Dear Super Junior,
This breakup will have ELFs everywhere sacrifice me to the almighty K-pop Gods but I am willing to take the risk. I should also start on my will.
You see, Super Junior, specifically Super Junior M, was my gateway drug–I mean boy band– to K-Pop. You were the first K-pop group I knew and fanned over so it is hard to do this. We had a good nine months together and you will always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to this genre.
I remember one cold January afternoon, my best friend was singing “Super Girl” and completely freaking out about “These Sexy Asian Boys.” Later that day, I went home and looked up “These Sexy Asian Boys.” That was the start of my love affair with Super Junior and eventually K-Pop. Now, I knew of Super Junior before when a friend of mine in middle school would send me emails filled with Kyuhyun and Donghae cuddling various infant mammals and a caption that read “OMG SO CUTE.” I would roll my eyes and delete it. Mind you this was pre-Sorry Sorry era when any sexiness in Super Junior was non existent(as was my hormones…).
Fast forward four years later. I saw Super Girl. I was hooked; nice black suits, catchy song, cute boys, and best of all? Cute boys who could dance. I was a goner once I saw “Boom Boom”, “It’s You”, and “No Other”. I was entranced, but it was K-pop. I am not a big fan of pop, I listen to hard rock (Disturbed, Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, etc) and Indian songs (A.R. Rahman and Yuvan Shankar Raja ftw). My whole thing with SJ? It was a secret love affair.
So I would watch Super Junior’s old variety shows and backstage videos and grew to love the group, especially Henry and Zhou Mi. And for the first two or so months of my K-Pop phase I only watched Super Junior related videos. I remembered watching SHinee’s “Ring Ding Dong”, I laughed, I cried, I went back to watching Henry Lau’s mad violin skills. But when I clicked on” Mirotic“, my world was forever changed. I know, there was someone else but I tried so hard to stick with you. After TVXQ I started listening to other groups: BEG, 2PM, 2AM, U-Kiss, SS501 and recently, underground Korean Hip Hop.
When I started following you guys, Kangin and Ki-Bum were gone and so was Han Geng. So you already starting to degenerate but I still stuck with you, even after the auto-tuned bonanza that is Too Perfect.
Then this happened.
Mr. Simple
Oh my oh my. I love funky colored outfits, but you need a certain amount of attitude to pull that off. I loved you boys but gah. It looked like some drug induced hypnotic state of mind. Apparently SM Entertainment did not get the memo to lay of the ‘shrooms.
I saw the teaser, I was intrigued. It was R&B, Yoo Young-Jin does R&B like a boss. So the days leading to your comeback I was antsy and was waiting anxiously. Oh how you disappointed me Super Junior. I can’t blame you for lack of musicality, just your entertainment company.
Even with all that I still stood by your side, being ever faithful. So when the repackaged version of the Album came out with A-Cha I had hope. Only for it to be crushed and trampled on…kind of like the world economy. Of course Siwon is acting, Heechul is in the army, and Leeteuk is soon to follow.
The fact is, Super Junior is slowly declining. The members aren’t leaving all at once, they’re going one by one, much like a horror movie. Not only is it painful to watch only half of Super Junior on stage, but you can see that the boys are not as into to their songs as before. Also the quality of songs have progressively gotten worse and more auto-tuned. I cringe every time I hear Sungmin’s auto-tuned voice in Too Perfect, if that was cut out, I would actually like the song. The electronic sounds do not suit the boys at all and Eunhyuk needs to stop rapping. Sungmin keeps doing this weird thing with his face where he tucks his chin into his neck. Not flattering at all. Korean stylists also have to realize that bowl cuts are the worst thing to happen since the mullet, and that kind of hairstyle needs to stop. Whoever directs these music videos needs to be sacked because if I see one more dance video I will write a strongly worded letter to SM Entertainment. I dare you SM, release one more dance video and face my wrath.
After the whole ‘Only 13’ shenanigans, I kind of lost all faith in ELFs, not that there was much to begin with.
So I end on this note. Super Junior, we’re over, it’s not you it’s me. Actually it is kind of your fault, I wish you would stand up to SM Entertainment and tell them to stop giving you crappy songs, music videos, clothes, and hairstyles.
Sincerely,
Gil
