Hello everyone, Tessa V here! So in the latest episode of KPOP THIS WAY, I introduced a new series called K-Popping Back This Way. This new segment will consist of me re-discovering K-Pop again.
I am beginning this series about my current K-Pop funk. What do I mean by K-Pop “funk”? Well… I honestly haven’t been “feeling” it lately and I don’t feel like the K-Pop fan I used to be. But before I get more into that, let’s delve into how I got into K-Pop.
I got into K-Pop in late 2011/early 2012. Ever since I was a young girl, I have always been into Asian culture. I was the biggest Sailor Moon fan (still am today), which lead me to reading mangas. During one of my summer vacations in college, I started reading mangas again. MARS is one of my favorites, and I found out there was a the live-action Taiwanese drama and so I watched it. From there, I got addicted to Taiwanese dramas. One day, I came across the drama called “Skip Beat”, which featured Siwon and Donghae of Super Junior. I swooned over the two actors and I enjoyed the OST, which consisted of songs by Super Junior. After that, I began more research on Super Junior and got into their music. Shortly after, I saw Jay Park on a Filipino TV show and I loved his sound so much that I looked him up on YouTube. Then the rest was history! I began listening to more groups, researching every detail about each member, going to all these K-Pop concerts, voting on music shows, purchasing albums to support my favorites, and beginning KPOP THIS WAY.
So… how did I get into this K-Pop “funk”? In 2015, I got into nursing school and it was an 18-month accelerated program, so I wasn’t able to keep up my podcast anymore. This also meant that I wasn’t able to keep up K-Pop; however, that does not mean that I stopped listening to K-Pop anymore. I listened to whatever I had on my iTunes or Pandora. After I graduated in 2017, I decided to return to my podcast and I asked my good friend, DJ Ronnieboi, to join me as my new co-host.
With my return to the K-Pop world, I felt like so much as changed. I mean, two years is a pretty long time to be out of the game. But it just wasn’t the same anymore. I missed so many comebacks and then there was the disbandments or members leaving groups, which added to this “funk”. It was like “Now, what do I look forward to?” or the group didn’t feel whole anymore.
Then there were so many groups that have debuted… I recently watched a YouTube by King Kenny Slay where he talked about the over saturation of K-Pop, and I absolutely agree with him. In my opinion, all the new groups AND songs are too similar in regards to their fashion and sound. There is a lack of variety and originality, which doesn’t spark my interest and left me either underwhelmed or overwhelmed (if you catch my drift). This disappoints me, because the reason why I got into K-Pop. It was different and all the groups had their own unique concept. And this brings me back to why I am doing this new segment on our podcast called K-popping Back This Way, so I can re-discover K-pop again and get into new groups and songs.
To find out more about my current K-Pop “funk”, tune in TOMORROW, Sunday May 6, 2018 at 6 AM PST on Aewen Radio or TuneIn Radio App.
So what’s up next in this new series? I will be K-Popping Back to 2012 to where it all began. Stay tuned to the next episode of KPOP THIS WAY on Friday, June 1 at 9 AM PST on Aewen Radio or TuneIn Radio App!
Don’t forget to follow us as we KPOP THIS WAY on Twitter and Instagram. Talk to you guys soon!
– Tessa V
KPOP THIS WAY 