been touring with shinee for half a year now and all but i imagine it’s different to know that these people came here only for you, you know? the interactions were cute and it was just… well it’s good to see the both sides of lee taemin :)

as i mentioned, the ratio of supported vocals to raw vocals was reasonable, but when he did actually sing… oh lee taemin. this is obviously a biased opinion because i genuinely love his voice, it was what made me fall in love with him as an artist in the first place. notable mentions of vocals imo:

“heaven” was perfectly delivered and a feast as always. the bridge in “heaven” is probably my top 5 taemin bridges, so it’s not surprising, but the energy on the stage while he performs that is So Good. MWAH

“light” was fun! i was dancing along, the playing with the dancers choreo is entertaining to watch and it’s a good time over all

after the flop of “not over you” he payed back with both “night away” and “blue” to me. “night away” especially, it felt so warm and so… just lovely. he nailed that

even though i don’t particularly enjoy “black rose” i can’t deny, it was so good. the choreo is always captivating and he sung it well

“door” … where do i even start. “door” is one of my favourite taemin songs of all time, and to see it executed in such a bold way was absolutely incredible and so enthralling, i felt enchanted listening to each new note and line. genuinely an amazing experience

some miscellaneous thoughts that i don’t know where to place:

i loved “impressionable,” the energy was so right for it, especially, well the D2 unzipped pants :)

the “strings” choreo is so sensual and sexy and yet in this classic taemin style of subtlety about it, it’s so nice to watch, to see him get lost in the pain/pleasure the song talks about. and there is almost, a grown aspect to it now, the aspect of like fully owning his body and what he does with it. very nice

“she loves me she loves me not” was cute, the choreography was very simple but still nice to look at, and i loved the energy on stage of it. the girl gang TM smiling and all :) good time!

rearrangements/special concert versions of songs:

as i mentioned above, i have lukewarm feelings about “criminal,” i didn’t dislike it, but it could have been better

LOVED the whole “danger” stage so much as well as “famous,” to me they’re like two sides of the same coin tbh. and something about both of them being in the same section as want mmm…

i wish i didn’t have to talk about “guilty” but i think i have to mention “guilty” too. the staging was absolutely gorgeous, the orchestral pieces at the beginning and before the bridge, the change in choreo of the dancers as if ensnaring him… it was delicious! such a good stage!

a separate section for the encore because i feel like it deserves it:

i don’t think it’s too untoward to think of jonghyun’s passing when it came to the date of the concert. i saw a few other mentions of it too, so i know i’m not alone in this belief. and this is not to suggest it was somehow planned this way with this date in mind, but rather, soemthing to just keep in the back of your head, i guess?

the whole encore was magical. opening the concert back up with “idea”, the orchestral version nonetheless, and staging that mixed both the hell and heaven aspects of the concept (light blue iridescent suit + dark stage lighting and fire) was delicious to witness and a great way to get the energy in the audience back up again

i don’t think i can talk much about what “pansy” means to me as a song without crying. maybe it’s stupid, because that’s exactly what the song was meant to do, but the fact that taemin co-wrote it too just… makes it so special :( and to know what… the sentiment of the song is probably even doubled now, to know that he came back from the enlistment, because so many fans kept loving him and his music and we stayed by his side even when he wasn’t there. this is just me being sappy i know but to hear “pansy” again made my heart sing

“i think it’s love” is a beautiful song and he sung it beautifully. it was a great encore choice, just an overall masterpiece

finishing the concert with “identity” of all his songs, on a concert named metamorph after the idea of metamorphosis, the imagery of cocoons and blooming and growth seen throughout the concert, with, once again, the significance of the date… it meant so much. it means so much. it was genuinely a moving performance, one that hooks you in and keeps you there, not letting you go. the emotion the execution the meaning behind it all… it just felt right, for that song to close the concert

CLOSING THOUGHTS

i’ve seen every taemin concert, save for the beyond live one in 2021, and this one fits into the theme beautifully. it’s a comeback, it’s a reminder that he’s still here, that he is Back, and he is back for good! as he said in one fan sign, this will go on for as long as he wants to and he will be the one to put the stop to it. i’m grateful for everything taemin did musically this year and i can’t wait to see him grow even more, as an artist and as a person. love you! if anyone read this whole thing leave me an 🍎 emoji in the replies hah <3

