The ladies of K-pop came back with a vengeance this week as a couple of popular girl groups made their long awaited returns. What’s slightly surprising is all chose dark and sexy concepts instead of fun and flirty ones that one would expect for summer. Only time will tell how successful their choice of concept is as the summer comeback explosion continues to march on.
Give Me Love:
- Female soloist Navi revealed that she has been dating Korean Professional Soccer star Yeo Hyo-jin of Goyang Hi FC for the past two years after meeting through common acquaintances. (OSEN)
K-pop icon, Seo Taiji, announced through his company that he would be getting married to actress Lee Eun-sung who is 16 years younger. The two met in 2008 when she appeared in his MV for “Bermuda Triangle” and began dating in 2009. Lee Eun-sung debuted in 2003 and appeared in a bunch of K-dramas, MVs, and films before stopping all activities in 2009. (MBN)
- Actress Kim Sa-rang has denied rumors that she and Korean Soccer great Park Ji-sung are getting married. Rumors of their marriage had spread after a source aid that their names were in a hotel’s marriage registry for September. The two have been tied together in relationship rumors since appearing a a CF together. (kmib)
- MC Sniper announced he will marry his girlfriend of four years, who is not a celebrity and seven years younger than him, in November. (BusanIlbo)
- Actor Song Jae-Hee and announcer Kim Kyung-ran announced that they are dating. They apparently met in church last year and have been dating since April of this year. (OBS)
Give Me K-pop:
- SISTAR made their big summer come back with their Moulin Rouge inspired MV for “Give to me.” It’s not fun and summer-y like last year’s big hit “Loving U,” but they can’t come to Hawaii for an MV shoot every year.
- Sexy diva Ivy made her come back with the JYP penned song “I Dance” featuring the Wonder Girls‘ Yubin, Big Mama‘s Lee Ji-Young released a dark and disturbing “Inconvenient Truth” featuring Phantom‘s maknae Han-hae, female soloist Heyne debuted with “Dalla,” Chocolat became “Black Tinkerbell“s and After School finally returned with a ballad about “First Love” loving the song–the MV not so much and it’s not the pole dancing it’s the production of the MV–it looks cheaply made and I expect better from After School.
- The legendary Lee Seung-chul debuted a star-studded MV for his latest release “The Day to Love.” The song is a precursor to the release of his 11th album, My Love, to celebrate his 28th anniversary since his debut with the band Boohwal in 1985 before going solo. The MV is like a mini drama, in fact I thought it was an MV for a drama’s OST at first. I think I’m not alone when thinking we want a part two to this love story.
- Rookie artist Somdef, who is affiliated with the 360sounds crew, released a psychedelic MV for his song “Circus” featuring Jinbo which is like a electro-jazz-funk ditty which I’m digging.
- Also debuting this week were BTS (aka BangTan Boys), Big Hit Entertainment‘s new boy band. They’re def more hip hop than straight up k-pop. The opening bass line of their debut song “No More Dream” reminded me of some old school hip hop and I like the song. The MV, on the other hand was okay, but seemed a bit too pretty and polished for such a gritty sounding song.
- CCM‘s project group made up of T-ARA‘s Soyeon, THE SEEYA‘s Yoojin, 5dolls‘ Eunkyo and SPEED‘s Taewoon and Sungmin released the MV for their ballad “Painkiller” and Gag man Pak Myung-soo released his latest musical endeavor with “You’re My Girl.”
- Sunny Hill released a teaser for their come back “Darling of all Hearts” featuring Hareem and it looks like it’ll be a Sunny Hill we’ve never seen before, LedApple is making a come back with “Bad Boys“–why does everyone want to be bad all of a sudden?, Dal Shabet is gonna “Be Ambitious” when they return, Baek A-yeon sings of “A Good Boy,” and Lee Hyori is “Going Crazy” like a man in her latest teaser.
- LEDApple and SPICA‘s BoA Kim do Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason” for their latest Music Note.
- Infinite announced through a session on Google Hangout with fans that they will be taking One Great Step and do a World Tour in 2013 with stops across Asia and a couple in the US, South America, and Europe. I know that the group is pretty popular now, but am still surprised that they will be doing a world tour.
- MBLAQ will be heading to Mexico for a concert on August 8th. Are there a lot of “Smoky Girls” in Mexico?
B.A.P. celebrated their 500th day since their debut and thanked their fans for their support. Their agency, TS Entertainment also released pictures taken at a secret MV shoot done in Downtown Las Vegas in front of the Fremont Hotel (I’m guessing they were filming in the Fremont Street Experience area) while in the US during the “Live on Earth” tour. The company has said that police had to cordon off the area due to the crowd that formed while they were shooting–reportedly a first for a K-pop group in Las Vegas. (TheStarChosun)
- Congratulations to SM Entertainment‘s wonder rookies EXO for winning their first music show trophy on this week’s KBS‘ Music Bank for their latest song “Wolf”. It was followed the next night with a win on MBC‘s Show! Music Core. I’m glad that they got their win promoting as twelve.
Give Me K-drama:
- Actress Go Hyun-jun‘s newest drama The Queen’s Classroom debuted on MBC this week. It’s a remake of the popular 2005 Japanese dorama Classroom of the Queen. It came in third place of the Wednesday/Thursday dramas with I Hear Your Voice which is on a ratings roll in first place with ratings climbing to 16.1% and Mandate of Heaven which increased in ratings to 8.5% (The Queen’s Classroom‘s ratings actually slipped 0.4% for episode 2). In the drama, Go Hyun-jun’s character is the new sixth grade teacher from hell. Among her students are some seasoned child actors including Seo Shin-ae and Kim Sae-ron. The drama’s genre is listed as a human/school/comedy, so I’m hoping it’s not all just school of hard knocks and that the teacher has a reason for her extreme teaching.
Give Me K-variety:
- During his appearance on Yoo Hee-yeol’s Sketchbook, Vibe‘s Yoon Min-soo thanked netizens and fellow celebrities for participating in the ‘I Love Yoon Hoo’ movement that started up after someone began a Yoon Hoo anti-cafe. After fellow dad on the show Dad! Where Are We Going?, Lee Jong-hyuk, blasted the site on Twitter Hoo’s fans began a campaign to promote searching “I Love Yoon Hoo” or “Yoon Hoo Angel” to get the anti-cafe out of the top searched for terms. Naver also blocked the site and in the end the anti-cafe’s creator shut the site down and apologized to the Yoon family. (OBS)
- New K-variety show Barefoot Friends has more than just bad ratings to worry about. Yoo Se-yun left the show do to his DUI incident so that’s one man down, but on June 10th during shooting for the show singer Kim Bum-soo injured his leg and they don’t know when he’ll be able to return to filming. Rumors were that Eun Ji-won would replace Yoo Se-yun, but it has been confirmed that he’ll be a guest with him joining as a fixed member still being ‘discussed.’ (hankooki, TVReport)
