Kpop Bullshit

chris | he/him | '00 | kpop blog?

[hwangso-ddong]

Okay how the fuck is it possible that BTS didn't win the BRIT award for International Group? And who the fuck are Haim??? This is literal racism and favoritism there's no other way around it, and no I'm not exaggerating or being a fanboy. It's simply unfair. Ask literally ANYONE you want, and they'll know BTS. I'm not familiar with Haim and I don't know anyone who is, and that says a lot. International group my ass.

[hwangso-ddong]

Can we stop bullying Kpop idols out of doing things they love? Fuck whoever hated on Jae for his Twitch stream jokes, he's an adult, he can say whatever he wants. Kpop idols are not your pure uwu babies made out of sugar and rainbows. They're adult human beings with lives and senses of humor like everyone else.

I hope Jae returns to Twitch streaming, I really liked his streams and his interactions with my favorite streamers. I was finally happy to see the legendary Kpop and gaming community overlap becoming more real, but NOPE, "netizens" just had to ruin it.

[hwangso-ddong]

tl;dr of Kakao M vs Spotify

Kakao M felt like Spotify's expansion to Korea meant that Melon (Kakao M owned streaming service) would lose market share, so they blocked all Kakao M distributed songs from Spotify Korea. In protest, and rightfully so, Spotify blocked those songs worldwide. Stand against Kakao M, their anti-consumer practices, and selfish dirty monopolistic tactics.

[hwangso-ddong]

[hwangso-ddong]

What's the hype over the new NCT song I don't get it

Is this finally what Punch sounds like?

[hwangso-ddong]

As a gay male, mostly boy group stan, who has gotten way further into Dreamcatcher than any other girl group,

I want:

Gahyeon to punch me

Siyeon to step on me

to buy Road to Utopia, it's too good

to thank @in-somnias for the indoctrination that has been administered to me since literally 2017

Jokes aside Road to Utopia is amazing, Leez and Ollounder outdo themselves in every comeback and I'm very proud of the girls.

[hwangso-ddong]

I wanna see what excuse The Show will come up with to justify the repeated robbery of Dreamcatcher.

The categories were:

- Single + Album sales score

- Music Video + Broadcast score

- Real-time SMS voting score

As you can see, Dreamcatcher should win the first two categories easily, as they have WAY more views and streams than Golden Child. Yet somehow they don't win the single and album sales category? You mean to tell me the fandom that can't reach the 1theK video to even a million views purchased more Golden Child albums than the super dedicated Dreamcatcher fandom who broke records for the group again this comeback?

That aside, DC clearly wins the MV and broadcast score, but somehow the number is made so that it won't let them win.

Then there's real-time SMS voting, which DC lose by very little...

Therefore, they lost because of the first category... Which could be manipulation as there's no sales figures to confirm this, and that is why The Show can just report the result however they wish. They are the only ones that know the sales of each group.

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Does the Digital chart look right to you? Let’s say I can get behind the album sales part, okay. But you really mean to tell me that Golden Child, who can only reach 5M views in a week on YouTube of all platforms, are so overwhelmingly more popular on Korean streaming sites (which Dreamcatcher is not listed on so it’s not even a fair fight) than a group who reached 17M in a week and 1.6M Spotify streams?????????

I know Spotify streams don’t count, which btw is very unfair, but what’s also unfair is that Dreamcatcher are listed on way less streaming sites than Golden Child, which gives Golden Child a huge advantage.

[hwangso-ddong]

Love Yourself trilogy vs. Every era that came after it. Spoiler: current BTS kinda sucks.

TW: PERSONAL OPINION

Today, in my void of complete lack of productivity, I was thinking about Love Yourself as an era, as a whole, all 3 main releases... and I just find it so much better than whatever BTS is releasing now or even right after LY.

