After the recent departure of Zayn from One Direction I thought I would write about the effect the departure of different idols and celebrities that I personally like, seem to have had on me or the people around me.
I believe I have an insight into a variety of genres of music ranging from English music genres to Korean and Japanese music styles. These include things like Fall Out Boy, Hollywood Undead, Taylor Swift, Mayday Parade, Debussy and many others. But the focus for this post will be the more Eastern side of music with groups such as Vixx, Bts, Exo and Nu'est.
My experience with the majority of society is that Asian music is generally experienced as a kind of 'hit or miss' subject, people either like it, or they don't. Of course there has always been those one hit wonders like Gangnam Style but as a whole, Kpop fans are pretty much a community of their own. In my school it is a bit of a stigma to like this genre of music because people have a certain impression of it while I appreciate it due to the fact that each group seems to have the freedom to perform a wide range of genres and topics rather than sticking to one. This is where we focus on two particular groups, Exo and Nu'est.
Exo seems to have a major fandom in the Kpop industry, I have chosen to focus on them because of this fact as well as the fairly recent loss of two of their members. Sure, it was not experienced by much of the Western world but it had a similar impact on the fans who have tried to cope with this. There are many articles about how Exo fans (Exotics or Exo L's, take your pick) have taken their obsession too far whether it be in money spending or their outlets which in some cases have been deadly (Kpop stars are called idols for a reason) but Exo still remains a much loved group.
With their upcoming Comeback with only 10 members I have experienced my own share of mood fluctuations over teasers and news. In the passed they have debuted with supernatural themes (MAMA and History) which launched them into the music industry followed by other big songs like Wolf, Growl and Overdose. It will be interesting to see their new releases.
Following Exo I have decided to talk about Nu'est, a group that experienced a big debut and has since faded off a lot of people's radars (from what I have seen). For some reason this group has always held a special place in my heart. I have chosen them to be an example of some of the major changes in themes and genres of groups in the Kpop industry. For one thing, they have a member who looks particularly feminine, one who has a big concern with body image (in Korean society physical appearance is a huge thing), one who has had to overcome cultural divides and language issues. As well as this, their (biggest?) song, 'Face' had a lot meaning featuring fighting back against bullying and standing up for yourself.
They have gone through 'cutesy' images in Not Over You to darker images such as 'Good Bye Bye' which seem laced with intricate meanings (One Interpretation).
I feel like many people feel so connected to Kpop because, while Western celebrities are held up on a higher platform, they are a lot more 'reachable' because they went to normal high schools, auditioned specifically for the industry and so much of their lives are always on display.
So as you can see this is just one person's insight into their own complex obsession with a specific genre of music.
From,
Dorcha Aingeal
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