Girls' Generation's Hyoyeon will become a special MC for '2016 Get It Beauty'.
According to Onstyle, the first episode of the new season begins its filming today on January 15th. Just like last year, the hosts are actress Honey Lee, broadcaster Kim Jung Min and beauty editor Hwang Min Young. Hyoyeon participated as a special MC.
'2016 Get It Beauty' has announced its special MC format for this year, in which the show will invite trendy celebrities to talk about the latest beauty trends and share tips. Sistar's Soyu was said to leave the show due to her conflicted schedule.
'2016 Get It Beauty' will broadcast its first episode on February 3rd at 9PM KST.
Netizens discover Hyolin's absolutely gorgeous younger sister named Hyejeung.
Attached are some photos of Hyolin's sister, fans commented, 'i thought she's an idol', 'she can debut as a girl group member anytime', 'she's hot' and etc.
In this week's episode, we talk about all the new releases: 2PM, BTS, Teen Top, AOA, Mamamoo, Sistar, and more! Whew! We also welcome a new contributor to the show: Claire! Tune in to see which new releases are duds, and which ones have us excited for more!
You can subscribe to the Critical Kpop Podcast on iTunes, or check this and future episodes out at www.mixcloud.com/CriticalKpop. You can expect a healthy serving of news, reviews, and critical analysis in every episode. The Critical Kpop Podcast is the only podcast that invites you to LISTEN HARDER.
To slay or not to slay? That should not even be a question! But lately, with girl group releases, it seems to be a legitimate question to pose. We've been trapped in a wave of mediocrity since maybe 4Minute's "Crazy" but hope is on the horizon, Hope that came in this weekend's major releases. But did any of our favorite girl groups make a deep impression? Did any of them actually Slay ? Let's take a look!
Heir Apparent?
This is what we tweeted after watching AOA's "Heart Attack" for the first time:
And we stand by this tweet. We were really that excited to see AOA back with a fun summer song and a (cute) bad-80's-teen-comedy concept. But does it slay? Well...the music here is a bit overpowering over AOA's lovely vocals, although AOA is not exactly known for their singing anyway (beyond maybe Choa and Jimin's trademark voice).
But what still excites us is AOA reminding us of early SNSD - the SNSD / 2PM "Caribbean Bay" CF comes to mind especially - with the lovesick characters and extensive training for a goal wherein the stakes are beyond the viewer's understanding (but we root for them anyway!), sprinkling a strange wholesomeness ontop a bevy of fan service. The girls use their feminine wiles to win the game, which seems about twenty years outdated, at least, but Kpop. And, again, AOA is more SNSD than 4Minute or 2NE1, in sound and in gender dynamics.
Does it Slay? We've always considered AOA the true successors of SNSD, and they've taken a large step to fulfilling that destiny with this release. But this song does not slay, it just misses the mark.
Love U I Swear Touch My Body I Swear I Love U, so Touch My Body and then Shake It!
Shake it, already! We've already detailed some of Sistar's problems right here, friends, and how they are trapped in summer: they're hitting peak summer saturation! So let's talk about something else, shall we? Let's talk about how, despite our reservations, for what it is, and despite its similarities to summer song's past, this is a fun song that will probably do well enough to keep Sistar in summer for a few more years (God help us all) . And visually, the video is stunning - and we're not just talking about these gorgeous women - the colors onscreen just jump out at you, with a metallic edge that leaps into your eyeballs.
There's enough cheesecake and curves here to make Wa$$up blush, and though the video has a similar school setting as AOA, the goals of our dear Sistar are a little less ambitious, with their devotion only to "shaking it" and tormenting their poor teacher and a perv who happens to be the quintessential perv in Kpop now (though there happens to be a lot of pervs in Kpop this year). There's a lot of gawking in this video, as there was in AOA's. Which is odd - it's almost as if all these agencies are not confident that we'll find these idols breathtakingly attractive, they feel as though they have to teach the audience to feel this way. But they really don't.
Does it Slay? Summer is great and all, but it's time for Sistar to find another season. They're getting a bit too comfortable shaking it instead of slaying it .
THE WILD CARD
We LOVE Mamamoo. After AKMU, they may have been the best rookies of 2014 . Their raw talent is unparalleled, Their charisma electric, and their music videos are usually nothing short of spectacular. Except with this video and this release. Yes, we've been seeing Mamamoo embrace their inner-zaniness in behind-the-scenes footage and clips, so this release isn't exactly a surprise. And, to Mamamoo's credit, this is easily the best song out of the new girl group releases, and a song that has gotten more attention out of the gate then any of their previous releases.
We prefer the Live Performances though, where Mamamoo really Shines. The video involves gender-swapping that could, with more thought, be used to say something beyond the gropiness of the characters. But it's all done for laughs and slapstick, which only goes so far in our book. By the end, with a handful of flat jokes and a "surprise twist" that, again, feels about twenty years outdated, the video does more harm than good in Mamamoo's ability to slay.
Does it Slay? Sorry Mamamoo, we'll take slick and cool over slapstick any day. We still love you though, promise.
Alternate Universe SNSD Invades from Earth 2, Internet is Destroyed Forever
All jokes aside, watching the leaked "Catch Me If You Can" video with Jessica in the group is tantamount to stepping into an alternate universe. A kinder, safer universe, where "OT8" is not a part of the SNSD vernacular. We'd post the video here, but by the time this goes up, it'd get taken down again. You can surely go on Reddit to find it, friends, the very same Kpop subreddit that, for a time, had this video and the discussion surrounding it ranking above all of these new releases. Do we have an unlikely winner here?
