SB Exchange #6: IU

This week on SB Exchange, we take a closer look at solo idol IU.

I first encountered IU as the adorable Pil-sook from K-drama Dream High (which I discovered after finishing my first drama, 49 Days, which had a character named Min-ho in it; degrees of separation from SHINee: four). Pil-sook was definitely my favourite character, along with Sam-dong, and her voice was so beautiful. I was still very new to K-pop at that stage, so it took me a while before I realised that she was also a singer (and that Suzy, Taecyeon and Wooyoung were idols — and that Kim Soo-hyun wasn’t). Ah, those were the days, replete with complete and utter ignorance. Le sigh.

IU debuted as a solo singer at the tender age of 15 with the sombre “Lost Child“, but only finding success when she changed to a more youthful sound, beginning with “Boo“. And once “Good Day” happened, her place as the crown jewel of LOEN Entertainment was well cemented. So what do my fellow Seoulbeats associates think of Korea’s Little Sister? Nabeela, Natalie and Fannie gave me their insights:

1. IU’s debut single “Lost Child” has a very different sound from her subsequent releases — while I guess you could say she sold out, I feel like everything from “Boo” onwards was more suitable for her age than the mature themes seen in “Lost Child”. What are your thoughts on this issue of age-appropriate music, if one were to call it such?

Nabeela: I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for IU despite how she has changed. Though I really only caught on to IU with her song “Good Day”, it is obvious she has continuously deviated from her original sound. Take for example her first album “Growing Up” — a lot of acoustics, a lot of strong and tempered vocals, and powerful lyrics. Looking back on that IU, she physically looked more confident in her style of music and her own musical talents. But I think IU dealing with the industry as she became increasingly popular was like a double edged sword. Everyone loved her for talent when she debuted. But even more of us loved her for her face.

As more and more people picked up on the little gem that was IU, it was hard not to love her for her beauty and her natural aegyo (undoubtedly due to her age) and then her music. Personally, I think as IU became more widely known, her company decided to steer her in a direction that would monopolize on her charms, the very charms her newer audiences adored, instead of IU’s own creative genius. Now she’s “the daughter of Korea” and has hordes of uncle fans because of her more innocent and cute image. Sure, maybe that image is more age appropriate for IU — she is relatively young. But her age-appropriate music is boring.

Natalie: Because I’m new to Kpop, I got my first dose of IU with “Last Fantasy,” and I initially assumed she was like almost every other bubblegum Kpop singer. Then I learned that she is far better than all that, which her past work shows. It’s a little unfortunate that IU had to turn the route she did in order to achieve fame – from my perspective, her past work was tons better. As for her age and concepts - I’ve always considered IU to be a very versatile artist. She embodied both her recent and past work well, her age not really being that big an issue. I think this was partly because she wasn’t mainstream when “Lost Child” was released and so not a big enough deal for her age to be a problem. Because of this, she wasn’t anchored to a definite image. The main problem with “age” and how it applies to concepts is that people will primarily have a picture in their heads of what to expect from a certain group or age. When someone goes out of that, there’s a problem and it creates doubt and set-backs. IU, from what I can tell, didn’t have this problem so much.

Fannie: Honestly, I think that as long as whatever comes out of an artist is genuine and truthful, there’s nothing really age inappropriate about it. Not all 15-year-olds are about sunshine and butterflies. IU in particular, I have always felt not only has natural cuteness, but also a natural maturity (maturity ≠ sex kitten), so really she could go either way. Just so long as it’s not overly forced. Admittedly, her material from after she became popular is questionable in this regard. There’s a paradox within the whole ‘innocent’ act in K-pop, nowadays. On one hand, IU’s music is pretty solidly PG. On the other hand, her skirt length from her most recent comeback… made me really nervous every time she performed.

2. “Last Fantasy” is being promoted as a coming-of-age musically for IU. What effect do you think adulthood will have on her music and image? Or do you think that this could all be lip service and that we are all in for more “Good Day”-style tunes?

Nabeela: Hey, I loved Good Day! There was a rainbow parrot in that MV! However, I was largely unimpressed with Last Fantasy. I really hope IU was ‘coming of age’ with that album, because it’s time for her music to grow up, again. But you never know, it really could all just be lip service. Every time there is a comeback, an artist’s company will say anything to raise anticipation.

