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Hello! I was looking through your kpop opinions tag, and I found what you said interesting and insightful. I was wondering what your opinions were on Key's Gasoline :D

i have............complicated thoughts on gasoline. i LOVE the graphic design and album marketing and i like a big chunk of the songs on the album, i think a lot of the styling and the mv are really well done. all those outfits are custom builds and the embroidery work is UNREAL, as garments they are beautiful pieces of work. but i don't really like how the song is just a retooled version of industry baby. and i'm not sure how i feel about all the crosses, to be honest. the use of them is obviously very intentional and undoubtedly they mean something TO key specifically in terms of his faith but it's..........not really a thing i can get behind, personally. something about it feels a little too evangelical to me and i will absolutely admit that i am overly sensitive to that kind of thing bc i've had more than one run in with evangelical attempts to convert me. i don't ACTUALLY think it was meant specifically as a whole dogmatic evangelical thing but i find myself being a bit......uncomfortable with the imagery even now a year later.

#like. crosses appear in SO much kpop styling bc theyre just an accessory to a lot of stylists #but with kibum and his care and affinity for detail in his styling......#idk. something gives me the ?? about the visual idea of claiming/making yourself into a new god.....#using a very established and loaded religious symbol.....#that's. weird for me. it doesnt read as transformative in the same way that taemin's work does #its interesting to play with christian iconography contrasting/in dialogue with its contexts #but how do i put this.......it does not strike me as being outside of its contexts here #idk this is hard to explain but as someone who's not religious the way that evangelicals & catholics make art about religion is v different #text #key w #shinee w #answers #im not talking about random instances with strangers on the steet/coming to the door either. im talking about from people that were friends #i also have a lot of ex christian and ex mormon friends bc queer so yea.#sorry this is not really a very interesting or thoughtful response lmao #loved killer though it was extremely fun and very my vibe (synthpop)

so about key, unlike most others, using fame and celebrity as an artistic tool rather than the end goal or the incidental result of artistry - I think he is the one shinee member who likes being famous and a celebrity the most, but I also think he likes it because he knows how to use it in his self-expression rather than as something that stifles it. and I'm not sure his interest in celebrity as artistry is purely on an individual basis because yes, shinee's key is famous and he's not gonna turn that down or give up that tool and access and expression, but kim kibum would probably still be interested in the conceit of celebrity even if he wasn't also shinee's key, he got a masters degree in entertainment and content developments, that seems to be about a genuine intellectual curiosity and interest in the behind-the-scenes work of collaborative entertainment. like, I dunno, I'm rambling here, but maybe it's about the craft - there is skill in Making A Celebrity, whether that specific celebrity would be An Artist? am I making any sense at all? (maybe I'm thinking a bit about David Foster, the music producer, who isn't known to the world at large, but is known as both The Hitman, the man who makes hits, and as the man with king midas touch, because every record he touches turns to gold, and occasionally platinum)

i mean, i think i'm understanding what you're saying, but speaking as a person who has university level schooling in a collaborative art form, most people do not ascend to that level unless they ARE interested in the craft itself. maybe it's just a thing i never thought to voice because it's obvious to me from my experience, but yea i do absolutely believe he is interested in the craft. i don't think he's actually interested in 'making' a celebrity in the same way that someone like david foster or other execs will make celebrities, i think he's interested in the cross section where the craft and logistics combine with his own experiences and ideas, which is a pretty normal artistic practice.

#it's very obvious to me but i did not take into account that it might not be ppl who are not in the field #like bad love is quite literally a fraught love letter to celebrity #utilizing a very specific type of 'celebrity' format (retro-hollywood)#his work is like. very masters level understanding of methodology and practice i absolutely see what he's doing #not masters level as derogative just as a descriptor #also yea he does like being famous but i've mentioned that before #key w #shinee w #i've actually met david foster for redacted reasons bc it will doxx me #and he is in fact very famous in canada btw #text #answers

you said before that there is more emphasis for 4th gen to do harder dance routines as their performances whereas for 2nd gen they had to be entertaining. and i know brave girls isnt technically 2nd gen but being one of the older groups at mama, gawd was there such a difference in energy. they were so fun!!! this might just be me being old because there was a recent article that pointed out there were a lot of good dancers from 4th gen but no one with star power (as opposed to the previous gens) and netizens were mad, saying that this is something only 2nd gen listeners will say (lol). like i wanna give these newer groups the benefit of the doubt - they're still relatively new and haven't had much experience performing in front of an audience (esp aespa) but idt they will last long enough that they would be able to develop themselves with great (or interesting enough) stage presence. majority of 3rd gen groups didn't make it even though when they disbanded they were at their peaks.

