TVXQ/DBSK
DBSK are probably the best selling kpop group in Korea. They debuted in 2004 with their single "Hug" which sold 237,000 copies. To date they have released 8 albums, 38 singles as well as compilation albums and colaboration singles and releasing in both Korea and Japan sucessfully............
They are composed of 5 guys all with about 3 different names each: Hero, U-Know, Micky, Xiah, Max. The group are also vredited as having the worlds largets fanclub called "Cassiopeia" which has over 800,000 members in south korea alone. Also, according to wikipedia they have been photographed about 500 million times for various cd jackets, magazines etc. Thats a lot of 0's. I discovered them a little while ago after hearing about them from various people and seeing their names pop up everytime the word kpop was brought up. To me they are the best kpop guy group I have listened to. They are less heavily influenced by RnB and techno than other groups but thats not to say they dont experiment with their style. They are brilliant singers too and each one has a slightly different sound which is great. Like I said with some of the other groups I have began to listen to, I don't know anything about the guys individually as I dove in at the deepend and listened to all of my kpop all at once ^^;. But not everything with them is rosey. As my luck would have it, just as I start to listen to them, I found out that 3 of the members are sueing their company for making their contract unreasonably long. In the end, the groups activities were suspended, 3 of the members formed a new group "JUNSU JEJUNG YUCHUN" as signed with avex. So at least some of them will continue to release music. I strongly urge people to give them a try. If its a dislike for what korean sounds like when sung, then no problems, these guys released most of their singles in Japan as "Tohoshiniki". And thats all I have to say really about this group, as always some of the songs I loved:
Break Out!
Mirotic
Tri-Angle [keep an eye out for BoA]
DBSK are probably the best selling kpop group in Korea. They debuted in 2004 with their single "Hug" which sold 237,000 copies. To date they have released 8 albums, 38 singles as well as compilation albums and colaboration singles and releasing in both Korea and Japan sucessfully............They are composed of 5 guys all with about 3 different names each: Hero, U-Know, Micky, Xiah, Max. The group are also vredited as having the worlds largets fanclub called "Cassiopeia" which has over 800,000 members in south korea alone. Also, according to wikipedia they have been photographed about 500 million times for various cd jackets, magazines etc. Thats a lot of 0's. I discovered them a little while ago after hearing about them from various people and seeing their names pop up everytime the word kpop was brought up. To me they are the best kpop guy group I have listened to. They are less heavily influenced by RnB and techno than other groups but thats not to say they dont experiment with their style. They are brilliant singers too and each one has a slightly different sound which is great. Like I said with some of the other groups I have began to listen to, I don't know anything about the guys individually as I dove in at the deepend and listened to all of my kpop all at once ^^;. But not everything with them is rosey. As my luck would have it, just as I start to listen to them, I found out that 3 of the members are sueing their company for making their contract unreasonably long. In the end, the groups activities were suspended, 3 of the members formed a new group "JUNSU JEJUNG YUCHUN" as signed with avex. So at least some of them will continue to release music. I strongly urge people to give them a try. If its a dislike for what korean sounds like when sung, then no problems, these guys released most of their singles in Japan as "Tohoshiniki". And thats all I have to say really about this group, as always some of the songs I loved:
Break Out!
