#his attempts at soft rapping in that album are so funny

[brltpop]

Hyperspace (2020) by Beck was his kpop inspired album. In this essay i will-

[dinosaurtsukki]

haikyuu!! music idol au (seijoh and shiratorizawa vers.)

hello hello! now for the groups with seijoh and shiratorizawa! if you like this why not check out music idol au karasuno vers.

CROWN ENTERTAINMENT

okay so basically this is now the entertainment company for the groups FALCON and KING

HAHAHS THE NAMES I REALLY CAN'T GUYS I'M SORRY THE NEXT POST ABOUT NEKOMA AND FUKURODANI ARE GONNA BE MUCH WORSE

okay but yes

they're one of the biggest names in the country and their groups have been around for quite some time

washijo is CEO

they're known to be very hard to get into because all of their idols are trained to be polished at whatever they do

but all of their releases are top quality

so lets get into the groups !!

KING - seijoh

okay so KING has 8 members and most of their comeback concepts are pretty bubblegum pop and boy-next-door

our leader for this group is oikawa of course

he's also wanted to be an idol for so long and trained really hard for it

• he managed to pass the auditions but his trainee years were hard on him because of all the expectations and work

luckily he befriended iwa who was also a struggling trainee

they spent years helping each other out and leaning on each other for support until their debut came

oikawa's the all-around vocalist, visual, and dancer so he's almost always in the center

the kind who nails all the notes while busting out the hardest dance moves

he's also multilingual because he wants to talk to a variety of his fans

everything he does seems so natural but in reality he practices so hard that iwa has to drag him to bed

iwa's our main rapper and main dancer of the group

his audition tape of him dancing was a bit embarassing because he was wearing a godzilla sweater and his hair was gelled up

everyone likes to bring it out from time to time

his fans also like sending him anything godzilla

his rapping is pOWERFUL and he can also beatbox really well

he also leads the dance breaks in performances

everyone thought he was scary until oikawa accidentally called him iwa-chan in a radio show and now everyone calls him iwa-chan

while oikawa is the leader, iwa is the one who manages everyone and makes sure no one gets lost when they go to awards shows

matsukawa and hanamaki were trainees that came in later and they became friends because they were roommates

hanamaki saw matsukawa taping printed out pictures of memes on the wall beside his bed and immediately knew they would be friends for life

and they were

they're notorious for sneaking food into their dorms and also picking on oikawa

they're kind of like an inseparable duo especially since hanamaki is on vocals and matsukawa is on rap

they have a lot of onstage moments and fans love how playful they are

they kind of improvise a bit sometimes when it comes to dance moves which makes washijo want to pull his hair out but fans like it so :/

they're the oldest members but they still call iwa and oikawa 'mom and dad'

they like doing weird shit to hanamaki's hair and taking videos of it 

the ‘what’s a contract? never heard of it’ duo basically 

yahaba's like the resident beautiful guy apart from oikawa

his voice is really melodious and he's often the one harmonizing with the high part

also sUCH a fLIRT

camera: *is directed at him*

yahaba: *blows a kiss*

matsuhana try to get him into their pranks on oikawa but he's too much of a goody two shoes

likes to film his skincare routine for the fans

secretly oikawa’s favorite junior

kyoutani auditioned for CROWN because he thought they were forming a hip-hop group or something edgy but no he was put into KING and he has to be around softies

he was desperate to get kicked out at first until iwa convinced him that he could still keep his look

they gave up on making him smile or look bright on cameras and said that if he's going to glare at least make it sexy

only listens to iwa and always stands next to iwa during award shows 

kindaichi and kunimi are their most treasured juniors and they'll do anything to protect them

both of them are vocalists and even though they don't often sing the melodies or hit the high notes, they're great harmonizing

actually knew of kageyama back in their auditioning days and were lowkey jealous of him

kindaichi is the sweetest junior he's always the one giving the members water and making sure they're alright

kunimi just silently observes the entire time and barely says anything but he'll often approach iwa for pointers when it comes to dancing

they were super young when they debuted and attended high school together in between practice

their seniors surprised them by coming to their graduation and even performing at the ceremony

both of them aren't as good as their fellow members yet but kindaichi works hard to be able to earn a few more lines in their songs

kunimi doesn't show much effort but he secretly likes to learn songwriting and music production because his dream is for KING to perform one of his songs

FALCON - shiratorizawa

another group that debuted about a year or two before KING

it is a POWERHOUSE of talent

also pretty much the OG group for most fans that inspired other upcoming groups

a lot of their concepts are centered around a mature gentleman image

idk what im saying but i'd compare them to super junior pretty much

they also do a lot of edgy concepts

ushijima's the leader of the group plus main rapper

he was actually inspired to become a rapper after watching another idol's performance

tbh he never expected to debut with a group but he had grown attached to some of his fellow trainees

he's also really talented at writing and producing songs

super stoic, even in front of the camera, but fans love his attempts at humor

tendou's like their main dancer and rapper

when he was younger people said his dancing looked weird because tendou could do those really cool, almost jerky movements

when washijo saw his audition tape he was like 'hmm we could use that'

thats because FALCON is super big on choreography, especially the ones that look like all the members are creating this huge other thing just by using movement

tendou pretty much leads the dance breaks all the time and he looks super serious and intense

he likes saying the most random, funny things during interviews

sometimes you'll catch him dancing by himself when they’re just waiting for results in award shows

so many conspiracy videos as to whether or not tendou has joints

now we have our shirabu kenjiro

this boy is like a prodigy he was destined to be recruited by CROWN and to end up in FALCON

the more i spell out these names the more i see how absurd they all look i'm sorry

tendou likes to call him his 'beloved junior'

he's as serious as ushiwaka is but with sASS

is known for sassing out interviewers and show hosts when he can tell that they're making up bullshit and now everyone's scared of him

he's main vocals and visuals

his voice is like a really nice baritone and he's very powerful with his singing that people don't question whether or not he lipsyncs

actually gets the most lines in their group

he likes to challenge the limits of his contract and even cut his own bangs and that's why they're Like That

he ended up getting chewed out by washijo for it

ya boi semisemi is out here being a dAncE gOD

he can learn choreography really quickly and in variety shows the hosts always challenge him to learn another group's choreo by looking at it once

so far he has not lost

everyone in his team cheers him on

also basically the group's main choreographer. he'll lowkey get mad at someone who forgot the choreo but teach them anyway

interacting with fans makes him so happy and soft he treasures every letter he receives and likes giving out gifts during fanmeets

he keeps his room really neat and likes to display the presents he receives from fans

also main vocalist in the group but just gets a line or two

his real skill though are opening dance performances during music award shows

he, tendou, and goshiki slay every opening performance and its amazing

reon is the last main rapper of the group and basically The Mom of the group

he's the one calming everyone down and checking up with people before they perform

his rapping sounds really smooth and very close to how he speaks normally so he shines most in the b-side tracks of their album

he had a lot of struggles passing auditions because most companies would discriminate because of appearance but washijo saw a lot of potential in him

he likes to speak out about the discrimination in terms of appearance in the music industry

everyone in FALCON supports him

lastly we have goshiki the precious little maknae of the group

everyone dotes on him because he was a skinny child when he debuted with the group

goshiki's like the legendary maknae who could do pretty much anything

he's main vocalist, dancer, and visuals

when he started out he was always super active and full of initative as a trainee

he trained super hard just to debut with FALCON because he looks up to ushijima

like shirabu, he gets a ton of lines and sings a lot during the chorus

when he graduated everyone from FALCON attended and he treated them all too lunch

after every comeback tendou's jus like 'our little baby goshiki is growing up'

i basically wrote him as jungkook from bts didn't i?

additional hc’s for funsies

oikawa was actually supposed to debut much earlier with FALCON but he had grown attached to his fellow trainees (iwa and matsuhana) and wanted to be in a group with them

FALCON and KING have a small rivalry ongoing to see who can get the most views in one day during every comeback video that the members do all these crazy things to get their fans to stream their comebacks

one of them was matsuhana promising to release a rare picture of kyoutani smiling 

FALCON has Boardgame Fridays where they just play boardgames all night and it’s super fun and precious because goshiki gets super competitive

also all of his seniors tried to get him drunk after his graduation and goshiki did in fact get drunk and ended up spilling some secrets about how shirabu cuts his bangs on instagram live

FALCON and KING love having dance-off sessions with each other and the music they always choose is ‘Crazy in Love’ from the White Chicks movie

the reon and semi have a mukbang series on instagram live and sometimes yahaba and kindaichi join in

ushijima allegedly wrote and produced a song about the joy of farming but washijo rejected it from appearing on the album because it was weird but thanks to tendou spilling about it, fans demanded to hear the song and ushijima performed it in one of their concerts

kunimi also wrote a song about that was supposedly about a loving a bad boy despite being a nice girl and when people asked what his inspiration was he just said ‘kyouhaba’ 

haikyuu!! music idol au series: karasuno vers., seijoh and shiratorizawa vers., nekoma and fukurodani vers.

[straykidsupdate]

Stray Kids Members on GO LIVE and Making the Music They Want to Make

There's bedlam in the kitchen, as K-pop disruptors Stray Kids wreak delicious havoc on a sterile commercial space. They dance around wildly, waving stainless steel pots and pans in the air and tossing freshly pressed napkins and imaginary ingredients with relish and abandon. In the forefront, fiery rapper Changbin serves up his own potent sauce with a pummeling verse, while dancer Lee Know attempts to stir fry a handful of what appear to be rose petals behind him. A marching band, their plumes high and faces unbothered, carries on amidst the mess — a visual manifestation of the heavy bass ostinato that immediately invades the senses. It sounds disorienting, maybe even slightly dangerous. It looks like chaos.

Welcome to "God's Menu" ("神메뉴").

The Korean boy group's latest single boasts a big, brassy hook laced with trap beats and an addicting refrain ("this is our tang, tang, tang, tang," they shout), a recipe that has become their signature dish. A sonic successor to last fall's explosive "Double Knot," the track teems with a tireless energy and their hallmark bravado. The video imagines the eight members as chefs who confidently concoct their own art from scratch. "Taste so good, everyone loves it," Han raps, in a mix of Korean and English. "All our dishes taste so strong."

The culinary metaphor is laid on thick, bolstered by a charismatic performance that includes Korean formalities like "네, 손님" (which translates to "yes, sir and ma'am" in English) and TikTok-certified choreography that incorporates mixing, frying, seasoning, and, most notably, chopping. But for a group that's been cooking up homemade beats and flavorful lyrics in their bedrooms long before their 2018 debut, it's a savory declaration that feels more than earned. "We just keep on making new things," leader Bang Chan sings, cleansing the palate with a sweet melody. "Because we're one of a kind."

They bring that same level of confidence and clarity to their first full-length album Go生, a title that combines the English word "go" with the Chinese character for "life" and showcases the group's penchant for clever wordplay. Pronounced go-saeng in Korean, it translates to "hardship." The English title, GO LIVE, reflects their desire to move forward without any lingering inhibition. Consider the 14-track LP a reintroduction to Stray Kids.

"We tried to not think too much," Bang Chan tells Teen Vogue from Seoul, South Korea, where he's currently huddled in a room with members Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. It's late June, and they're in the middle of their first week of promotions for the album, which means early mornings, long nights, and a whirlwind of music show performances, interviews, radio shows, and virtual fan engagements. And yet, even as it nears midnight, the members, ranging in ages from 19 to 22, are still easily excitable. Australia-raised Bang Chan acts as the group's tireless translator, and despite recent concerns, his accent sounds as prominent as ever as he explains how Stray Kids adopted a fresh mindset in preparation for Go生. "Of course, we thought a lot about what to put in the album and how we wanted to make it, but we went with the flow," he says. "We wanted everything to feel a bit more raw."

Stray Kids made their official debut under JYP Entertainment with the riotous and self-produced "District 9," an angsty blend of hip-hop and EDM that would ultimately define the group's characteristic intensity, both musically and lyrically. It laid the foundation for 2018's I Am… trilogy of EPs, which focused heavily on the theme of identity as they charged away from systems that sought to control them. The Clé series followed in 2019, which threw Stray Kids head-first into the thorny, often exhausting labyrinth of adulthood. Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han, who comprise the group's in-house production trio, known as 3RACHA, write about their own experiences, etching their personal dreams and worries into a diverse discography that spans six EPs, multiple mixtape singles, and special releases. But with Go生, they've emerged with newfound perspective.

For years, their music was fixated on the idea of bulldozing through obstacles that stood in their way. They wanted to outrun their problems. Now, it's clear: Growing up isn't about overcoming anxieties and struggles. Instead, it's learning to live in spite of them — to run freely alongside them.

As a result, Go生 is a release bursting with color and vitality, a celebration of life's mercurial nature. There's a song for every craving, and a tracklist that demonstrates the members' prismatic talents as rappers and vocalists. "Easy" delivers boundless swagger over a trap beat (and it's already been immortalized on stan Twitter); "Airplane" is Stray Kids at their most relaxed, a chill summertime vibe that's also a tremendous showcase for singer Seungmin; main rapper and all-rounder Han lets his voice soar on "Phobia," an electronic-synth track that examines the paranoia of losing someone (it was also the final song added to the album); "TA" is all high energy and thunderous chaos, perfect for a future encore set; and "Blueprint" shines with its funky bass line, bright verses, and fierce optimism ("I'll proudly achieve my dream," Felix sings in Korean, as translated to English).

"We wanted to show what Stray Kids is really about," Bang Chan says. And in doing so, Felix adds, they "experimented with a variety of genres." The fellow Aussie, who Bang Chan affectionately calls his little brother and who fans (known as Stay) refer to as their "sunshine," speaks with a warm timbre. His flow is even deeper and more distinct, and it's been a solid entry point for Stay and locals alike. Felix is a commanding presence on "God's Menu," a testament to his growth as a rapper and performer. When asked about his five-star performance, he gets shy. "I think everyone put their all into this song and into the album," he says. "Sit down, be humble," Bang Chan jokingly sings beside him, a reference to Kendrick Lamar's 2017 manifesto "Humble" and a demonstration of the leader's persistent playfulness.

"We've all improved a lot in terms of our performance," dance captain Lee Know says, much to the surprise of his members. It's not that they don't agree, it's just that his eager contribution to the conversation catches them off guard. He's not always so talkative during press interviews. And there's an audible cheer among the group as he continues. "Our dancing has gotten stronger. Our vocals have gotten stronger as well. But we're still honing those skills. And we'll continue to grow."

Hyunjin, whose own development as a rapper, dancer, and vocalist with a mellifluous falsetto is well-documented on the internet, agrees. "As we get older, we want to show Stay more sides to us," he says. The lithe performer's strength is his versatility. He's highly adaptable, so it's not surprising that he's been working on writing and composing his own music under Bang Chan's watchful guidance. "I want to show [Stay] something different," he adds. (And that's a promise he intends to keep.)

Youngest member I.N thinks they're maturing in other ways too. "We've all gotten a lot more good-looking," the lively vocalist says, very matter-of-factly. Laughter erupts in the room, and Changbin's cackle is unmistakable. Undeterred, I.N carries on. "When it comes to performance, I've personally gotten a lot faster at recording and memorizing choreography," he says. Lee Know is quick to jump in. "I.N's performance in 'TOP' really surprised me," the elder says. "He's in the center position for the hook, and watching him I saw just how much he's improved. He's more confident now."

I.N is happy he gave off such an aura. "When we were preparing for this album there were times when I didn't feel so confident," he says. So he turned to his members, who listened to his concerns and offered him feedback. He feels much lighter now. "One thing I realized after watching our 'God's Menu' stages is that we all look like we're enjoying ourselves more. We feel more free on stage. And it just feels easier."

The album's most surprising and reflective moment comes at the halfway point, courtesy of Han. Written by the teen multihyphenate, "Another Day" is soft and simple, but no less introspective than his previous cuts ("19" and "Sunshine"). It depicts a feeling of restlessness caused by burnout and the inability to "rest without worrying."

Han's inspiration for the song was largely himself. "It's been a tough year, and I knew it wasn't just me who felt that way," he says. "So I wanted to put those emotions into the song."

In front of the camera, Han exudes relentless charisma. He's quick-witted and wickedly funny. Off stage, he's one of the group's two MBTI-approved introverts (the other being Hyunjin), and he prefers to relax in a controlled environment: his room. In fact, if he doesn't have a schedule or a song to work on, he'd prefer not to leave his bed at all, choosing instead to watch YouTube and anime on his phone. As someone who's deeply inspired by visual mediums, it's in these calmer moments where creativity often strikes.

"Everyone goes through times where things don't work out the way you want them to," he says. "But I think it's important to remember that while you're going through a difficult time, you need to take a breath. Go do something for yourself … Break out of that negative mindset and open yourself up to new possibilities."

Each of the members has their own way of dealing with feelings of stress and anxiety. Changbin works on music. "It's my healing," he says. And he hopes it can be healing for Stay too; he teaches fans the basics of rap during semi-regular streams on V Live. Lee Know prefers to do nothing at all. This is why the members often say the self-assured performer is like water — whatever is bothering him just washes away by morning. But I.N needs time away from the older members. ("Leave me alone!" oldest member Bang Chan whines, mimicking the moody teen.) Hyunjin finds comfort in sentimental music and Korean dramas, and he's especially adept at communicating with fans on Instagram and V Live, where he addresses their worries and offers support in both Korean and English. "That heals my heart," he adds softly. Felix has taken up cooking and baking, even going so far as to buy an oven for their shared apartment's kitchen. His brownies are already beloved by the members and JYP staff. "Making something for someone and getting to share what I make… even a small compliment will make me feel relaxed and good about myself," he says.