honestly part of it is me being old too, but also it's not like i haven't spent literal years training in performing arts so i'm allowed to have opinions in this instance.

obviously there is a sort of 'golden oldies' rose coloured glasses that second and third gen fans have, because the groups that have stuck around are the ones that had the staying power, and it hasn't been long enough for the fourth gen groups to get whittled down in the same way. i do agree with you that not all of them are gonna be able to hack it because truly, there isn't as much innovation in presence and power as younger fans think there is. and that article is right, fourth gen is lacking in people with real star power. and i know i've said this a lot before too, but star power absolutely requires training. to be good on variety and good at being an entertainer is a skill, and when these companies are running their idols like overworked racehorses just for dance training, who's got the time to teach them how to be good variety guests? and with the whole 'authentic' content thing, groups can just produce their own shows for youtube or for vlive and never actually have to set foot on a studio set where they actually gotta be funny or they'll get cut out of broadcast. vlives and ig lives and company produced youtube contents are great and really fun, but with the way that kpoppies are built nowadays, there's almost NO stakes with this type of content. idols probably still feel the pressure that they have to be entertaining but there's always gonna be that core base that will gas up anything they do regardless of how actually good it is. it's the whole thing i talked about with skz and kingdom; if you don't let things flop, artists have no way of tangibly improving because they don't know that they're doing anything wrong. and improvment comes from failure.

another take that's probably nuclear grade but i don't care at this point: artist and celebrity are mutually exclusive. if someone is deeply dedicated to being an artist, of any kind, they are not interested in being a celebrity. they may be fine with being a celebrity by proxy, but they are never doing the work in pursuit of the fame, they are doing the work for the sake of the art. take dance, for example. there are very few celebrity or famous dancers that are actually considered top of their fields. or contemporary artists; many of them actively balk social media. most truly good actors are deeply weird people and/or 'ugly' and would never make it into the hollywood sphere. i think people have generally forgotten because of his ubiquity and impact on the industy, but taemin was notorious for being horrible on variety shows. and honestly he still is; he's a weird gremlin who does and says weird shit constantly and has a very clear boundary of what people are allowed to see of his life, which is nothing. there are some idols that are good celebrities and good artists, but it's like one of those triangles where you can only pick two; you have to sacrifice on something. key is an excellent artist and a great variety star; is he as good a dancer as taemin is? no, but that's fine. that's not the type of artist he is, he's not interested in pushing the limits of his dance abilties, he keeps them sharp because they are a tool in which to help him achieve his other goals. but with these fourth gens, fans have inflated ideas of what their idols are capable of, because they're expecting them to be master of all trades, when the actual saying is 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

#kpop questions #god i feel like im repeating myself over and over again screaming ITS OK FOR IDOLS TO BE NOT GOOD AT THINGS #everybody has different skills!!! there's a reason why perfomance is collaborative!!!!#i wanna beat this into kpoppies heads SO bad #this is not me condoning the practices of variety because holy shit it was SO awful to idols for SO long #but sometimes the best way to learn is to run the fucking gauntlet #tbh imo key uses his celebrity AS an artistic tool but also he's absolutely an outlier and there's very very few people that are doing this #like off the top of my head? damian hirst? maybe banksy? it's a very difficult line to walk and a lot of people are not successful at it #like maaaaaaaaybe kanye but also that's got a whole other part to it #extremely unpopular opinion damian hirst is actually one of my favourite artists #i respect him and absolutely do not respect him at the same time. its complicated #taemin meta #key w #text #answers #TBH this is also probably a hot take but like.......some of these fourth gen boys are gonna burn themselves out #trying to be the next taemin or kai when the reality is that they wont ever get there. but then they also wont have any other skills #because of the way that companies are training them #like kai and taemin both managed to get entertaining but it took YEARS for the both of them and it only happened #bc their groups were insanely popular and cemented themselves as industry staples. they basically had no option to be off camera #and even then theyre still very weird people #honestly my hottest take of this is that i don't actually care if idols are good dancers. i would rather them be good performers #theyre never going to reach the level of a professional dancer and that's fine. focus on the thing that makes your industry unique babes #this is my thing about enhypen. like yes their choreo is good but like. name me a single one of them. who are they #like the choreo for drunk dazed is good!! but its SO boring to watch!!!!#ok im done ranting i think. well probably not but i should stop

