Let's not get carried away; a lot of companies do this. For example Sonamoo has several members with terrible names, such as D.ana, High.D, and New Sun. And I can't remember who it is but I know there's a group somewhere with a fucking member named "Young Cream".
This is a few days old now but AOA recently celebrated its 4th anniversary, which included a rare sighting of the mysterious (and almost unrecognisable) 8th member:
Just noticed that Victoria's Instagram post supporting that crazy Chinese claim over the South China Sea has 3 million comments. For reference, Taylor Swift's post about the Kanye shit has a mere 553 thousand comments. Probably a record but hard to find out since anything you google just gets 'most liked' stories.
oh wow, that was legit amazing. I don't even really like the songs all that much, but this is some next level performance. the fact that they know how to look good for the cameras speak volumes about their training.
Haven't really properly bothered with kpop for a while. Friends were hyped for Black Pink so watched the Inki(?) performances with them. Nine Muse's subunit song is cool. It reminds me of Gangkiz which is great. Black Pink were fun to watch. I really like Boombayah.
1) Lisa still #1 but it's narrower. Rose's singing is better live yet all except Jennie had trouble staying in the pocket (I presume this means she's truly the main rapper). Lisa turned up the cute/turned down the fire while others kept a wider expressive range, so she takes a step back there (even tho she's really fucking cute), but she hit all of her lines stronger and so took it back.
2) I fully expected someone to go off-key on Whistle's bridge. Good job really being able to sing.
3) OMFG.... @Inki's shitty camera work during Whistle. Was it recording 2 seconds behind what the cameramen were seeing or something?
4) Dancing seemed alright but... I don't know because of shitty camerawork.
5) Standing around in the house thing for Whistle was even more awkward than Winner's debut.
The whistle perf was awkward, and boombayah was solid. But I don't want to know how many cuts they had to do for the full thing. I found it weird that they were given hand mics in boombayah, moreso with the wonky mic discipline. Not a fan also of the obvious performance cuts, it breaks a bit the magic of a "live" performance.
1) Lisa still #1 but it's narrower. Rose's singing is better live yet all except Jennie had trouble staying in the pocket (I presume this means she's truly the main rapper). Lisa turned up the cute/turned down the fire while others kept a wider expressive range, so she takes a step back there (even tho she's really fucking cute), but she hit all of her lines stronger and so took it back.
1. Isn't Inkigayo's PD the ex-Running Man PD? If so, demote his ass back to RM coz the camera work in this was indeed shit.
2. Jennie was great in Whistle but looked a little out of her mind in Boombayah. She still did great but you could tell the painkillers was dragging her for a bit. That said, going back to what I said before... she definitely has the potential to be something greater. She has fire moments but she also has moments where she's in the rough, once she fixes that, I think she can give Lisa a run for her money.
3. Jisoo is life, she stole the show here. That baby face of hers somehow manages to tread the lines of being hep-hap* and real.
.. sorta like a Sandara actually.
More importantly, I'm starting to think she's kinda the foundation of the group. Lisa and Jennie have such rough hep-hap personalities(at least in their performances) that it seems a little unreal, so Jisoo brings the group down to Earth.
4. Rose is pretty cool too, but tbh I haven't really seen her "contributions" to the group besides being a singer as good as Jisoo. So I'm still gonna reserve my official comments until I can figure it out.
5. I agree with Dice about Lisa except the #1 part. Refer to point 3 for my #1 lol.
Sidenote:
*hep-hap: so I'm gonna start using this word/phrase to differentiate K-hiphop and K-Pop inspired hip-hop lol. I feel like it's fair to separate the two as one is a legit whereas the other is just a lame copy.
I hope we'll see Black Pink on some of the other music shows that YG deigns are suitable from time to time. YG should be working to shore up this initial success whilst giving Black Pink more stage time to improve (regardless of it being a good debut performance). Hyun Suk can't restrict groups to Inkigayo and tout it "a matter of how well can they showcase our artists' stages" anymore after recent camera work in this and other performances.
Edit: I remember Mnet/M Countdown seems to be in YG's good books these days. Regardless, I am hoping for more than 2 shows a week from Black Pink (especially before they fail to get the proper amount of promotion via activities as is typically the YG modus operandi, and then go back into the dungeon)
On media blackout for Cosmic Girls. They have a lot of elements in place, so at the moment song quality is what needs the most improvement. Despite how artificial it could potentially be, I'd support them going in more of a T-ara direction or something along those lines.
As songs of a similar-ish vein, Red Velvet "Happiness" is better than Black Pink "Boombayah." "Whistle" knocks, though.
Not sure how long down the line I'll still enjoy the song, but it works for now and is the best part of a strong debut. Assumed I'd like these girls before the songs released, so it's nice seeing them deliver. Even Jisoo, who I'd initially saw as possibly being your standard fare "pretty one," is growing on me a lot. She pops on stage. Still, I need to hear her and Rosé sing live a few times. Live raps from Lisa and Jennie would be good too, but less essential. I currently like all of them.
My hope is YG doesn't wreck their chances going forward, and Lisa and Jennie avoid veering off into the G-Dragon end of the insufferable tryhard spectrum. YG certainly leaning on sex appeal more than SM have so far. Interested to see Black Velvet/22's trajectory compared to Red Velvet, and a few others. The production team is there, and the talent seems to be as well. Need the output and consistency to match, with more than one album every 5 years.
Jisoo is the visual and de facto leader, though like Min/Jia I could see her sharing unofficial leader duties with Jennie. Fairly certain some outlets have reported Jennie as the leader, though there are still a lot of misinformation which need clarifying.