Meanwhile, Bang Chan has a bad habit of "brainwashing myself into thinking that I'm not restless when I actually am." So he relies on the members, or "the kids" as he calls them, to help keep him in check. "Our first week of promotions was really tiring, but when I look on stage and see them — see Hyunjin, Changbin, Lee Know, see them all — it gives me a lot of strength. They make me feel at home." (The kids coo in jest beside him. "That's right!" Han shouts.)

Seungmin doesn't often feel anxious, but when he does there's nothing that a long walk and a good playlist can't fix. Lately, he's been listening to "Another Day." "Han surprised me [with this song]," the dynamic vocalist says. "I listen to it often, and it has inspired me a lot." Han, never one to pass up a compliment, replies, "Thanks, man."

While 3RACHA are largely responsible for crafting Stray Kids' music, the members are all integral to the process. "It's not 3RACHA's music, it's Stray Kids' music," Changbin says in English. "So the members' feedback is very important. I feel the best when they like it."

Case in point: "God's Menu." The group had originally recorded a different lead single, and they were in the throes of comeback preparations when Changbin played a demo of "God's Menu" for some of the members. According to Bang Chan, this happens a lot: "We go home, we play a demo, and we party to it." It's as simple as that. But then something unusual happened: Upon hearing "God's Menu," Hyunjin immediately knew he wanted to perform it. This was Stray Kids. The other members felt it too. "The lyrics expressed our music and confidence best," Changbin says in English, as his members cheer him on. ("Go, Changbin!" Bang Chan encourages.) "It's a song only Stray Kids could perform.”

And it was a theme that personally resonated with Bang Chan. "Back in the day, when we were releasing songs as 3RACHA, I always liked to relate my producing process with cooking and science," he adds. "It's just a really fun concept." (Astute fans might recall the 2017 3RACHA deep cut "Alchemistry," in which the industrious leader declares himself a "mad scientist.")

So 3RACHA went straight to the top — to the company's founder J. Y. Park — and asked if they could change the single to "God's Menu." They didn't expect much; the single had already been locked. To their surprise, however, JYP agreed with their judgement. And so have Stay: "God's Menu" is the group's fastest music video to reach 60 million views, and Go生 broke their previous first-week sales record.

"It's a really funny and very warm feeling knowing that he believes in what we do," Bang Chan says of JYP's support. "And it makes us want to try out even more of our various ideas."

Producer Mike Daley (Baekhyun's "Candy") experienced 3RACHA's creative process and various ideas first-hand in Los Angeles last May when Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han spent a day with him in the studio following the U.S. leg of the group's Unveil tour. They worked on two tracks, one of which would eventually become "Easy." Daley played an unfinished demo for the trio, and the reaction was immediate. "A few of the guys just started rapping," he tells Teen Vogue. Bang Chan workshopped the hook and melodies with a few of Daley's friends and collaborators, while Changbin and Han wrote the verses. "Spear [Changbin] and Han were in their own zone on their phones, writing," he recalls. According to Daley, Spear — a reference to Changbin's 3RACHA moniker SpearB — laid down the first verse, and the atmosphere was electric. "He was going crazy in the booth," he says. "It had a ton of energy. And that got everyone amped up to make the hook have as much energy as the verses were bringing."

Daley, a veteran of K-pop songwriting camps, was surprised by just how involved 3RACHA were in the studio. "They knew how to produce really well, so we were all arranging it together," he says. He also observed their teamwork. "It seemed like they each had their role and worked together well," he adds. "Spear and Han were focused on the verses, but when they heard a melody they liked, they'd look at Chris [Bang Chan]. They knew how to get the song done."

And that sense of creative autonomy isn't just exclusive to 3RACHA. Through self-produced digital projects like "SKZ-PLAYER," all of the members are encouraged to express themselves through their art. "It's a really good platform for us to showcase what we want to show Stay, something that they haven't seen before," Bang Chan says. In May, he surprised fans with "인정하기 싫어," which translates to "Don't Want To Admit," a vulnerable piano ballad that laid bare his heartache. Last year, Lee Know released "Dawn," a slinky dance performance he choreographed himself. Seungmin covered his favorite band, and fellow JYP artists, DAY6. "I am very grateful that we are able to sincerely connect with Stay through music," the floppy-haired vocalist notes. As for Changbin, he recently dropped "Streetlight," a solo track in which he wrestles with feelings of loneliness. And Hyunjin released his own video — a contemporary dance he produced and choreographed to Billie Eilish's "When The Party's Over." He titled it "Empty."

"I wanted to express a different feeling, one that I couldn't show through our own performances," the perceptive dancer says. He choreographed the piece to convey his longing to perform. That loneliness that comes at the end of a party, he says, is the same emptiness he feels when he leaves the stage. "That void I feel sometimes, I wanted to express that through choreography."

Han's "Close" was inspired by the 2004 film Closer, specifically its opening scene, in which a young woman locks eyes with a handsome stranger across the street. The idea of human connection, of seeing someone and wanting to know everything about that person, struck Han, especially at a time when people feel farther apart than ever. But it was too raw to share. "I didn't originally want to release 'Close.' I wanted to keep it to myself," he says. "But after showing it to the members, they encouraged me, and that motivated me to share it."

And they continue to share their artistry with Stay. Fans are getting an intimate look at the members' songwriting and melody-making prowess in "Two Kids Song," a web series that splits them into pairs and challenges each team to write, produce, and record an original song. For Stray Kids, the desire to keep learning and pushing themselves — as songwriters, as performers, and as young adults navigating the world around them — both inside and outside of the practice room, comes naturally. "We're artists," Bang Chan says. "It's right for us to express whatever we want through our creative process."

However, with unfiltered access also comes moments of real humility, a reminder that the relationship between idols and the community they foster isn't defined in scenes of uncritical loyalty and fan service, but rather in instances where they hold one another accountable. In a June livestream, Bang Chan reminded fans, "I don't want you guys to spread negative energy around. Stays, you guys are better than that." That sentiment was recently reciprocated when the group participated in a July variety show segment that many Black fans deemed racially insensitive. Stray Kids apologized in a personal statement posted to the members' shared Instagram account, in which they rejected all types of discrimination with a promise to do better by their fans everywhere around the world. "We are still lacking in many things and we are trying our hardest to become better," they wrote in Korean and English. "We would like to apologize to anyone if we have stepped on a rake. It was never our intention but due to our lack of understanding."

It's this honesty that resonates most with their fans. It's woven into heartfelt lyrics, tearful ending ments, social media posts, virtual hugs, home-cooked meals, and earnest reminders to deal with — not run away from — things that are difficult. It is the lens through which Stray Kids see themselves: never perfect, but always sincere. Mainly, it's how they expel their innermost thoughts and feelings, the joy and the agony of everyday life. Whether that's by working on music, or choreography, or refining a new dish, or bettering themselves, that's ultimately up for them to decide. It always has been. Their appetites are insatiable, after all. "The fact that we have the chance to make the music we want to make and talk about the things we want to talk about is really special," Changbin says. "It makes me more excited for what's next."

A day after talking to Teen Vogue, Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han set the KCON:TACT stage ablaze with an opening performance that showed the world just how hungry they are. “They always say the same excuses, while they’re complaining we’re producing," Bang Chan sings, the Auto-Tune heavy. "The passion I give it, nobody can kill." It's a bold statement for any group to make, especially one as young as Stray Kids. And yet, it's that measure of determination that's defined their careers since they were teens trapped on a hellevator with nowhere to go but up. One day they'll reach the penthouse. For now, they're learning to savor the ride and embrace the mess.

"We're going to enjoy this freedom," Bang Chan says, "and eventually we'll fly high."

[fyexo]

191115 Meet SuperM, the Team of K-Pop Superstars That Became One Big Family

SuperM has arrived. It’s late afternoon in Los Angeles, and voices can be heard floating through the halls of Capitol Records in L.A., muffled and low. They’re just out of sight, but if the video teasers for the K-pop supergroup’s debut are to be believed, the seven members will turn the corner burning with a smoldering intensity, walking with the confidence of an elite squad of K-pop assassins trained to vaporize the competition with a single look. All have been hand-picked for this mission from some of K-pop’s most successful groups: Taemin from the legendary SHINee, Kai and Baekhyun from the record-breaking EXO, Mark and Taeyong from the massive 21-member group NCT, and Ten and Lucas from NCT’s Chinese subunit WayV. Together, they are an industry team of aces, pairing powerful performance with immense individual skill in dancing, singing, and rapping.

But as they find their seats around a massive marble conference table, they’re more like a bunch of brothers at summer camp. Kai, an often blush-inducing dancer, has pulled the arms of his sweater over his hands to create soft paws and is hiding behind them as he whispers to giggling rapper Lucas. Baekhyun, the group’s leader and stunning vocalist, scrunches his nose in frustration as he struggles to open a water bottle. One by one, each member relaxes into their chairs and widens the gap between their slick onstage personas and their sweeter offstage selves.

Taeyong looks softer than his icy rapper persona as he yawns and stretches, the blinding silver highlight on his cheeks catching the sun as he adjusts the waves of his purple hair. Ten, usually a brooding dancer, is disarmingly friendly. When a part of the conversation strikes him as funny, he looks around the room to find someone else who is laughing and wrinkles his nose at them as if to say, “Isn’t this all so silly?” Mark, the youngest, is usually the excitable little brother of NCT. But as SuperM’s strongest English speaker (he’s actually from Toronto, Canada, originally), he matures into a calm and collected translator and only ages down again when caught in a fit of laughter.

The member with the biggest gap between onstage and off is Taemin, the group’s most senior member in terms of experience, who was selected from one of K-pop’s foundational groups, SHINee, and boasts one of the most successful solo careers in the history of the industry. When performing, Taemin is wickedly villainous, sensual, and sophisticated. In a recent interview, Taeyong went so far as to describe Taemin’s stage presence as “a bit immoral.” But offstage, in this conference room, Taemin’s small frame is almost swallowed up by his chair. He likes to hold water in his cheeks so that they puff out like a fish, and his big, round eyes, which are usually narrowed for effect when he performs, stare blankly from beneath his shiny blonde bob. He is so quiet that he sometimes appears to not be paying attention at all, but then one of the other guys cracks a joke and his entire face lights up.

The group is in high spirits, coming off of an intense October weekend of stateside promotion that included their first official appearance as SuperM, the debut of the music video for their single, “Jopping,” the release of their eponymous debut mini album, and a performance for thousands outside of Capitol’s iconic headquarters in Hollywood. SuperM carries on the legacy of SM, one of K-pop’s oldest and most-revered entertainment agencies. “If you ask me, I’d say what the world now considers K-Pop began with SM Entertainment,” says Taemin, through an interpreter, as Ten nods in agreement. “SM was the very first company to take musical influences from Western culture and incorporate Korean culture into that by rearranging and writing lyrics with our style.” When Taemin finishes, he turns to Kai in embarrassment and says, “I’m too proud of SM, huh?” But Taemin is right; the company created what is considered to be the first modern K-pop idol group, H.O.T., in 1996, and has been a dominant player in the space ever since.

The guys don’t show it, but they are under an immense amount of pressure. SuperM was conceptualized and produced by the founder of SM, Soo Man Lee, and their staff notes that curiosities are piqued, even within the company itself. “I think people are interested in this new attempt because we are not newbies. Each of us are from groups that are already well-established,” says Baekhyun, the eldest. Kai agrees, “We feel obliged to live up to their expectations.” They don’t know it yet, but in a week they will have the no. 1 album in the United States.

Despite looming expectations, the guys seem more delighted by the new arrangement than worried. “I’ve been in SHINee for 10 years, so starting a new team almost felt like getting a different job,” says Taemin. “I was excited; it felt so fresh, like a new start. To be honest, I thought the project was going to get cancelled when I first heard about it, so SuperM has a special place in my heart.” Baekhyun finishes, “Each of us saw it as an opportunity, a new challenge, and that helped…” Taeyong chimes in, “It united us.” “That’s right,” nods Baekhyun, “Now, we feel like we’re a family.”

That bond was formed quickly, over a handful of summer months in 2019. Though they all trained and worked under SM, most members had only ever seen each other in passing, like students in different grades at a large school. Despite this, the synergy between them is almost telepathic. After Baekhyun fails to break the cap on his water bottle, he silently pushes it towards Taeyong, who opens it for him with a twist of his wrist and without a single word. Members often finish each others’ sentences and exchange knowing looks across the table. Whenever Taemin isn’t sure about the meaning of a word in English, he leans over to consult Ten. At one point, Taeyong looks at Mark with pride and reaches out instinctively to stroke the youngest’s ear. This must be fairly normal, because Mark barely reacts.

When they return to Korea after this trip, each member will rejoin their respective group or solo promotions until they come together again as SuperM in November to tour the U.S. and Canada. Kai discloses that Lucas is already exhibiting separation anxiety. “This morning Lucas said to me, ‘Hyung, I wanna move in with you! Can’t we move in together?’” Kai says, using the Korean word for “big brother.” Lucas lets out a wild, guttural giggle as Kai snitches again, “Even Baekhyun said in the car that he would miss us after we all got back from the States!”

For these short two weeks in Los Angeles, they’re living together and having what sounds like the time of their lives. They’ve all taken roles around the house. Baekhyun is known for recalibrating the group dynamic, cracking jokes to lighten the mood. “I’m the reaction, I react to them,” Taemin says cheerily. “Mark and Ten are English teachers,” says Baekhyun, “Taeyong is the cook and dishwasher…” “and alarm!” chimes Taemin. “Taemin is in charge of dieting,” says Kai. Taeyong points to Baekhyun, “And he disrupts dieting,” he says, as they all crack up, “he’s the Diet Destroyer.” Baekhyun shrugs. “We’re the tall ones,” says Kai, pointing to Lucas and himself. “I’m in charge of getting things that are far away,” says Lucas, with a laugh that is almost musical. “He’s the biggest baby,” says Ten, smiling lovingly from the corner. “There are cups and plates placed high on the cupboard...” says Taemin. “And Lucas takes them out for us,” finishes Taeyong.

Like most families, they watch Netflix together. “We like zombies, especially Kai hyung. He likes The Walking Dead,” says Ten. “And Black Mirror,” suggests Mark. Taemin looks up at Ten with doe eyes and says “Stranger Things!” in a small voice, which Ten repeats at a volume everyone can hear. They go swimming in the house’s pool, play mafia and video games, and share meals, Taemin’s favorite. “I love that we eat breakfast together every morning. We wouldn’t do that if we weren’t close. We feel comfortable with each other’s company, it feels natural.” They’ve had everything from Korean meals and Chinese food to pancakes but, usually, they eat cereal. That is, until the diet destroyer gets involved. “We started off with Froot Loops,” says Mark, “and then we searched through the refrigerator and saw strawberry yogurt. Baekhyun was like ‘Alright, we’ve got to put the Froot Loops in the yogurt!’”

Between the seven of them, they speak five languages: English, Korean, Chinese, Thai, and Japanese, so “sometimes communicating gets very confusing,” says Lucas, switching into Korean for the last word, to underscore his point. Still, “we understand each other very well,” assures Mark, “and I feel like that's the true role of K-pop: bringing cultures together.” Ten nods in agreement. He can speak four languages and has remained alert throughout the interview, like a guard dog, leaning in to translate Korean or Chinese to English. “What’s cool is that we’re from different places, so when we talk we get to learn new vocabulary,” Ten notes, as Taemin looks on with cheeks full of water. “Sometimes I even teach them Thai,” he says, beaming proudly. “That’s the best part.” On cue, Taeyong presses his palms together, bows his head, and says the Thai word for “hello.”

SuperM has been focused on breaking into the United States, so many of the members have been learning English from Mark and Ten. Taemin, who is already fluent in Korean and Japanese, says “pronunciation” has been the hardest part. A few days earlier in an Instagram live stream, he playfully pleaded with fans of SHINee, called Shawols, to help him learn the language. When asked about that, Taemin smiles, shrugs his shoulders up to his ears, straightens his arms and splays his hands wide in discomfort, like a scared cat. With perfect pronunciation he says, “I hope to speak English well but...” and then makes a gesture that communicates, “I hope to get better.” Taeyong nods and says in English, “Step-by-step,” while Kai lets out a supportive, “Wow!”

In September, Baekhyun also took to Instagram to announce that he and Lucas were delighted and perplexed by the sound of one word in particular: awkward. The mention of this sets off a domino effect during our interview, as each member tries pronouncing “awkward” themselves. Then Baekhyun introduces a new word: turtle. He points to his mouth, which he has opened comically wide to get the sound just right, “Toooortle!” “The word turtle is so awkward!” summarizes Taeyong. Then they can’t be stopped—their favorite terms are flying back and forth across the table: Pronunciation! Positive energy! Level! Frog! Pioneers! Taeyong slowly sounds out “performances” and then claps for himself when he’s done. Over in the corner, Baekhyun leans back in his chair and crosses his arms matter-of-factly. “Turtle!” he says with confidence, one last time, as Mark bursts out laughing and Taeyong slaps him playfully on the knee.

The room is so warm with joy, so free from ego and pretense, that it’s easy to forget that these seven friends are some of the world’s most celebrated performers. Despite their differences—in age, language, culture, and experience—they function as a single solid, supportive unit, united by one goal.