Nabeela: I also would love to see her collab with DJ Clazzi, just because he’s more alternative and indie in some respects. Maybe she could step out of the box a little and lend her vocals alongside a rapper like Junhyung or Jun.K–that could be fun. If she wanted to stay primarily vocal, it would be nice to see IU and Taeyeon do something together.

Natalie: Oh, gosh, I haven’t really thought about this… I would like to see IU collaborate with male groups like CN Blue or SHINee or INFINITE. Call me crazy (and I know you are!) but I think it’d be interesting to see her and the opposite group meet somewhere inbetween their sounds to make something new and interesting (with eye-candy).

Fannie: I know they already did a special stage together at the most recent SBS Gayo Daejun, but more of IU and Yoseob! I’ve always paired the two together… I think because the very first time I ever came across IU was during one of her old “Marshmallow” performances, which featured a cameo from an extremely blonde Yoseob. I also think that the fact that he’s such an IU fanboy is the cutest thing ever.

In terms of girl collaborations: seconded on the IU and Taeyeon collaboration. I could see the two of them creating some really beautiful OST tracks together. IU and Secret’s Ji-eun would also be adorable — they both have uniquely sweet voices in different ways.

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I would love to see more IU and Yoseob — I find his fanboying rather adorable. I think because IU is a solo artist, I’m really interested to see the kinds of dynamics between her and other artists. For some reason I really want to see a Changmin-IU collaboration — I have a suspicion that his fanboying over her in K-variety show “Heroes” was scripted, but it was pretty funny watching Volde-min almost lose it around IU. And I do wonder what it would sound like if they started hitting high notes together…

As I mentioned above, I absolutely loved everything about IU on Dream High — but the number 1 thing was her singing. Although Suzy’s voice is still my favourite (it’s so low!), her covers were something special, and when I found her acoustic covers of other K-pop hits like “Sorry, Sorry”, my love for her only increased. I discovered “Good Day” and really enjoyed it (the three-octave high note got me as well) — and then I found “Lost Child”.

That song… it gave me shivers. It’s such a beautiful song, and IU delivers it so well, both technically and emotionally. I didn’t think much of the change in sound between “Lost Child”and “Good Day”, reasoning that drastic concept changes happen all the time in K-pop with other artists, why not IU. But when I saw “Boo”, I was… seething, for want of a better word. Not only was the MV a complete rip-off of Kylie Minogue‘s “Come Into My World“, the extreme change in pretty-much-everything really got to me. I couldn’t stand it, because I knew that, basically, IU had sold out. Or LOEN did, on her behalf.

At any rate, the sudden turn-around felt too artificial, and that feeling was only compounded with IU’s latest release “Last Fantasy”. I’ve found it really hard to get into more of her music since then, and really do hope that her future releases bring her back to her more mature sound permanently (she did release a music video for “Only I Didn’t Know“, though they had a different actress for the story scenes). Or I did: with the news of LOEN signing Brown Eyed Girls’ Ga-in for a solo contract, I have a feeling that Ga-in will take over the more mature themes, leaving IU to continue on her aegyo path. My last hope, I guess, lies with Japan, but considering that she’s signed to EMI Japan, who totally kawai-ified T-ara‘s “Bo Peep” even more than I thought possible, my hopes are probably not going to eventuate.

Surprisingly, IU failed many auditions, inlcuding JYP Entertainment’s. From the JYP audition tape released, you can see that IU’s talent is beyond obvious, so why was she rejected? Many theories have arisen, including the one that companies did not see her as easy to mould to their liking as other auditionees. If this was the case, then LOEN has well proved them wrong, for they have been able to successfully mould IU’s image from “Boo” onwards, resulting in unprecedented success — music show wins, music chart all-kills, awards, etc. But in the process, IU has become LOEN’s cash cow, which is not the healthiest of relationships to have, especially for one based on creativity and the qualitative rather than quantitative. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again — I really really really do hope that IU is able to grow and mature in the best way possible, and that LOEN will allow her, and perhaps even aid her, to do so.

And if that doesn’t happen? At least I have this:

Seriously, LOEN, just put IU in a room with her guitar, record every sound made, and release that — I’d be the first one to buy it.

What are your thoughts on IU?

(KBS, LOENENT, TVREPORT, XPORTS NEWS)

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