#tvxq was in the top 10 highest earning touring artists for all of 2020. i cant even imagine what a shinee tour would have been

[sanstropfremir]

hii! I was watching some aespa stages recently and had a very odd feeling about them in regards of stage presence, or lack of it to be honest. I know you've talked about 4th gen and their need to look pretty and effortless while doing hard choreo and for a while I tried to associate that with the girls but honestly it's not even that. Karina is the only one who sometimes gives me sassy or some very toned down emotion I can't point out, the other ones just look almost robotic-like (maybe they're taking the concept too far lol). which I guess is an A+ when it comes to making the choreo and song feel easy to perform, but also its boring to see. now, I do want to know if I'm being too picky on them and what you think about their stage presence, as well as see if you think there could be a correlation to that and the fact they debuted during the pandemic and thus the lack of an audience makes it harder for them specifically to grow that on stage persona. I know more groups have debuted after music shows stopped having audiences, and pretty much the entire kpop industry is still serving through only online contents, but there could be a chance that once aespa feeds off the energy of a crowd, their performance will reach another level (pun intended)

hi hello!! as far as aespa goes, i think there are a couple of factors. one is yes, you're right, there's going to be a change in their presence when they actually get a chance to perform at length in front of an audience. this is definitely an sm specific thing though, since their mode of training is for stadium shows. tours are where sm groups really shine and they tailor their idols for that kind performance, which means strong vocals + stamina first, and then any charm and charisma takes a little longer to develop and usually comes out more in concert. you can see it in any live clips of sm artists, back when not online concerts where a thing. i think aespa is likely to have a similar trajectory as red velvet, where their music show performances are fine, but the live shows are where it's at. i also think aespa is also sm's experiment in order to try and catch gen z/the tiktok crowd, so they're adopting a slightly different method. remember, sm hasn't actually debuted a new group since 2016, where kpop was a very different environment than late 2020. i went back and watched some black mamba stages and i don't find them that uninteresting, but there is a slight change between their debut and next level/savage. there's a marked increase in small hand and head movements in the choreo and dramatic camera choreography, which are both common to tiktok style dancing, where you can actually have those kind of movements and focus because you have a narrower eye and better control. sm even released a 'camera guide for creators' for savage, which.....telling. to be fair they also did this for sticker but i don't think it worked the same since that isn't really the ncity bag. but i think it's working for aespa. however they haven't made the leap as well as they could have, because sm has trained such strict resting model faces on them that now that we're seeing their faces up close a lot, we can see there's not a lot going on (where it was a little more disguised with black mamba). again - this is definitely an sm specific training technique, where they want their idols to have flawless straight resting faces and that they have to maintain that flawlessness through anything. sm has been in this game the longest and they're going to be very reluctant to bend their tried and true methods, especially because they are the gold standard, even though the trend has been heavily listing to 'relatable' (read: ability to make semi-stupid expressions) idols for the last couple of years. if i were to hazard a guess as to what the sm training program looks like, i would say their order of skills priorities are:

vocals

media/face/body language training

specialist skills (dance/rap)

group dance + cohesion

-> debut

settlement period

development of personality/charisma

aespa is still in this settlement period, as it hasn't even been a year yet, and i bet their coaches have been saying the same things about 'how it will all change' when they get in front of an audience.

so yes? i guess i could say that you're being too picky on them? but also if they aren't vibing with you that's also very fine. however, i will say that the whole no audience music shows situation has actually produced some new groups that i think have a lot of stage presence/character and promise, and will likely only improve if they manage to stick around. purple kiss had a fantastic debut and an even better first comeback (also both their eps are no skips which is ILLEGAL for a group that only has two eps). i found blitzers by youtube algorithm chance and their debut is pretty good (and ridiculous) but their first comeback is excellent and you can see the improvement even in four months (teenage boys really are sponges). also see my previous post about e'last, they debuted at i think the same time as aespa (late 2020) and although there's so many of them, they have a pretty strong group presence already.