K-POP (K-Pop) has been popular in domestic entertainment for a long time. Last year, five generations of girl groups enlarged their moves and attracted countless fans. Many people notice that today's Korean girl groups are very different from the image of the second-generation group that opened the domestic entertainment market many years ago.
BLACKPINK
The so-called first-generation groups, the domestic algorithm is not the same as South Korea.
South Korean officials will choose the girl group with the widest song, the highest national popularity, and the strongest strength will be selected as TOP (to the top), and over time until the next TOP appears, it will be a generation. South Korea's officially recognized TOP girl groups are S.E.S (1997), Girls' Generation (2007), TWICE (2015), so the girl group has only been carried out for three generations in the official Korean white paper.
The domestic algorithm has now reached the fifth generation (the second generation 2006-2009, the third generation 2010-2013, the fourth generation 2014-2017, and the fifth generation 2018 to the present). This article is based on domestic algorithms, and because the generation group is too old, and it does not really pry open the domestic entertainment market, it will not be repeated.
01
Looking back on 2022, all the five generations of girl group singles that are popular to domestic entertainment are more or less anchored to one word: female power.
In the first half of the year (G)-IDLE sang "I am a cool tomboy", "TOMBOY" refreshed the major music charts and ignited the enthusiasm of domestic entertainment; In the second half of the year, ITZY encouraged girls to say goodbye to high heels and be themselves comfortably in the shape of "princess dress + sneakers" in the shape of "princess dress + sneakers"...
Only two fourth-generation regiments joined the fifth-generation dogfight, occasionally competing for supremacy, namely BLACKPINK and Red Velvet. Although the former is not as strong as in its heyday, it has a total of 17 hit shows (ranked first in the week) in the two returns; The latter also returned twice, but only took two, causing fans to be indignant.
However, in comparison, these two fourth-generation regiments are not too miserable. In August this year, the second-generation TOP Girls' Generation returned in full after five years, but the song "FOREVER 1" did not receive anything; Four generations of TOP girl group TWICE were also lonely, and "Talk That Talk" became their first song without a one.
《Talk That Talk》MV
These two songs follow the group's consistent characteristics: "Goddess Come" and "Genki Lovely", respectively. Ten years back, such a well-behaved song is the "main melody".
Girls' Generation debuted in 2007 as a group of nine, and in 2009 established its local popularity status with the songs "Gee" and "OH!", with fresh and cute melodies and catchy lyrics. Like Wonder Girls' "Nobody", it was a representative of Hallyu music in the hearts of Chinese young people at that time.
Screenshot of the "Gee" MV
The B-station UP master @Jimei Boy, who used to be a trainee in South Korea, said that each member of the group has his own personal position, that is, he takes on different functions in the group, such as cute responsibility, captain, rap responsibility, etc. When participating in the audition, the Korean president trains them to "act from the beginning of the door" and "acting" must be carried out throughout.
Having a clear style orientation is a compulsory course for idou.
Looking back at the heyday of the second-generation girl group where the girls' generation was located, the style of the girl group was roughly divided into four categories: vulgar goddess, sweet loli, sexy royal sister, and rebellious female man.
The first three are the mainstream of the girl group world, and the last one is only 2NE1 that has persisted for a few years with a neutral look. At that time, the girl group appeared on the stage, either cute and versatile miniskirts, or sexy and eye-catching shorts and black silk. The lyrics also mainly focus on love heartbeat and emotional injury healing.
2NE1
When these songs were first flourishing in domestic entertainment, most people "opened their eyes": it turned out that skirts could be so short, and Korean TV dared to broadcast such a large stage. There is also discomfort among women: why do they wear so little?
EXID
Unlike the current general perception that star-chasers are mostly women, the obsessives of the second-generation group are mostly men. Korean male fans are obsessed with girls' generation, just as mainland male fans are obsessed with Wang Xinling.
At that time, there was a popular saying in Tieba : those who get otaku win the world.
The nine skinny girls have huge and stable male fans precisely because they meet the aesthetic of Korean men: white and thin. In other words, they well carry the male gaze of Korean society.
In 1975, Laura Mulvey proposed the concept of the "male gaze" in her article "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", that is, when the real gender inequality is reflected in the field of film, women are portrayed as sexual objects, catering to the desires of men. Whoever satisfies the "gaze" of Korean men will be red.