Like, Love Yourself: Her is unprecedented like the assortment of tracks on it is unsurpassable. The title track is still the #1 most viewed BTS song on YouTube. The skit is a skip, yes, it’s a non-track, but whatever. Otherwise, LY:Her is a no skip album, every single track on it is a hit. Not to mention it is the EP that skyrocketed BTS’s popularity outside of the K-pop fandom sphere.

Immediately after, Love Yourself: Tear gave us Fake Love, and such B-side gems as 134340 and Paradise, which I still never skip when they show up on shuffle, along with tracks like The Truth Untold and Airplane Pt. 2 which went viral. Once again, every single track on this album (except for maybe Love Maze because I don’t remember it for the life of me) is a no-skip. I will not tolerate Magic Shop slander, either.

Love Yourself: Answer was arguably not as strong as the other two as a follow-up to them, since it is a compilation album (or repackage) with some (great) additions. It feels like a great way to top off the era, giving every single member a solo track like in You Never Walk Alone. Don’t forget the cultural reset that was IDOL came from this album, as well as I’m Fine which is the track that got me thinking about this whole thing in the first place.

Now, the next era is where BTS started to lose me just a little bit. BTS came back with Map of the Soul: Persona, ushering in a brand new era for the group. And, you know, it’s a pretty solid EP! I like all the songs on it, even Jamais Vu which seems to get a lot of flak for being “uninspired.” However, the title track especially, and the number of tracks on this album, left me wanting juuuuust a little bit more. Did not complain, though! It was great. With the overuse of some production techniques like autotune and the introduction of this more rock-inspired sound of Dionysus, I could tell BTS was heading in a certain direction with their next releases, which I was very skeptical about. And then, after BTS took a well-deserved long break...

Map of the Soul: 7 dropped. With a weeks-long teaser period and the release of Black Swan prior to the release of the album, it seemed like it’d be another hard-hitter. But... Black Swan is actually all this album had in terms of hard-hitters. The overuse of autotune as an artistic choice was back, and it was here to stay, allowing room for critics and fans alike to criticize BTS’s vocal production, as well as the further exploration of the rock-inspired sound that was introduced in the previous EP.

I really do not like MotS:7. I know, I know. The fandom has shunned me once and will do it again. But there’s just no memorable tracks on this thing! ON is a very underwhelming title track on which BTS’s vocals are completely and utterly oversaturated with autotune, the new tracks are just kinda good at best and awful at worst, and there is nothing here for me to hold onto. The only song I can clearly remember from this album is Filter. That’s it. And that’s a Jimin solo song. It feels like it’s hard to find a song on this album where all the members of BTS are participating together in one track... and that’s because there are only two new B-side tracks with all the members! Tracks which, I’m sorry to say, kinda suck! Louder Than Bombs is ironically kinda sleep-inducing, and We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal lasts awfully too long and is so uninspired that if any other group released it, it would flop. The rest of the tracks on this album are either old-school-hip-hop-inspired rap tracks, or slow rock ballads, both of which have absolutely nothing to do with BTS’s previous sounds, and alienate fans like me who expect certain things from a BTS album and just got... the complete opposite.

Now, I know an artist can (and should) release whatever makes them happy, and whatever they feel like they want to create. But when it comes to BTS, I expect something that I can appreciate the artistry of, something that I can listen to and admire the painstakingly shaped production, something that will grab my attention. I tried to listen to Map of the Soul: 7... twice. And I fell asleep both times. I have managed to listen to every song on it, and I don’t remember any single one of them. Nothing stuck out to me, and it still doesn’t. And you know what, as much as y’all don’t want to admit it, it’s not just me. None of the songs on MotS: 7 get any hype anymore, whereas songs like Go Go and Tear have almost cult-like fan favorite status. But wait, I’m not done!

