While the past week in K-pop wasn’t as ‘wild’ as the week previous, there still was a lot going on. With summer upon us, it makes sense that these weeks are action packed and the start of something…
New:
- Baek Ji-young released her collab with Brave Brothers this past week, the disco-esque “Reminded of You” which is doing well on all the charts. Some are calling the track her last dance track before becoming a wife and mother which I find funny because getting married and having a baby makes you no longer capable of boogie-ing down? I think not, but in Korean society–who knows?! Baek Ji-young and her fiancee actor Jung Suk-won also released their beautiful wedding pictures ahead of their star studded wedding happening on June 2nd. (Chosun)
- Wheesung is being investigated for abuse of the drug propofol. The claims are that he has been getting propofol treatments for years continuing even while he was in the military on his breaks. The singer claims that the treatments were for medical purposes only and not abuse.
- In an baffling turn of events comedian Yoo Se-yun after a night out, which included drinking, drove straight to the police station afterwards to turn himself in for driving drunk which got him arrested for DUI. Many are saying stress over a too busy schedule could have led to his awkward behavior and he has since left the show Knee Drop Guru.
- Actress Han Hye-jin announced that she will be getting married to her soccer star fiance, Ki Sung-yeung, on July 1st. She also mentioned that she would be following her husband which seems to indicate she would be leaving her stint as an MC on Healing Camp and take a hiatus from acting as her husband plays soccer in the UK for Swansea City AFC.
- Jang Geun-suk, the ‘Prince of Asia’ along with his Team H partner DJ Big Brother performed to over 67,000 fans while on tour in Japan. He’s bringing the party to the US with concerts in Los Angeles and San Jose at the end of June.
- SS501‘s Park Jung-min has finally concluded his legal problems with his former agency CNR Media. He accepted a portion of what he was owed by the financially strapped company so that he would be able to sever his ties with them and move on in his career.
- T-ara N4 had an interesting US debut at Chris Brown‘s Memorial Day weekend Pool Party at the Palms in Las Vegas.
In-K-pop:
- 2NE1 leader CL released her debut solo “The Baddest Female.” Love CL, but am still trying to convince myself that I love the song and MV–so far it isn’t working. And what the heck was G-Dragon wearing, or rather what was he not wearing?
- SM Entertainment‘s rookie boy band Exo finally made their return with the release of the Korean and Chinese dance version MVs of “Wolf.” Not quite sold on the song or MV, but you must admit that the boys perform the hell out of a beast of a song. It’s also good seeing them perform as 12.
- Star (aka Byul, the wife of HaHa) released the MV for “You Are The Best.” It’s a super cute animated MV that tells the story of two stuffed bunnies and the claw vending machine that kept them apart.
- Kim Seul-gi and Jay Park sing “Rude Girl” for the She is WOW OST, rookie girl group Skarf made a comeback with “Luv Virus,” Eco Bridge sing of “One Day, Suddenly,” Infinite released the PV for “Man in Love,” Boyfriend sang “On and On,” Dia makes a comeback after a a year with “Breaking Up” Philtre–who is part of the production team known as Planet Shiver released his first personal work with “Fade” featuring the vocals of Younha as the 6th single for Amoeba Culture‘s NOWorkend project album, Park Mu-jin is back with a new song that’s hot to Trot “Money Bang Bang,” Yangpa covered “Glory of Love” for the Hitman Project: David Foster tribute album.
- Huh Gak and APink‘s Eun-ji also released one of the cutest MVs ever for “Short Hair” which makes use of finger puppets to tell a love story.
- Rainbow teases with “Sunshine” which is a bit of a disappointment after how good “Tell Me Tell Me” was, Hong Hyuk-su released a teaser for “Drama,” Big Hit Entertainment‘s new boy band BTS (aka Bangtan Boys) released a teaser of their debut and that they’re 2 cool 4 skool, another new boy band Boys Republic is also gearing up for their debut with teasers of their members and MBLAQ tease their comeback with “Smoky Girl.
- BEAST got fans in a frenzy for their return in July with the pre-release of their new song “Will You Be Alright” written by Jun-hyung. It’s a beautiful ballad and I can definitely understand their fans’ excitement for their long awaited return after doing a bunch of solo work.
- SM Entertainment‘s teasers of a new solo artist turned out to be Super Junior M‘s Henry. His teaser for “Trap” featuring Taemin and Kyuhyun looks kind of awesome.
- After School, Dal Shabet and Crayon Pop have also announced their comebacks this summer.
- Rain signed a management contract with Cube Entertainment in preparation for his come back following his release from military duty this July.
- B.A.P. did a bunch of interviews while on tour in the US including ones with FUSE and Danny of Danny From LA. Is it only me or did Young-jae look really good during the US Tour?
- LOEN‘s latest Let’s Dance segment was with 100% showing you how to do the moves to their song “Want U Back” and Lee Min-ho answered fans question in his Ask In A Box segment regarding the release of his album My Everything.
- After only 16 months since their debut, rookie group Chaos has decided to disband. It’s unfortunate because they had good things going for them like a non-ridiculous name and decent songs.
In K-dramas:
K-drama debuts this week were: tvN‘s 4th drama in its Flower Boy series Dating Agency:Cyrano (the original title was Flower Boy Dating Agency) starring Lee Jong-hyuk, SNSD‘s Sooyoung and Lee Chun-hee; Shark which stars Kim Nam-gil and Son Ye-jin in a tale of love, betrayal and revenge for KBS; JTBC‘s Heartless City starring Jung Kyung-ho and Nam Gyuri; and SBS’ two episode drama special Case Number 113 starring Ki Tae-young and Kim Min-seo.
- BEAST‘s Jun-hyung and BTOB release “After Time Passes” for the Monstar OST, BoA is “Between Heaven and Hell” for the K-drama Shark, KARA‘s Goo Hara worked with Japanese producer Fukuyama Masaharu in the release of “Love Spell” for the Galileo OST and Jevice released “Love Virus” for the Wonderful Mama OST.
- SHINee‘s Onew will star in JTBC’s upcoming drama Royal Villa in which he will have a love line with… a sexy, virgin ghost?! Seems like fun. The drama will debut on July 13th.
- Sexy evil gumiho/1000 year demon daddy, Choi Jin-hyuk, accepted the role of Lee Min-ho‘s older half brother in the upcoming k-drama Heirs which will debut in October.
- The Wonder Girls‘ Yenny will make her K-drama debut in the upcoming tvN drama Basketball debuting in September.
- It was reported that the cast and crew of K-drama Rascal Sons have yet to be paid their full wages for the drama. The amount owed to the cast and crew is in the hundreds of millions of won and the CEO of the production company, To Be Enterprise has gone missing.
- Sandeul of B1A4 and Boyfriend‘s Dong-hyun will both appear in the musical, The Thousandth Man, which is based on the K-drama of the same name.
In Variety:
- The latest episode of KBS‘ Easy Korean Cooking, featured Kiseop and Hoon of U-KISS who teach fans how to make bibimbap.
- On the latest episode of Shinhwa Broadcast, the women of Infinity Girls kidnap maknae Andy and it is up to the rest of the men of Shinhwa to rescue him by meeting their demands. Definitely a must see.
- miss A‘s Fei came in first taking the crown for Dancing with the Stars Korea 3 with her partner Kim Su-ro.
- Amber and Luna amazed fans with their acoustic version of “NU ABO” on their new variety show Amazing f(x).
- Actor Kim Su-ro was hurt on the set on his variety show Real Men. He was rushed to the hospital for a shoulder injury and is said to be okay.
