[Misc] Thought Corner: SuperM and Supergroups

Not sure how I wanted to categorize this post since I'll be talking about SuperM and their upcoming debut but also expanding it to some group theory. Ah whatever there's always post-publish editing to utilize. Let's not talk about some other posts that should have been out for months by now...

Anyway! The next big thing to come out of SME this year is SuperM, an Avengers-level group featuring some of their best boy group talents over the last ten years: SHINee's Taemin, EXO's Kai and Baekhyun, and NCT's Taeyong, Mark, Lucas, and Ten. That's obviously plenty of star power that would make even Nick Fury proud.

I'm not familiar on NCT's plethora of members and subunits but Taeyong and Ten spearhead their rappers I think? Or all of them do some semblance of rapping. Whatever the case may be, at least this means people like Kai and Taemin are not touching the rap mic (in theory). SM you finally have some good boy group rappers, so use them. On the flipside, in standard SM fashion their vocal department is looking really good with Baekhyun and Taemin. Honestly you can use everyone else sparingly and that would suffice because these two are among their best male vocalists. Though I imagine with a lineup like this, they're not really aiming to wow people with their vocal chords. You have killer dancers from top to bottom so I expect something sharp, something polished, and something fire. Performance is the name of the game with SuperM - who by the way only remind me about Super Junior-M (coincidentally Lucas is Chinese) - and with this lineup they will deliver.

Groups like this are always fun to theorize, and you don't usually see something of this caliber unless it's for a special performance at end of the year shows. One reason is that you can't realistically sustain a group mixed from other groups for long. Furthermore in this instance, the EXO boys are bound for military duty soon so SuperM should be short-lived. Another reason is that when formed within the company like this, most labels don't have such a large stable of rosters to choose / form from. BigHit and Woollim Entertainment aren't coming out with a mega group anytime soon. Thus it'd have to be a collaboration between labels which is obviously much harder to manage. I can't recall the last time we saw the formation of a group like SuperM but maybe if they're super successful you'll see more Avengers-esque groups to follow.