Key reminds me of the old hollywood type of fame: a very specific and carefully crafted persona that stays on like a mask any time the cameras are rolling. He treats it with respect and keeps it shiny and in tip-top condition, because he understands that he gets offers and work based on his persona suiting projects, and I respect that.

yes! i suspect that's probably where he got his inspiration for it too

#he really is mega professional its very inspiring #i respect him a lot and the way he approaches work in the industry is something i admire very much and seek to emulate #not to the t obvs bc im a different type of person. but the respect and dedication and intelligence that he does it with #key w #text #answers

please talk more about key as a performer!! :) i love hearing ur thoughts.

i feel like he’s not appreciated enough? everyone knows he as the fashion guy on the group (which valid) but imo hes shinee’s all rounder. literally Great at singing and dancing. (i mean all of shinee is good. but i have to be honest sometimes i can’t listen to taem/minho’s vocals. they’re not as strong compared to the other 3.) and i’m super excited to see what he has in store for his upcoming (rumored) solo!!

i too am excited for his comeback!! key's solo music is some of my favourite; one of those nights and i wanna be are pretty consistently in my top rotation and i wanna be is probably one of my top mvs for styling + design. i wish he had had more of chance to promote before he enlisted but hopefully that will be remedied this time around.

i do agree that he is shinee's allrounder, and he's an allrounder in an uncommon way for idols, which is in his technical prowess. he's an extremely good technical dancer and singer, which is an understated kind of impressiveness that i can't think of very many other idols having, maybe rain? i wouldn't even call taemin the same level of technical performer, because he's not a technical performer: he's an economical one. taemin does exactly the right about of movement to convey the point he's trying to: no more and no less. he purposefully pulls back when he's not in centre in shinee and you can occasionally catch him flub nonessential points (in any of his solo choreos also) because he knows where people are looking; this is the mark of someone who has a both a deep understanding of their body and a natural inclination to moving in it. he does a similar thing with his vocals, but from the opposite place. taemin is not a natural singer; he has a pretty short range and his tone is a little weird, but he's done a ton of training and worked very hard to make those flaws into a unique sound that is instantly recognizable as him. is it to everyone's tastes? nope, it's not even to mine half the time, but i've never mistaken a taemin track for any other vocalist.

key, on the other hand, does everything perfect. precision is very deeply ingrained in the way that he holds himself himself on stage and he doesn't let himself slack at all. i'm going to try my best to explain this but i don't know if it's going to make any sense. key pays a lot of attention to the technical aspects of performance because he has to. although he does have a higher natural aptitude/ability for singing than taemin does, he doesn't have the same understanding of his body, and he didn't have a guaranteed debut spot. he's not as good a vocalist as jinki or jonghyun and none of them compare to taemin in physicality, so he poured pretty much everything into being as technically perfect as possible, because he can't generate the same kind of intuitive body understanding. i sound like a crackpot but i promise this is a thing: you have a better innate understanding of how your body moves in space the younger you start working with that body. i've skateboarded since i was 8, competitive swam until i was 13, and i have a third degree blackbelt; i'm very aware of the way my body moves and my reflexes are extremely fast: in the accident where i broke my elbow five years ago the reason only my elbow broke and not my entire face and forehead is because i had the reflexes and training to know to cover my head. taemin started as an sm trainee at 11, and he'd obviously been dancing for some time before that. i'd hazard a guess and say that key probably didn't starting learning how to dance until he passed his audition at 14 (for reference, some ballet masters will say that 14 is too late to start learning and you will never become a principle dancer if you start then), and that means even though they both had approximately the same amount of training (both entered sm in 2005), taemin had more formative years training than key did. he's a great example of the old adage "everyone can sing/dance/act, you just have to practice" because he really did work his ass off.