For almost the entire interview, Mark and Taemin have been playing with two thick silver rings overlaid with heavy crosses. At one point, Taemin experienced a brief panic when Mark’s ring got stuck on his finger. “We got these as a gift from Mr. Soo Man Lee,” Mark says seriously, holding his up in front of his face. Each member’s ring bears a slightly different design, but they all “have ‘Super M’ inscribed on the back.” The accessory feels overtly symbolic: a physical reminder of the heavy expectations that unite them. “This is our Thanos Infinity Gauntlet,” Mark jokes, referencing SuperM’s branding as the “Avengers of K-pop.” As he laughs with Taemin, his face softens and he looks like the group’s little brother again. Then they both pick up their rings and place them back on their fingers, joining the rest of their team.

Source: Elizabeth de Luna

[cristalconnors]

BEST ALBUMS OF 2019: TOP TEN

SPECIAL CITATIONS:

HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM, Beyoncé

The live album feels like a lost art form. Of late, many feel thrown together without much thought- an offering to the most ardent of fans about as meaningful as a gift card you’d give your coworker. Homecoming is the antithesis of that: a flawless documentation of Beyoncé’s benchmark live performance at the 2018 edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that is a staggering recontextualisation of her entire life’s work, dazzlingly criss-crossing her discography, offering rollicking, thoughtful new arrangements of classics and deep-cuts alike, filtered through the lens of HBCU marching band, playing like a half time show that goes on and on and on, offering the final, definitive evidence that Beyoncé is the greatest showman in modern history by leaps and bounds. 

LEAK 04-13 (BAIT ONES), Jai Paul

Discovering Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) sometime in the summer of 2013 was like being let in on a secret. I felt like the member of an exclusive club of people in-the-know, the possessor of a forbidden document that could only be discussed in hushed tones and accessed illegally. The circumstances of its arrival were uncertain. Had he leaked it purposefully? Were all of the songs really his? It didn’t even have a proper name (it would be christened Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) many years later). The enthralling mystery of it was eclipsed only by the music itself. It sounded like you shouldn’t have been listening to it, a top secret transmission intercepted and compromised in the process. Its stunningly lush, busy textures were threadbare, pieces of the songs suddenly falling away only to reappear, as if you were streaming it and your internet connection was struggling to keep up. But that only contributed to the mystical grandeur of this earth shattering R&B that felt so purposeful, so impeccably sequenced (not by Jai), so bizarre and at times even funny, so much so that it was difficult to imagine how it could possibly be unfinished- it was perfect.

I don’t think I’d ever really understood how thoroughly devastating the leak was to Jai Paul himself until I read the lengthy note that accompanied his abrupt return on June 1st of this year, when he not only graced us with two stunning new tracks but properly released this album for the first time, a remarkable gesture of goodwill to his fans who gleefully partook in the stolen material, many without much regard to how it’d become available to them. Reading the letter, I felt guilty. The extent to which the leak derailed his career, demolished his trust in the institutions the industry is built on, compelled him to cast himself away from music entirely- his lifeline- and, in his own words, “withdraw from life in general” was genuinely heartbreaking. But the official release of the album that caused so much strife is the culmination of a years long journey of recovery, reconciliation, and growth. It’s a hard-earned reclamation of ownership that signals that Jai Paul, one of the most vital, distinct voices to emerge from the decade, is ready to get back on the horse. Look out.

THE TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2019:

10. CALIGULA, Lingua Ignota

Caligula is maybe the most stunning document of feminine rage I’ve ever heard- an improbable synthesis of metal and opera imbued with biblical imagery and defined by language that’s as flowery as it is vicious (“may your own shame hang you / may dishonor drown you / may there be no kindness / no kindness / no kindness”). Kristin Hayter’s classically trained voice bends almost to the point of snapping, sometimes bringing her tongue to her soft palate to make a sound somewhere between a hum and a gurgle before launching into blood curdling shrieks as the music around her morphs as well, twinkling piano and organ giving way to billowing, thunderous guitar. It’s music that belongs in a symphony hall, if only they’d allow moshing.

09. SINNER, Moodymann

The songs on Sinner, Kenny Dixon, Jr.’s twelfth album as Moodymann, unspool on their own terms, continually mutating as they go on, shifting gears just when you think you’ve got a handle on them. His house isn’t very dense, but there’s always a remarkable amount of intrigue in his deceptively simple sound, evoking early 70′s R&B until strange idiosyncrasies pop out organically from the fabric of the song, pulling focus, reframing it as you’re listening to it. It’s strange, compelling stuff that beckons you to dive beneath its surface, promising you’ll find something new each time.

08. NO HOME RECORD, Kim Gordon

My favorite Sonic Youth songs were always the ones Kim Gordon did lead vocals on. Her hulking monotone was strangely captivating, even when it wasn’t clear what she was even talking about (which was most of the time.) No Home Record is a sublime capitalization and expansion of her power as a vocalist and writer, embracing those same abstract sensibilities that have defined her work for nearly 40 years but pushing them boldly into the future, crafting entrancing, often menacing sonic dreamscapes that are littered with oblique, powerfully resonant hints at the fruits of her near decade of self-discovery after divorcing Thurston Moore. It’s a debut decades in the making that shockingly reveals new, untapped powers from an indelible titan of rock we thought we’d had pegged.

07. HOUSE OF SUGAR, (Sandy) Alex G

Alex Giannascoli’s folk rock warps itself, intentionally obscuring textures and images in a convoluted effort to clarify the feeling behind them. It shouldn’t work but always does, and on House of Sugar, his eighth full-length effort in just nine years, he finds thrilling new power in simplicity and repetition, exemplified by the woozy abstract tapestry of songs like “Walk Away,” “Taking,” or “Near,” wringing a simple phrase, or even just a word, for everything it’s worth, repeating them over and over and over again to craft crystal clear images of longing and pain. But the more traditional songs are just as gripping, striking his strange balance between downtown and backwoods, crafting folk that emanates from deep in the soul and soars out into outer space. 

06. BANDANA, Freddie Gibbs & Madlib

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib reunite on the most virtuosic rap album of the year, taking their unlikely marriage of gangster rap and delicately constructed, meditative beats that sound almost like memories to astonishing new heights. Gibbs grapples with personal demons- the lowest lows of his career, his ongoing relationship with drug abuse- but also flexes, showcasing his effortless flow as he flawlessly keeps pace with Madlib’s twisty production, navigating signature changes and tricky rhythms with ease, perfectly in concert with Madlib’s searching, soulful looping beats that envelop you, contorting right when you’ve settled into them. The collaboration keeps you on your toes, demanding your full attention as they whisk you through their kaleidoscopic vision of masterful, immersive rap.

05. ALL MIRRORS, Angel Olsen

The breakup album has never sounded so lush. Plenty can wax poetic about ridding themselves of toxic partners and of newfound freedom, but Angel Olsen tries to get to the heart of what it all meant, how she’d allowed herself to get lost in the relationship, forgetting herself. She makes the process sound luxurious, utilizing a 12-piece orchestra to inject a bolt of energy and welcome drama into her abstracted songwriting, embracing the darkness and working through it to find herself anew on the other side.

04. WHEN I GET HOME, Solange

When I Get Home sounds like you should be listening to it in a museum- and knowing Solange you’ll probably be able to at some point. Its heady sophistication is constantly announcing itself to you, but that’s not to say that it’s impenetrable. It’s her most personal effort, a surreal tour through the Houston of her memory and the Houston of her imagination, exploring the sounds she was reared on, but refracting them, embracing repetition to create a dreamlike, prismatic journey through her influences that, as Solange puts it, can’t be a singular expression of herself “there’s too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines, too many curves, too many troubles, too many journeys, too many mountains, too many rivers, so many...”

03. NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL!, Lana Del Rey

Norman Fucking Rockwell! is Lana Del Rey’s victory lap, an amalgamation of everything she’s always done well packed into a sprawling 68 minute apocalyptic opus, invoking Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and most memorably, Sublime while utilizing her trademark playful, disaffected word play to craft a soaring requiem for the world as we know it. “L.A.’s in flames” and who cares when there’s a good time to be had? It’s a stunning “fuck you” to an industry and populace that dismissed her viciously when she arrived on the scene, forging her masterpiece on her own terms.

02. U.F.O.F., Big Thief

U.F.O.F. evokes the sensation of reaching out and attempting to make a connection- a connection with another realm, with the dead, with alien life, with a distant lover. The music is open and searching, and to hear the band talk about the process of writing and recording it, this spirit of experimentation was present in the studio. They’d tinker with instruments none of them knew how to play, hoping whatever they could coax out of it might speak to the ethereal textures and opaque poetry of the music they were working on. The result is a ghostly folk masterclass that launches Big Thief into the stratosphere as they work seamlessly in tandem to craft music that touches God.

01. TITANIC RISING, Weyes Blood

Struggling to cope with a world on the precipice of collapse, Natalie Mering looks backward, invoking the baroque pop of the 1970′s to search for solace in the stars or the arms of another, like Karen Carpenter scrolling through Tinder or Co-Star. But trying to stave herself away in the past only finds herself submerged in her childhood bedroom. So she bolts forward, utilizing familiar frameworks to craft stunningly lush, contemporary and urgent pop that grapples with crises both personal and apocalyptic with an optimism that feels not naive but like a vital lifeline, like a hand reaching out in the darkness to pull you to safety. It may be a futile gesture, but at the end of a decade that’s abruptly descended into a hellscape, it’s a call to keep the faith and forge on.

[rileyrooin]

R&L Live: Detroit

This jumps around and I discussed the show a bit more than in other recaps because there are moments from it that I want to remember. I recognize that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to attend shows and afford VIP tickets. If you aren't interested in reading, or if you want to send me nasty messages about this, I encourage you to just scroll on by instead. As always, please do not repost my pictures without permission.

I attended this show with Mr. Rooin, and two of my friends, R (my BFF) and B. R and B (heh) are both GMM fans. It would be the first time either of them has seen the guys live.

The Show

Britton opened the show. The crowd in Detroit loved him and he really fed off its energy. During the merch song, he started giggling mid-song because we were all laughing about the lyrics; his giggles made the crowd laugh more and he had to stop playing for a minute to compose himself. It was very cute. I cannot wait for him to put out an album. There are several of his songs that have been stuck in my head since the show.

After a brief intermission, Rhett and Link came out on stage. I expected to have a good view since our seats were in the front row, but I guess I didn’t really think about just how close they would both be to me (but especially Rhett). But, suddenly, there he was right in front of me.

As they settled in to begin the show, Rhett scanned the crowd, taking it all in. His eyes briefly met mine when he did so, but he continued to scan and then, unexpectedly, his attention came back to my face. My poor heart just about leaped out of my chest when he shot a small smile at me. I thought I must be imagining it, but once he broke eye contact, R elbowed me and whispered, “Did Rhett just recognize you?” I shrugged and tried to concentrate on their opening banter about the meaning of the name Detroit.

I'm going to share some highlights because no one needs a play-by-play of every moment of the concert:

Tokyo came early that night. Of course, even after Rhett told the crowd that he would do it one time only, there were people who thought they would be cute and continue to shout it and other garbled nonsense (including someone pretending to be CCR). This led to sassy, sarcastic Link making fun of people shouting stuff. Rhett got a bit grumpy at one point and gave the crowd a stern dad expression. I didn't capture either of these moments on camera, but they were hilariously in character.

The setlist was basically the same as the Columbus show, but with fewer songs. We didn't get “Water Dispensing Tab” or any of the other songs they've been subbing in for it in other shows. I feel like something else was removed, but I'm not sure what. I love all of their new songs. I wish they'd release them so people who can't attend the shows could hear them, as well.

At the venue, on either side of the stage, stand two huge knights set into niches in the wall. One of the running themes of that night's banter was Rhett wanting the knights to come to life. He had an elaborate ritual he wanted the room to perform to bring the knights to life that included hissing like a cat, other strange noises, and some voguing. When that didn't work, they moved on, but came back to the topic several times throughout the show. My favorite one was before “Middle School Girlfriend.” Rhett suggested that perhaps if Link played all three of his recorders at once, the knights would come to life. Much like the escaping a simulation handholding from Ear Biscuits, Link was game to give it a try. So, Rhett offered to hold his third recorder for him. The moment was funny, but I was focused on the extreme softness in Rhett’s eyes as he helped Link. The photos don’t begin to do it justice.

After the recorders failed to bring the knights to life, Link tried to steer the conversation back to “Middle School Girlfriend” banter by saying, “This is not unlike what my first kiss looked like.” Rhett was seemingly disinterested in returning to his stool/mic, so he leaned forward to speak into Link’s. Link pushed him away and said, “Get… Get your face outta my mic!”

Throughout the entire show, I kept having to tell myself to stop staring at him. My attempts at having some level of chill were continuously destroyed by Mr. I'm Going to Make Eye Contact Unexpectedly throughout the concert. It sounds foolish, but even though I was in a venue with so many other people, there were moments where watching him play the piano and guitar from that close felt incredibly intimate. But, maybe that's just my crush talking.

The rap section of the show was highly entertaining yet again. Their enthusiasm and excitement during it is so much fun to watch.

During “It's My Belly Button,” he was so close: that cute belly on display right in front of me as he dad danced his heart out.

During one chorus, when he got to the “something I want to show to you" line, he pointed at me. R grabbed my arm and hissed, “Dude, he fucking loves you.” (n.b. This all sounds like wishful thinking from a ridiculous fangirl, but I swear it's true. I harbor no delusions that there was some secret message in his actions. I know it meant nothing; he was simply playing up the moment for a reaction. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the attention, though.)

Meet and Greet

After the show, we were quickly ushered into a long line that wrapped down the side and around the back of the theater. I used the opportunity to run to the bathroom to freshen up the best I could. My group and I hung out in the line while I proceeded to try to calm my anxiety about talking to them again. One of the things that helped me with this was the soothing sound of Rhett's laughter echoing in the large space. Another thing that helped was watching how amazing they are with all of the fans they meet. From kneeling down to meet children to really focusing their attention on each person they chatted with, it's clear that every interaction is important to them. I know I've said it before, but we love some seriously great guys, y'all.

Prior to the show, I’d talked to Mr. Rooin about how I really wanted to have a nice picture of me hugging Rhett. Ever the patient and understanding one, he offered to hang back while R and I talked to the guys so he could attempt to get that picture on his phone (since Gary would have mine). (Spoiler: he got the picture and it might be my current phone lock screen.)

The line moved quickly (the meet and greet time goes by so fast), so it wasn’t long until it was our turn. R went ahead of me and introduced herself to Link, shaking his hand as she did so. As R moved on to shake Rhett's hand, Link's attention shifted to me over her shoulder. I smiled at him, once again blown away by how blue and intense his eyes are in person. I opened my mouth to introduce myself, but before I could, he welcomed me into a hug and said, “Good to see you again.” He patted my back like the last time, but held the hug for a couple seconds. “How've you been?”

“Good. Better now, though,” I answered as we broke apart. He grinned at me and I felt my heart melt a little bit. And then I turned to my left and into the open arms of the bearded one. He patted my back twice and I squeezed him tightly. He held the hug for a moment, holding me against him, and I probably clung onto the hug for a few seconds longer than I should have. I couldn’t help it; his hugs feel so damn good.

As I stepped back, I realized Link was talking to me again. “It's been awhile.”

“Well, only since April.” In my mind, I was thinking: Why am I getting sassy with Link?

Rhett said something in reply that made my whole face flush and caused my brain to shut down. I looked to Link for rescue. He simply laughed at my reaction, so I laughed with him while my mind was chanting wtf wtf wtf.

Then, Rhett said, “Okay, step up here for the picture. Where do you two want to be?” R, who is the extrovert between us, had fallen totally speechless in their presence. She's a Link girl, so even though logistically she should have been on Rhett's side based on where she was standing when he asked the question, I slid between them so she would be next to Link. (And, yes, so I could be next to Rhett.) As I put my arm around Rhett's waist, I glanced up at him and he was smirking away. I'm sure my crush is terribly obvious to him, but… meh, what are you gonna do? Gary took the picture while I tried to take in the moment and how it felt to have his body pressed so close to mine with his hand on my shoulder. After that R did a solo picture with the guys. She finally found her voice to ask for hugs before she left and they obliged.

I did an individual photo with them and then, my meet and greet time was nearly done. I handed Rhett the letter I'd written them and stammered out an explanation about how I hoped they would read it later. He smiled kindly and then passed it back to me to give to Jenna. I hung around watching while B and Mr. Rooin met them. Finally, we got our posters/bags from Jenna, Lily, and Lincoln. I talked to Britton for a minute before we made our way out and took a picture with him this time. I almost made it out of the theater before I teared up. Almost.

I feel very fortunate and grateful that their shows have been in locations close to me. Years ago, when I discovered these two and became a fan, I never expected that I would have the opportunity to meet them once, let alone three times. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be someone they would recognize on sight. I heard them say similar things to other fans who they'd met before. It's comforting to know that even though there are millions of fans out there, they see us.

[imagination-of-a-melted-bitch]

Collaborative Embarrassment || Han Jisung

Prompt: can you please do a Han Jisung scenario with an older reader?

Pairing: Jisung x reader

Word count: 2.442k

Warning: second hand embarrassment (??)

Y/L/N Y/N, the name carried weight. You were easily the most respected artist in the industry, Kpop and western music alike. Everyone knew who you were and if they didn’t it was safe to say they had been living under a rock.

“Is this the room?” You asked your manager, realizing she couldn’t see the number as she was on the phone and not beside you like you were used to her being. “I’m sorry,” you go to tell her the number only to hear a chorus of laughter from inside the room. “Actually never mind,” You softly chuckle, thanking her and hanging up. “This should be fun,” You take a deep breath and push open the door of the practice room, finding the group of guys tussling about, most likely having a friendly competition of seeing who was the strongest. “Hello?” Your voice is too soft and your accent too light to be one of their managers and this instantly catches all of their attention, everyone turning their heads toward you, horror painting their faces.