EXID
Androgynous girl groups are not without them, but only big companies dare to try. In 2009, the junior sister group f(x) of Girls' Generation debuted in strange costumes with a unique style, but the results were very unsatisfactory. No market is equal to no profit, and for a while even relied on the captain Song Qian to desperately brush his face on variety shows and accumulate popularity. In the end, the company had to "break" the f(x) shape and style back to the mainstream, and in 2011, with "Danger", it won the first place in the group.
f(x)
02
In the heyday of Girls' Generation, three generations of girl groups (2010-2013) debuted one after another. Since the second-generation group led by Girls' Generation has divided most of the cake, leaving little room for the development of the third-generation group, it has to make the three combination types that have achieved market success more extreme. To put it simply, if you want to grab the eye, you must either be whiter and thinner, or show more.
Among the three generations of girl groups that survived the competition, except for A Pink, who took the pure route and achieved success, other groups relied on sexy "breaking the circle", such as SISTAR, miss A, Girl's Day, EXID, AOA, etc.
Girl’s Day
During this period, the members of the girl group began to show women's characteristics and curves more confidently, and sunny and healthy sexiness became the keywords of the three generations of girl groups. SISTAR's "Touch My Body" bluntly sends out a "touch" invitation, and Girl's Day's "Something" attracts countless fans with a cheongsam-like look.
But the three-generation regiment is also the group with the highest frequency of "offense". Korean idols are the product of the highly industrialized Korean entertainment and are the products of the assembly line. idou has no say, and all the style positioning of the group is formulated by the company. Even if Idou himself is reluctant, he has to obey.
In this case, it is not surprising that the company has carried out bottomless operations in order to make the portfolio "outstanding". Stellar, who debuted in 2011, wore a swimsuit and stockings in the "Puppet" MV, exposing his chest, thighs and buttocks, completely becoming a "puppet" for men. Later, because the spread was too wide and the scale was too large, he was once ordered by the TV station to stop performing.
It was their hottest song, and it hasn't stirred up a splash since.
03
In 2012 and 2013, Hallyu exports reached their peak due to the success of South Korea's "culture-based" strategy. In 2012, the magical melody of "Jiangnan Style" echoed in the streets of the mainland, and the most discussed drama in 2013 was "You from the Star". Korean entertainment companies are no longer satisfied with making money only in China, Japan and South Korea, but want to rush out of Asia and go global.
This "world" is mainly the European and American markets. However, the white and thin aesthetic generally preferred by Asian men does not work in Europe and the United States. Therefore, in order to open up the overseas market of Korean groups, in addition to absorbing foreign members, it is necessary to adjust the style positioning.
The recently popular youth girl group New Jeans
The birth of four generations of girl groups can be divided into two stages. In 2014-2015, there were two groups with the fastest rise and a style that was clearly different from the previous group, namely Red Velvet, which walked elegantly and youthfully, and MAMAMOO, which focused on light and handsome style.
Red Velvet's official style positioning is "2.5 Dimension", that is, a dream girl between reality and non-reality. The genre is divided into two series: the youthful and lively "Red" series and the elegant and gentle "Velvet" series. The lyrics mainly tell the heart of adolescent girls, and the attitude towards love is "scumbags stay away from me". As soon as she debuted, she attracted a large number of female fans, "feeling like my sister".
None of the four members of MAMAMOO possessed the "white and thin" qualities of a traditional female idol, so they decided to take a different path. In 2015, the members appeared on the stage of singing with the image of men's clothing, which caused heated discussions. This laid the foundation for them to open up the group's fame.
Fans who pursue female idols wearing men's clothing are most likely not men. The high popularity of Red Velvet and MAMAMOO shows that at that time, the backbone of the idou fan base has gradually changed from otaku to young women.
In the same year, two major events occurred in the Korean entertainment industry that made women angry: male singer Bobby Kim, known as the "godfather of soul music" in South Korea, rumored to harass flight attendants; Zhang Dongmin, the resident MC and funny artist of the variety show "Infinite Challenge", was exposed to have belittled women. For a time, it was denounced by the whole Internet, and the gender contradiction escalated.
The rising purchasing power of female fans and the initial rise of "feminism" in society paved the way for the popularity of Girl Crush in the future.
