Second (and some early Third)Gen K-Pop Recs: Groups That Disbanded Too Soon Edition

A common occurrence in K-pop is seeing a big amount of debuts in a year where a lot of groups don’t make it. These groups have sometimes released iconic bops that unfortunately, never got the views they deserved. This post is dedicated to showcase some tracks from already disbanded groups that showed up throughout the Second and early beginnings of the Third generation of K-Pop that you should definitely listen to.

This song was so overplayed by me the year it came out. The details in this music video are amazing. It’s insanely good stop-motion makes for a lot of chaos (group’s name is ChAOS, see what I did there? :P) in the background and I am living for it. The track itself has beautiful vocals, and it’s envelopes you into its catchy hook. It’s amazing work from a group that was just starting out.

Piggy Dolls as a group was meant to inspire the body positivity movement in Korea when they debuted in early 2011. Unfortunately, it didn’t do too well under the eyes of the K-netizens and the girls lost weight for their comeback later in the year. Their message was more about the vocals than what they looked like and to be honest, they completely delivered. I’m still mad that they replaced the line-up to skinnier girls before disbanding completely.

The FACT that this music video was removed is a CRIME. This song dropped early in 2012 and it BLEW MY MIND. What is Love is a pure belt-out string infused ballad with some unfortunate raps featuring Simon D. I can totally overlook the rap portions though because these girls slayed vocally to give us the most amazing heartbreak ballad of the year.

CHI-CHI debuted in 2011, a few months before APink. Their debut is a highly contagious bop called 장난치지마 and I recommend it. However, this track should’ve blown up.

Longer was released in the summer of 2011, a deep mature 180 from the image the girls debuted with. With a haunting melody, and a chorus that stuck to me upon first listen, this was their first comeback. The single was a full delivery, with a remixed version, an acoustic version that brought pure vocals, and the original track. The song still holds to this day and I’m sad that this group disbanded after a third single, an amazing track called Love is Energy.

JUSTICE FOR THESE GIRLS. They exploded onto the scene in 2012, right at the beginning of the Third Generation and they DELIVERED. They were talented and showed us a dark, edgy concept that at that moment had barely been seen in K-Pop. They did get a lot of 2NE1 comparisons and hate, which was undeserved because 2NE1 didn’t own the concept they put out.

The song just gets into your head the moment the chorus hits, the dance is infectious and this debut felt like something a veteran group would’ve dropped. I loved this debut so much and their second mini album was just as amazing. I don’t doubt that if a bigger company had been behind this group, they would’ve gone so much farther than they did.

THIS SONG IS SO GOOD. It even stars Girl’s Day Hyeri in the music video. Their debut was lively and fun, while this was a moody follow-up that delivered us a hook that lured you in with an unexpected Tarzan call. This song deserved so much love and views. It was unfortunate that these guys received a lot of abuse from their CEO, making disbandment their best way out of that toxicity.

T-Max was a second generation group that released some of the OST songs for the K-Drama Boys Over Flowers, they debuted initially as a trio in 2007 before dropping their first album in 2010 as a quartet. Their title track Don’t be Rude is a hype song that completely slipped under the radar on its release. The group disbandment announcement came in early 2012.

Delight debuted in the early stages of the third generation of K-pop and honestly it felt like a love child of so many tough female groups. The title track was in your face, loud, and hype. Mega Yak was a tough girl song, and don’t even get me started on that drop dance break that was amazing! The choreography could’ve been so much better but the beat was enough was to keep me coming back.

As a special bonus, in the mini album, there was a version of Mega Yak featuring PO from Block B, who were experiencing a huge surge of popularity of the time. .

These are just some of the groups that left the K-Pop scene too soon. I hope you enjoy these recommendations! I know I left a few groups out, which I will definitely make a second post of this topic so watch out for that.

Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you next time!