Korean Archives

Real or Not: Blackpink Shut Down Incoming?

14/10/2023

Blackpink in your area – no more? After wrapping up their Born Pink world tour in Seoul with tears and sentiments, the famous K-pop girl group is rumored to disband. Several reports about the girls not renewing their contracts with YG Entertainment surfaced days after their final group concert. As always, the agency never confirmed, nor did they give any clear statements. Blinks have mixed feelings about the rumors, but did it really come as a surprise? Or did we all subconsciously have it coming? Here are the tell-tale signs that we might’ve missed: Long comebacks, few songs. It is obvious that Blackpink has unrealistically few songs for a group of their scale. In every comeback, the fans expected more songs, but the majority of their albums never exceeded eight songs. Only their live albums reached over 15 songs. There was also an issue with music production, as the list of credited composers and producers on every album rarely shows the girls’ names. “They are scared to hold a pen” is among the various criticisms thrown at the group. Brand ambassadorship over music. In early 2021, Blackpink took their first official hiatus, following the release of The Album in October 2020. This hiatus nearly took two years, and each of the members flourished more as brand ambassadors than as idols. They were even branded as “IG models” because the major achievements that their fandom can brag about are mainly the prestige and honor of being chosen as ambassadors of various luxury brands. Uneventful music career as a quartet. Blackpink had numerous “musical breaks” in the course of their career. After every promotion, release, and performance related to their albums, the girls always take such long breaks before releasing another album, consequently taking the audience’s hype away. The group especially lost some following during their long hiatus in early 2021 to late 2022, but it was around this time that each of the members started to gain individual fanbases pertinent to the release of their solo projects. The differences in streams and the impact of their solo music show that the members are better off as soloists. Not even their occasional group projects with popular Western artists could be at par with each of their individual successes. Low stage presence – silent quitting. The Born Pink world tour ended, but with some controversies surrounding it. One of which is the group’s low stage presence during their performances in a couple of stops. Various clips shared all over Twitter, Instagram and TikTok show Blackpink’s poor synergy. The lack of synchronization, low energy and the occasional missteps brought criticisms upon the girls. A number of netizens worried about their health. Some felt bad for Lisa for being the group’s saving grace. Some questioned if the members still wanted to be idols. Evidently, some concluded that this was their way of silently quitting the group. It had only been SEVEN years since their debut, but from the looks of it, the girls are already tired of everything that came with being in Blackpink. Individual celebrations during the group’s anniversary. Following COVID and the two-year hiatus, Blinks expected a proper OT4 celebration, only to be disappointed once again. Instead of Blackpink, the fans only got a cereal deco kit, a pre-recorded content and a Rosé IG live for the group’s 7th anniversary. Each of the girls did share heartfelt messages in their individual social media accounts, but that’s as far as the fans could get. All these signs, along with the recent cryptic IG posts, more liberal individual projects, lack of staff surrounding the girls and the inconclusive news of their contract renewal, only point towards one thing: DISBANDMENT. Is this truly the end of Blackpink’s era and the start of their solo careers? What do you guys think?

Classic BTS: Louder than Bombs, Larger than Life

13/10/2023

APOBANGPO – ARMY Forever, BANGTAN Forever! This pact has been proven again as K-pop supergroup BTS renews their contract with BigHit Music is promising more years as a septet after concluding their military service in 2025. But wait—there’s more! The group also simultaneously made a billion-dollar donation toUNICEF, under ARMY’s name! Now this is love. Media chatter, Twitter trends, and solos’ and antis’ tears aside, September 20th truly is a part ofARMYs’ hall of fame. Aside from the obvious affection the boys are giving their ARMYs, their movements on this day are a passive-aggressive “power move” and here’s why: MANNER. There wasn’t any media play regarding the matter. It was such a tight-lipped renewal process that nothing spilt until BTS broke the news themselves. How exactly did the world know? RM, the BTS leader, first posted about it on his Instagram in a two-part story, breaking the news to everyone. IG is a worldwide app. If RM only wanted ARMYs to know first, then he could’ve gone to Weverse – this was intentional. BTS wanted ARMYs to trust them and them alone—something they asked for since Festa 2022 dinner. The leader himself speaking about the renewal first served as an assurance that BTS will always keep ARMYs in the know. It is also a counter-punch against the media, which tends to put words in BTS’s mouth. This time ‘round, no one got any exclusive information about the matter beforehand, as they were all forced to just take what BTS gave everyone else. BTS – 1 : Media & Co. – 0 CONTEXT. Ever since the news of BTS’s temporary hiatus broke, various media outlets painted it in different ways, under different lights. They didn’t just report it; they each made their own narratives. Apparently, “BTS is disbanding,” as per numerous articles like Billboard’s, but the boys didn’t get the memo. A little over a year after the entire fiasco, BTS took the media and the world by surprise by personally guaranteeing their return as OT7 after their military duties. Not only did the group disprove all those narratives, but they also proved that they, alone, have the power and influence over the career. BTS – 2 : Media & Co. – 0 CIRCUMSTANCE. When the news about the contract renewal broke on September 20th, two members are already on active duty and one was about to serve in two days. The majority of BTS is in the middle of wrapping up their various individual projects in preparation for their enlistment. BTS enlisting at the peak of their career is already a strong power move. Announcing their renewal in the middle of the group’s enlistment is another. It reflects the sheer trust BTS has in each other and in ARMYs. That trust is prevalent enough that no article, media, nor industry can stop BTS from moving forward as SEVEN, even after a two-year hiatus. BTS – 3 : Media & Co. – 0 Korea’s “mandatory enlistment” takes nearly two years of idols’ life and career, and causes them to face uncertainties following their discharge. Idol groups are trickier. Their bond, synergy, and priorities can change within a two-year span. BTS, however, is family. Their priorities lie in becoming ARMY’s forever artists,” and both the hiatus and contract renewal are proof of such. You do trust them, don’t you? BTS – WINNER : MEDIA & Co. – K.O!!!