04
In 2016, TWICE, which walked in a pure and energetic style, gained super popularity in South Korea with the song "Cheer Up" and jumped to the top of the four-generation girl group. As for why its popularity has soared, it is because "Cheer Up" is similar to the Korean pronunciation of "employment bar", which was a period of employment recession in South Korea, so it harvested a large number of fans. The follow-up hits "TT" and "Knock Knock" are more in line with East Asia's aesthetic definition of cuteness.
But local success does not mean recognition in overseas markets. TWICE's stage presentation like a pendant is not the "feminine" style advocated by Europe and the United States. An American journalist, after watching TWICE's concert, mercilessly criticized their stage for "not having passion".
Another girl group BLACKPINK, which made its debut in 2016, brought the Girl crush wind. This group, composed of girls from three nationalities, Korean, Thai and Australian, won public attention with a strong style of savage girlfriend as soon as it debuted, and also became the shortest group in K-POP's history to win a hit show.
BLACKPINK'S OVERALL STYLE IS TOUGH AND INDEPENDENT, CONVEYING A SENSE OF POWER. In the performance, use energetic dance flexibly and try to avoid protruding sexy parts such as legs or buttocks; The lyrics like to express the concepts of "what a man is", "do whatever you want", "love is not worth mentioning", etc., emphasizing self-awareness and subjectivity.
In the MV, artists often appear with props such as off-road vehicles, cars, and helicopters, and use darker, tougher, and more urban environments on the scenes.
BLACKPINK's appropriate "Europeanization" meets the aesthetic needs of European and American audiences, which also makes them the best girl group in the European and American markets.
The entertainment circle began to understand Girl crush, and it also started with BLACKPINK. SOME YOUNG WOMEN REJECT WHITE, THIN AND YOUNG, YEARNING FOR A SENSE OF POWER EMPHASIZED BY EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN STYLES, BUT NOT A PURE WESTERNIZED AESTHETIC, AND BLACKPINK JUST FITS. For many insiders, BLACKPINK is the representative of four generations of Korean girl groups.
05
Girl crush has never been the opposite of femininity, but rather has a strong feminine character, but there is a rebellion against the patriarchal society. But at the same time, Girl crush has also attracted a lot of criticism: say good anti-"flattering men", why are skirts still getting shorter and shorter?
In fact, "staring" is not only the gaze of men to women, but also the gaze of women to themselves. John Berg once stated the essence of "gaze" in "The Way of Seeing": men observe women, women pay attention to being observed.
Women will always pay attention to their behavior, whether they are dressed by male gaze, or whether they are "suspected" of being stared at by men. But with the improvement of women's status in recent years, more and more women realize that the real Crush is from the inside out, and has the freedom to choose in a patriarchal society. The length of the skirt should be a woman's freedom. If the skirt is short = flattering, it is as unreasonable as "beautiful is green tea".
Yoo Jimin of the AESPA group
In the fifth generation, Girl crush is more free and diverse. Although the group style is different, it invariably expresses one core philosophy: tenacity and independence.
IN 2018, CUBE's new girl group (G) I-DLE'S DEBUT SONG "LATATA" BECAME A HIT, BREAKING BLACKPINK'S RECORD FOR THE FASTEST IN 2016, KNOWN AS "MONSTER NEWCOMER". The song "Nxde," released late last year, celebrates the "beauty of the nude" and openly satirizes the ugly gaze of some men.
The lyrics evolved to be bolder and "self", a common feature of the five generations of girl groups.
ITZY takes the rebellious Genki girl route, and the most popular songs are the debut songs "DALLA DALLA" (Korean pronunciation is the same as "different"), "I'm a little different" and "WANNABE" "I just want to be myself".
AESPA is the way of the super-dimensional goddess, each song is a dialogue between the self and the super-dimensional "high self", "Next Level" and "Savage" have novel styles and attract many curious fans.
These groups have captured most of the female fans.
It is worth noting that the prosperity of Girl crush does not mean the decline of traditional aesthetics. It's just that in addition to the traditional aesthetic orientation, we see a more diverse look for women.
When beauty becomes diverse, infinite power arises. Korean girl groups with diverse styles have also captured a large number of fans in China. On short video platforms such as station B, you can see dance videos of girl groups with very high playback everywhere. Or go to a large shopping mall on the weekend, and there is a high probability that you will encounter a crowded K-POP random dance.
The evolution of the style of the girl group reflects the change of social trend and the improvement of public aesthetics.
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