Hey! I’m back for the first time in a while. My apologies, it’s been a complicated few weeks with my move and such. This is a new post series I hope to keep going, especially as a gateway for people to learn more about the music of the Second Generation of K-pop. I’d also love to make a post series on album B-sides but, I want to get a few posts of this off the ground first.
As much as I thought about keeping the posts focused on a single group, I’m just going to hop around some general ‘theme’ or ‘aesthetic’. For this post, I want to look at songs that are meant to get you up and groove. Let’s get started!
I’ll be honest, 2011 was an amazing year for second gen K-pop, a lot of groups debuted and a bunch of bops were released. (2009 was another stand-out year, and I’ll get to it eventually)
U-Kiss dropped their second album, and this was received with a lot of success. While Someday was dropped as the preview for the album, Neverland (the album’s name and title track) received a lot of love that year. Kevin and Soohyun shone in this track. The styling was on-point, giving us that iconic 2011 K-pop guyliner and tank tops. The choreography was fun, and the hook was catchy. I remember that it even made it to the Puerto Rican airwaves. I heard it on the radio here a handful of times back then.
Honestly, T-ARA’s story MVs are iconic. Their production values grew from Roly-Poly onward and they were practically movies at one point. *cough* Day by Day *cough*
Roly-Poly took the summer by storm in 2011, with a remix coming out a few months later. The song is a catchy disco/EDM combo that you don’t see coming. In a summer where EDM and dubstep were flourishing, this retro throwback sound helped the group gain more popularity. The dance was really popular at the time and if the song would be rereleased now, I wouldn’t doubt it becoming a tiktok dance trend.
HOLY MOTHER OF DANCE MOBS.
I need to relearn this dance. It’s totally a bunch of cardio. It’s also fun!
This song dropped in summer of 2012, as the title track of Wonder Girl’s Wonder Party – EP. With it’s catchy chorus, and fun dance, they opened up the summer of 2012 with a bang! The video looked like a bunch of fun, showing people from all sorts of age groups taking part in the evolving dance mob. It’s one of those songs that probably doesn’t come to mind when it comes to Wonder Girls as a group due to other iconic songs, but it’s definitely worth mentioning.
This track by 2PM captures some of the insanity that second gen groups had in their music videos. This track was a part of their fourth album, and it’s a great song to jam around with. It’s a song that still holds now in 2020. Their chorus choreography is also the type of dance that would make for another tiktok challenge. The guys radiate the pure chaotic energy throughout most of the video, making it a memorable watch.
These are just a few songs to get you started. I do hope to keep this post series going by either fangirling about one song or making a short list for you to browse through and have fun.
Thanks so much for stopping by, see you next time!
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