#kpop 2001

[delidonghwa]

[mellometal]

(Sorry I dipped. I’m alive. I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life that I don’t really want to talk about on here in great detail.)

I’ve been wanting to talk about this group for a while.  Can you believe I’m talking about a BOY GROUP from the first generation of K-pop?  Never thought I’d see the day, but here we are.  The only boy group I’ve talked about so far has been LIONESSES, and they’re the first boy group I listened to and actually enjoyed.  This is a group I got hooked on from their discography alone and will be the topic of this post.

Because of their name, it’s difficult to find information about the group itself and about the members themselves.  Well, unless you search for the name of the group/names of the members in hangul, or you get super specific in the search bar. That’s unfortunately the same case for a lot of the more obscure groups that were around in the 90s and early 2000s.  I had to look through some Korean blog posts, a Korean wiki page, and get info from a few fans of the group on the r/kpopnostalgia subreddit for this. I wouldn’t be able to have any of this information if it wasn’t for fans of the group who did so much research into the group and the lovely people on the r/kpopnostalgia subreddit. So I owe it all to them.

The group I’m talking about today is K’Pop (also written as K-Pop).  Yes, that was their actual name.  First gen of K-pop was pretty creative with their names, I know.  Contrary to what you can find when searching for this group, their name was NOT short for “K’POPULATION”.  It is common misinformation that’s been spread around, along with a dating scandal within the group that I’m gonna get into in a bit.  K’POPULATION was the name for the biggest site for international fans of the group K’Pop at the time who didn’t speak Korean. I don’t think that website even exists anymore, from what I read. If there’s anything left of the website, I don’t know if it’s been archived by anyone or not. Hopefully there’s someone out there who has archived some of the contents of the website.

Note: Gossip websites surrounding K-pop in general like Koreaboo and allkpop are NOT very reliable sources to get accurate information about groups, idols, soloists, bands, etc. Especially when it comes to older groups. Please check your sources. Kprofiles is okay for some things (like member names, birthdays, and some stuff like that) and quite a lot of the groups who do have a Kprofiles page are pretty accurate. However, the Kprofiles page for K’Pop looks incomplete (there’s A LOT missing) and it has a lot of misinformation about them (e.g., that their name stands for “K’POPULATION” when it has NEVER been anything except “K’Pop”, and about the dating scandal within the group). K’Pop’s namu.wiki page is more accurate and doesn’t have any misinformation about them. Namu.wiki is a Korean wiki site, so I would recommend using a translator if you want to read it. I would say that magazine articles about K’Pop are pretty accurate too, but I don’t have any magazines, let alone any that feature K’Pop. Magazines from first gen K-pop are very difficult to find outside of Korea and get very expensive. From K’Pop, I’ve only seen a few scanned pages of articles featuring them that other people have uploaded online. The most accurate and reliable sources about the group K’Pop, from my experience, are fans who were around when the group was active. I’m guilty of believing the misinformation about the group at first, but someone who is a fan of them set me and a few other people straight.

Here is a picture of the members from when they were active:

The inspiration for K’Pop’s name stems from their producer Joo Younghoon, who went on a business trip to Japan and was inspired by the term “J-Pop”, which is still a popular genre to this day.  Younghoon came up with “K’Pop” as a counterpart to the J-Pop wave.  (More on the subject of Japan coming up.)

K’Pop was a first gen boy group that was around from 2001 to 2005.  The group had three studio albums in total.  They reunited briefly in 2018 on the Sugar Man 2 show to perform some of their most popular songs and even had a meet and greet with fans that same year.  They were made up of five members named Jumin (or Joomin), Donghwa, Youngwon, Yubin (or Yoobin), and Woohyun, from oldest to youngest respectively.  The official name for their fans was K’Popcorns and their official color was pearl peach.  Back in the first gen, lightsticks weren’t a thing.  Fans back then used balloons that were the official color for their favorite groups, wore matching outfits with that color, or they used glow sticks of the same color.  If you’ve ever watched any performances from first gen, you can see balloons and even some glow sticks…but mostly balloons.  (I’m now curious as to what K’Pop’s lightstick would look like, the members’ assigned colors, and possibly assigned animals.  Might be something I can draw.)

