absolutely i can talk more about rain!! i wrote a post a very long time ago here talking about the similarities between taemin and rain and there's another one here about kai and rain.

honestly it's kind of funny to think of 30sexy as his flop era now because it has really direct lines of influence to taemin's solo career. like taemin really just straight up jacked the pinstriped/jumpsuit suit look TWICE, once for his nippon budokan 2017 tour and again for dream concert 2019. 30sexy is one of rain's best songs but conceptually it was both slightly ahead and slightly behind of its time. he was the first (i think? logistically i think he had to be) big male solo artist to launch a comeback after military service (back when it was actually two years) and he was the first to really wholeheartedly embrace his age like that. the idol industry is very much a young man's game (and still is) and i'm not sure there's ever going to be a point where the majority of promoting idols are in the uppers of the age category. part of this is by nature of the rigours of the industry, part of it is mandatory service, and the other part of it is the fact that people wanna have personal lives outside of their jobs. although there were groups doing 'mature' concepts from 2011-2013 like tvxq and shinhwa, i think it was a trend that rain didn't quite manage to catch the edge of, because it was a trend that lived and died while he was enlisted. by the time he was back and had a comeback prepared, the trend had already started to turn, and he was also taking a risk bucking a lot of the typical conventions of an idol: he was publically in a relationship, and he was acknowledging the fact that he was old(er than the norm). but someone always has to be first, and he flopped in order for others to......tread very trepidatiously.

i live!!! sorry anon i hope you're still around somewhere, i disappeared because i had to finish my final portfolio for my master's degree! but it's submitted now and i'm done thinking about it and i may still have a bunch of work to do but instead i'm going to focus on having opinions on kpop again!!

i love rain!!! i do listen to him! 30sexy is on my 'blast ur fucking face off' playlist because i have absolutely no self control and he’s constantly furthering my men-look-their-hottest-after-25 agenda. also we love a man in cuban heels.

i don't know that i would like, compare taemin and rain as in which one of them is a better dancer, because they're both equally skilled and rain's influence is extremely obvious in everything taemin does. which is unsurprising because duh, it's rain. he’s the blueprint for male dance soloist. i mentioned him with taemin and boa as being my personal top dancers in kpop because they have all had insanely long careers, where they have had the time to establish personal style and aesthetic. instead of comparing them in terms of who is better, I think it's more interesting to compare them in terms of how they interpret the same source material. despite sharing so much (both dance-based male soloists) they have both very clearly tailored their personal styles to provide a distinct viewing experience. rain is very old school hip hop and popping, and his dancing is generally more reflective in shape to that old school style. also his performance aesthetic is very hetero man camp. he’s fucking stacked and so insanely handsome, he’s exactly the physical type to be able to capitalize on being a ‘masculine ideal’ (this is in quotes not as a negative, just as there are no set definitions on what a masculine ideal is), and that’s what he does. he does it very deftly, also; i’ve never found him to be over the top or cringeworthy in his extreme hetero-performativity (speaking as a known bisexual) and that’s always a danger in entertainment. he’s earnest about it in all the best ways, which is exactly what you need to achieve full camp.