Bang tan

One of the few regrets I have throughout this COVID-19 pandemic is missing the scheduled BTS concert at Levi’s Stadium back in April 2020. Not because of any fault on my part, obviously: the entire tour was rightfully cancelled. Live Nation held onto our money (interest free) for more than a year, hoping against hope that the tour would simply resume when circumstances allowed. Unfortunately, it was a not to be, and ultimately I got my money back.

There goes my opportunity of seeing the golden boys of South Korean music. With two additional years of popularity increase - assisted by a few English-language singles - the pent up demand for BTS is at a maximum. Which explains why getting tickets for their concert at SoFi Stadium down in Los Angeles, held earlier this month, was incredibly difficult. Wait many hours in the virtual queue only to not get a chance to purchase? That’s what happened to a friend.

I’ve heard similar experiences in getting tickets for TWICE’s upcoming North American tour. Lucky for me, I already saw them in concert back in 2019. I don’t have a great need to do it again.

Back to BTS: I have to say I really can’t get into their English-language songs. I don’t understand why they (and other Kpop groups) need to pander to our market and sing in English. The principle problem is that the rap line - J-Hope, Suga, and RM - can’t showcase their skills at all. The same trio that utterly electrified on a track like this is hopelessly wasted when BTS do songs in English. Difficult to rap in a language you only have elementary (at best) knowledge of, understandably.

BTS’s built their popularity singing and rapping in Korean. The rest of the world not able to understand the language was never a problem nor a barrier. Singing in English when only one member of the group can even speak it fluently just seems wrong to me. I feel the same way about Kpop artists releasing Japanese singles when no one (or very few) in the group can speak the language. Contrived. Forced. Money grab.

I’ll stick with BTS’ Korean discography, thank you.

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Metro life.

BTS hunger games

Tickets for BTS’ latest world tour goes on presale later today, so may fortune be forever in your favor (or whatever that famous line is from the Hunger Games films). Like most functioning adults, I am not free at 3PM on a workday to get in the virtual line on Ticketmaster; luckily, my friend is (he’s a functioning adult, though; promise), so I’ve given him my login information and hoping for a good result.

That said, it’s not a huge deal if I don’t get tickets, because I’m not the most ardent of BTS fans. I have been a fan of Kpop since the late 2000s, so I feel it is important to go see an act such as BTS - the worldwide cultural phenomenon the group has become. Our group of friends simply wants to get in and listen to the songs, rather than paying out the nose for expensive seats, hoping to get a close glimpse of whoever is our “bias” (Suga, obviously). I’m glad that BTS is a big enough act to host concerts in football stadiums, because that means we can sit up high for relatively cheap.

The cynical might say I’m merely joining in on the hype and “doing it for the ‘gram”, and my reply to that is, “so?” Indeed it’s true that I would not be trying to get tickets if BTS wasn’t the biggest pop group on the planet, but who says you can’t follow the horde or what’s popular? It’s not like I don’t enjoy their music; and unlike some, I can actually understand the lyrics without consulting a dictionary or Youtube translation videos (hate to sound elitist). Like I said, the point is to have fun, hang out with friends, and listen live to our favorite “genre” of music: Kpop.

Fingers crossed we get the opportunity to do so at the BTS concert.

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Immaculately tended.

BTS on SNL!

I’ve been listening to Kpop for over a decade now, and have watched Saturday Night Live (SNL) continuously for equally as long. Never in all my imaginations would I think I’d ever see those two entities collide. A Kpop artist as a musical act on SNL? Unfathomable.

So it was somewhat surreal to see BTS perform on SNL this past Saturday. Hearing Korean language being sung on an American television program is something unthinkable only until recently, and I’m super prideful that BTS didn’t dilute their brand of music – namely attempt to do American pop – in their rise to worldwide fame.

Huge credit must go to PSY and ‘Gangnam Style’ for busting the door open.

I can’t help to think of the Kpop artists before BTS that have tried to enter the western markets and have largely failed. Artists who were mega popular in Asia, but died out to a whimper here in the States: Kwon Boa, Bi Rain, and Wonder Girls. Perhaps back then America wasn’t yet ready for an Asian act to enter their domain, and BTS is lucky to be birthed during a time when the smartphone and rampant Internet access have flattened and broaden our horizons.  

10 years ago, access to Kpop in the States was decidedly underground, having to rely on the benefaction of kind Korean netizens uploading the MP3 files onto the Internet. Fast forward to today, new Kpop releases happen simultaneously on almost all the streaming platforms. It’s a massive change.

I think the failure of earlier Kpop artists was also in large part due to them Americanizing their sound – singing in English. In their attempt to pander to a different audience, they lost a core of their original fan-base who wished they’d kept doing Kpop, while simultaneously the unfamiliar American audience looked strangely at these singers from Asia is doing American pop. BTS achieve popularity in the West because they never strayed from Kpop and singing in Korean, and I think people are strongly drawn to that authenticity. Entering the American market was never a goal for those guys: it just sort of happened, very organically.  

In truth I would say BTS isn’t even the most talented group currently in Kpop (I’d rank Block B above them; come at me), but to see a group of Asian males be so adored by an American demographic is something great to see from a representation standpoint. I have to get behind that, and also I do like BTS’ music.

Naturally then I tuned in live to SNL, and it was interesting to see on my twitter feed other people seeing BTS perform for the very first time. Some were amazed at their ability to coordinately dance and sing live at the same time, while others were (rightfully) confused about some of the English lyrics not making the best grammatical sense. Overall, people were impressed, and so was I. What a beautiful sight it was indeed.

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Duck season.