Here is a picture of the members when they reunited in 2018:

Onto the members themselves.  Jumin (birth name Kim Joomin) was the oldest member in the group and the first member of K’Pop to be recruited by Younghoon.  He was the leader, rapper, and vocalist.  He originally trained to be in Shinhwa (one of the only groups from first gen to still be active and have all the original members), but didn’t make the final cut.  While Jumin was working part-time as a guest rapper for Choi Jinyoung (SKY), he caught the eye of Younghoon. There is a picture of Jumin below.

Woohyun (birth name Kim Woohyun, but was later changed to Kim Sihoon in around 2014) was the youngest member in the group and the second member of K’Pop to join.  He was the lead vocalist and maknae (the youngest member).  Woohyun was an up-and-coming fashion model under Yeon Entertainment in the late 90’s prior to joining K’Pop and had a solid fanbase, which contributed to his individual popularity to a degree. There is a picture of Woohyun below:

Donghwa (birth name Kim Beomseok) was the second oldest member in the group and the third member of K’Pop to join.  He was the main rapper and sub vocalist.  Donghwa was found by a waiter at a nightclub.  He auditioned at that same club and joined the group after passing the audition.  Donghwa picked his stage name after a children’s book because he thought it suited him due to his princely appearance. There is a picture of Donghwa below:

They needed a main vocalist, so Jumin reached out to Youngwon (birth name Lee Hyunkoo), the third oldest member (middle) in the group and the fourth member of K’Pop to join.  He was the main vocalist for the group.  Youngwon was the son of Jumin’s mom’s friend. Here’s a picture of Youngwon below:

The fifth and final member to join K’Pop was Yubin.  Yubin (birth name Lee Inho) was the fourth oldest in the group (or second youngest).  At first glance, Yubin looks like he’s the youngest in the group, but he’s not.  That title, as mentioned before, goes to Woohyun.  Their birthdays are very close to each other, so it’s understandable how people could mix them up.  He was a support vocalist, sub rapper, and did some narration as well.  Another role that Yubin had in the group was being a visual, the face of the group, and being part of the maknae line with Woohyun.  He was preparing to debut with Click-B, before joining K’Pop.  He picked out the name “Yubin” because “Bin” reminded people of someone good-looking. There is a picture of Yubin below:

Their first album promos were for “0.5”, “그림자” ("Shadow"), and "Game". All three have live performances. "0.5" and "그림자" ("Shadow") have music videos, but "Game" doesn’t have a music video.

The group debuted on September 11th, 2001 on M.net’s Show King M, but unfortunately, there is no footage of their debut performance available online. Their debut song was “0.5”, which criticizes Japan’s revisionist history. If you know anything about the history between Korea and Japan, it’s, for lack of a better word, fucked up. One of the translations of this track is "Anti-Japan", the other being "Half-one". The music video is linked below. It has a lot of historical footage and the guys being in front of different temples around Japan. They recalled having to sneak around to record this music video so they wouldn’t get in trouble. This was 2001. I’m trying to decipher what the lyrics mean and stuff, but I know in this day and age, NO group today would even have a song like "0.5", let alone DEBUT with one like it.

“그림자” ("Shadow") was their follow-up track and one of their most notable songs. It’s about a guy promising a girl everything and that he’ll be there for her (like her shadow) if she accepts his love.

"Game" was the third and final track they promoted off of their debut album. It doesn’t have a music video, but there are some live performances of that song. It was promoted around the time of the 2002 World Cup Series. Here's one of their live performances.

I’m gonna link a playlist of their first album below.

In the fall of 2002, K’Pop released their second album CU @ K-Pop.  Their second album is the only one available on Spotify and iTunes…which is kind of sad.  Like, their first album and third album should be there too.  They promoted the songs “신기루” (“Mirage”), “젊음” (“Youth”), and “The Color Of Love”.  It’s more laid back than their first album.

