Week in Review, 12/3 to 12/9
Welcome to another edition of SB Week in Review! Here's all the news you might have missed: Headlines Following his recent scandal with the …
Idols
GOT7 are Guardian Angels in “Miracle”
Three months after their return with Present: You, Got7 released a re-issued album, Present: You & Me, together with a new title track, "Mirac…
Is Jennie Being Lazy?
Black Pink’s situation is complex: the group debuted in 2016, and despite their huge popularity, they have only released nine songs in total. Jenn…
BTS, Iz One and How Tensions Between Korea and Japan Play Out in K-pop
Idols' scandals rarely make headlines outside of Korea and the K-pop fandom. But when a Japanese television appearance by BTS was canceled in earl…
Mino’s “XX” is a Raunchy Masterpiece
For anyone who's been following K-pop for some time now, I think we can agree that there is no shortage of grievances we have with one agency in partic…
Multilingual K-pop: The Expansion Into Global Markets
2018 has been a momentous year for K-Pop. BTS became the first K-pop group to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts. Monsta X is back in the U.S…
Ambivalent to Red Velvet’s “Really Bad Boy”
Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Red Velvet seems to have a rather ambivalent relationship to him in their latest MV for "Really Bad B…
Mino Successfully Experiments in “Fiancé”
After a long wait, Mino’s solo album XX was released on November 26th and “Fiancé” is its lead single. From almost debuting as a member of Block B, to …
Key’s “One of Those Nights” Paints Mental Landscapes of Longing
How do you turn feelings into music, and then transform that music, and all the feelings it captures, into visuals? As a form, the music video has com…
The Submerged Meanings of Bathtubs in K-pop MVs
You might have noticed a common, albeit peculiar, trope in many K-pop MVs: the presence of a bathtub. They come in various sizes, shapes, and fill…