To the Top of The World With a Song

TVXQ! Appreciation Week 2025 favorite song—Wrong Number 081130

크나큰 (KNK) - Sunset

yunho on changmin: "changmin has always been working next to me. he's never complained and has always worked hard in a quiet manner. when i see him i can feel his strong sense of responsibility. besides, we trust each other so much that i really have nothing more to say about what changmin does." — Numéro TOKYO (Jan/Feb 2025 special)

yunho on changmin: "changmin has always been working next to me. he's never complained and has always worked hard in a quiet manner. when i see him i can feel his strong sense of responsibility. besides, we trust each other so much that i really have nothing more to say about what changmin does." — Numéro TOKYO (Jan/Feb 2025 special)

lee joon acknowledging mblaq in the year of our lord 2024 <3

TVXQ! - Wrong Number [2008]

you guys this car just ran over my grandpa

well no one said all that

they’re not even producing noise and they’re lip syncing

i really liked the closing of the second video where they said "i really care about live vocals but i understand lip syncing in the context of performance." like i get it we want to hear live singing i LOVE live singing but sometimes it's not feasible. which is why it's so wild when kpop labels still try to market it as live like now you're just playing in my face

I’ve written about this before but views, streams, physical album sales, etc. are transitory measurements. These numerics that the young generation of fans have been trained to see as the ultimate prize are just numbers. It’s understandable that fans are being encouraged to value numerics by the big Kpop companies because it keeps fans engaged on the fandom treadmill, buying and streaming and spending hours voting on music show apps like their lives depended on it. But it’s not all that valuable to the idols themselves--certainly not as valuable as having a member who is known by the general public for his drama roles and handsome face. I don’t know where the idea that every group needs to have attention evenly divided or that one member can’t have solo work if others don’t have solo work entered into fandom but I have my suspicions. While there’s nothing wrong with fans advocating for their favorite member to have more solo work, I do think there’s something wrong with fans advocating to hold a member back as I’ve sensed has been the case from certain corners with Cha Eun Woo. The long term health and success of a male idol group in the mold of SMAP--which is what very much Astro is--depends on the members having strong individual images and brands outside of the group. The idea that the members have to do everything together at all times is unworkable in the long run just as the idea that a group can rely completely on the obsessive streaming and viewing and buying of a core group of fans is unworkable in the long run. This new generation of foreign fans has lost those intertextual connections. “KPop” has increasingly become isolated not just from old subculture spaces where fans mixed with anime and Jpop fans but even from mainstream dramas and variety shows and Korean show business, generally. It’s led to this odd bubble where the most popular groups among stans barely even have name recognition in Korea outside of Kpop fandom. It wasn’t always like this.

Jennie Kim *wears the most basic-ass boring shit imaginable* K-pop stans: OMG GODDESS MOTHEEEER SLAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY I WOULD SACRIFICE MY FIRST BORN CHILD TO YOU SO BEAUTIFUL PRAYING EVERY DAY FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL SOUL I LOVE HER SO MUCH