[seasquared]

the young boys of summer

Even if there are four seasons in this world, one season stands alone as the ultimate vibe in kpop, and that's the summer bop. This could be, and usually is, a song released late into spring or in the doldrums of the season itself, but timing of the release is not determinative. If you are lucky, the song will advertise itself as such (GFriend's "Sunny Summer," ITZY’s “IT’z Summer,” f(x)'s "Hot Summer"). But like most vibes, you know it when you hear it, like the first time you are graced with Sistar's legendary, iconic, never-to-be-duplicated "Touch my body.” When you hear these songs, you instantly recognize the canonical kpop summer accent, big bold brasses and sounds that seem slapped joyfully out of their instruments and maybe a Spanish guitar. They demand to be played during cookouts, on outdoor patios, through a portable poolside speaker, with a silly little nonsense chorus that only makes sense because the sun has baked off a few of your braincells (ATEEZ’s “Wave”, I’m looking at you). You play these songs around other people, because sharing things makes them hotter, and thus you cooler.

If the "Red Flavors" and "Alcohol-frees" of this world are the accent of summer, then there are the kpop songs that are intended as [Erik Singer voice] evocations, meant to suggest summer and, in some cases, its eventual passing. It's my personal opinion that the slightly jazzy, very r&b, midtempo jam is the sound of autumn, but even if you don't agree, you can hear how Heize in "And July" uses Dean's khiphop vocal stylings to hint at the eventual cooling down of summer and the relationship. A touch of synthwave (IKON's "But You"), EDM (AKMU's "Dinosaur"), or sultry poledancing (After School's "First Love") are all quick shortcuts to this kind of song, one that never quite mentions summer by name but could only be played on a hot summer night. And you couldn’t ask for a better example than Winner's discography, which is littered with summer hits of both kinds. "Island" is a dictionary-definition perfect rendition of the canonical mid-summer accent, while "Everyday" despite its beachy, swimsuit-packed MV and April release date is an end of summer evocation, and “Really Really” somewhere in between. 

My favorite summer kpop evocation is the emotional rock anthem. Seventeen are such masters of every variety of the summertime bop ("Healing", "Swimming Fool," "Very Nice") that at some point you just have to lovingly roll your eyes at them releasing a thirst trap song in the middle of summer and naming it "Hot" because, of course. "Rock with you" was released smack dab in the fall months of October, but when I heard it I knew what it was: a "goodbye summer" song, too melancholy for summer vacation and too exuberant for going back to school but just perfect for convincing you that you have one last chance to tell your summer crush that you like them. Others in this vein: a little bit of BTS' "Run," a little bit of Stray Kids' "Time Out," and a whole lot of TXT's "0x1=LOVESONG."

And so too with NINE.i's "Young Boy." Released in November of last year, it too is a summer evocation, rock anthem subspecies, opening with a combo of synths and rhythmic strumming that drives you recklessly forward through the song like a car barreling down a mostly empty highway covered in the bruised purples and pinks of sunset. It is stuffed full of all the typical (post?) 4th gen markers: video cameras, stickers, spray paint, a tightly focused shot of someone boxing in a dimly lit warehouse, sparklers, the vague sense that you are intruding on a Lost Boys paradise. No kpop MV has captured the turbulent and contradictory angst of being a teenager better than the 0:32 mark, when Vari laughingly looks back on footage he's filmed of his groupmates while lipsyncing the line "When I get sick of it and say, 'Hate this.'"

It's no secret that kpop centers youth: in its performers, its intended audience, its aesthetics, in many of its lyrics. When BTS closed out their adolescent period, they released a two-part mini album whose English title is usually rendered as "The Most Beautiful Moment in Life." For BTS, there is no ambiguity as to when that moment happens: it is when you are young, which Suga underscores in the intro track that shares the album's name. Perhaps at the time BTS meant the title a little ironically, more question mark (the most beautiful?) than exclamation mark. (This is, after all, the group that wrote a song called "War of Hormone" that includes a lyric about squeezing pimples every day.) But when it came time to join the mini-albums into one full-length album, they doubled down, giving the compilation the subtitle "Young Forever" and releasing a song with the same name which declares over and over again "forever / we are young."

