A Great Start to 2011

First off, Happy New Year! I spent the 2010-2011 transition in the lovely city of Taipei. I’ll put up some pictures later when I have a bit of spare time.

Now into 2011, the land of Kpop is heating up the winter with some very exciting releases in January. Just on the top of my head, we have Seungri, Infinite, DBSK, MBLAQ, One Way, JOO, Secret, G.NA, all returning with brand spanking new music. I’ll try and jot down my thoughts on some of the worthy releases later. But I’ve now heard tracks from Infinite, MBLAQ, One Way and DBSK, and I’ve loving it. All of it. Ooooh I’m in a very happy place right now and think it’s going to be a great year for Kpop. For the record, I thought 2010 was not a stellar year for Kpop. BIG (bang) things for 2011 though!

On another note, I purchased my copy of GD&TOP (I chose the GOLD version – cuz I’m hip hop). I was going to post up some pictures of the included booklet, but you can find plenty of other blogs with pretty scans e.g. McRoth’s. I also got around to buying Utada’s 2^nd Singles Collection. I only started listening to Jpop and Utada last year so I’ve been playing catch up for a long time, so these collection albums are great. Head on over to Chaotic Dusk for in-depth reviews of Utada’s releases!

dbsk vs sme

Anyone remotely following kpop news will have heard of the whole DBSK (Yoochun, Jaejoong, Junsu) vs SME lawsuit (if not, where the hell have you been?! Check out Kbites / allkpop for updates).  Now, I’m not a huge follow of the boys. They got some pretty smooth moves and awesome vocals, but they’re too boy band-ish for my taste. So forgive me for my lighthearted view of the situation, I just find it pretty hilarious.

First off, Yunho and and Changmin finally broke their silence and released a statement, which basically screwed their fellow members over in support of SME.

…We believe that our Korean promotion, planned for next spring, should be prepared at least 6 months in advance before our future as one becomes unclear. If the other three members truly want to stay as one DBSK, they must make a decision before it’s too late…

Translation: “I give you 10 days to beg forgiveness and ring my ding dong otherwise, screw you and see-you!”

Then, SME obviously threatened SHINee that they would have to wear bright skinny pants from the GEE video and make them adopt the same hair styles as Brian and Hwanhee (Fly to the Sky) had if they did not release a statement in support of SME.

SME helped us a lot in the beginning as we didn’t really know what to do. But as we gained more experience, we start to express our opinions. The company reflects our opinions on many things such as the lyrics, pairing of members and our style. Without such supportive environment, we won’t be able to sing our songs like we sing them now.

SME listens to the artists’ opinions and everyone is close, unlike other entertainment companies. Everyone respects each other and supports each other, just like you can see in Dream Concert or SM Concert. Artists of SME are trained well from the beginning to the point where people say that SME’s artists are very well mannered.

Regarding f(x), a recent rookie group that debuted from SME, SHINee said;

We’ve seen them since they were trainees but didn’t expect them to debut so quickly. Did not think Sulli would be so tall and beautiful, haha. Now we know what it feels like to have juniors, and we can see why groups that are senior to us have been so nice and caring to us. We’re following the tradition by giving lots of advice to f(x).

Translation: SME is full of win, all other ent. groups suck ass. Talking of ass, I want a piece of Sulli’s

 

If that wasn’t enough, they got the big guns out. That’s right.  They asked daddy Yunho and daddy Changmin to release a statement too.

Don’t really understand why Yunho and Changmin are coming out in FULL support of SME.  They’re getting paid peanuts considering they are arguably the biggest male group in Asia.

10 days left – what will the three amigo’s decide?

Quotes and statements taken from allkpop.