I jop, you jop, he she me jop, jopping, jopology?
SuperM's debut, thoughts on THR's BTS profile, and this week's releases
Hello! Welcome to maybe if you stanned, a weekly dive into K-pop releases and fan culture. I’m a little late getting this out (it’s been a busy week all around) but it still Saturday!
This week, I’m talking about a truly bonkers number of releases from SuperM, Super Junior, Purplebeck, Chen, Monsta X, and Chungha and Rich Brian. I also get into why everyone was so mad about The Hollywood Reporter’s profile of BTS. There’s been so much happening this week that my head has been spinning for five days straight. Buckle up for a long ride and feel free to skim at will!
Also, some news that isn’t big enough to write up in here but is nonetheless important to me on a personal level: Jinsoul from LOONA has black hair now.
Here’s this week’s playlist. Also, a reminder to whitelist this e-mail address to make sure maybe if you stanned shows up in your inbox and doesn’t get sent to the spam folder!
SuperM, “Jopping”
What’s coming up?
ATEEZ — TREASURE: EP.FIN: All to Action
ATEEZ has quickly become one of my favs after I saw them perform live at KCON NY this past summer. They’re the real deal, and now they’re releasing a new album that will serve as the conclusion of their Treasure album series that has been running since their debut. Recently, the group released a performance teaser for the title track “Wonderland.”
TREASURE: EP. FIN: All to Action will be released on Oct. 8.
TXT — The Dream Chapter: Magic
Speaking of rookie boy groups, TXT has also set a date for their next comeback. The group recently teased the upcoming release with a performance based concept trailer that sees all five members dancing their way through a variety of settings, mimicking changes in gravity and environment. Put simply, it’s trippy and cool as hell.
The Dream Chapter: Magic will be released on Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. KST.
Stray Kids — “Double Knot”
Busy month for boy group stans — Stray Kids are coming back this upcoming week as well with “Double Knot.” As far as I can tell, it’s a digital single and not a full EP or album. That’s slated for later this year: per a teaser video released in late September, the group will have another comeback on Nov. 19 with a single, “Astronaut,” as well as a potential EP or album on Nov. 25 with Clé: Levanter.
“Double Knot” will be released on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. KST.
New this week
A note: Due to sheer volume, I tried (with middling success) to keep things brief for most of these!
SuperM — “Jopping,” SuperM - The 1st Mini Album
Okay, we’ll get this out of the way first: “jopping” is a combination of “jumping” and “popping” and not a real word literally anywhere else. It’s totally bonkers and miraculously, SuperM makes it work. Jopping!
The single itself is just as ridiculous and brash as the title suggests, oscillating from brassy synth-backed power vocals to tight rap verses with a punchy bass. With plenty of fun bits throughout like Lucas’ vocals panning from left to right during Mark’s rap verse or Baekhyun absolutely wailing during the last chorus, “Jopping” is a wild ride. In a way, it feels like an amalgamation of the musical influences of the members’ original groups — SHINee, EXO, NCT 127, and WayV.
There’s also just… a lot happening visually. Between the skydiving, the helicopter, the tank, the hi-tech armor outlines, and Kai tossing a spear of light like a javelin, the Avengers/Marvel comparison makes a bit more sense. The use of crowd cheers and a stadium setting in the music video would feel a bit cocky if not for the fact that SuperM is already selling out stops on their upcoming North American tour (and, of course, the fact that they’re all established idols).
For me, it’s hard to not think of this group as a foil to BTS. Their self-titled debut EP feels like an antithesis to BTS’ current pop-driven sound, and the differentiation makes sense. Not only is SuperM a culmination of SM’s top boy groups of the past decade, but they’re also doing their best to be a counter to BTS in the American market. Because I know these kinds of comparisons invite “get [insert group]’s name out of your mouth” criticisms, I’ll defend by saying that I think it’s justified given the fact that SuperM is explicitly targeting the North American market, where BTS is the dominant K-pop act.
In other news, SuperM’s debut has reawakened my latent Baekhyun bias. What a man!
Super Junior — “I Think I”
In this new single ahead of upcoming album Time_Slip, Super Junior sing a lot about dancing while doing very little dancing. With a Latin pop-esque sound and a catchy lick that gets passed around the band, “I Think I” is catchy as all get out. The music video also takes place in a reconstruction of the 14th street subway stop, and New York City public transit hasn’t ever looked so clean nor sexy.
The single marks the return of maknae Kyuhyun, who recently completed his military service, and was preceded by the release fellow album tracks “Somebody New” and “The Crown.” Time_Slip will be released on Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. KST; “I Think I” currently isn’t on Spotify.
Purplebeck — “Dream Line”
Regrettably, the first thing I think about when I think of Purplebeck is that at one point someone accused the whole group of being a scam because the company address popped up as a 7/11 when you put it into Google. Eventually, management (who was super chatty with stans on Twitter) clarified that they were just on the second floor of the building (above the 7/11) and the group debuted in June.