The first song they promoted was “신기루” (“Mirage”).  It’s another one of their most well-known songs, if not their most well-known song overall.  “Mirage” is about a guy who’s in denial about a girl leaving him and is struggling to accept the fact that this girl wants nothing to do with him anymore.  The music video for this song has a more somber, mature look than the music video for “Shadow”.  They promoted “Mirage” until the end of 2002. 

A few days after their comeback, in October 2002, it was announced that Mirae Entertainment was acquired by SM Planning and K’Pop’s main producer Joo Younghoon would be working with SM’s producer Yoo Youngjin in the future.  K’Pop’s next album (their second album, in this case) still listed Mirae Entertainment as the company that produced it.  It’s not listed on SM’s master list of CDs produced by SM.  SM didn’t seem to consider K’Pop as being one of their groups.  

(I’m gonna put in my own commentary here.  THAT’S SO RUDE.  THE DISRESPECT IS ATROCIOUS.  K’Pop is so SM-coded.  Their music is SM-coded.  I think they would’ve done great under SM Entertainment.  ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING JUMIN WAS AN SM TRAINEE AND WAS GOING TO DEBUT WITH SHINHWA, IF HE MADE THE FINAL CUT.  FUCKING SHINHWA.  In my opinion, SM should’ve taken K’Pop after Mirae Entertainment went under.  I think things would’ve been different if SM had taken K’Pop.  Would K’Pop still be a group?  I SURE HOPE SO.  There’s probably an alternative universe where that was the end result…ANYWAYS.  Here’s the big scandal you’ve all been waiting for.)

K’Pop having a rocky start to 2003 would be an understatement.  In January 2003, they held a going-away party for one of their fashion coordinators.  They all celebrated by going out drinking.  People gradually left and eventually, the only people left were Youngwon and Woohyun.  Youngwon apparently had some bad drinking habits, which all the members and the staff knew about.  (Why the FUCK would you go out drinking, knowing that Youngwon had these bad drinking habits?  That’s just a recipe for disaster. But what do I know?)  He (Youngwon) had been trying to pick fights with Woohyun all night for some reason.  Woohyun wasn’t having it, so he tried to leave.  When Woohyun got outside to catch a cab, Youngwon assaulted him until the staff split them up and they went home separately.  I’m not gonna go into too much detail, but Woohyun’s face was visibly injured and he had to wear a cast on his wrist (probably due to it being sprained or broken…he did fall during Youngwon assaulting him, from what I read).  Get this…they tried to cover it up by saying Woohyun was injured in a car accident, a week after the assault happened and not saying anything about it.  Which is complete bullshit, given the context.  The truth came out about a month later and it was compared to what happened with the group S#arp (more on S#arp later).  There was still tension between Youngwon and Woohyun due to Youngwon’s belated apology being perceived as insincere.  Understandable.  They did make up in February of 2003 during a free concert they set up for fans, which is where Youngwon publicly apologized to Woohyun.  

Literally the whole situation with S#arp was FAR WORSE than the situation with K’Pop by a long shot.  To make a long story short about what happened with S#arp, Seo Jiyoung severely bullied Lee Jihye almost the entire time Jihye was in the group all because Jiyoung was jealous of her.  She (Jiyoung) got her boyfriend at the time and even her own mother at one point to join in on bullying the poor girl.  Jiyoung also tried to make herself out to be the victim and make Jihye look bad.  It was so bad that Jihye ended up leaving S#arp and she couldn’t recall what happened years later after the group disbanded without crying.  Jihye eventually told the truth about what happened and exposed Jiyoung by name.  I stand by Jihye.  She did absolutely nothing wrong.  As far as I know, I don’t think there was any bullying involved within K’Pop.

The second song they promoted was “젊음” (“Youth”), which is a more upbeat song.  There is a sample of someone saying, “Every year, the seasons change in the blink of an eye.” in Chinese.  The song “Youth” is about a guy who’s hopeful about love and happiness.  Because he’s young, he has time to try again, even though he’s aware things can go south.  The music video for this song matches the fun, upbeat energy.  The live performances they had were also fun!  They began promoting “Youth” in early 2003. 