At this point, BTS had lost me with MotS: 7. Bear in mind that I was, and still am, a big fan of BTS, and I got into them for their music first and foremost. And in 2020, Be dropped. Saying I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. I was full-on disappointed. The only worth-while tracks on this album are Telepathy and Dynamite, in my opinion, both of which get by easy because they ride on the disco revival trend of 2020. Even counting the title track, this entire album is a straight up disappointment for me. What infuriated me further was that track 4 is a 3-minute long iPhone recording of the members just talking and joking around, as if to slap the people that actually came for the music in the face. I am not going to worship BTS as a group just because of who they are. I do not care to listen to a 3-minute iPhone recording of 7 Korean boys just existing because I’m a fan of theirs. Most BTS fans do not speak Korean, so there go BTS again, alienating their fans... It’s not fanservice at this point, it’s just laziness!

I get that the point of Be specifically was to be a “homely” and “raw” album from BTS, to help their fans feel more at home with them and get to know them more during the pandemic. It would be a bit disingenuous for BTS to be releasing songs meant for a stadium during the year that nothing was ever open and no concerts were happening. But I don’t think Be was very intentionally put together that way, at least at first - this trend of lazy and underwhelming production from BigHit had been going since the previous album. I don’t think BTS have vocals that can convey the feelings Life Goes On or any other one of their ballads is supposed to convey, and they all end up just sounding bland and boring. They’ve done ballads right before! The Truth Untold is a great example, not even counting the EDM-inspired parts of Steve Aoki’s production. House of Cards is another great waltz ballad from BTS, and it is not boring in the slightest.

I think BTS and BigHit by extension are tired. The production is getting worse, the creativity is getting stale and uninspired, they’re outsourcing more and more... None of these are problems on their own. It’s just that BTS, right now, are not what they used to be. Their music, which should be the main attraction in a music artist, is not that interesting anymore. A lot of fans like to defend it because it’s coming from their favorite group, but if it came from anyone else they wouldn’t have even given it a second listen.

I’m mentioning BigHit as a whole because this laziness in production and overuse of autotune is prevalent in other BigHit groups as well now, namely TXT and ENHYPEN. I love TXT. I really do. But Blue Hour is plagued by the same boring uninspired rock-ballad type tracks as the latest BTS albums... and I really don’t want to see an entire company’s discography shift away from quality pop production towards trend-following and cash-ins.

[hwangso-ddong]

just got back on tumblr after literally 3 years of not using it. for context, the last time i used it, stray kids’ “i am you” was their most recent comeback.

unfollowed a couple of woojin blogs and all is good 🥰

[hwangso-ddong]

i did a thing

Stray Kids - I am YOU [ENGLISH COVER by Chris Kalos]

repost only with credit

[hwangso-ddong]

[ineedsomethingoriginal]

basically

Chan MCing: *makes a mistake*

Jimin: OMg CHaN wHaT tHE HeLl i tHoUGhT wHeN YoU sAiD yOu SpOKe eNGLisH iT mEAnT yOu PasSeD 3Rd GrAde 

Seungmin MCing: *makes a mistake*

Jimin: it’s okay sweetie everyone makes mistakes, you’re doing so good, I bet nobody noticed because you’re so cute uwu

[straightkids-deactivated2022123]

Why does Changbin’s part in every song always feel like a punch in the face

[seokmatthewz]

kindred spirits

[gaylids]

Stray Kids have one collective braincell, half of it belongs to Woojin and the other half to Seungmin

[weetaliix]

occasionally 3racha share it when producing songs

[minho-the-meanie-blog]

They lend it to Chan while they all sleep.

[honeypressed]

We cracked the code of why Chan doesn’t sleep

[procrastinatingdragonfly]

Petition to donate some braincells to SKZ so Chan can sleep

[weetaliix]

Wrong fandom for that my dude. Stay collectively have none.

[saranghwa-deactivated20190606]

hey carats? can we have some of your braincells? you guys are really nice

[honeypressed]

I made a thing

[debaucherries]

Alright, now that hyyh is officially over who’s gonna take one for the team and make a BIG ASS masterpost on the timeline of the events and the full story

[hwangso-ddong]

@raccoonrabbit already did.