While the rest of these girl group releases fall away from memory, this leak is the stuff of legend. It was legend even before anyone knew about it.
Just having Jessica sing the song absentmindedly on a variety show (we were going to post the video here but even that was taken down) made SONES imagine what could have been. Then came some leaked pictures. Then some audio. Then ... the fabled video came into existence and fans realized that their hearts were still broken, still reeling. Slaying does not always have to be a positive thing. Does it Slay? Seeing Jessica as part of SNSD again has slayed us all.
This leak getting this much buzz is saying something, surely, about this open, festering wound but also these new girl group releases. If there's one unifying factor that ties all of them together, it may just be how unremarkable they ultimately are. They get our attention but do not keep it for long. It's summer but it's also troubling. Seeing a glimpse of Alternate Universe SNSD is the only "release" here that elicits any genuine emotion. Our heartbreak.
Timothy Moore writes from Chicago. He blogs at Read My Blog Please, and edits at Ghost Ocean Magazine. His biases are T-ara, Block B, Nine Muses, Brown Eyed Girls, and Girl's Day.
Mayday, Mayday. This is an emergency broadcast. Sistar is in danger. We repeat, Sistar is in danger. This is not a drill. S.O.S. Save Our Sistar, because they are sinking!
Sinking? Wait, how can Sistar be in trouble? They’re one of the biggest names in Kpop! Sistar won the MNET Best Female Group award and a Digital Bonsang for “Touch My Body” just last year! Which is funny, actually, because those awards cover up the disturbing truth: Sistar’s sales in recent years have been all ebb and no flow.
Take a look at Sistar’s sales from their last six albums, and the digital downloads from their lead singles. Sure, their singles peak at number one (for the week, which isn’t that impressive), and they win awards. But the steady decline in sales does not lie. Neither does that fact that in 2014, the year in which Sistar was supposedly the Best Female Group in Kpop, their album came in at number 100 on the yearly Gaon chart. That’s right; they barely made it on the chart at all. Unfortunately, and at the risk of overusing our nautical puns, Sistar is a sinking ship.
How did this happen? Let’s rewind a few years to the early days of Sistar, when their potential seemed unlimited. The group’s breakout album So Cool, had put them on the charts, and Alone, the follow-up EP, solidified their place as superstars. But it was after that, in 2012, that Sistar attempted their first true summer-fun release with the single, “Loving U” (to call it an album would be over-generous; Loving U contained two new songs and five remixes of older material). There’s little doubt that this was a money-making strategy; most summer singles are designed to increase the bottom line and give the artist extra exposure without overly taxing the group. And “Loving U” was no different. It was their first time working with Duble Sidekick, and it was a hit! The album (sic) sold over twenty thousand copies and the single was downloaded over three million times. These numbers were similar to Sistar’s full-length album, So Cool. Such success from a release that was clearly surplus to requirements was unfathomable. The management at Starship must not have known what to do with themselves.
For Sistar’s next album, the full-length Give It to Me, they went back to Duble Sidekick (prior to “Loving U,” Sistar worked mostly with Brave Brothers), hoping for more of that amazing success. But the magic was gone. What had been an upward trend was reversed. The album sold hardly more than their two-song summer album, and digital downloads dropped by more than half. Clearly it wasn’t Duble Sidekick alone that was responsible for the success of “Loving U.” As it turns out, what Sistar had managed to sell in the summer of 2012 was not music, but the very idea of summer itself.
It was at that moment that Sistar and their management team made a very important decision. They could either try to restore Sistar to the group’s former glory (which would mean experimenting with new music and concepts, and a long road filled with a lot of hard work), or they could throw the towel down, find a nice spot on the beach, and work on their tans. Sistar chose the latter, and they’ve been stuck in an everlasting summer ever since.
In 2014, Sistar released two EP albums, Touch N Move and Sweet & Sour (with a total of eight new songs between them). And they timed their releases for July and August, the middle of Summer. This wasn’t a fluke. Sistar was actively trying to recreate their success with “Loving U.” Times two! The format was simple: 1) find a light-hearted and fun song by Duble Sidekick or similar; 2) find a gorgeous summer location for a music video, like Hawaii or Saipan, or just a really nice pool; and 3) show a little summer skin and do a summer butt-shake. It was a great idea, in theory. But in practice, Kpop fans quickly grew tired of the routine. Summer should be fresh and fun, never formulaic.
Sistar, it seems, hasn’t gotten the memo yet. By all counts, “Shake It,” their latest release, is following the same dull format. The song sounds like all their others (a light-hearted and fun song by Duble Sidekick). Just listen to this medley performed on Yoo Hee Yuel's Sketchbook to see what we mean! The women of Sistar show some skin and do a rather unenthusiastic butt wiggle. The biggest difference between “Shake It” and previous summer releases is that there’s no beach or pool in the entire video! A pink, leopard-print fire truck, however, still screams summer. Actually, the art direction is the only positive thing going for “Shake It.” We love the colors, especially in the comic styling when Sistar dances in the box (and unfortunately, that’s the only reference we get to the early teasers of comic book villains). If Sistar had produced a song with anywhere near as much creativity as they got from their music video director, we’d be having a much different conversation right now.
Is “Shake It” going to buck the downward trend and re-establish Sistar’s dominance? Absolutely not. This is yet another disappointing release from a group that has been coasting (another nautical pun!) on their success since day two.
And that’s why we’re ringing the bell. Sistar is a ship in distress. Once a brilliant and talented Kpop group, it would be a real shame for Sistar to fade away now. But if they don’t make some big changes, and soon, we’ll be waving goodbye to Sistar as they slowly sink into irrelevance.