“What’s My Name? L-A-L-I-S-A!”

15/12/2022

Lalisa is the main dancer, lead rapper and vocalist of K-pop super group Blackpink. She was born under the name Pranpriya Manobal on the 27th of March 1997 in Buriram, Thailand. However, upon seeking a fortune teller to know her “luck” in life, the star proceeded to change her name to “Lalisa ” which meant “the one who is praised”. She’s the only daughter of her mom and Swiss chef step-dad. Moreover, unlike the rumours, her family doesn’t own a hospital. She also happens to be a fur-mom of 5 cats named Leo, Luca, Lili, Louis, and Lego, as well as a pup named Love. Whether it be taking the stage like a storm or stealing the show at various runways and fashion events, “Lalisa” is the name to be reckoned with. Know her better through her 6 unique achievements that just make you go “L-A-L-I-S-A~”… Being a Thai idol at YGE Lalisa is the first non-Korean trainee and idol at YG Entertainment. She was the only one to pass the company’s Thailand audition in 2010, becoming an official YG trainee in 2011 at a young age of 14. Training for over five years, she finally debuted in Blackpink in August of 2016. Being a young girl of Thai descent in a big and competitive industry, she experienced a lot of racist remarks then until now. There were even reports of unfair treatment towards her because of her nationality. However, she persevered through everything and emerged a winner. Instagram following Aside from owning people’s hearts, it seems that she also owns Instagram. Queen Lisa is currently the most followed K-pop idol on IG, with a whopping 84.7M followers against a zero following. Her love for photography, along with her candid and photo-worthy poses, make her posts/updates a blessing to everyone’s feed. “Lilifilm” success Lilifilm Official is Blackpink Lisa’s solo YouTube channel which ranked 6th among the most subscribed channels of K-pop idols. It recently gained a Diamond Creator Award for hitting 10 million subscribers on May 11th of this year, thus making Lisa the first and only K-pop female soloist to achieve so. Lilifilm served as the star’s personal archive of vlogs she filmed herself and a number of performance videos or “film covers” she had done. Among her contents, the most viewed ones are the film covers Malamente (Lili’s film #1), City Girls (Lili’s film #4), Cravin (Lili’s film #2), Mushroom Chocolate (Lili’s film #3) and Tomboy (The Movie). K-pop’s “Dancing Queen” In a poll created by Choeaedol back in June 2021, Lisa was crowned as the “Dancing Queen of KPOP”, receiving approximately 64% of the votes of over 59K participants. This title, while not bearing much weight apart from being a small fan-voted competition, is considerably factual. In fact, according to Kiwi choreographer Parris Goebel, Lisa is a natural-born dancer, not someone who needs to be “made” and “moulded”. The idol justifies this claim through a continuous exhibition of her competency in dancing. For instance, she revealed in an interview with Billboard that she could learn an entire choreography within 2-3 hours. She also happened to prove her competency in various Korean reality shows by accurately performing another artist or group’s dance after a single look at the video guide. MTV VMA and EMA’s 2022 “Best K-Pop” Award Blackpink Lisa achieved a monumental feat when she won the “Best K-pop Award” in both MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) and MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs), beating big acts like BTS, Seventeen, Twice, ITZY, and her own group, Blackpink. Earlier in 2022, she made history as the first ever K-pop soloist to have a nomination in the “Best K-pop” category in the abovementioned awards shows. Months later, she became the first Korean soloist to win said award in both VMAs and EMAs. This achievement is a huge step towards the advancement of her solo career, following the success of her solo album “LALISA”. It also consequently brought huge honour to her own group, Blackpink, as well as towards K-pop, South Korea and her home country, Thailand. Ambassadorship Apart from being an idol and an Instagram star, Lisa is also an ambassador of various high-end and well-known brands. In August 2020, she became Bulgari’s Korean ambassador. In September 2020, she represented Celine as the brand’s global ambassador. Then, in October of the same year, she also became MAC Cosmetics’ global ambassador. All these “big names” specifically chose Lisa to carry their brand because they acknowledge the impact that she continuously brings. The contracts she signed with the abovementioned companies and with many others are testaments of her influence and global stardom. These are just a few of the many achievements which Lalisa Manoban earned throughout her career. You might hate her ‘cuz ‘ya ain’t her, but she’ll continue to outdo and outsell. Just check out her solo album “LALISA” and judge for yourself.