The promotions for “Youth” were halted for a week due to a massive tragedy that occurred on February 18th, 2003 known as the “Daegu Subway Fire”.  Two subway trains caught fire in Daegu, resulting in 148 people being injured and 192 deaths.  Artists around this time switched the songs they’d be performing on music shows in response to the somber mood of the nation.  K’Pop chose the soft ballad “The Color Of Love”, which is about two people who love each other but can’t be together. 

A playlist for the second album:

Even though Youngwon and Woohyun had reconciled, K’Pop’s third album Memories didn’t come out until the fall of 2004, over a year later.  The theme of the third album overall is about parting ways with someone you were in love with and struggling to move on from those memories.  Their third album is their longest at fifteen tracks, two of those tracks being in English (their intro and outro songs).  Their intro “Flying” was their first song that was all in English, but to my knowledge, it wasn’t made to be promoted in the West.  One of the songs on this album is actually a remake of another song from another group.  More on that later.  Their fifteenth and final song was a “goodbye” from the group, since this was their last album.  It wasn’t intentional.  The songs K’Pop promoted for their final album were “추억의 향기” (“The Scent of Memories”), “영화처럼” (“Like A Movie”), and “Lover Boys”.  The only one that has a music video is “추억의 향기” (“The Scent of Memories”), while “영화처럼” (“Like A Movie”), and “Lover Boys” do not.

(A little blurb about this album: Most of the album itself was never uploaded online, aside from a few tracks and a few live performances of the said few tracks.  I uploaded the entire album onto Youtube earlier this year because nobody had done that yet.  As of right now, all three of their albums are available on Youtube.)

The title track for their third album is “추억의 향기” (“The Scent of Memories”).  It’s about a guy reflecting on a past relationship.  The music video for this song had members on a rooftop looking off into the distance and going to different places separately.  The performances for this song show how much the group and their fans have grown.  It was promoted from September through the end of 2004.

Since I can't find the official music video on YouTube in full, here's a live performance!

The second track they promoted was “영화처럼” (“Like A Movie”).  It’s about a guy leaving a girl, and her crying.

A song that’s a remake from another song is “수요일에는 빨간 장미를” (“Red Roses On Wednesday”).  This song is about a guy wanting to give a girl flowers to comfort her and make her happy.  According to the fans who have done extensive research on this group, this song was originally by a group called the Five Fingers (다섯손가락). Here’s the original song by the Five Fingers and K’Pop’s cover below:

A few days before the beginning of 2005, there was an article that discussed what the members of K’Pop would be doing in 2005.  They’d all be doing solo activities starting around February of that year, from what the article said.  From what was written, Yubin and Woohyun would be going into acting, Donghwa would be working as a radio DJ (I think they said Yubin and Woohyun would be doing that too, but this is from what I could read when it was translated), and Jumin said he’d be enlisting in the army after the activities for their third album were over.  I couldn’t find what Youngwon was going to do, as I don’t think he said anything.

The third and final track K’Pop promoted off their third album was “Lover Boys”, a track about a guy being happily in love and being a lover boy.  It was promoted through the spring of 2005 and was the last song K’Pop promoted together.  (Good LORD, Youngwon’s hair in the linked performance is absolutely atrocious. Who approved that? And WHY?)

The group went quiet after promotions for “Lover Boys” ended.  Their official fan cafe was full of people saying they’d reunite and release a fourth album after they finished serving in the military, but that obviously never happened.  (I would do things to hear what their fourth album would sound like, OH MY GOD.)  The guys left quietly.  There wasn’t an official statement about K’Pop’s disbandment from the company they were under (Mirae Entertainment).  There also isn’t a clear date of when the group ended besides it being sometime in the summer of 2005.

Here's a link to their third and final album.

The guys have all been doing their own thing since then.  They briefly reunited in 2018 on the Sugar Man 2 show to perform some of their most well-known songs, held a fan meeting, had some live performances (that are on Youngwon’s YouTube channel), and they even went on a trip to celebrate twenty years of friendship all in that same year.  Yubin wasn’t able to attend the fan meeting, the live performances that are on Youngwon’s YouTube channel, or the trip due to his work.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS OVER, IT’S NOT.  Because we’re talking about the rumor I mentioned in the beginning.  Chances are, you’ve heard of this group before this post from a rumor of two members dating in the group.  This has been republished over and over again to the point where people think it’s true…but let me tell you, that is a complete lie.