I really like the almost brassy synth sound in the pre-chorus, and Seyeon’s rap verse is also a highlight. The MV itself, which is primarily performance based, also features TVXQ member Kim Jaejoong walking around in a forest taking pictures of purple flowers. I’m not sure if I entirely get the concept, but the song is fun!
Rich Brian x Chungha — “These Nights”
“These Nights” brings 88rising artist Rich Brian and K-pop soloist Chungha together on a laid-back R&B track. It’s a match that works surprisingly well — Chungha’s silky smooth voice complements the reedy quality of Rich Brian’s distorted vocals earlier in the song. They ride around on a motorcycle together. Chungha sings, “you could be my lady tonight.” What is there not to love?
Chen — “Shall We?,” Dear my dear
Chen has one of the best voices in K-pop, period. His vocal timbre makes me feel like I’m being cocooned in a warm blanket, the gentle hands of a lover gently carding through my hair. Maybe I’m just lonely. Maybe Chen’s voice is just that nice. (Probably both.)
His latest single, “Shall We?” takes a decidedly more hopeful bent than his previous break-up ballad “Beautiful goodbye.” The rest of Dear my dear is silky smooth with a bit more jazzy pop flavor, sticking to primarily acoustic instrumentation throughout. There’s also this lovely reverb on his vocals throughout that I can’t get enough of.
Monsta X — “Someone’s Someone”
If you told me this was a Lauv song, I probably wouldn’t have called you on it! Monsta X is back with a very distinctly American pop sound in their newest English-language single, “Someone’s Someone.” I frequently forget about Monsta X when thinking about K-pop acts making the crossover into the American market, which is on me. However, they’ve been making strides into the US market for a while now — they were just on Ellen! Not that Ellen is, uh, a metric of US market success, but.
Okay — why was everyone so mad about The Hollywood Reporter’s BTS profile?
The TL;DR: It treated BTS and their success as a new phenomenon that needs to be explained away to a Western audience while consistently otherizing both the group and the K-pop industry as a whole.
Alternative TL;DR: It’s the Enter the Anime of BTS profiles.
(Also a note before we get in here: I don’t think what went wrong with this profile is solely Abramovitch’s responsibility. That falls on his editors as well. Furthermore, it’s not my intent to bash another publication — rather, I think this profile is indicative of a larger reporting problem when covering BTS and other foreign acts.)
I think at this point in BTS’ career, we’re well past introductory explainers. That’s exactly what The Hollywood Reporter’s profile felt like: a shallow dive based on basic research, tied together with a dinner interview. Over two years after BTS well and truly made their entrance to the US pop scene (arguably in mid 2017, right around the Billboard Music Awards), covering them like they’re a new phenomenon isn’t a productive nor accurate approach.
Furthermore, as writer Jae-Ha Kim pointed out in a Twitter thread, the article showed a fundamental misunderstanding of parts of Korean culture. For instance, the article defines maknae as a “K-pop term.” As Kim points out, “it is an actual Korean word that predates K-pop.”
The profile also rehashes stereotypes and assumptions about the K-pop industry at whole. Abramovitch brings up SHINee singer Jonghyun’s death out of context as a means of evincing that “some don’t survive at all.” He also describes the industry as “part Hunger Games” to underline its competitive nature.
What fans and fellow journalists took the most issue with, however, was the almost irreverent approach to his subject matter given that Ambramovitch goes out of the way to underline his lack of familiarity with BTS and Korean culture and language. Perhaps this was in an effort to align himself with an audience that presumably knows little about BTS or K-pop as a whole (and perhaps sees them as an exotic, novel facet of pop culture), but in the end it lends him little ethos.
ARMYs — BTS fans — were up in arms about the article because it’s yet another instance of BTS not being given their due diligence in Western media coverage. While the painful interviews of their early days of American stardom are now few and far between, ARMYs are always on alert for coverage they perceive as harmful or disrespectful. This can be beneficial and necessary, such as in the case of an Australian news station which aired an offensive segment about the group. Other times, it verges on harassment, with fans relentlessly getting into journalists’ mentions about coverage they perceive as unfavorable. Ultimately, it’s all rooted in fans being deeply protective to their faves, a genuine sentiment that sometimes goes to productive ends. Almost always, fans will circulate articles and/or summaries amongst themselves in order to encourage others to withhold clicks.
Ultimately, it’s a particular sleight for a major, established entertainment trade publication to put out a careless profile of one of the biggest non-American acts in the world. It’s also, as Vulture writer E. Alex Jung pointed out on Twitter, “bad journalism and inherently diminishing.”
(Speaking of E. Alex Jung, his 2018 profile of BTS for Billboard is still my favorite.)
Hopefully, major publications like The Hollywood Reporter will give K-pop acts their due diligence in the future. There are already plenty of journalists doing an excellent job now! Until then, we’re going to keep seeing plenty of clapbacks like this.
Thanks, and until next time,
Palmer