This was a really good recap for an orbit who started stanning Loona around 2020-2021. That statement about opera singers is so true. Have they heard opera singers sing. Their technique is crazy sheeeesh. Yaas miss Kim Lip can't wait for part 2!
I'm glad you liked it! I'm trying to recreate the experience for later fans and fans of other groups trying to understand the hype. I'm squeezing in voice recordings in the spaces when the house is quiet, so part 2 may be a ways off, but I promise it'll be good when it comes!
I’m 6 days late but I absolutely love this! I love the way you explained everything!😁 Been an Orbit since 2018, this was absolutely amazing🩷🩷🩷 Loona 1/3 is my fave subunit and has my favorite Loona songs too, it’s a shame it doesn’t get more recognition🥲
12:12 i definitely agree and I think that’s sad because I love love&live and I don’t think all kpop needs to have music to shake your ass to 1/3rd is supposed to be enchanting not nightclub
I think it's sad too, but more because 1/3 got stuck with a dated sound than the sound just not being popular; I think they could've had better music without sacrificing what their subunit's vibe was supposed to be.
A few things, 1) While I agree Haseul is an amazing pop and opera singer, the statement that being good in opera makes you immediately good in all other genres just isn’t true. This even carries over into the comparison made to ballet. Both opera and ballet require high technical skills but also require specific sets of skills that, yes, can carry over into different genres and give someone a head start or unique angle, but doesn’t automatically make them good in the genre. Like an opera singer can’t just jump in and do pop with no issues the same way a ballet singer can’t just jump in and do krump. Once again this isn’t to say Haseul is bad, I think she‘s amazing, but I just think it’s important to clarify these things. 2) I think the issue with 1/3 isn’t that their music was outdated or uninspired or anything, but rather their concept and genre are just ones that international fans just never seem to really get. I think you’re making a bit of an assumption that it was the concept and sound that kept 1/3 underground when in reality that’s just not true. Lovelyz and Gfriend were both active during this time and in future years too doing this concept with great success. The girl crush wave didn’t really start until like later 2018 and even then it didn’t go into full swing until early 2020. The real issue is that Loona just has never been able to capture a large Korean fanbase, and as said before, the concept for 1/3 isn’t one that international audiences seem to have an ear for so it didn’t capture them either. Love&Evil is actually an incredibly well constructed album (like almost to the same level as Max&Match) if you’re someone who has an ear for the genres used. But just because you don’t doesn’t make it boring, it may be boring to you, but it’s not inherently boring or bland on an artistic level. 3) I think the term you’re looking for when you use the ”color pencil pop“ phrase is actually just innocent concept. This also I think comes from international fanbases just not quite getting this concept, but cute and innocent concepts are quite different, and Love&Live is part of the latter not the former.
Most of these reasonings are things I've grown to look past and read more into. They come from a very basic view of kpop in which stuff like east vs west or girl crush vs cute always have the final say, which is just now how this stuff works. I did say that western fanbases have a lower tolerance for the cuter stuff, but color pencil pop was dying independently of the girl crush wave. As I pointed out, GFriend had to abandon that style eventually and matured into an elegant/witchy concept with a stronger sound, and fromis_9 also only started seeing real popularity once they dropped this style of music and took up their Love Bomb era style. Neither of these groups has ever had more popularity with western fans, being borne primarily on their domestic fanbases. And Lovelyz (almost entirely Korean gp fanbase) took their desperate turn into girl crush on Queendom 2 for a reason; their color pencil pop stuff just wasn't making returns anymore, but seeing girl crush as their golden ticket back to the top was their downfall. Felt2000 pointed this out while studying their falloff, so I know I'm not the only one to notice this trend. In fact, LOONA only finally started gaining attention from Korea when they did Paint the Town, which finally put them on the map there. Furthermore, LOONA's done girly and cute stuff which has been well-received by their western fanbase, too. LOONA have plenty of cute and/or innocent releases (Kiss Later, Heart Attack, love4eva, Hula Hoop, Flip That) that have been received well with western audiences,. The difference is that those songs weren't made from an aged template that was going out of vogue, which is the core issue with the style that drove Love&Live. As for HaSeul and opera, I don't particularly care about any attempted nuances in this direction because most of them are made with ill respect towards the fact that singing by itself is a skill that has to be developed (and, most frequently, are just trying to tear down someone they know can sing better than their bias). Opera singers are phenomenally skilled people, it's a very technical singing style. Maybe an opera singer can't become a popstar overnight, but they'll manage it much faster than a popstar trying to become an opera singer, especially if that popstar doesn't have any actual singing training. It's also much easier to fake vocal talent with modern processing than it to fake dancing talent, among other issues that muddy these comparisons.
Like, ballet as a dancing style may differ in a hundred different ways from krumping. But ballet focuses stringent attention on things like balance, flexibility, and stamina, all things that are incredibly helpful with dancing as a whole. You see it all the time when ballet artists take ventures into other areas. You don't even have to look far to find an example--look at Drag Race. Queens with a background in ballet, like Lady Camden or Marcia Marcia Marcia, frequently dance the house down in lipsync performances to songs of all different styles, from hiphop to RnB. Similar principles apply to opera, which is tremendously focused on singing skills many idols will never learn. HaSeul has never struggled with any song she's been tasked with singing, and her confidence in choosing "Toxic" to audition on MixNine with says to me she doesn't see the pop genre as a huge barrier.
(I'm sorry to be giving you novels but people don't usually try to engage with me at this depth, so I'm splurging on my debate side). I do think that just because one finds a song boring doesn't _make_ it boring. But I do also think songs can be uninspired or unambitious and that this can kill their momentum with an audience; whether you call it an innocent concept or color pencil pop, at the end of the day, choices with the song construction will win out.
i personally enjoy the cadence and the pace you speak in, it is a bit fast for me as a non native speaker but heck with it i can pause read and rewind no biggie. Do what suits you best and thanks for making the efforts to put out quality content.