“Oh my god!” Felix screams, he knew who you were right off the bat. He followed you on every social media website you had ever made and shared with your fan base. “It’s Y/N!” He sounded similar to the fans that came to see him and the others, screaming like a maniac, running around like a chicken with his head cut off. “Do you not know who she is?” He asks once he realizes the others were still frozen in their previous spots, not even bothering to move into decent positions. Felix now realizes he may have over reacted and most likely embarrassed not only himself but the group and shies away, hiding behind the cluster of guys.

“Hi,” you wave, watching as they slowly begin to untangle themselves. “I’m-“ there’s a chorus of them beginning to explain how they knew who you were and how they all loved and cherished every song and music video you had dropped. “Thank you,” You were never usually this shy around people but for some reason it was as if they were staring right through you, reading you with ease and that was kind of unsettling. “I’m going to assume you guys haven’t been told, but we’re going to be collaborating,”

“What? No way!” Jisung is the first to speak on his own since Felix had sat down and tried to fade away from existence. “That’s so cool! Why weren’t we told earlier?” Jisung is truly struggling to keep his cool. First of all, he loved you and not like the others had said they loved you, he was head over heels in love with you. Emphasis on the word in. He had all your posters in a box under his bed, all your albums and photo cards, no one was as big as a fan as he was and he commended himself with how well he was acting in your presence.

“Yeah!” Chan stands up, looking around the room, only to find that the ten of you were alone. “Oh...well, hi, I’m Chan,” he makes his way towards you and takes your hand with a gentle grasp, giving it a nice shake. “I’m stray kid’s leader and as some say, father,” he looks stressed as he says this, as if he were having flashbacks from war.

“Nice to meet you Chan, believe it or not I’m actually a really big fan of you guys as well,” you shrug, your words were simply meant to let them know there was mutual respect but they nearly made them all pass out. “Are you guys okay? You guys need some water?” You pull your water bottle out the side of your dance bag and hold it out to them. “Don’t worry I don’t have cooties,” you mock younger boys and put the water bottle back in your bag when no of them make a move to take it from you. “Hmm, you guys a little shy?” You drop your bag and decide against taking off your windbreaker not needing them to tense up again at the sight of you in your dance wear.

“You’re so cool,” Jeongin whispers mindlessly, staring at you in awe. “Much cooler than Chan hyung,” His eyes only shift toward his leader for a second before he turns back to look at you. “No offense or anything of course,” He smiles adorably, rocking himself back and forth, his face lit up like a child who had met their hero.

“No worries Chan,” you giggle, watching his brows raise with an unreadable expression on his face. “I promise I’m not after your position.” You clamp a hand on his shoulder, slightly shaking him a little. “I just wanted to meet you guys before I had to head to the hotel.”

“You could totally stay here!” Jisung blurts out but covers his mouth with his hands, eyes darting around the room, hoping to avoid your intense gaze. “I’m sorry, I really wasn’t thinking before saying that!”

“Oh no it’s totally fine. I wouldn’t want to impose or anything. Also I don’t think us staying under the same roof is a smart idea because most of you haven’t even looked at me for longer than ten seconds since I’ve walked in,” Everyone’s cheeks deepen in color, someone coughing in an attempt to clear the tension in the room. “It’s fine! I’m not upset or anything, I completely understand! If you guys want the honest truth I’m really nervous right now,” you smile softly, scratching the back of your neck at your own confession. “I’ve been a big fan since hellevator, I wasn’t lying or trying to calm you guys down earlier...” you jut out your bottom lip and look back toward the guys, lips slowly tugging into a smile. “All I ask is for you guys to treat me like a close friend, not like a big star or whatever, I just want to be...like one of the guys.” This seems to make them relax but you knew it’d take a few days for them to completely warm up to you but you were patient and willing.

“Do I have to call you noona?” Seungmim asks softly, scared everyone would blow up on him at his question. “I don’t mind!” He quickly recovers, “You know what? I’ll only call you noona! I’m sorry! Forget I even said anything!” He hides his hands in his face and it seems like he’s about to cry. He felt so idiotic and embarrassed. He wished he could fade away much like Felix still did.

“No.” You put all his worrying to ease. “I understand elders are an important part of Korean culture so of course I’ll call you guys ‘oppa’ when need be but you guys don’t have to call me noona,” you motion for them all to come in, “I’ll let you guys in on a little secret,” You motion for them to come closer than they were before giggling a little. “I’m not Korean so I’m not really worried about it, plus I won’t tell anyone.” You look around the room, subtly winking at the nine boys.

“Wow! You’re so awesome!” Jeongin continues from earlier making you softly roll your eyes.

“I’m sorry, ignore him. He doesn’t really know how to act around pretty girls,” Hyunjin comes to the younger boy’s rescue and covers his mouth before he can say anything else. Jisung’s jaw tenses as Hyunjin, someone who obviously knew about his love for you, sweet talked you.

“Thank you...” you cough, returning to your previously shy form at the compliment. “Yah!” You jump back, shaking out your arms and legs, slapping your cheeks to regain your composure. “That’s not fair! No compliments, they...they make me feel funny.” You shy away making them all laugh at how cutely you reacted to Hyunjin’s simple compliment, that hadn’t even meant to carry any weight besides saving Jeongin’s hide.

“But how could we not compliment someone so pretty?” It’s Changbin and you’ve been warned about him. Your eyes widen and you playfully hit his shoulder, instantly feeling bad when he makes a noise of hurt and rubs his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry!” You side hug him and he smiles, winking at the others. “Oh you little bug,” you drop your arm to your side and softly push him away from you.

“You said you were here for a collab?” Minho brings up what you had said earlier, something you were sure none of them had remembered with the events that had taken place in the last twenty minutes. “This’ll be fun,” he smiles to himself, doing eight counts in his head.

“I think our voices will blend the best!” Woojin hits a note from nowhere, shocking you. He was truly a vocalist and the thought of singing alongside him made you feel warm inside. He continues with his note and motions for you to join him. You look around the room nervously but decide to shake away your worries and join him, taking a second but eventually harmonizing with him. Everyone gasps in awe at how beautiful the two of you sound.

“Holy crap!” Felix pulls out his phone and records the moment. “I have to have this forever,” Felix sniffles and wipes away a fake tear making you break your note to laugh.

“You guys are even better in person.” You clap your hands, “I’m sorry to disappoint you Woojin but my manager told me I’d only be rapping in the song...and well, dancing of course. Maybe we can do something on the side, just the two of us?” Woojin smiles brightly at this and Jisung sees this as his chance and pushes toward the front of the group and cutely raises his hand.

“I’ll be happy to help,” This was his moment, helping you write a verse for the upcoming song would be a perfect opportunity to spend one on one time with you and he could make his move then.

“Yeah right like she’d be interested in a kid like you,” Changbin growls playfully, snagging Jisung’s head under his arm and rubbing his knuckles against his scalp. Your brows dart up and an awkward silence falls over the room again as Changbin had gotten too comfortable and told you about Jisung’s crush on you. “Ah crap,” Changbin lets go of Jisung and moves to the other side of the group.

Everyone watches you with bated breaths, all of them on the edge of your seat to find out how you’d react to the information. “Hey! I’m only a year older than him, what are you trying to say!” You playfully glare at Changbin and wrap your arm around Jisung’s shoulders, pulling him into your side. “Plus I think we’d make a cute couple,” You rest your head against his not knowing that you were actually killing Jisung with how cute you were and with the thought of you actually being into him.

“You know what they say,” Changbin puts his hands up on mock surrender, “Don’t knock it until you try it,” he’s happy the awkward silence didn’t last too long, he liked you and hoped you stayed around even after the song was finished.

“Yah!” Jisung exclaims, Changbin’s words doing nothing but embarrassing him further. “As warm as you are noo-Y/N, I don’t think this is proper position.” You drop your arm to your side, letting him stand up straight. “Wouldn’t want the others to get jealous or anything,” he tries to play off his own embarrassment by making fun with the others.

“Right, right,” You play along, hoping to have melted away his embarrassment. You knew how bad rejection hurt and wouldn’t wish the feeling on anyone, plus he was cute. “Anyway,” you clap your hands together again, “I’ll be by bright and early...around noon...around two?” Everyone gives you a thumb up, they had been up since four this morning and would very much need the extra rest and time to clean their dorm incase you decided to come by. “Okay I’ll be around tomorrow at two, and we can start making a beat. There’s no need to rush...” you eye the bunch, softly smiling as they clung on to your every word, you were going to like them.

“It’s late so we’ll be heading to bed, it was so nice to meet you,” Chan is the first to grab your hand, giving it a firm shake before rushing out the practice room. They all follow his course of action, exiting the room quickly until you and Jisung were the only ones in the practice room. You suddenly realize what the others had done, leaving the two of you alone.

“Well...” Jisung whistles, looking awkwardly around the room.

“Listen, about all that earlier, I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything. I was trying to do the exact opposite believe it or not...” you shove your hands in the pockets of your sweats and pretend to kick something on the ground.

“Oh I wasn’t embarrassed just overwhelmed,” Jisung naws on his bottom lip, hands clenching into fists at his sides. “It’s just, I really like you, which probably sounds really weird because I’ve obviously never met you but I really like you and you’re so talented at everything you do and you’re so pretty and it makes me-“ you put your hand over his mouth, cheeks split into the biggest grin.

“I get it! I get it!” You drop your hand to your side. “Don’t worry about it, you’re really pretty too,” you wink at him, and he nearly faints. “Please don’t faint!” You grab his arms in hope to keep him up straight.

“I won’t, I won’t,” he reassures you, his flushed face a dead give away that your words carried more weight than you’d ever know. “It’s just-“

“Don’t you dare,” you let him go, holding up your hands before he breaks off into a ramble again. “Look, I don’t usually write raps for upbeat songs, you’d know better than anyone else...I’m more of a slow and sensual kind of person so I’m going to need a lot of help.” You nudge him, hinting that you’d be more than happy for him to help you.

“I would love to help you! You can come around earlier tomorrow if you want! I’ll be up! I’ll wake up at any time of the day for you!” You giggle and pinch his cheek. He was so cute.

“Ah! I’ll see you tomorrow, at two! You need to sleep!” You bend over and pick up your dance bag. “I mean it Jisung! Sleep or I’ll ask Changbin to help me!”

“No! I’ll sleep! I’ll go to sleep right now!” Jisung exclaimed, watching you walk out of the dance room, the biggest smile on his face.

[kpopreviewcafe]

Super Junior-D&E 2nd Mini Album ‘Bout You’ Review

This mini album marks Super Junior-D&E’s first Korean comeback since their legendary hit Growing Pains in 2015. The members have returned from their military hiatus fresher than ever, and are gearing up to try all the latest Kpop trends, whilst exploring their own personal music styles also. I really loved this album, and whilst the flavour was completely different from their last work – it still shone out as a great piece anyway!

I really loved the title track ‘Bout You – it was lively and upbeat, with a catchy hook and tuneful tropical-style melody. I was probably one of the few people who enjoyed the heavy autotune on this song – I think it adds to Donghae’s already electric-sounding voice! As per classic D&E style, Eunhyuk jumps into the second verse with a rap section, and the one in this song was fresh and exciting. In my opinion, the really killer part of the song was the last section. Here, the song’s composer Donghae threw away traditional pop song structure, and created an extended bridge that was layered with a modified version of the chorus. This was a memorable and unexpected twist, and in my opinion, was what pushed this song up from just catchy to actually incredible. With this track, D&E once again proved that they are the masters of any genre!

Rum Dee Dee is a fun and cheeky song, playing tribute to iconic D&E tracks of the past (like Motorcycle and Oppa Oppa). Whilst this song isn’t quite on the same level as those two songs, it still is a great listen, with a strong beat and memorable melody.  I especially like the playful lyrics and onomatopoeia in the chorus. Donghae’s high note in the second verse is unexpected and funny, and Eunhyuk’s rap in the breakdown shows off his great skills.

“Oops! That moment when your balance gives away The more I drink you, the more I want to get drunk I can’t hold it anymore, Go rum dee dee”

The next song I Love It is of the genre that I affectionately like to call “Crying in the Club”. This essentially means party songs that have pathos. Whilst Bigbang are the undisputed kings of this genre, this song by our favourite SUJU duo is a pretty good attempt. The soft melancholy melody in the pre chorus and bridge contrasts perfectly with the energetic beat and exciting lyrics such as “We can party/ bounce bounce bounce”. Donghae’s unique and hard-hitting voice fits perfectly with this type of song too. Catch yourself raving to this whilst lamenting over that break up you never even had – THAT is the power of this song.

I really love the next song Livin’ In. The beat is modern and electric, as the song seems to be a continuation of D&E’s newfound journey into the wonderful world of EDM. The funky brass in the chorus is an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, and it is not the tropical style beat drop one might have been expecting to hear at this point. Eunhyuk’s singing voice is soft and sweet, and although we don’t get to hear it that much on this album, it is really nice to hear on this track. Donghae really loves going all out on those emotional bridges, and I really love listening to him do it! I think his voice is perfectly suited to edgy emotive songs like this one. (Thankfully he probably thinks so too!).  

The next song is called Evanesce 2. I definitely do see the similarities between this and it’s first part: both are powerful and sort of space-esque. This song is nice, but with the memory of the powerful 10-member strong Super Junior belting out the iconic lyrics from Evanesce make this track slightly pale in comparison.

Never mind, because we then move on to the most exciting part of the album: the solo tracks! First we have Donghae’s solo song Lost. This is my FAVOURITE non-title track on the album, for many reasons. Firstly, that emotive electric guitar melody in the background is just heavenly. I’m not normally a big fan of rock music, but I do love this classic rock ballad style. Donghae’s voice starts out muted, but then comes through clearly a few lines in. I really love this effect, and as a big fan of Donghae’s voice, I am left completely satisfied. It seems Donghae’s best work is done when he’s singing about heartbreak (see Growing Pains & One More Chance…).  In this song, he is lamenting over his ex-love, who he can’t get over. The song’s Korean title 지독하게  means severely.

“I loved you severely… I know I can’t turn things back to the way they were But why is my heart like this?”

What I really loved about the two solo tracks is how they perfectly reflected the contrasting personalities of the two members. Whilst Donghae’s is romantic, passionate and full of pathos, Eunhyuk’s solo song Obsessed is dark, sexy and masculine, much like the man himself. As Eunhyuk is a primarily a rapper, this song is naturally rap heavy, leaning towards hip-hop style, but still maintaining that Super Junior flare. Eunhyuk’s voice is rough and powerful, and he demonstrates his singing abilities in this track too. I especially love the meaning of this song, as I can totally relate to what he’s feeling…

“Totally immersed, alone my crush Love is a lonely feeling, can’t possibly be easy baby… Today as well i’ll follow the sound of our footsteps.. In a blink, you’ll soon feel like you need me I’ll be your man, i’m not obsessed.”

The last track on this album is a very special one called Victory. It is such a heart-warming way to end such a beautiful album! This song seems to be dedicated to the eternal love story between SUJU and E.L.F, and I can definitely feel the love that Donghae and Eunhyuk are radiating. The lyrics are so sweet, and the melody is so up-lifting. Composed by Donghae, this track has his signature guitar instrumental style and emotional pre-chorus & bridge combo. This is the type of song that makes you want to throw your hands up in the hair and wave them in slow motion.

“Look at the sky, gaze up there Together we’ll go up There will be no problems no more If I walk together with you”

This album was fresh and exciting, and shows off Super Junior’s incredible diversity as artists. This is truly a feel good album, and one that I will be coming back to for years to come!

Kpop Review Café’s Overall Album Ranking: 7.5/10

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Comeback Celebration: My Dream Blackpink Comeback!

Today’s question—how does Blackpink return after “Lovesick Girls”? It isn’t one of my favorites of theirs, but it's cemented positively in my memory because it feels like a shift in direction for them, vivacious in a way I don’t think we’ve seen from the group in a while (since the Square Up bsides, in my humble opinion)! And so here’s my dream follow-up to The Album, where I basically try to distill my favorite parts about the release into my ideal Blackpink mini!

Track 1: "You’re Not Good Enough" by Blood Orange 

This song is the odd one out on this hypothetical album, I think, with a more toned-down sense of fun compared to the others, but there’s something about its sweet-and-sour melody and the way the beat hits that makes it just as club-ready as “Boombayah”. That being said, “You’re Not Good Enough” is newer territory for Blackpink in that it provides an opportunity to experiment with softer, smokier vocals. I would absolutely love to see this track promoted in America; it’s a perfect blend of retro and bedroom pop for today’s musical climate, and the way this track relies on expressive vocal performances would help highlight what I think the best part of any Blackpink song is--their vocals!

Track 2 (Title): "Love is the Way" by Red Velvet

I knew, right when I started thinking about a new Blackpink title track, that I wanted them doing doo-wop! “Ice Cream” as a song doesn’t work for me, but its aesthetics absolutely do. Headbands, bows, stripes, everything washed in pastel pink and blue--it includes all the most fun parts of Grease’s styling (I'm thinking pink ladies jackets!! sleepover scenes!! obnoxious jewel tones!!), and I think the concept deserves a re-do with a song as smooth and catchy as “Love is the Way”. Both “As If It’s Your Last” and “Pretty Savage” have these fleeting moments of echo-y background vocals that I always end up wanting more of (THEY CUT IT SO SHORT IN PRETTY SAVAGE *cries*), and this song is full of opportunities to really explore them through lots of yeah’s and ooh’s! Blackpink has the sugary vocals from Rosé and Jisoo to do a Red Velvet song justice, along with Jennie’s belt for the sing-along chorus, and I think it would be super fun to see them tackle a cute, flighty rap like the one “Love is the Way” has! 

