Best & Worst of 2010: End of Year Review

Got to say in terms of 2010, it’s been a pretty tiresome year. J-Pop has made me realise some things that I never knew before – in a negative way. K-Pop has just upset me so much despite comebacks of my favourites and news that depressed me. It’s not all been so bad but…I had kind of hoped from all the artists that came back (e.g. Queens of J-Pop were present this year, BoA and Se7en who have been seen for years) that they would have a bigger success than usual.

Se7en is safe, SHINee is in trouble

By the way…I know I’m posting WAY too much K-Pop these days, I will try to find other games, j-pop and anime to talk about, I promise.

This week, Se7en and SHINee released their MV’s. Now, the thing I’ve noticed over the past week is that SHINee (for the first time) is starting to get antis due to their concept pictures and Lucifer MV compared to Se7en who is getting high praises for his mini album especially his choice of title track and collaboration song with T.O.P.

Let’s see why…

Give me Se7en more!

SE7EN is coming! And I can’t wait, the teaser for Digital Bounce feat. T.O.P sounds sick and the second teaser came out today. If anyone asked me to choose between Rain or Se7en, I am definitely going to say Se7en because he’s one of the artists along with BoA and the Wonder Girls who got me into K-Pop. Plus, his songs have a more of an R&B feel and…he’s hotter.

Here’s the tracklist for his mini-album:

(July) Birthday Month Updates!

Whooooo! July is coming and when it hits 9th, I’ll turn 17 (18 in Korean Age). So I thought after re-reading my post for Last four months of 2009, my prediction was almost right (I got 10/14 artists right! ^_^) and I thought about during one for July for both J-Pop and K-Pop. (Done in alphabetical order).

BEAST is Shocking! BoA and Se7en – YES!

Looks like 2010 may be an upcoming good year because of the comebacks from:
BoA
Lee Hyori
Rain
Se7en

I guess that among these four, BoA and Se7en matter most because they haven’t been seen for more than 2 years in Korea unlike Lee Hyori and Rain but I can’t wait for their comeback.

Right now, though is BEAST’s time and oh my gosh, it’s shocking…

credit: UrAsianSource

Best & Worst of 2009: End of Year Review

WARNING: Even though these topics have bullet points on them, if you are lazy and do not want to read much, I suggest you skip to the Overall part and also answer the questions at the bottom. Thank you! ^_^

Looks like we have reached the end of an eventful year in J-Pop and especially, K-Pop. I would like to say, despite my lack of knowledge of the J-Pop World for 3 years, I can say the world of J-Pop and K-Pop seemed more calmer at the start of the year compared to the drama that later unfolding in the following months. Let’s recap what happened in the year of 2009 of J-Pop and K-Pop, from my standards and choices, of course.

Who do you want to comeback/debut next year?

Don’t know if you guys know my post on allkpop, but this year we have seen a lot of girl groups debut and also comeback. Most of my predictions for the last four months in 2009 were correct but the ones that weren’t were pushed back.

Anyways, who would you like to comeback next year? Or would you like debuts of more boy/girl groups and solo artists?

What happened to Asian Domination…

…in the USA, that is. Now I don’t live in America (instead I’m from London), but back in March, there was a quite buzz at the amount of several Asian Pop artists (three solo artists and one group) that I thought had a good 30% chance of breaking into America as an Asian artist, Sadly, it’s now October and it’s dropped to 5%. Why? I’ll tell you why…

I have to say that, for some reason people never seem to take well to asi ans in music. From what I’ve learnt over the years before and after listening to Asian music, Nationality is the issue. I hate to say it but it’s true. I don’t think Americans are very responsive to any sort of Asian artist/group. I mean, can you name any local Asian-American act that’s actually made it big? So the chances are probably slimmer than my predicted percentage.

I don’t live in America but I can tell you that if I ever saw BoA’s song, I wouldn’t give her a second glance, I would most possibly call her mixed-race which is…stupid. Yeah, and anyways living in London, some British people wouldn’t respond well too, especially how we don’t have enough asians over here too, the other day I showed my sister SHINee and she called them gay (You can imagine how pissed I was), she didn’t even let me explain that there are music differences in other cultures.

Here are some of the artists who, if they had planned their steps correctly, would have made a breakthrough into America.

Last four months of 2009 in K-Pop, what are we expecting?

These are just some of the artists that we can expect debuting or having a comeback through September to December. Can we expect more excitement in the K-Pop industry for ourselves? Why, yes I think we can.