The earliest account found was from January 22, 2007, two years after the group disbanded.  Someone made a post on a gossip forum saying they heard a rumor about Youngwon and Woohyun falling in love with each other pre-debut, and that the fight in 2003 was because they fell out of love.  That wasn’t taken seriously at all, but it didn’t even stay in the fandom.  It went far beyond the fandom to the point where a reporter wrote an article on it.  The original article itself has never been found, but a fan’s reaction was.  The fan wrote that it was annoying to have the fight be brought up again just to drag all the members of K’Pop.  They said considering the reporter’s supposed bad reputation, they doubted the claim of the fight being because of a relationship turning sour.  That same reporter brought the fight up again.  The article focused on the morals of idols who trained and debuted during their teens.  Even though the relationship theory wasn’t brought up, it included Youngwon as an example of idols who’ve done bad things.

(Here’s some more commentary from me.  First of all, Youngwon and Woohyun were like twenty-two and like nineteen/twenty years old when that fight happened, so them both being teenagers is inaccurate. If anyone was a teenager then, it was Woohyun. As far as their ages during K’Pop’s debut are concerned, the only ones who were teenagers were Yubin and Woohyun, and they were eighteen. Jumin, Donghwa, and Youngwon were in their early twenties when K’Pop debuted. That obviously doesn’t include the time when they were all trainees or when they were doing other things before being recruited by Joo Younghoon.  Second, yes, Youngwon was wrong for assaulting Woohyun in a drunken rage for no reason.  FOR SURE HE WAS.  THAT IS LITERALLY THE ONLY THING YOUNGWON DID THAT I DON’T LIKE FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.  Youngwon owned up to what he did, he apologized to Woohyun [and meant it], they made up, and they are still friends to this day.)

If I remember correctly, I believe someone asked the group directly about the rumors and the guys were confused. I just want to know why someone thought it’d be appropriate to just straight-up ask them about that kind of thing. I mean, I get needing some stuff cleared up, but my GOD. Point blank, none of the members, as far as I know, are LGBT. There was no “couple” in the group. The dating rumors are complete bullshit. If any of the members were actually LGBT, hypothetically speaking, I would support them 100%. I don’t know if I could say the same about the general public back when the group was active or for all of their fans. I would hope at least some of their fans would support them! From doing research on K-Pop idols who are openly LGBT and what happened to a few of them, I can say that if the rumors were true, no members of K’Pop would be able to come out publicly without receiving some sort of backlash from the general public. Many of the possible outcomes aren’t pretty. That alone could be a separate post.

Why did they disband exactly? According to Donghwa when he was asked about the reasoning behind K’Pop’s disbandment, he stated that it was due to problems within the company they were under.

Some more bonus info that I forgot to add: Two of the members are happily married! (To other people, not to each other. Lol. Yubin and Donghwa are the ones who are confirmed to be married. Good for them. /pos)

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking around for this huge post on an older group! I might do another post on an older girl group or two. You never know. /lighthearted

Hope you have a good day.

[thisisrealy2kok]

Canon S300 Color Bubble Jet Printer

[jakegyllenbaalz]

[club-cheongyang]

[nekolove]

pictures of BoA i have on my phone

[purinkiss]

☆⋆｡𖦹 01 °‧★

[yvestually]

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

[kpopmemories]

Shoo from S.E.S and Mi-youn from Baby V.O.X in 2001

[lazycatie]

s.e.s / ecole - january issue [2001]

[avashrine]

 baby v.o.x - doll (+) 20010825

[delidonghwa]

[iatemycatfreckles]

Happy Birthday Jiung! <3

[funkytoesart]

idc how much time passes or how old you technically get if you have a "2" in front of your birth year you'll always be a baby infant in my eyes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[bydarkfenix]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEON SOMI

[club-cheongyang]