Track 3 (Promoted Side Track): "Sour Candy" by Woodz

Okay so yes I acknowledge that this would be a second song called “Sour Candy” in their discography, but this “Sour Candy” earns its place because it is such a charmer, with all its idiosyncratic elements coming off as funny, then cute, then compelling, and then funny again, so I can never really be mad at them. The rap over shrill keyboard riffs and little “bing” noises, the space in the chorus for pretty falsetto, the random chants in the background (I can’t act like I don’t say “pit a pat pit a pat pit a pat pit a paaaaaaat” along with Woodz every single time--) all make this a song that, yes, to be fair, is a demon child, but one that I obstinately refuse to find fault with. I think the members would absolutely rock the kind of tongue-in-cheek delivery "Sour Candy" requires--it’s a level of sass that fits with their girl crush concepts while also being just totally off the walls, allowing them to put away their glittery sophistication in favor of taking a break to drink orange juice and attempt to eat a lemon for the fun of it!

Track 4: "Do Re Mi Fa Sol" by Park Bom 

And here we take a quieter turn with Park Bom’s lovely 2021 comeback, one which has near infinite replay value for me. It’s soft and muted, but it's also spiced up with belted high notes, bass, snaps, and staccato. I think it belongs in this album because of Changmo’s section--his appearance here got me really interested in him because he manages to fill one verse done all by himself with interplay between two voices, one heavy and one melodic, and I really want to see Jennie and Lisa divide it up between themselves!

Track 5: "Holy Ground (Taylor’s Version)" by Taylor Swift 

Every part of this song is so fun, from the switch-ups in rhythm between the verse and chorus, to the screaming-karaoke-in-the-car bridge that gets repeated 4 (yay!!!) times, to the synth that sounds like fairy lights strung underneath the guitar. I’m sure it would be pure bliss to hear Blackpink strike a balance between alt-rock guitar and angsty dance pop with “Holy Ground”, and I think it would fit perfectly with “Stay” and “Lovesick Girls” as a part of their coming-of-age-movie sound. 

Track 6: "See U Later (remix feat. Wonho)" by Blackpink

Mini storytime: Wonho’s voice sold me on my favorite lyrics of 2021 in “Ain’t About You” from his second solo album. The song is super passive-aggressive, and Wonho really leans into the saccharine parts of his vocal tone, making the petty lines even more entertaining. Now I want Wonho’s voice complimenting the Barbie-pink tones in the verses of “See U Later”, too. It would be so much fun!!

[astrotranslations]

ASTRO for The Star (2017 December issue)

MJ

Which is the song that you favour the most amongst the tracks included in this album? It’s 'Run'. I wanted to quickly record for it as soon as I heard the song. I liked it the most.

What makes people join your fandom? My bright energy. I’m in charge of being the happy virus in our team. Wouldn’t my ability to make the people around me happy be my charm?

What are you hooked on lately? Eating. I’m not picky. I’ve been eating well recently so I’m super happy. I gain strength from eating.

When is it that you usually feel the happiest? It’s the most fun whenever I’m fooling around with the members. Even when we meet eyes on stage, it’s so funny. There’s a certain thrill. Even more so when it’s a live broadcast.

I heard that you want to challenge musicals. Are there any musicals you want to try or that you like? The musical that I first watched was a musical called <Mum>. The subject matter was really sad, that was the first time I felt touched watching a musical. I think it’s pretty charming how you can both act and sing on stage.

JinJin

ASTRO who have returned with their 5th mini album. Between the refreshing and sexy concepts for this album, which do you think you’re closer to? Before attempting this album, I thought of course I was refreshing. There’s the thing about my eye smile and my image has always been cute but doing the rap for the new song and having reviewed a lot on my facial expressions, I guess fans think I’m a little sexy.

Which is the song that you favour the most amongst the tracks included in this album? The song titled 'Better With You'. I think I always favour the ballad track with every album. The rap part that goes with the slow tempo is long so it’s fun since I get to tell different stories. I’m also satisfied with how it turned out.

What are you hooked on lately? Rap making. I got a lot closer to MONSTA X’s Jooheon hyung and SEVENTEEN’s S.Coups recently so we often talk about rap. They’re hyungs who have always liked rap so I get really motivated too.

You wrapped up your first solo concert last July on a successful note so I’m curious how you feel. We have an official lightstick called 'robong-ie'. I saw how the concert venue was glowing with the purple light from robong-ie and it made me feel really happy. It made me realise how it was worthwhile working hard. I remember crying towards the end of the concert. If the opportunity arises then I’d like to show fans our diverse sides in an even bigger concert venue.

You’re showing us charms which have matured a level higher going from boys to men so who are the members with the manliest personalities? It’s Bin-ie. There are two members in our team with blood type B and it’s Eunwoo and Bin-ie. Eunwoo has a meticulous side to him so he’s a little bit careful. Bin-ie on the other hand, his personality is slightly more fiery. He’s the sort who’s more direct with his words. My personality’s too soft so that kind of quality is actually a lot of help to me.

Cha Eunwoo

Are there any episodes you remember from when you filmed the music video for your title track, 'Crazy Sexy Cool'? When we were filming, there was a set decorated to look like a dorm. I joked with the director that I was going to take home with me the blanket that I used to cover myself and that blanket is at our dorm right now. I’m making full use of it (laughs).

What are you hooked on lately? I like Japanese dramas and animations. I’ve rewatched <Ties of Shooting Stars> and <Death Note> recently. I watched them wanting to learn Japanese but I’m slowly getting hooked.

You’re in charge of an idol role in <Revenge Note>. Is there a role you’d like to try out if the opportunity arises? I want to try a school drama while I’m still young. I was studious ever since I was younger so my image is an upright one even within the team, but I’d like to try the role of a delinquent. I’ve a younger brother so I’d also like to try a production involving brotherhood.

I heard that your sleeping habits are unique. What is the sleeping habit which you heard from the members that had you the most taken aback? Honestly, they’re all funny (laughs). There was once before when I went on an extreme diet and during that period, one of the foods that I really wanted to eat was chicken with green onion. They said that I was chanting, "Chicken with green onion, chicken with green onion," in my sleep so how badly must I have wanted to eat it. They said they thought I was awake.

What are the goals you want to achieve both as a member of ASTRO and as an actor? I want to become someone who cares about the little things. A cool person inside and out. Someone who keeps to the words he says, who gives off a good impression to the people around him and who those people can put their trust in.

Lastly, a word to your fans. One of the things I’ve been practicing lately is uploading one post per day on the fancafe. I made a separate category called 'AROHA and Eunwoo’s Room' and uploading there so please leave lots of comments and think often of Eunwoo.

Moonbin

Which is the song that you favour the most amongst the tracks included in this album? I’m really fond of our title track, 'Crazy Sexy Cool'. I gave the other track nominees a listen but 'Crazy Sexy Cool' really spoke to me as a title track. We tried a pop feel this time round and the song came out good so I’m proud.

What makes people want to join your fandom? My gap on and off stage and my lean muscles (laughs). I’m the sort to focus when I’m on stage but when I’m off it, I’m a little more friendly and bright.

Is there anything you’d like to do on Christmas? If it’s during our break then I want to go to hang out at a ski resort or some place and grill meat. As the members and I rejuvenate ourselves together.

Contrary to your cute nickname, 'puppy-kitty', you don’t seem to have a lot of aegyo so when is it that you yourself think you’re the cutest? It’s a nickname our fans made for me because I’m like a cat when I’m sat still with a straight face and then like a dog when I smile, but I’m not sure, I don’t know whether I’m cute or not.

They call you the master of pancakes so do you like cooking on the regular? When we were trainees, we always made food to eat in the dorm rather than eating out. We had to regulate our meals so I tried my best to make my own food in order to be able to control my weight. Adding soy sauce to egg soup or stir fried vegetables to enhance the flavour is my secret method.

I heard that you have a lot of interest in pictures. How was filming for today’s pictorial which had flowers accompanying you? I feel a lot of regret. I had a late dinner yesterday, I didn’t know I’d get bloated this much. But it was really enjoyable shooting with the flowers and the pictures turned out good so I really like it. We’ve mainly shot for a lot of bright and cheery pictorials up till now so I wanted to try shooting for a pictorial that had a chill and carefree vibe like this one.

Rocky

ASTRO who have returned with their 5th mini album. Between the refreshing and sexy concepts for this album, which do you think you’re closer to? I’m going from 19 to 20 so I feel like I suit sexy more than refreshing.

Which is the song that you favour the most amongst the tracks included in this album? There’s a song called 'Butterfly' in which JinJin hyung and I both wrote the lyrics for together. I liked it to the point that the lyrics just came to me right as soon as I heard the melody.

Are there any episodes you remember from when you filmed the music video for your title track, 'Crazy Sexy Cool'? The scenes where we were playing instruments. The sound wasn’t going to be heard (in the music video) anyway so we could’ve just pretended to play but maybe because I’m greedy, I really wanted to blow the trumpet. So in the end I learnt how to play an instrument.

The sexiness you’ve been hiding all this time is being set free and I think your ash gray hair in particular has a lot to do with it. When is it that you yourself think you’re the sexiest? When I’m coming down from the stage after performing. I’m the kind to easily bloat but all that goes away when I step off the stage. So I commemorate the moment with a selfie (laughs).

I heard that you’re interested in acting as well. If you take up acting later on then what kind of actor would you like to be? A warm one. I hope that people will harbour dreams and have hope when they watch me act.

Please say something to your fans. You’ve been seeing only our refreshing side up till now so you may feel a little awkward seeing sexiness added on to that image this time round. But we gave our best in preparing so I hope you’ll look upon us kindly.

Yoon Sanha

ASTRO who have returned with their 5th mini album. Between the refreshing and sexy concepts for this album, which do you think you’re closer to? I think I’m still refreshing. Even I don’t think I look sexy when I’m monitoring our stages (laughs).

What do you think makes people join your fandom? My cuteness and how I’m like the youngest one. I’m not sure myself but whenever people look at me, they always tell me that I act like the youngest one and that I’m lovable.

You’re the youngest one both at home and in your team so what are the good and bad points of being the youngest? What’s good is that even though I may make a mistake, there are a lot of times when they’d understand it because I’m the youngest. Also, rather than it being a bad point, I try not to cross any lines even when I’m messing around since I’m young.

You’re in charge of cuteness and enthusiasm in ASTRO, who’s the member that reacts the best to your energy? MJ hyung and JinJin hyung. All the members react to me well. I’m not the only enthusiastic one, the hyungs are like that too. If one member starts fooling around then we all go crazy together.

I heard that you’ve been playing the guitar since elementary school. I think you have a vocal colour that suits well with acoustic sounds. If there’re any songs that you’ve been listening to lately then please introduce them. I’ve recently been enjoying MeloMance’s Gift. I also tried copying MoonMoon’s Contrail with my guitar and it was really good.

Is there anything that you want to do on Christmas? I want to spend it with my family. My mum’s birthday falls on Christmas. I want to hold a birthday party with my family and make good memories with them.

Translations by @9​9pmh Take out with full credits

[taetaesource]

Out of the Ordinary

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 

You won a lucky draw chance to meet BTS backstage and got to know Min Yoongi. 

As BTS was growing bigger and bigger, Yoongi's burdens seemed to get heavier and heavier. BTS moved dorms, took on more endorsement contracts, upgraded their studios and Yoongi got a much bigger studio with the freedom to decorate or put whatever he wanted in there. He was getting more responsibilities at work. He would usually only be in charge of writing songs after songs and producing a few of them. Most of the work was done by the older and more experienced song producers and writers of the company. The rappers of BTS were only contributors to a small part, mainly coming up with beats or the hooks of the song, the bulk of the production came from the backend team. But after hyyh proved to be a huge success, the company allowed Namjoon and Yoongi to take charge of more production. WINGS was the album that Namjoon and Yoongi poured their hearts into. You knew the efforts that were taken to produce this album and the scepticism Yoongi had towards it. Yoongi was not as involved as Namjoon as he was working on his mixtape at that time, but he was definitely stressed out over the two projects.

The number of sleepless nights, long discussions and quarrels with Namjoon, wrestling back and forth between the different drafts, this album deserved to be a hit. When Yoongi was working hard to prove his worth through his mixtape and album, you were working hard on your final year thesis. You had countless of sleepless nights as well, flipping through pages after pages, academic journals after academic journals, researching and fitting everything into coherent chapters of essays. While Yoongi went back and forth between Namjoon and the senior producers, you were constantly going back and forth your professors' offices.

Dates with Yoongi was no longer a thing as both of you were just too busy and stressed out. Occasionally, you would text Yoongi in between breathing time such as when you were waiting for your food to be done at the takeaway, and he would sometimes call you in between his breathing time such as when he was waiting for his computer to finish saving and uploading the file that he was working on.

When WINGS was out, you were in the final week before your submission. The album was such a hit that everyone was talking about it. BTS was on the TV and radio everywhere, the streets were playing their songs and their advertisements were all over the bus stops, underground tunnels, subway and LED screens. Yoongi was busy with his promotions and he knew that you were busy too so he could not call or text you during the period. You were too busy and stressed out with perfecting your thesis that you hadn’t noticed his silence. The last time he texted you was to tell you that the album was out on itunes and spotify and you were on your way to your professor’s office so you left him on read receipt. The meeting with your professor turned out to be a stressful one as he pointed out the points that you would need to change in order for your paper to be more coherent. “You have 5 more days to go young lady, and I am not sure how you are going to get all these changes done. I can only say that you should have gotten more research done a month ago and not at this last minute. With a paper like this, you should be happy with a C grade.” 

So even if WINGS topped the charts and BTS has been winning at all the music shows, you could not bring yourself to congratulate Yoongi. Heck, you could not even find the time and mood to watch and follow BTS news and updates. You literally had 5 days and a disappointed professor to deal with. You barely even had time to eat and sleep properly. 

The day before your submission deadline, you were holed up in the library finishing up the final chapter of your paper. You still had to prove read the entire 12 chapters and polish up your acknowledgment and citations pages. You worked through the night and finally submitted your paper at 8am. It was not your best as you felt that you could have done better if you had even just one more day. So you turned your paper in with a less than satisfied heart and not as relieved as you thought you would be. Nonetheless, you were so tired and exhausted, all you wanted to do was to get in bed and sleep till the next day. 

That evening, after you woke up from your long nap, Hee Ji suggested to go out for dinner in celebration of your thesis submission. Although you were still feeling the fatigue, you thought it was a nice idea to finally get out to see the world after weeks of hell. The both of you headed to the chicken store near your dorm. 

The shop had a good business but it was not very crowded so you didn’t have to wait for long to get a table. After settling down and placing your order, you noticed Hee Ji singing along to the song that was playing in the shop. The song was very catchy and had a chorus that sounded like, “money money money money.” You started to nod to the rhythm of the music and when the chorus kept repeating, you said to Hee Ji, “this song is so funny, are they really singing about money??” 

“Oh my god girl, it’s BTS telling you “i want you many many”???”

Your first reaction was to look around as if to check if you could see what you were hearing and indeed, the music was coming out from a TV screen at the side of the store. The TV was playing the music video and you could recognise that it was BTS. But the truth was cemented when you saw Yoongi in the music video. A weird feeling came up to you. You suddenly realised that you had no idea when exactly the album was released. You had no idea how does the song sound like, how does the album look like and how does your boyfriend look like in this comeback. You remembered reading the texts that Yoongi sent you but you have not listened to the album that he had put in so much effort into making. You felt guilty and you suddenly missed Yoongi alot. You picked your phone up, attempting to reply to his last text but figured that you should at least listen to the album first before talking to him about it. 

That night, you ran the album on spotify and read up on the latest news of the comeback. You texted Yoongi and surprisingly got a quick reply from him. 

Send: I just managed to listen to the full album and saw the MV while i was eating at the shop just now. I am so proud of you my love. 

Message from Yoongi: you submitted your paper? Ya the album was well received thankfully. I’m going for a radio show in awhile. I’m so goddamn tired. 

Send: All the best! Please eat well 

Message from Yoongi: we are on 009FM if you want to hear my voice. 

Send: why would i want to? I’m going to sleep. I literally just submitted my paper this morning with no sleep yesterday. 

Message from Yoongi: Fine. Don’t listen to it. 

Send: Promise you would say something funny on the show and I will listen to it. 

Message from Yoongi: Forget it. Sleep. 

Send: I am tuning in now. Remember to be funny, I’m listening. 

Send: And I miss you. 

Message from Yoongi: Idiot 

You had your radio on as you prepared for bed. You had washed up, applied your night cream, turned off the main light and lying on your back on your bed with the warm bedside lamp on and the soft music playing from the radio station. 

“It’s 11pm and you are listening to 009FM. How have your Monday been? Were you feeling the blues as you were getting to work or school this morning? As the day is coming to an end, I hope you would be encouraged that you made it through today and tomorrow is a brand new day again.” 

“For our dear listeners tonight, are you waiting for our special guests to be on air tonight? Are you exciting to listen to them on this show?” 

“Our guests are here with us tonight and they are BTS. Say hello to our listeners please.” 

“Hello, we are BTS!” 

“Wow so much energy from this bunch, it suddenly feels like our late night show has brightened up so much. Please introduce yourself and tell us how you are feeling now.” 

“Hi I’m Rap Mon, nice to meet you tonight” 

“Hi I’m Jin, I’m glad to be here on this show tonight” 

“Hello I’m Jimin. Please enjoy the show tonight.” 

“Hi I’m Jhope! Wah I see so many of our armys outside. Hello!” 