"Young" is, of course, not a number. BTS was not declaring the members' intention to remain physically immortal, kpop vampires who never age past their 20s. To be "forever young" is "endlessly run towards my dream," to push forward despite being lost in a maze, to "fall and hurt myself" but still get back up and keep pushing. "Forever we are young" is also an acknowledgement that BTS may always be remembered by some of their fans for this era, caught in glorious high definition high concept music videos that celebrate a carefree "live fast die young" aesthetic. In the MV for "Epilogue: Young Forever," these images, distorted as if on VHS tape, trap the members in a cage of fences. When they escape, it is to an empty runway while a plane flies overhead as if towards heaven. Is this freedom, or death? The only way to remain young forever may be to die young; or put another way, to remain young forever is to die.

Don Henley knew this when he wrote "The Boys of Summer," the summer evocation to end all summer evocations. It is, as everyone knows, not an ode actually to the boys of summer but rather to what remains after they are gone. Its best lines ("Out on the road today / I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac") are about the contradictions of growing up, realizing that you may have to betray the idealism of your youth. It is, in other words, not Maverick and Iceman playing beach volleyball in Top Gun but rather a much older Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick finally having to sit down on the sidelines to watch his students carry on playing beach football without him. The "you" of the song is a girl that Henley's singer still longs for, perhaps one he met when he himself was a boy of summer. But for a very long time, I thought Henley's singer was addressing himself as a younger man. (Can you blame me, when he sings about hair "slicked" back, wearing Wayfarers like one of Top Gun's flyboys?) Through the course of the song, Henley makes peace with the death of youth as best as he can. "Those days are gone forever," he says. He has had to grow up. But in his heart, he still sees his lost love—and maybe himself—forever young.

Perhaps that is what NINE.i is summoning in "Young Boy," when they sing "I can even die." For a moment you may think they are singing "I can't even die," and in a way, both are right. To stop being young is to die, spiritually, but growing old does not mean you stop being young. You can always return to that state. NINE.i's young boy is one of Henley's boys of summer, always shining in the sun, smiling at everyone. He is gone only if you, like Henley's speaker, let him go, turn your back on him and turn him into a sticker on the back of your Cadillac. The young boy of summer is immortal, not because he can't be hurt, but because he is mythological. Youth is not an interlude in one's life. It is a state of possession, like an ancient god that descends upon your body. It is a bit unfamiliar but, NINE.i assures you, as long as you can dream him, he is "forever."

[yourkeeperoftherunners]

TW: Recycled concepts, Mention of stereotypes of hip hop culture, Criticism of a Big 4 Company in SK

A part of me feels sorry for BabyMonster, the junior group to Winner, AKMU, Treasure, and BLACKPINK. The ladies trained for years to debut and become talented figures in K-pop, only to have multiple setbacks and negative press focused on them.

Personally I was not a fan of their debut track as it felt like it missed something to make it a fresh, iconic track that could chart and join the ranks of memorable debuts. (In a positive way) But many people noted similarities in melodies to past YG artist tracks and styling, including similar sets used.

While Korea did not call to attention the issues with stereotype styling seen in hip hop culture, the West did. For a company who is considered a Big 4 and pushed BLACKPINK to become a big global act, one would think they would try to ensure they did not offend potential fans with their choices. The excuse claiming they didn’t know better no longer works as they’re in the 2020s and no one forgets online. Even if they claim they’re not marketing BabyMonster as their next global group, the world beyond Korea will judge and watch them.

I’m not sure if their marketing team has a clear plan in place or if they’re winging it as they go along. Not promoting the group on live shows or trying to have the group go on variety programs to introduce themselves seems like a mistake. How will the public know who these ladies are and what makes each member unique? The mystery tactic was tried on BLACKPINK and unfortunately, it did not help in the long run.

[ecile]

lee suhyun twitter packs (requested)