it's also worth mentioning that key is known as the fashion/funny one because he engineered it that way. like i said, he wasn't going to stand out on talent alone, so he picked an area in which he could make himself stand out. every group needs someone who is good on variety shows/guesting/hosting and the other four are not well suited to it (jinki is too quiet, jonghyun has no filter, taemin is.....a weird cryptid at the best of times, and lee sooman literally told minho to shut up and look pretty), so key saw the spot he could take and he took it. and that's still his spot; he's not even a year post-discharge and he's already on the host panel of two very popular variety shows (amazing saturday and i live alone), and he just signed a massive promotional deal with taeyeon for olive young, plus all of the other smaller stuff shinee has done in the scant 7-8 months that shinee's been officially back. he's styled himself into a variety star because personally i think that's where he's more inclined to be. i do think he loves music and performing, especially as shinee, but i haven't seen the same drive to create performance in his solo work as i have with jonghyun or taemin's solos. the both of them have very strong underlying drives in theme and concept and creating a holistic experience with their work (jonghyun more musically focused and taemin more performance) and while undoubtedly key makes really fucking great tracks that i LOVE, they don't say as much. i know he's said that the new stuff will be something very different for him so maybe that means we'll be getting something wild. i'm always holding out hope for a concept album, but it's not like i'm gonna not listen to his stuff just because it isn't #makesyouthink or whatever. good music for the sake of good music is still good music.

#key #key w #kpop questions #kpop analysis #there's been a lot of people on twt saying how people only know kibum for being the 'sassy' one and honestly.....he did do that on purpose #i dont think kibum has done a single unintentional thing in his life he's too smart and calculated for that #i just think he likes being famous more than he likes the artistic process of being an idol #he's extremely well spoken and a great storyteller and he's more naturally suited to social performance than stage performance #and none of this is bad - in fact it makes him that much more of an allrounder #but you can be good at something and it still is just a job #i know ppl wanna hype up their faves and he does absolutely deserve credit for being as skilled as he is #but he's not really billing himself on his 'idol' skills first #i think it's fair that people see him as the funny fashion one because he's the one pushing that #and especially recently people that have been seeing him on amasat and i live alone have been seeing the social side of him #which is extremely caring and supportive #his i live alone episodes were 1) making food for his neighbours and fellow hosts #and taeyeon #2) making food and taking care of taemin just before he enlisted and 3) spending time with his military friends #he cares very deeply about people and his very diverse skillset and fame make him an ideal host #especially when there's been SO many terrible and unkind ones #again - he has seen a gap where he can fit and he's filling it #tbh i think his variety show work is a lot more important and effective in the industry in the long run than him making more music #even though i would still like him to make more music #kibum please i am (im)patiently waiting #im sorry anon this was probably not what you were wanting me to say but would this be a post from me if it didnt have a hot take #i just realized i barely talked about vocals but also in my defense i am not the vocals person #this is very long i was not expecting to have so many things to say #kibum #answers #text

I’m so glad you’re on the “Key Love and Appreciation” train too because I need someone else out there to be as in love as I am with everything he’s doing right now.

I feel like Key just never misses the mark and always manages to push the envelope. I’ve loved all his previous stuff and already love this even more. I’d also argue that this is partially the result of age and experience and yet another reason why we should be loving all these older groups. It’s a lot easier to crush it when you have a firm sense of self identify and don’t give as much of a fuck about what people tell you you should do. Even if he hadn’t already confirmed it, you can just feel his hand very heavily in everything that is coming out so far and it’s awesome to see.

i do love his work very much!! i just don't talk about him that frequently. i'm very glad that my manifesting powers worked once again and we are getting a concept album from him, and especially this concept; i grew up watching the original star trek and old scifi because my dad is a huge fan, so this aesthetic is very close to my heart. i'm very intrigued to see where this goes and i'm very glad key spent so long convincing the sm execs because i think it's going to pay off for him. he's been carefully watching what capacities other sm artists like taemin and yunho have been able to work in for creative directioning and now he has his chance to do something risky and fun and very far left field for kpop. it's a shame that it takes so long for artists from big companies to be given a modicum of creative freedom but also at the same time, not every idol is suited to pulling off something like this. concept design and direction is a job on its own, just like being an idol, and very few people can do both. key has a really strong team working with him (mv director from the fake reality teaser, art director from advice/hoshi's spider/hyuna's good girl, plus others) so he's got a lot of good people to help bring all of this to life.