“Hello I’m V. Please send us lots of love.” 

“Hi I’m Jungkook. Nice to see all of you here.” 

“Hi I’m Suga. Nice to meet all of you on this show tonight.” 

“Wow I’m sure your fans are happy to meet all of you on this show as well. Congratulations on your new album! Please tell us more about your new comeback.” 

Rap Mon: “Yes, this album is our third full length album with 7 solo songs from the members. We have put in alot of effort in this album, with our own compositions and performances. The concept is new as well, it’s about meeting and overcoming the temptations that youths face.” 

“Ahhh are there any temptations that you face as well? Could each member tell us about your temptations? Let’s start with Jin?” 

Jin: “oh yes... that would be food for me.” 

“Oh yes, that is a temptation that is hard to resist. There’s just too much good food around isn’t it?” 

Jimin: “computer games” 

V and Jungkook: “me too, computer games.” 

Rap Mon: “sleep” 

Suga: “Yes, I am tempted to sleep now.” 

*everyone burst out laughing*

Jhope: “armyyyyyyys” 

“Hahaha and why would armys be your temptation?” 

Jhope: “they seduce my heart.” 

*everyone burst out laughing* 

“Hahahaha pretty sure love is one big temptation that every youth encounters. Is love a big concept in your new album?” 

Suga: “yes i would agree with you that love is a big temptation in youth and we have incorporated that into the album as well. If you listen to our title track “Blood Sweat Tears”, you would see lyrics that are along the lines of “getting drunk on love” and “wanting you many many”....

“And are these inspired by your experience of love?” 

Suga: “oh is this a trick question? hahaha i would say love is a big temptation because all of us know that love is a nice feeling- from movies, from books, from songs etc. Many times, we draw inspirations from these sources and we imagine and translate them into our songs and music. Love comes in many forms as well, it can be love between friends, family, and we hope to put in and show different aspects instead of just love between lovers.” 

“And what kind of love is the greatest temptation for you?” 

Suga: “haha another trick question?” 

Jhope: “love from armys” 

Jimin: “yes, our army’s love is irresistible.” 

Suga: “I guess it’s the love from someone who loves you unconditionally. When you love a person and the person loves you back even greater, even more than you expected, that’s when it becomes a temptation. A temptation to get closer, to give more and to love more.” 

Jhope: “that’s why we are always giving back to our armys greater music, greater songs, greater performances.” 

“Ahh that makes sense. To our armys listening to this show, are you feeling the love from BTS?” 

“To let our fans know how much you love them, please say something to those who are listening to our show.” 

Jimin: “thank you for loving us and supporting us, we will show you a better side of us with this new album and the performances to come.” 

Suga: “To the you, listening to this show, and the you who loves me, thank you for your love. I love you too.” 

“Our dear listeners, can you hear the love from BTS? May the love from this 7 lovely young men warm up your hearts tonight and give you the strength to live beautifully for the week. Goodnight.” 

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: The Cairo Gang

The Cairo Gang started out as a solo project for Chicago jack-of-all-bands Emmett Kelly, who has worked with Bonnie Prince Billy, Angel Olsen, Beth Orton and Sonny Smith, as well as sitting in Joshua Abrams’ transcendant Natural Information Society. Now, a five-piece augmented by Ryan Weinstein, Sam Wagster, Gillian Lisée and Marc Riordan, the Cairo Gang invokes VU-ish drones and Feelies jangles in an ear-friendly mix.  Brett Marion, reviewing the Gang’s latest Untouchable, hears “glam rock’s showbiz drama, jangle pop’s emotional sentiment and punk’s detached cool in equal doses.”  No surprise, then, that Kelley’s Listed spans genres and even art forms.  

Kevin Ayers & the Whole World — Shooting at the Moon

Sacrificing one’s sense of humor in order to make something serious is a foolish, yet common tendency among artists, especially musicians. I, as well am a fool, so don't get me wrong. The point is to recognize that you are a fool and that that is possibly the only means toward success in a world that is completely insane. 

Sullivan’s Travels — Preston Sturgess 

Making serious art reaches out to only those who have enough time on their hands to busy themselves with bullshit. It’s a perverse nature where those who have only to suffer their own inner suffering reach out to the suffering of others for entertainment. Give the people what they want!  

Harpo Speaks! — Harpo Marx

This book is pure magic. Distilled wisdom from a clown of the highest echelon. I first came into contact with the Marx Brothers when living in Chicago in a loft that was built by a film projectionist/international man of mystery. He built a proper theater in the loft and on occasion would get his hands on a print of something and play it for a small group of people next to a wood fire over glasses of wine and cheese. I think it was New Year’s Eve and he played us a 35mm print of A Night at the Opera. I do believe I have never been the same since. I remember going to the Rainbo afterwards. It was snowing and all of the sidewalks were ice. I happily slid to the bar and found my friends and danced for the rest of the night. 

  Corky’s Debt to His Father — Mayo Thompson

I remember first hearing this from a guy named John Klos in Chicago. He gave me this and A Wizard, A True Star by Todd Rundgren at the same time. I was really into Epic Soundtracks at the time and he thought those records were lame. I was new to town, and was going out and drinking a lot with random people that I have no idea how I met or why. It wasn't a good time, though crucial, and I remember deeply imbibing and in my best Sebastian Dangerfield would attempt conquest over a world I knew relatively nothing about, and to this day only barely know any more (or less!). There was thievery, violence, sex, and drugs, all of which became my good friends. Corky’s became a keystone at that point. And I think I have this record memorized. I feel like it might be one the best records about male female relations.   

I wanted to share the song “Black Legs,” but here this will do. The whole album is great and you can buy it directly from Drag City:

 Then Play On — Fleetwood Mac

I was raised by two characters. An Italian flower child from Detroit, and an Irish rock and roller from Dublin by way of London. I was raised to believe that Clapton was God, and that Peter Green was the Holy Spirit. I know Eric Clapton gets a bad rap and yeah, yeah I know. But he fucking ruled in Cream and Blind Faith and The Bluesbreakers. Peter Green took Clapton’s place in The Bluesbreakers. My father lived with Peter Green in London back in the 1960’s. He came to my house when I was a kid in Van Nuys cuz he was working on making a record with my dad (that eventually became In the Skies featuring Snowy White and Kuma Harada from Heavy Heart, my dad’s band). I always had this weird feeling about Peter. He did truly seem like a spirit. Like a secret force that only really, really hip people knew about. But Fleetwood Mac always confused me, because they turned into such a lame band once Peter Green left. Well that’s not entirely true, but more or less. Then Play On was the final Fleetwood Mac album with Green and it’s probably one of my top five favorite albums of all time and definitely one of the best examples in my mind of psychedelia put to music. I never understood why they didn't change their name.  

Catch a Fire — The Wailers

The Wailers are definitely one of the most important bands in my life. Bob Marley of course, but the magic trio that was The Wailers is something else. They are like the Beatles. Of course everyone wants to dig super deep and go as far away from the main source as they can. You know, prove their savvy-ness, but it always returns to these guys. They had the best harmonies and the best ever rhythm section ever. These days, it’s so lame to rep the obscurities. I mean whatever, there is so much rad shit out there in the world, but the internet made that pursuit so lame. Even the most bro dickheads in the world can use the internet and learn about what’s hip. Listen to The Beatles, The Wailers. Shit is fucking amazing. This album got reissued however many years ago with the original Jamaican mix before Chris Blackwell made it “more accessible”. It’s so killer.  

 Monty Python’s Flying Circus

When did it become funny or useful to complain about mundane life? Or when did anybody’s normal mundane lives get so important to everyone else to the point where they get to make a big cross bearing out of it? When did it become funny to talk about yuppie BS like, does this ever happen to you? I read this amazing thing in a paper relating a study interviewing college freshmen upon entering college. They were asked, do you think you have something special to offer the world? Over time the answer has become more often than not, “Yes, I have something special to offer the world.” This blows my mind. Not because people don't have special things to offer. It’s just that, really? Everyone has something special to offer the world? Like what? Complaining about being in line at the post office? Or relating the foibles of bachelor life? I don't know. It’s a narcissistic and voyeuristic present tense we live in. VR is what’s happening. I feel like I am going insane. 

The Book of Monelle — Marcel Schwob 

The further along I get, the more my relationship to people becomes elusive. I feel as though I want more and more to tell them how much they mean to me, but I know... it’s not as though they don't want to hear it. It’s just that there is a well of emotions that is deep, and tapping into it requires strength and people come from all sorts of different backgrounds. For me, I feel like my closest friends are ghosts. Those of departed friends, lovers, and all of the people that come and go as they all do in life. The ghosts of my life are the realest. And they are that which I have the most respect for and honor the most in everything I do. 

 Ten New Songs — Leonard Cohen

This album came out in October 2001. What a shite time for a record like this to come out! I didn't hear it until maybe five years ago. Will Oldham played it to me. It’s a wonderful collaboration between Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson, who was singing with Cohen for some time before this record. I heard a story that Sharon Robinson made these demos of the songs set to Cohen’s words with the intention of going into a studio and re-recording the music with live instruments and instead Leonard insisted on using the midi demos instead. Who knows if this is true? But in my mind it is. There are a couple major things in it that I love more than anything. First off: Boogie Street. Fuck YES. I have been to Boogie Street. I visit it regularly and whatever dubious fortune I find there lives with me always. And the song Alexandra Leaving is possibly the greatest love song ever written. 

  Banana Moon — Daevid Allen

 To return to the beginning. Kevin Ayers was possibly the coolest guy to ever walk the earth. He was part of a band called Soft Machine which was the result of him, Robert Wyatt and Mike Ratledge meeting the wild Australian hippie Daevid Allen. He somehow rolled into Canterbury in his rainbow glory and turned on all these cool young dudes on to free jazz and drugs and all kinds of amazing radical shit. He is the musical ‘pataphysician. The ultimate wild man. The fool, the clown, whatever you want him to be. He’s my favorite influence. Everything that came from Soft Machine is just totally what’s up. Gong, Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt etc. It’s everything I ever want. Its fun, its serious, its dense, its playful. It has substance, and it doesn't take itself too serious. It’s thoughtful, and doesn't alienate you. It’s not pretentious and yet super highbrow. This album Banana Moon was one of three, that’s right, three monumental albums that Allen was responsible for in the year 1971, the others being Gong’s Camembert Electrique, and Continental Circus. Its fully insane realizing they all came out the same year. 

[itzryyo]

More

          I am currently on a bus heading into the city for a field trip and am trying to maintain my sanity while also attempting to distract myself from the fact that I didn’t go to the bathroom before we left and traffic is real.        

          Someone asked me the other day, “So, like, what is your obsession with Drake all about?” My first reaction was to answer their question with a question and ask “uhh…why aren’t you obsessed with Drake?” To be fair, they were justified in asking me because I have a propensity to be incredibly all-or-nothing when it comes to my affinity for certain things (i.e., Chick-Fil-A, the Mets, Titanic & The Dark Knight to name a few.) I’m not really sure where it comes from, MOM, but it’s been that way my whole life. While I don’t have a vast array of interests, the things I am interested in, I commit to whole-heartedly. However, when it comes to music, we are talking about an entirely different entity.

          While TV shows, films and books can influence, art can inspire, and sports can invigorate, I contend that nothing touches the soul the way music does. When I’m in a good mood, Bruno Mars or Justin Timberlake will enjoy that mood with me. If I’m feeling melancholy, it’s much easier to have Boyz II Men or Dru Hill help me out than it is to plop down on the couch, put on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and commit to watching the whole thing. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You know what it was like when you heard “Burn” by Usher for the first time and he, word for word, expressed exactly how you felt about your current, 3-week-old high school relationship. Yes, we all wanted to be Spider-Man the first time we saw it in theaters, but do you still feel that way if, for some God-forsaken reason, TBS is airing it on a random day off? Probably not. But what about if “Bye-Bye-Bye” comes on the radio randomly while you're driving in the car? I guarantee you are gracefully moving your right arm from right to left while opening and closing your hand just like Justin, J.C. and the rest of the boys did. Whether your music is on shuffle and that ONE song comes on or you have listened to “Someone Like You” for the 32nd time in a row, music infiltrates the soul and is an uncanny medication for the heart. 

           Okay, but there's a lot of really good music, Ry, why the fix on this particular artist? I'm glad you just asked [in my imagination.] The power of music lies in one's ability to relate to it. I'm honest enough to admit that I have a tendency to think my opinions are unerring. I'll quickly discredit an artist or band because I personally don't like it, but to completely discredit another's experience or admiration because of my subjectivity is irresponsible and ignorant. I will never understand an artist like Future. I was disappointed when Drake did an entire album with him. But I've talked with people who have explained that (when they can understand what he's saying) they really relate to his songs. More power to 'em. A lot of people don't like Drake. I've heard (and argued) many people who dislike him for a myriad of reasons ranging from being "soft" to "not struggling enough" to "sounding the same on every song.” I can't make anyone like the guy and that's not why I'm even writing this in the first place. Remember: Traffic. Middle-schoolers. Full bladder. Voila.

          Reverting back to a previous point, music invades and harps on human emotion. I grew up with a variety of musical tastes because I was raised by an all-white family while almost all my friends were minorities. My uncle introduced me to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Doors and The Beatles. My mom played “American Pie”, Goo-Goo Dolls, Alanis Morisette, Sheryl Crow and Matchbox 20 on our road trips to Ohio in the summer (she also can rap “Public Service Announcement” and “Rapper’s Delight” word for word.) My dad blasted The Fugees, Jagged Edge, Ginuwine and Joe, while my friends and teammates got me well-acquainted with Jay, Mobb Deep, Dipset and DMX. This plethora of music has made me appreciative of all musical genres. Thanks to Apple Music and Spotify, all these artists are accessible with the touch of a button.

          If I had to choose, R&B and Hip-Hop would be my first two choices on what to listen to for the rest of my life. D-Block on my way to basketball practice and Brian McKnight while I fell asleep. “Fortunate” by Maxwell when I had a crush and “What They Want” by DMX and Sisqo when they rejected me. This was the routine growing up.

          I was sitting in my bedroom as a 9th grader the first time I heard “Cry For You” by Jodeci. If I put it on right now, I would feel the exact same way that I did the first time I heard it. So when Drake made a song referencing one of the greatest R&B groups of all-time, let alone one of my favorite songs, the connection grew stronger.

          Finding an artist who tapped into both genres with equal prowess was a dream come true for me. Add to that dual threat an artist who is biracial, grew up a single child in a single-parent household, raised by a white mother, and now you’re starting to reflect my actual upbringing. The funny thing about growing up biracial is that there never really seems to be a middle ground. Within the black community, I never felt “black” enough, as though it was my own doing that I was raised by a white mother; as if somehow it was my responsibility to earn my blackness more than those darker than I was, and until that validation was given, I couldn’t fit in. Flipping to the other side, when your entire family is white and your tan doesn’t go away in the winter, you stick out. I couldn’t style my hair like my uncle Jim’s. My little cousins never got asked if they were adopted. I was an anomaly for actually knowing the words to “Iris” by Goo-Goo Dolls. Considering all that, when Drake says “I used to get teased for being black and now I’m here and I’m not black enough, ‘cause I’m not acting tough or making stories up ‘bout where I’m actually from,” it hits home and it hits home hard.

          I didn’t grow up with any male presence consistently in my life. I taught myself how to shave. My mother taught me how to play sports. Nobody taught me how to fight, or “be a man.” I learned the definition of strength by seeing the women in my life bounce back from heartbreak and hardships. I also learned how to be really in touch with my emotions. I am a feeler. I feel every emotion in every crevice of my heart. So when this same biracial artist, who was raised by a single, white mother, explodes onto the hip-hop scene but is making emotional music, I cannot help but look up to him. When every attack and knock against this same biracial artist is that he’s too “soft” and is “too emotional,” my confusion swells. “What do you mean ‘too emotional’?!” Ironically enough, the very same people who bludgeon Drake’s music due to its overt honesty and raw emotion are probably the ones who can relate to it more than anyone else.

          Yes, the trap music is entertaining, but I can guarantee you that most of the men slandering Aubrey’s name have made more drunk calls to their ex (thanks Marvin’s Room) in a few months than they’ve ever pushed drugs, been gang affiliated or actually held a gun. Does this mean that those artists that promote that at the forefront of their records don’t reach people? Absolutely not. Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, Big Pun and others grew up around gangs, drugs and violence and speaks on things I have never seen or experienced in such a way, but there are plenty of people who have, which is the beauty of this whole music thing.

          Back to Aubrey. In a world immersed in the superficial, is not authenticity a breath of fresh air? Hasn’t the complaint in the hip-hop community always been a lack of credibility from certain rappers and artists? So now, we have someone who owns their identity, not trying to be something that he isn’t, and he’s not welcome here. So when Drake (referencing his friendship with Lil’ Wayne) says, “Weezy been on the edge, you n*****s just need to chill, if anything happen to papi, might pop a n***** for real,” people balk at the claim. Why? Because he makes R&B music and that is apparently synonymous with weakness. I don’t like guns and I am not a promoter of violence, but I’m a believer in defending the people closest to you. This is also a reflection of the frailty of masculinity in the 21st century, but I can’t let my ADD take me there.

          “But Ry, he isn’t real hip-hop. He talks white!” What do you think my friends used to say to me all the time growing up? The. Same. Damn. Thing. So yes, I appreciate Drake “talking white” in interviews because that’s the voice he was born with. I can’t help the way my voice sounds and it’s ridiculous to think I’d have to change it to meet a social standard. In a culture that watches, critiques and pounces on every single thing people do, Drake has never once strayed away from embracing all of the cultures he was introduced to growing up. He didn’t make apologies for making songs like “Doing It Wrong” and putting them on the same album where he put “Lord Knows.”Also, “Shut It Down” and “Uptown” are distinguishable, but not mutually exclusive. They both came from the same artist and they both hit when you put them on.