Mirotic
Tri-Angle [keep an eye out for BoA]
Super Junior
Super Junior are a huge 13 member group under SM Entertainment. The debuted in 2005 and to me they are like DBSK's little brother. I don't really know how to explain it and I'm sure fangirls will disagree but whenever I think of suju, in the back of my head there dbsk and vise-versa. Well anyway that them, I'm actually really glad I found that pic. I'll use it to learn their names. The group have released 4 albums [BONAMANA on the 13th] and 6 singles, 4 of which were digital. This group is also a major seller in the kpop world, for example, their new album BONAMANA had already sold 200,000 copies before it even went on sale. I was atounded when I found out. And here's me as a Gaki fan is MM sell over 50k...weird aint it. I really like this group and the title song from their new album has been stuck in my head since its release so it only fair that I get it stuck in yours too :d
BIGBANG
As you can see, BIGBANG are cool to shi-hizzle aren't they? Well thats the image that they potray anyway. These lads debuted in 2006 with a sound heavily influenced in RnB, no wonder they come from the same company as 2NE1. As I'm not a huge fan of RnB and rap some of their songs are hit and miss with me but I don't deny that they are a great group. They are so great in fact that when they had a tour in Japan in February of this year a whole load of famous jpop artists went to see them including Koda Kumi, Perfumes A~chan, some JE groups, some AKB48 members and our very own Reina, Abe Natsumi and Matsuura Aya. Again I dont follow the guys personally so I can't talk about them outside of their music. But I shall leave you with some great music to listen to :D
As you can see, BIGBANG are cool to shi-hizzle aren't they? Well thats the image that they potray anyway. These lads debuted in 2006 with a sound heavily influenced in RnB, no wonder they come from the same company as 2NE1. As I'm not a huge fan of RnB and rap some of their songs are hit and miss with me but I don't deny that they are a great group. They are so great in fact that when they had a tour in Japan in February of this year a whole load of famous jpop artists went to see them including Koda Kumi, Perfumes A~chan, some JE groups, some AKB48 members and our very own Reina, Abe Natsumi and Matsuura Aya. Again I dont follow the guys personally so I can't talk about them outside of their music. But I shall leave you with some great music to listen to :D
ZE:A
ZE:A are a new group only having debuted this year. Its a group of 9 [of course make it easeir for me to learn their names] which releases stuff with the usual RnB with eltronica tones. They released their 1st mini album in January which only has 3 tracks on it so there is not much material to talk about. Their lead track however "Mazeltov" was great, I really liked it. Its a bit stupid with half of the song being composed of them saying the days of the week and throwing the word 'Mazeltov' in every now and again, but I liked it. Their new song however "Leap for detonation" is much more mainstream and therefor much more boring. It sounds more like a track that BIGBANG would release, and who needs two groups releasing the same sort of stuff. Go back to the Crazy stuff please. And here is the song. You can enjoy it on Frinday, Saturday or Sunday heh its the weekend so MAZELTOV
ZE:A are a new group only having debuted this year. Its a group of 9 [of course make it easeir for me to learn their names] which releases stuff with the usual RnB with eltronica tones. They released their 1st mini album in January which only has 3 tracks on it so there is not much material to talk about. Their lead track however "Mazeltov" was great, I really liked it. Its a bit stupid with half of the song being composed of them saying the days of the week and throwing the word 'Mazeltov' in every now and again, but I liked it. Their new song however "Leap for detonation" is much more mainstream and therefor much more boring. It sounds more like a track that BIGBANG would release, and who needs two groups releasing the same sort of stuff. Go back to the Crazy stuff please. And here is the song. You can enjoy it on Frinday, Saturday or Sunday heh its the weekend so MAZELTOV
SHINee, SS501,2AM, 2PM
Fortuantely I have listened to these 4 groups, unfortunately however, I have only listened to them a handful of times and so I can say that i do like them, I just can't tell them apart from each other just yet haha. Hopefully that wont be the case soon enough.
Male kpop groups i plan to expand to: BEAST, Rain,
Male kpop groups i plan to expand to: BEAST, Rain,
Conclusion
Well that brings us to the end of the expanding series I hope you enjoyed it. For me, I am really happy I expanded my horizons, I feel the more musically happy for it. As you can probably tell, I bit off way more than I could chew with the whole kpop stuff but its all shiny and new. I havent felt like this since I first discovered Morning Musume. Back then I had a hard job learning all 25 girls, now I have to learn the names of people from about 25 groups haha. For me at the moment I am currently leaning to liking kpop more probably because I only really listen to 2 main groups with my full concentration, also kpop has a bit more variety I think. Also its all so new to me that I can't help but be drawn in to learn more. Jpop is fantastic and I love it, it gave me Gaki but kpop is like Jpop hip young brother. I'm talking shite now so I'll leave it at that. I hope you enjoyed reading this series and continue to explore new music with me [very cheesy I'm sorry].
A great end to a great series. I'm glad you've found something new to love. That's what music should be all about, discovery.