It seems like everyone in K-pop is catching the YouTube buzz as more and more of our favorite idols and bands are uploading little tidbits for fans on their official channels like LedApple with their Music Note series, Teen Top and their Shake-ing, Peniel of BTOB and his vlogs, Crispi Crunch‘s reaction videos, and one of the latest I’ve seen A-Prince‘s Sungwon with a cover of the rock classic “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes. It makes sense as the breadth of K-pop grows worldwide giving international fans a little more access to their favorite idols and I hope more companies and idols join in on the fun. It also is a way for lesser know idol groups and members to get a little more exposure.
In K-pop…
- SS501‘s Heo Young-saeng teasing fans with his comeback scheduled for March 14th, new boy band M4M shares their “Sadness” prior to their debut, Jung In released a teaser of her MV for “Those Obvious Words” starring Tiger JK and Jo Eun-ji, and F.T. Island teased their upcoming Japanese release “You Are My Life.”
- Boy band AA makes a comeback with “Rollin’ Rollin'” and gotrolled right out the door by KBS and SBS for suggestive lyrics “I want to roll, roll around with you.” If they were gonna ban them for anything, they should’ve banned them for their white washed out MV.
- 2AM finally made their return with their second album One Spring Day and the MV for the title track “One Spring Day.”
- My favorite K-variety elder, Yoon Jong-shin released “No Schedule” sung by Kim Yeon-woo as part of his Monthly Project 2013-March, Davichi go whimsical with “Turtle,” Lee Sora remakes Chicago‘s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” as part of the Hitman Project, RANIA is back with “Just Go,”and “Memory Is More Beautiful Than Farewell” to Tei, U-KISS are “Standing Still,” and Lee Hi released her new mini album First Love Part 1 and the MV for the track “It’s Over” featuring some bad, bad bears.
- Lunafly announced their official fan club name LUKIE. “The literal meaning of the name LUKIE is ‘LUNAFLY’s Kingdom is Eternal’.” Maybe they should have thought that one out a bit more.
- Making a debut this week were girl group Ladies Code with “Bad Girl,” and we finally got to hear a Zion T song with “Two Melodies” featuring Crush.
In K-dramas…
In OST news: Joo Won did a cover of AshGray‘s “Don’t Know How To Love” for Level 7 Civil Servant, Sohyang remakes Baek Ji-young‘s “Don’t Forget Me” which was on the IRIS OST for IRIS 2, Boa of SPICA sings “Tears Fallin” and SNSD’s Taeyeon sings “And One” for That Winter, The Wind Blows.
- Although Level 7 Civil Servant isn’t one of his more popular K-dramas, I think it was a nice change of pace for Joo Won. He continues to be popular with photo shoots for ELLE Korea, Esquire, and EDWIN. He also has his next project lined up the movie Only You in which he’ll play a cop who falls in love with a female thief. His leading lady hasn’t been cast yet, but filming could start as early as April. (SportsSeoul)
- KARA‘s leader Park Gyuri got the leadd role in the K-drama Nailshop Paris alongside MBLAQ′s Thunder, and actors Song Jae-lim and Jeon Ji-hoo. In the drama she plays a writer who dresses up as man to work in a nail salon which only employs flower boys. Nailshop Paris will debut in April. (Joongboo)
- Kim Woo-bin has also signed up for his next role, that of the son of Jang Dong-gun‘s character Dong-su in the movie Friend for the sequel Friend 2. (NewsIs)
- Four members of BTOB: Min-hyuk, Chang-seob, Hyun-sik and Sung-jae will star alongside BEAST“s Jun-hyung in the 12 episode long music drama “Monstar.” They will be part of the boy band Men In Black whose leader (Jun-hyung) gets in trouble due to his temper. (Newsen)
In K-variety…
- Things are a changing with 1N2D with the departure of PD Choi Jae-hyung and Kim Seung-woo. The show will go through a format change with new PD Lee Sae-hee, but the rest of the cast are said to be staying with the show.
- Knee Drop Guru will also see some format changes which prompted ZE:A‘s Kwanghee to withdraw from the show which would provide conflicts with his schedule for hi personal and ZE:A activities and We Got Married shooting. (SportsDonga)
- The third season of Dancing With the Stars Korea’s celebrity contestants include idol stars MBLAQ‘s Seungho and miss A’s Fei, singers Kim Wan-sun and Kim Kyung-ho, actors Lee Jong-won and Nam Bora, basketball player Woo Ji-won, Korean American pool player Jeanette Lee, and magician Lee Eun-kyul. Fei recently tweeted a picture of herself and her dance partner Kim Soo-ro (@missA_fei)
The K-variety chopping block is busy once more as Qualifications of Men and Moonlight Prince have been cancelled. Qualifications of Men had been seeing a drop in ratings , but was still a good show. Moonlight Prince was barely given a chance airing only a handful of episodes. The last guests for Moonlight prince will be 2AM‘s Jinwoon and Changmin and Kim Tae-woo will be the final guests of the show. (StarNews)
- Looks like I’m not the only fan of the new variety show Dad! Where Are We Going? Many female idols have been tweeting about their favorites from the show including Shin Se-kyung, Jewelry‘s Eun-jung, KARA‘s Ji-young and her cousin NS Yoon G fighting over Hoo and 2NE1‘s Sandara and Minzy listing Joon as their new ideal types. The show’s popularity can be seen by the amount of CF offers coming in and a recent increase in sales for a certain type of Noodles which Min-gook‘s dad, broadcaster Kim Sung-joo, made on a recent trip that the kids loved. (TVReport, StarNews, MyDaily, Naver)
(EDWIN, ELLE Korea, MBC)