          I spent an inordinate amount of time growing up trying to establish which race I wanted to affiliate myself with full time. This artist and this music shattered that notion. From breakups to ball games, homages to family and anthems for friends, there is no area of life where there isn’t a soundtrack to go with it. That is a very comforting feeling for someone who struggled with having to choose between which culture to embrace. The dichotomy of having to choose one or the other was onerous but having someone burst into the industry that showed me, through their music, that it’s okay to fully embrace both was liberating. Is every song a hit? Um, actually…okay, maybe not every song. Was Views a great album? Eh, not my favorite. But that’s the beauty of music. You get to go on that journey with an artist and watch them grow and explore and hopefully, their last album doesn’t sound anything like the first, because that’s what growth is (Hi, Kanye fans).

          It doesn’t really matter what he puts out these days because as a fan, I’m always expecting the best and as a person, I’ll always be grateful for the lessons I learned from the music. As a fan, I’ll always want more. More emotion, more vulnerability, more bars and More Life.

[shawoluvs]

dkb and shinee!

DKB

do i already stan them? yes | only for the music | attempting to | no

my bias + bias wrecker: Based purely on our shared birthday, Yuku, the sweetest sunshine boy, is my bias~~~~~ And they're all wreckers, every single one of them, they're A LOT

first time i heard of them: I heard of them just after they debuted! I'm pretty sure it was through tumblr too, I got a suggested post from a blog that announces kpop debuts and I was like "oh they look cool I'll check them out" and I was just hooked from 'Sorry Mama'.

when i became a fan: Debut era~ When they debuted I was just a little in awe of them, honestly, not because they were necessarily better than other groups debuting at the time but for me 'Sorry Mama' didn't really sound like anything else that had been released. I thought it was really cool and interesting for them to use female vocals in their debut song at the end, it's usually a lot later that kpop groups have other artists involved like that (if ever, really) but that made the song really stand out and then I started watching some of their Dakcumentaries and just really liked them~

favorite (and least favorite) title track: My favourite title track is 'Still'! It was such a change up from 'Sorry Mama' but they did it so well, for me their debut really let the rap line shine but 'Still' was all about the vocalists and they did it so well!!! My least favourite title track is probably 'Sorry Mama'... ejrgberhge which ok yes I do love it but it's just my least favourite of the title tracks, I think they've grown a lot since their debut and while I do love the song it also has some of the worst line distribution so...

favorite (and least favorite) b-side: For me DKB have such a solid discography so early on, honestly, they went for very distinct concepts for all their albums and those concepts are carried through into every b-side so everything flows so well~ But my faves are: Fondue (like seriously guys... seriously... idk what it is... is it e-chan with his soft vocals or Junseo being given the credit he deserves??? idk but yes to all of it), Flower Less (again like!!!!!! yes!!!!!), Go Up (so cute, so wholesome), Rose (she classy, she a little bit sexy, she a subtle bop, we love her). I don't really have a least favourite b-side but I'll just say Youth because it's technically just like the album opener and it's too short at 1:43. OK and if I had to pick probably 'Samsung', because it's just idk it's funny??? I don't dislike it but it's pretty much just a promo for Samsung and as a Samsung user I relate to thinking the phones are pretty good but ejhrgbejre the song is just funny, if there was any song of theirs I'd occasional skip it would be that one.

favorite (and least favorite) mv: Favourite MV is 'Work Hard'! It's just colourful and cute, I love like the three different distinct groups the members are divided up into with completely different aesthetics and just the overall styling of the MV is so good, Lune with that golden-blonde hair??? YES. My least favourite MV is probably 'Sorry Mama' just 'cause it's not my favourite aesthetically, it's quite flashy from what I can remember and you canny see Junseo's face literally the entire time, like what was with the bucket hat????

favorite (and least favorite) album: 'LOVE'! It's my favourite of the debut mini series, all the songs are so good and so on concept, it's such a change up from their debut and such a good first comeback album, it's just flawless~~ My least favourite is probably 'The Dice is Cast' and it's literally only because it's their first full album but it's actually just a repackage of all their minis... and yet they didn't include every song??? Like song-wise it's brilliant 'cause I just think most of their songs are great but idk it just defeats the point of repackaging if you don't include all the songs?? I would've just liked a huge mega-repackage where they included all 18 songs on it but there's only 10...

a concept i wished they’d try: I'm not entirely sure, I think obviously a suit concept... 'cause I like suits and that's just the whole truth, if ever idol group wore suits every era I wouldn't be mad about it. I think I'd love to see them go really summery too though???? I think there are some members in particular who'd suit the concept really well (sunshine concept for my sunshine boy pls) and idk a song along the lines of like Astro's 'Baby' or Seventeen's 'Pretty U' or Golden Child's 'Pump It Up' or The Boyz 'Bloom Bloom' like something just fun and summery??? It's not something they've really done 'cause they've gone with different sounds but I think they've got the talent to pull it off and might be a good challenge for them.

what i like most about them: I think they just give off a lot of positive energy? I know we don't know anything really about these idols and honestly that's kinda how it should be, those boundaries are important, but together they seem to have a really good energy. They really hype each other up, they seem really hard working and ambitious, all of them are really willing to put in the work to get better at what they do and I think in an industry like theirs it's important to be motivated but also have people around you to build you up and encourage you, which is what they seem to do for each other.

SHINee

do i already stan them? YES | only for the music | attempting to | no

my bias + bias wrecker: I love all of them equally but Taemin was my first bias!

first time i heard of them: I heard SHINee for the first time in about 2012, at the time I was watching a lot of anime (anime mvs on youtube too haha good times) and listening to a lot of the osts on youtube, then one day Sherlock was recommended to me, I clicked on it and I have been a sucker for them ever since.

when i became a fan: I pretty much became a fan immediately, they drew me in so quickly and once I'd heard Sherlock I was watching all their previous stuff, listening to their b-sides and finding out a lot more about them! They're pretty much the only kpop group I've listened to consistently since 2012, it took me a good while to get into a lot of other groups beyond casual listening but I heard those 5 shining boys and I was gone~

favorite (and least favorite) title track: My absolute favourites are: Replay, Love Like Oxygen, Juliette, Ring Ding Dong, Lucifer, Hello, Sherlock, Dream Girl, Why So Serious?, Everybody, View, Married to the Music, 1 of 1, Tell Me What To Do, Good Evening, I Want You, Our Page, Countless, Don't Call Me and Atlantis! And I don't believe there is any to dislike~ Also a shout out to their Japanese discography 'cause I only mentioned their Korean ones but tracks like DxDxD and Get the Treasure and Sing Your Song are also everything~~

favorite (and least favorite) b-side: I can't manage what I did above where I list every single b-side and to be fair they're probably not all my favourite, even though I love them all, so off the top of my head (and I literally mean just what I can remember this second) my faves are: Area, Body Rythm, Hitchhiking, Aside, Electric, Chemistry, Undercover, Colorful, Runaway, Excuse Me Miss, Love Sick, I Really Want You, Marry You, Heart Attack, Don't Stop, Feel Good, Forever or Never and Savior~ and unsurprisingly there aren't really any b-sides I don't like, depending on my mood there's always something SHINee's done that will work~ Again I mainly did their Korean discography here too but their Japanese music is incredible songs like ABOAB, LUCKY STAR, Tell Me Your Name, Diamond Sky, Downtown Baby, Colours of the Season and 君のせいで, to name just a few, are amazing!

favorite (and least favorite) mv: I love most of their MVs but of course Replay, View, Atlantis and Married to the Music come to mind~ Also Your Number isn't technically an MV but it's literally one of my favourite videos of all time, I could (and perhaps have) watch it a billion times! There's not really MVs I can think of that I don't like, even the ones that are a bit dated now are so iconic that they hold a special place in my heart~

favorite (and least favorite) album: At the moment I won't deny the Atlantis repackage is probably one of my favourites, simply because it's still so fresh and I have listened to the others a billion times. I do really love 1of1 too! I don't really have a least favourite album, my absolute favourite songs tend to be scattered on all different ones so... canny pick one~

a concept i wished they’d try: Gosh, what haven't they already done? I guess it'd be interesting to see them do a darker concept because they've not done a lot of that, something quite intense with I guess Tell Me What to Do vibes but a bit more... I don't wanna say horror based but I don't know how else to describe it????

what i like most about them: Without going off on an emotional tangent, what I love most about SHINee is that their music cheered me up during some really tough times in my life. I really think music can be a very powerful thing and all different people have different relationships with music, for me SHINee was just one of those influences that always made me feel better. They were a great source of motivation, as individuals they've all overcome a lot and the fact that we had people like Jonghyun who talked about his struggles and offered support to his listeners, really making music for not only himself for them too, it meant a lot. I also just love that at this point they're so comfortable and confident in who they are, they're no longer making music for wins and to stay on top of other groups, they've worked hard and accomplished so much, they have a supportive and consistent fanbase and I think they can really just enjoy the whole thing a lot more? The music they make is fun and powerful and interesting, they push boundaries as individuals and a group, and they just get better and better~ They set the standard, honestly~

[sheilacwall]

hip hop isn’t dead.: Ice Cube

Somehow War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) is only the sixth solo album from rapper-slash-actor-slash-professional basketball league founder O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson. It feels like we’ve been discussing this motherfucker forever, or at least since 2007, right? Obviously the man has been doing a lot since his entrance into our chosen genre via N.W.A.: aside from his whole actor/writer/director side gig, he’s released compilations, been a part of multiple soundtrack releases, and even found time to create an entirely separate group, Westside Connection (alongside his protégée Mack 10 and his friend WC). But the man hasn’t ever truly stepped away from his solo career, which is part of the reason we’re talking about today’s subject.

War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Album) is the second half of a project that Cube conceived way back in the previous century (read: 1998). War & Peace, curiously named after the soft drink and not the Tolstoy doorstop, served as our host’s excuse to deliver the gangsta rap and social commentary he was best known for post-Jerry Heller, along with some attempts to construct a much broader audience through radio airplay, club bangers, cautionary tales, and skinny-dipping in the waters of different musical genres. Although for some reason I’m remembering this being announced as a double-disc effort, Ice Cube released the first volume, subtitled The War Disc, close to the Thanksgiving holiday in 1998, with The Peace Disc scheduled to follow soon after, as they were recorded and compiled at the same time.

The War Disc was met with mixed reviews, as Cube rested on his laurels a bit too much: there’s one song that is a direct sequel to one of his classic tracks, “Once Upon a Time In The Projects 2”; he leaned heavily on a younger artist signed to his label, Mr. Short Khop (who, interestingly enough, doesn’t appear on The Peace Disc at all); there’s a collaboration with motherfucking Korn called “Fuck Dying”. (Cube also appeared on Korn’s 1998 album Follow the Leader: both songs helped cue up the inaugural Family Values tour, which they were both headliners on.) But aside from a couple of tracks that played into his storytelling skills, The War Disc quietly vanished from rotation, leaving our host to retool the planned follow-up in an effort to course-correct.

War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc), the final album released under Cube’s deal with Priority Records, is definitely not what was already completed when The War Disc was released. For one, the very first track, “Hello”, is a collaboration with former N.W.A. bandmates MC Ren and Dr. Dre, a move which wouldn’t have happened in 1998, but made more sense in 2000 after N.W.A. officially reunited for a song off of the soundtrack for Cube’s Next Friday (and also after Dre released 2001, a blockbuster project that put him back on the map). In addition, the first single, “You Can Do It”, came from that same soundtrack and was Cube’s most popular radio hit since 1997’s “We Be Clubbin’”. So I get why he’d want to retool the project to capitalize on those strengths.

The Peace Disc vanished seemingly quicker than its predecessor, possibly due to the chart dominance of his friend Dr. Dre and Dre’s artist Eminem at the time. It did manage to sell over five hundred thousand units in the United States, but find me somebody who proudly has this one displayed in their collection. I dare you. I double dog dare you, motherfucker. Nobody gives a fuck about War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc), and I include Ice Cube in that description. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the album is entirely bad, so let’s peek under the hood and review this sucker.

1. HELLO (FEAT. DR. DRE & MC REN)

O’Shea hits the ground running, commissioning an N.W.A. reunion that is much more successful than their official comeback on the Next Friday soundtrack (“Chin Check”, for those of you keeping score). A simplistic Dr. Dre. prescription, which bangs, lays the groundwork for Dre, MC Ren, and our host Ice Cube to… complain about the current (as of 2000, anyway) state of hip hop like the elder statesmen they are: they have a specific grievance regarding not being credited for “start[ing] this gangsta shit” (which absolutely isn’t true, but regardless of who you think kicked off the sub-genre, the various members of N.W.A. are cited as influences all. The. Goddamn. Time. Maybe not Yella). As far as old dudes talking shit as though evolution in language and culture hadn’t ever occurred, Ren comes across as alright (his comment about lesbians not exactly homophobic but still iffy nevertheless), while Andre sticks with his “I’m rich, I don’t have to do shit” mentality. Thankfully, O’Shea tears through his verse with a ferocity he hasn’t displayed since Westside Connection’s Bow Down, and I say that even though the phase of his career where he insisted on nicknaming himself the “Don Dada” is still represented on here. So yeah, this was a success overall. Thank God, right? I mean, can you imagine two subpar late-period N.W.A. reunion tracks in a row?

2. PIMP HOMEO (SKIT)

I know Cube’s trying to be funny here, but this was bad. At least it wasn’t homophobic, though, as the title may have implied. Absolutely misogynistic, though.

3. YOU AIN’T GOTTA LIE (TA KICK IT) (FEAT. CHRIS ROCK)

Fairly confusing, as “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Ta Kick It”) isn’t really the love rap sort-of promised by the preceding skit. O’Shea spits his boasts-n-bullshit, which, interestingly enough, include proclamations of being a great father, while guest Chris Rock threatens to undermine the entire operation with his contributions to the hook. The concept isn’t set up well enough for this three-man production (this was credited to former Bad Boy Hitman Chucky Thompson along with Rich Nice and Loren Hill) to make any fucking sense, as Cube isn’t really hitting on anyone as much as he’s offering up facts about himself as though he recorded his bars while standing behind a podium, while Rock tries to come up with the most ridiculous lies during the hook. Dude is kind of amusing toward the end, but overall this shit was a misfire. It was good while it lasted, though.

4. THE GUTTER SHIT (FEAT. JAYO FELONY, GANGSTA, & SQUEAK RU)

LOL there’s a rapper named Gangsta? Have we officially used up all of the words? Anywhoozle, our host envisioned “The Gutter Shit” as a collaboration with like-minded West Coast artists, but could only convince Jayo Felony and two other no-names to commit, and my Lord does this Cube- and T-Bone-produced aural interpretation of a sad face emoji suuuuuuuuuck. The two artists on here that you’ve never heard of before or since seem excited enough for the opportunity but flounder when called upon, while Jayo is terrible as always. But the true loser here is our host, who somehow found the time to contribute two awful verses that wouldn’t even be stocked in the same type of store as the gutter shit he was once capable of. And what the fuck is with that reference to the previous track?

5. SUPREME HUSTLE

There is no planet within our galaxy where Ice Cube could have honestly believed that “Supreme Hustle” was a song good enough to make War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc). My guess is that the production trio from “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Ta Kick It)” had called in a collective Make-A-Wish, as this elementary excursion into simplistic rap boasting is embarrassing as shit to listen to. At least our host sticks with his theme: each of the three verses places emphasis on “I”, “you”, and “we”, respectively. But there is no hustle to be found on here, and O’Shea’s hand-waving about what he considers to be the cause of domestic violence was puzzling as hell. I cannot stress enough how fucking godawful this shit was.

6. MENTAL WARFARE (SKIT)

…

7. 24 MO’ HOURS

When critics mention older rappers struggling to sound relevant with their newer songs, “24 Mo’ Hours” is what they’re referring to. If War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) were released today, the Battlecat instrumental, which both sucks and doesn’t fit our host’s general aesthetic, which is a strange critique given Battlecat’s history of producing Cali-based bangers, would almost certainly be swapped out for something from the likes of Metro Boomin’ or Zaytoven, and it would still sound terrible. Ugh.

8. UNTIL WE RICH (FEAT. KRAYZIE BONE)

I heard “Until We Rich” on the radio once probably in 2000 or so, and then have apparently never thought of it again until right now, which I believe is an accurate representation of how forgettable this Chucky & the Thompsons production was. Guest star Krayzie Bone, still riding a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony career wave at the time, circles and underlines Slick Rick’s “Hey Young World” with his performance, which is dull, while O’Shea tries his darnedest to give listeners an optimistic, motivational speech, even going so far as to censor his own cursing, so as to reach as wide an audience as possible. Sure, “Until We Rich” fits the ‘peace’ requirement of this project, but at what cost?

9. YOU CAN DO IT (FEAT. MACK 10 & MS. TOI)

You two already know this song, which first appeared on the soundtrack for Next Friday in 1999 but was popular enough to justify Priority Records placing it on as many projects as possible, I suppose. For the handful of readers who somehow missed this footnote in popular culture, “You Can Do It”, a spiritual follow-up to “We Be Clubbin’”, the hit single from our host’s directorial debut The Players Club, finds Cube, Ms. Toi, and his boy Mack 10 putting their asses into a One Eye-produced club effort that is slight on lyrics, but is rather catchy otherwise. It sounds so fucking absurd today that it somehow shifts from “corny” to “entertainingly corny” during Cube’s opening verse and never once budges again. At least our host sounded engaged on here, unlike most everything else on War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) thus far, and having Mack 1-0 perform over a fast-paced beat forces him to match that energy or die trying. Inessential, but it brings the pretty girls at the club out onto the floor, in case that helps you in any way.

