Mental Health Awareness: Between mental health concerns and then the pandemic, it's been comforting and surprising to hear the various steps companies have taken to help their artists. Giving them proper rest and time off, or threatening legal action against assholes, anything is a good starting point. Combined with the Goo Hara Act passing, there has been progress and that's better than nothing.
Big Hit Unleashes: While there was no new girl group or solo act, Big Hit still made big moves in 2020, focusing on the business front. Their primary acquisitions were of Source Music and Pledis. Granted the Source Music news happened during the summer of 2019 but it wasn't until last year that GFriend had new releases post-merger. Pledis is home to Seventeen, and in an alternate universe girl groups like After School, Hello Venus, and Pristin would have no doubt benefitted from this deal. We'll definitely be seeing much more from Big Hit in the future.
Sungmin Comes Back: Le sigh. It's looking more unlikely we'll ever see Sungmin as part of Super Junior ever again. What a shame. Also I just realized something. Since EXO fans are equally as lunatic we may have seen the last of Chen, who is not only a husband now but also a father. That and his military service. Pretty sure those crazy motherfuckers will perform satanic rituals to prevent his return.
Top Song Of 2020: Younha snagged the best song of the year, and I was incorrect in my guess that whoever won that title would have never been in the final five of any previous year. Even though Younha had not made an appearance in seven years on the Best Of 20XX series, let alone top five, her 2012 duet "Would We Have Changed" was the #4 song of that year. So I was close, but not enough.
And now for some quick, uninspired predictions for the year of 2021.
Big Hit, Big Girl Group
C'mon man even though I've been out of it for many months, I'm still hoping for some new girl group to shake things up. Most of the usual titans either lay pretty dormant (Apink, Girls' Generation) or underperformed (Twice, Black Pink) during 2020. And the fresh recruits like cignature, Weeekly, and aespa failed to impress. Given how they've hit a million touchdowns with BTS, I believe a Big Hit girl group could be the next "it."
Suddenly, Gone
Because we are humans are we do not deserve good things, there will be no shortage of bad news for us this year. However, I think the spiciest fireball take of them all would be a group straight up disbanding. Not through contract termination or conclusion, not through company negligence or interference, but every member being like "fuck this, we're out." Just hard brake in their career. Has to be a relatively know or popular group, too. That shit would be wild.
Top Song Of 2021
...will go to Chungha. Yeah I said it. And I will push all my chips to the table. IU and Younha have won the last two SOTY spots, and Chunga is next up. She had a hellacious year during 2020 and that will absolutely continue, especially with her first studio album coming soon.
Regarding news around the ol' office, I'll be revisiting every piece of writing from Season 10 for typos and minor edits over the next couple of weeks. Not going any further back than that as it'll be 12 months of posts. Given my lack of interest in Kpop I think it'd be unwise to write three reviews per month so I'm gonna change that number to two: one new (or old song not previously reviewed) and a revisited piece. A monthly project post should still in play, but outside of that, The Late Report, and like a miscellaneous meme post here and there, that'd be it. That be an estimate of four posts per month which would pace for 48 total by December, the second lowest number ever in a full calendar year in the blog's history. Obviously if I get drawn back into the scene I'll likely write more often but yeah consider this the prototypical decline in production seen in many idol groups before their disbandment. In any event, here's to a brighter, better 2021.
Big Hit Unleashes: While there was no new girl group or solo act, Big Hit still made big moves in 2020, focusing on the business front. Their primary acquisitions were of Source Music and Pledis. Granted the Source Music news happened during the summer of 2019 but it wasn't until last year that GFriend had new releases post-merger. Pledis is home to Seventeen, and in an alternate universe girl groups like After School, Hello Venus, and Pristin would have no doubt benefitted from this deal. We'll definitely be seeing much more from Big Hit in the future.
Sungmin Comes Back: Le sigh. It's looking more unlikely we'll ever see Sungmin as part of Super Junior ever again. What a shame. Also I just realized something. Since EXO fans are equally as lunatic we may have seen the last of Chen, who is not only a husband now but also a father. That and his military service. Pretty sure those crazy motherfuckers will perform satanic rituals to prevent his return.
Top Song Of 2020: Younha snagged the best song of the year, and I was incorrect in my guess that whoever won that title would have never been in the final five of any previous year. Even though Younha had not made an appearance in seven years on the Best Of 20XX series, let alone top five, her 2012 duet "Would We Have Changed" was the #4 song of that year. So I was close, but not enough.
And now for some quick, uninspired predictions for the year of 2021.
Big Hit, Big Girl Group
C'mon man even though I've been out of it for many months, I'm still hoping for some new girl group to shake things up. Most of the usual titans either lay pretty dormant (Apink, Girls' Generation) or underperformed (Twice, Black Pink) during 2020. And the fresh recruits like cignature, Weeekly, and aespa failed to impress. Given how they've hit a million touchdowns with BTS, I believe a Big Hit girl group could be the next "it."
Suddenly, Gone
Because we are humans are we do not deserve good things, there will be no shortage of bad news for us this year. However, I think the spiciest fireball take of them all would be a group straight up disbanding. Not through contract termination or conclusion, not through company negligence or interference, but every member being like "fuck this, we're out." Just hard brake in their career. Has to be a relatively know or popular group, too. That shit would be wild.
Top Song Of 2021
...will go to Chungha. Yeah I said it. And I will push all my chips to the table. IU and Younha have won the last two SOTY spots, and Chunga is next up. She had a hellacious year during 2020 and that will absolutely continue, especially with her first studio album coming soon.
Regarding news around the ol' office, I'll be revisiting every piece of writing from Season 10 for typos and minor edits over the next couple of weeks. Not going any further back than that as it'll be 12 months of posts. Given my lack of interest in Kpop I think it'd be unwise to write three reviews per month so I'm gonna change that number to two: one new (or old song not previously reviewed) and a revisited piece. A monthly project post should still in play, but outside of that, The Late Report, and like a miscellaneous meme post here and there, that'd be it. That be an estimate of four posts per month which would pace for 48 total by December, the second lowest number ever in a full calendar year in the blog's history. Obviously if I get drawn back into the scene I'll likely write more often but yeah consider this the prototypical decline in production seen in many idol groups before their disbandment. In any event, here's to a brighter, better 2021.
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