10. MACKIN’ & DRIVING (SKIT)

Playing War & Peace Vol. 1 (The War Disc)’s first single, “Pushin’ Weight”, in the background of this interlude only reminded me of rapper Mr. Short Khop, whose career was abruptly halted after Cube stopped giving a shit about his young charge. I mean, why else would he not have been a good enough performer to make it to the second volume? Good call by the way, O’Shea.

11. GOTTA BE INSANITY

Curious, but not entirely out of left field when you remember “You Can Do It” was a hit, so why wouldn’t O’Shea go back to that well? The funky-ish guitar loop on this Mario Winans (!) production reminded me of Jermaine Dupri’s “Going Home With Me”, except I like that song and found this one to be middling at best, as Cube panders to the lowest common denominator while trying to get back inside the club. I can’t be sure who our host thought his audience was when he recorded “Gotta Be Insanity”, but he’s done enough good work and has earned the ability to record and release whatever he wants. Still doesn’t mean we’re all required to listen to any of it, however.

12. ROLL ALL DAY

As we all know and agree with every third Wednesday at our meetings, the best storytelling raps are the ones where you don’t realize the artist is even telling a story until the third verse. That’s what happens on “Roll All Day”, anyway. Over a One Eye beat that doesn’t entirely gel but has its moments, Ice Cube boasts about having purchased a full tank of gas (a fact repeated throughout, with a humorous callback toward the end) and offering to cruise around with a woman he just met in exchange for sexual intercourse. You know, standard-issue rap-type shit, but it begs the question: why is she so interested in the car? Has the woman in question never been inside an automobile before? Cube could have probably rolled up on a pedal bike and worked out a similar proposition just because he’s Ice Cube, but I suppose there’s no vehicle for a story there (pun intended). Regardless, he never gets that far, as by the third verse she’s [SPOILER ALERT FOR A NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD SONG] broken the car’s windows and, later, stolen it outright. His flow is strictly boasts-n-bullshit until the ending, where he reveals some of that sense of humor he tapped into while writing Friday. “Roll All Day” is meh, but the effort was appreciated, at least.

13. CAN YOU BOUNCE?

This was fucking terrible, and that’s without O’Shea making a Pokemon reference, which he absolutely does on here. So that happened. (Also, Younglord apparently produced the beat. Was War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) designed as Ice Cube’s covert demo reel to hopefully snag a label deal with Bad Boy Records? Because the gambit hasn’t paid off yet.)

14. DINNER WITH THE CEO (SKIT)

…

15. RECORD COMPANY PIMPIN’

The flip side of EPMD’s “Please Listen To My Demo”, down to the same Faze-O “Riding High” sample being used, as Ice Cube and producer Bud’da urge the youth not to get involved in the rap game without learning the business side of the industry first. Advice such as this can only come from someone who was famously jerked around by their label in the past, as Cube was during his short stint with Ruthless Records, but while the man clearly knows of what he speaks, that doesn’t mean “Record Company Pimpin’” (a topic many artists have tackled before and since O’Shea put pen to paper) is an entertaining song to actually listen to. Our host should have taken these ideas and given a TED Talk instead. That’s not a joke: imagine how many people he could help in the process. But you can skip this track outright.

16. WAITIN’ TA HATE

So it turns out that War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) is a stealth EPMD tribute album filtered through a Puff Daddy lens. That’s a lie, obviously, but “Waitin’ Ta Hate” is the second song in a row to pay homage to Erick and Parish specifically, although this time around producers One Eye and DJ Joe Rodriguez (that name gets to the point, can’t be mad at that) get lazy by choosing to just sample “So Wat Cha Sayin’” directly. For his part, O’Shea sounds downright angry on here, which informs an entertaining performance that isn’t reminiscent of his finest work, but let’s be real, it’s the best we’ll get at this point. The production doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from the EPMD standard, but maybe, this time around, it isn’t such a bad thing. (Side note to E-Double: you should give Cube a shout for a future collaboration, as the man is clearly a fan.)

17. N—A OF THE CENTURY

Accompanied by someone that could be that Pain In Da Ass dude whose entire shtick was aping flicks such as Scarface and Goodfellas to open up early Roc-A-Fella Records projects but likely isn’t, which means there were two of these guys in our chosen genre at some point, which seems wasteful somehow, our host caps off the evening lobbying for an award that doesn’t exist. Charley Chap’s production is too dull to properly reward Ice Cube as a winner of any competition, and O’Shea’s own bars aren’t worth wasting a paragraph on. At least we’re done here.

FINAL THOUGHTS: War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) approaches self-parody at points, as Ice Cube genuinely seems to not understand just what it was about his work that listeners connected with back in the early 1990s. It certainly wasn’t this shit: nobody ever wanted to hear what it would have sounded like had Cube signed with Bad Boy Records twelve years after his prime. The O’Shea Jackson found on this project is a man who is content with his station in life: the only time he ever really comes across as passionate about anything is when he’s schooling younger artists on the inner workings of the music industry, a topic that obviously resonates with him. Even his generic threats on “Hello”, a song I fucking liked his performance on, sound more like amiable suggestions than anything. When Cube gets in his storytelling bag, he seems to at least be having some fun with this shit (not that it always translates for the listener), but when he’s simply talking shit, the momentum on War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc), or whatever little momentum exists, halts immediately. Twenty years removed from his debut solo project, this album proved that Ice Cube was no longer vital to the ongoing health of the local hip hop concern. He has all of his other ventures to fall back on, and of course he’ll always be welcomed at the barbecues, but unless he’s laser-focused on targets (we’ll always have the first Westside Connection effort), he loses the plot very quickly, and one can only coast on charm and the acclaim derived from your prior work for so long.  I won’t go so far as to say that War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) is a “peace” of shit, because that pun is beneath me, but it’s plenty awful.

BUY OR BURN? Neither. If you absolutely must, stream the tracks listed below, but, you know, life is short.

BEST TRACKS: “Hello”; “Waitin’ Ta Hate”

-Max

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[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON JAWBREAKER’S MAIN VOCAL, LEAD RAP OH JUA...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Juniper CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 17 COMPANY: KJH ETC: this member is a vocal/performance soloist

IDOL IMAGE

oh jua is first marketed to the public as the adorable, slightly androgynous toddler born to a famed producer/rapper and his wife, an equally famous actress. she lives in the spotlight from then on, whether she’s particularly interested in it or not. in the early years her image is made for her, constructed by her parents and an editing crew. insightful, odd, sensitive - she’s a cute kid to watch and her childlike fascination with her father’s production equipment is endearing. but the show ends and soon she fades away, present only in the occasional social media update.

later, she is juniper. a product of singular focus, shaped into something fierce and feminine at once. it’s an image that suits her. she is lucky - her quick wit and familiarity with the way of the celebrity world have afforded her the insight needed to navigate image making all on her own. she presents herself as clever, sweet, a bit snarky but never too much - just enough to be funny, every quip chased with bright laughter and a smile that accentuates still rounded cheeks. she does what she has to do to get airtime, to be noticed - flirts here and there, acts up on social media. nothing too terribly incriminating, but just enough to get comments. enough to get articles. is she doing okay, they ask. she’s so pretty but what’s going on in her head? she’s trying too hard, stranger and stranger lately. she’s abrasive one minute and demure the next, what’s up with her? she’s too much, her gaze hawklike, charm or charisma overflowing. so yeah, there are scandals, blemishes and rumors that tarnish her image, but at least she can feel, in some way, as if there is a truthful part of her out there in the world, something unfiltered. though, of course, such an idea is foolish to consider reality, with each minor buzz creating photo as vetted at the next, a curated image of free-spirited pseudo rebellion.

juniper is, in the end, marketed as genuine. that’s the schtick that sticks. when jawbreaker is announced, behind the scenes, juniper is worry incarnate. by the time jawbreaker is seeing some success, she is hope against hope. she builds a name for herself on the back of endless efforts, of attempting to demonstrate the kind of skills worthy of an all around talent. they market her as this creature of destiny, born into what she is becoming - born to be a star.  the captivating visuals, the sultry voice, the surprisingly sweet and sour back and forth of her disposition. kjh wants the world to see her as authentic, as engaging. equal parts fierce and fun, as if it weren’t hard enough to project one image alone. they make her into a sympathetic figure, struggling with her passion for music but never being recognized for it. they put her onto shows that build sympathy for her. she’s genuine now, she’s sweet and she’s focused and she’s a little bit soft. she’s a bit of an underdog despite everything, despite the name cache. she gets bullied but she keeps her head up. she sasses and snarks on running man but they put her into a haunted house and she’s a mess of tears and childish, plaintive whimpers.

she’s exhausted and more than slightly frustrated, but with proper management comes greater expectations, she thinks, and puts her nose to the grindstone again. anything for opportunity. they push her producing and media play like she’s some kind of budding genius, like she’s inherited her father’s greatness, and as much as she wants it to be true she feels, intensely, as if this is in itself a ruse, just a marketing ploy, as if the authenticity of the songs she’s been hoarding on dusty hard drives is called into question just by the way kjh is pushing them into the world, like some kind of narrative being spun around her without her control.

at least when she was an instagram attention seeker she was controlling the narrative. but more and more, kjh is spinning her up in stories and she feels entangled, a fly caught in the spider’s web, spun up in silk.  so here she is. juniper, attention seeker, artsy, slightly worrying, maybe crazy, genuine, genius - a girl of muddled perception and lackluster dance skills, a girl with more connections than talent or a girl born to shine, depending on who you ask. a weirdo or relatable, a problem child or a prodigy, she is a polarizing figure with a lot to prove.

IDOL HISTORY

CHAPTER ONE.

it begins, in a mild winter in atlanta georgia.

juniper oh is born to loving parents in a hospital, in a particularly normal situation. in fact, it is perhaps alarmingly average. the delivery lasts the average amount of time, the doctor is mostly average, though perfectly competent, and the whole experience goes largely according to plan. it’s really nothing special.

the first year of her life follows this pattern.

she is a cooing babe in buckhead, nestled in a truly affluent area of atlanta, making pilgrimages to duluth to the gigantic h-mart there, so that her grandmother and grandfather can buy the ingredients for the traditional foods they still cherish, despite having left their home country many decades ago, by now.

it’s a nice life, a busy home, eclectic and warm. her mother sings in the shower every morning and her father’s collection of star wars legos is incredible. she’s loved, doted on, cherished.

CHAPTER TWO.

when juniper is two years old, however, she’s uprooted. her parents move back to seoul, to the careers that have afforded them such luxury in life. her father is a hip hop artist, her mother an actress, and juniper? juniper, once an unassuming but adorable baby, is now a celebrity child. at two years old this means nothing to her, there’s no context for it. just people who twitter and giggle when they see her father, just cameras that appear in her house overnight. they hide themselves, these cameramen, inside little white play houses she’s not allowed inside.

people start to recognize her on the street. dote on her, tease her boyish haircut and her obsession with succulents, the way she looks just like her father. she meets people with more money than sense, idols and actors, hosts and mcs. they dote on her too, put her on their instagrams, tag her dad for the likes, for the clout. they come over to play with her while the men with cameras are there.

her childhood is monetized, publicized.

by three years old she hates it. she’s tired of strangers commenting on her appearance. she doesn’t like them touching her hair or pinching her cheeks. all these people who know her name, strangers that call out to her with a familiarity that does nothing but breed stress in her bones before she should know what such a thing feels like. to his credit, by the time she’s able to verbalize this, at four years old, her father pulls them all off the show immediately. but maybe the damage is already done, to the formative child psyche.

CHAPTER THREE.

juniper oh goes by oh jua now, the name with which she was registered on the korean family trees. she’s in an english intensive kindergarten and after school she’s trucked off to various lessons. ballet and art, chinese characters and math. her father is working on an album and she sits on his lap in the studio. he lets her play with the dials and toy with buttons, lets her croon into the microphones. he records songs with her, burns them to cds to put in the car, lets her hear her own voice and his together. he asks her six year old opinions on his next title tracks and laughs when she calls some of them too noisy.

years pass in this way, and as she grows people pay less attention to her, more distance between her and her childhood brush with fame. she still appears on instagram from time to time on her parents’ accounts, and her father talks about her on occasion. dedicates songs to her, talks about her in interviews.  he’s open about the struggles he’s been through, and she’s nearing nine when she begins to understand the magnitude of it. of the witch hunts and scandals, of her father’s depression. it’s always been there in little ways but she grows older now, old enough to understand it in bits and pieces.

but only bits.

CHAPTER FOUR.

she’s ten years old when her dad decides to send her to america again, to live with her grandparents. the korean school system is gruelling even for a child. the pressure to keep up is intense, and at ten her peers are already in hagwons until well late into the night. her father sees in juniper much of his own anxieties and uncertainties and doesn’t want her broken down by a system born to grind you down.

all those years of immersive english schooling come in handy now, but it’s still hard. at ten years old picking up the language is quick but not as fast as it could be but learning the social ropes is even harder. she often finds herself feeling lost, up in the air, torn between worlds. the summers spent in seoul and the years spent in atlanta. one moment the child of somebodies, the next a nobody in her own right.

she loses herself in music and in art, in books and poetry, drowns in it until she begins to feel a little better. a little more grounded. it’s the normal way of the teenager and all that, to lose yourself in art to feel connected to something, to express the emotions that well up weighty and heavy in you in untamable waves.

CHAPTER FIVE.

when she’s fifteen she begs to return to seoul. at sixteen her father agrees. she auditions and enters sopa, seoul’s premier school of performing arts, as a vocal studies student. her father is proud of her but he’s hesitant, too. when she expresses a serious desire and a growing aptitude to pursue life as an idol, he’s skeptical to say the least.

all this almost killed me, junebug, he tells her, it’ll destroy you. you’re too soft for it all.

and maybe he’s right. but when kjh reaches out to her she takes the audition anyway. when they offer her a contract she begs him to sign it. promises him she’ll keep her head on straight, she’ll be careful. that she won’t lose herself in all of this. but she already has and they both know it. she was lost the day she was born, as if all of this has been coded into her dna. she’s had this desire in her since she first sat babbling in front of slides and knobs and dials and buttons on her father’s knee.

she passes the audition and signs the contract, her life etched down in blood, her soul traded away even if she doesn’t know it yet. she enters as a trainee and the buzz starts right away. it’s a subset of people uniquely groomed to know who her parents are, to have expectations of her, and right away she begins to fall short of them. her dancing is subpar, her rapping mediocre, her voice throaty and reverberating but not yet trained. she’s only been at this for a year and it shows. they cry nepotism and favoritism and she burns. seethes.

breaks her back to work twice as hard, a thousand times harder. she’s desperate and hungry for it, desires recognition in her own right, acknowledgement for herself and not as an extension of anyone else. father, mother, etcetera.

CHAPTER SIX

when debut comes, it comes with strings attached. narratives to be woven and opportunities presented. they end with a label of her as main vocal and lead rap and she struggles a bit with this. feels like the acknowledgement of her rapping talents - growing now, admittedly - to be premature. more media play than anything else, an easy extension of who she is in relation to her father. it pressures her to redouble her efforts on that front, to push herself further and further. they give her resources and groom her budding songwriting talents, encourage her to be honest. within the bounds of the image and appropriateness given to her, after all.

she kind of hates it. doesn’t love the way they only pick up the songs they can make into their girl power narratives. they don’t take the ones that ring truer, more raw. they like the ones that pop and flare and she gets it, there’s a narrative to push here, but if they want to market her as being this genuine creator shouldn’t they encourage her to genuinely create? put out the things she has honestly told, things she has breathed her heart into? but that isn’t what they want. and when she complains of this to her father, she finds now that there is a sadness in his eyes alongside the sympathy, as if he’d known this to be the inevitable conclusion all along. this in itself has her bottling up her frustrations, putting a lid on them. because she is proud of what she’s put out, she’s proud of the music she’s made and the way that they’ve been progressing, a steady upward trajectory, one of her title tracks taking their first win. so she pushes it all away, tamps it down to paint a smile over her features, an airy refrain of everything is fine, everything is fine.

CHAPTER SEVEN

with greater attention comes greater responsibility. they feed her into the machine and wait for her to spit out hits, allowing her to save up tracks for a promised solo debut. when it finally comes it’s more vocally focused than anything she’s done before and she thrives on that, is thrilled by that. and perhaps in direct contention to that, kjh follows up by putting her onto unpretty rap star, the famed (ish) survival rap show. and survive she does, for better or worse, and gains little out of it but a continued difficulty negotiating her own sense of identity. who is she? the shadow of her father? and extension of him? is she famous in her own right, as juniper oh, is she gaining any of this on her own merit? she wants so desperately to believe that her progress has been due to her own capabilities. she wants to believe that sopa took her on because she had promise, that kjh saw something more in her than the promise of media play and a unique vocal tone. she wants to believe that the “lead rap” tacked on her name has meaning, that she’s worthy of the success she had on the show.

she’s given the chance to work with huge names in the industry and she wants to believe that this is real, that she’s earned this, but the more she gains and the higher she climbs the more she doubts her foundation. the more fearful she is that brand deals roll in because of her mother, that attention is thrown her way because of her father.

but more and more those old insecurities arise. more often she finds herself doubting that any of this is real, more desperate than ever to prove herself and surer and surer still that she doesn’t deserve anything she’s earned.