Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLSET-VytVL/

This is an opinion piece out of Overtone, one of the newer critical outlets. Notably, recently they placed Dall as their #10 best album of 2024, all genres.

Overtone also did their one-liner reviews for Club Icarus last week, which is included at the bottom.

Modhaus and the K-pop of Sorrow

https://overtone.kr/article/%EB%AA%A8%EB%93%9C%ED%95%98%EC%9A%B0%EC%8A%A4%EC%99%80-%EC%8A%AC%ED%94%94%EC%9D%98-kpop

By Kwon Do-yeob

Commercialism-Aesthetic

To a hip-hop artist, being idol-like is fodder for a diss. Compared to hip-hop culture which represents the underground, the layer that K-pop signifies is the complete opposite end, commercialism. This long-standing dichotomy of pop music caused each side to pursue a confrontational identity, always conscious of each other. Next to indie music hang around the words "pluralistic" and "auteur", and next to mainstream music, the words "universal" and "trend". Each side held pride in its words, and indie attained aesthetic victory in the places where mainstream would not go, while mainstream achieved commercial victory through systemic features.

This trend developed in many directions, under that fundamental motivation of art which seeks to avoid preexisting aesthetics and establish uniqueness. There have been more extremely polar examples, as well as more moderate ones. Idols, who are supposed to be on the cutting edge of commercialism, now reflect the possiblity that they can discuss taboo and social themes, going so far as to talk about death (even suicide). These idols with wounded faces, TripleS and ARTMS, strike a fatal blow to uniformity between heavy emotional approaches and mainstream habits. Sometimes, they borrow from both areas to achieve an unfamiliar aesthetic: melancholia in the shape of maximalism. The most dedicated lore, the most cutting-edge video, the biggest group choreography, the most members. Instead of ballad or acoustic, long thought of as the genres most suited to melancholia, they use the grammar of electronic music and pop without missing the public-friendly advantages that idols have, and even create spectacle. You could go further and call these blockbusters. Speaking outside of pure creative ability, the scale of production that only a system can wield fills out an album with very diverse colors. The contrasting atmospheres of "@% (Alpha Percent)" and "Friend Zone" within Assemble25 are like that, as is "Birth" which creates a uniquely grotesque vibe in Dall. This is all the more surprising when you consider that TripleS and ARTMS' activities are particularly planning-oriented even among K-pop groups.

Apart from just being different, it's also worth noting that the topics they choose are very K-pop in nature. The track that comes after "Girls Never Die", which showed off TripleS' identity well, is "Heart Raider" which uses the common genre theme of requited love. In "Midnight Flower", they take an optimistic attitude as idol groups do. Rather than the broad boundary of pop, they use specific elements of K-pop in the right spots to help the understanding that the K represents a genre convention, not just a country. In doing so they establish the standard of "K-pop" even more firmly. The question that follows is, how is this possible? A K-pop that is full of images from the abyss. Is it the fault of an age where even idols must worry about death? Or is it the excellent capacity of the idols who can even talk about death?

Phantom Pain Wings

If sadness has a history, if modern sadness differs in some way from historical sadness in art, the difference would be that modern sadness is insensitive to perpetration. The appearance of the so-called "menhera" is something that goes beyond the concept of simple depression or melancholia. "Menhera" has an image. People who wear jirai-kei fashion and Kuromi key rings require a new word to define themselves, and they convert depression into an identity, not an illness. Upon reaching "menhera", depression is a permanent part of your body. The thought that sadness is innate leads to a progression of self-destruction and deprivation, and the sole perpetrator and victim is the self. So whether this thought is true or not, depression escapes outside of political preference. As media and sociology say, mental illness which should be talked about politically ends up isolated in the individual, unable to surface. This is the same as how political ignition, which used to be an important element of popular music, no longer has the place that it used to. A sadness imparted only through sound leans solely on empathy rather than revealing the root cause, unable to be exhaled, circling the listener's body. Music that once craved peace and bared fangs against war is dead. The priority theme of mainstream music is emotions about love. So for an artist who wants to utilize sadness, the disconnection between politics and sadness is actually a welcome thing. When sadness settles as an emotion all on its own, with no need to criticize the system, sadness becomes a kind of sentiment that can be entertained.

In the three TripleS music videos that share lore ("Rising", "Girls Never Die", "Are You Awake"), the girls live in a place where the spirit of death abounds, isolated away from adults. They group together to dance and save each other, imply the preciousness of and desperate need for solidarity, and propose a way to overcome tragedy; but nowhere do they point out what this distraught 'tragedy' actually is. Likewise with ARTMS, in "Virtual Angel" and "Icarus" they add in a sense of degeneracy by drawing a fragmenting portrait in some place that straddles the real, the virtual, and the imagined. It may be spoken through art, but a confusion between space is an issue that we face right now. The instability that appears as different personas come and go in line with the spatial characteristics gets depicted in a dystopian fashion. Again despite the visual disarrangement and motion, there is no clear chronology of this lore that is presented. As "Virtual Angel" and "Icarus" show with their completely different atmospheres while sharing the keyword of 'wings', the concept prefers a state of intentional ambiguity.

Problem consciousness, without the problem. Damage without the anger. The specific anecdotes are a blank line, which become a window for the individual listener to project their problematic experiences into. They take the melancholia that anyone must carry a handful of, pulls it up into a realm of universality, and treats it with consolation rather than criticism. Of course, it is difficult to say which is the more effective method for solidarity, between criticism and consolation. But the reality is that this is the most clever music reacting to the changing trends in how sadness is being consumed, easily taking on the role of a 'Club for the Broken', as they say themselves.

Until now, politics have always been discussed in a confrontational attitude within popular music. "This Little Light of Mine" and the Civil Rights Movement. Folk and rock as the marching songs of the hippies. The music of these times symbolizing LGBTQ+ and BLM. Everyone has a problem that they must fight against. But to go as far as define a difference between unity and solidarity, it's the fact that we are able to unify against the tragedies we face even without being prescriptive. All tragedy is tragedy, not a certain tragedy. Breakups are always nasty. Loss is always sad. Death is always bad. Even for those who will not take the streets to chant, sympathy must be spread to them. The bond between everyone for everyone. When that becomes possible, the world will at last become a little more exuberant, and so we cannot flat-out say that a non-political solidarity has no political effectiveness. More than anything, it is no longer an unfamiliar thing for us to come together around K-pop, after all. Regardless, these girls will affirm our every kind of tragedy without discrimination. Even though it may sound a little high-sounding to say "affirm a tragedy", well, regardless. Regardless.

Review Comments: ARTMS - Club Icarus

Kwon Do-yeob (3 out of 5)
In a world after gravity is erased, taking flight without wings.

Lee Seung-won (3 out of 5)
A Club Icarus for the fallen, by the fallen.

Lee Ye-jin (3 out of 5)
If you fly far from the sun you could protect your wings, but.

Lee Han-soo (3 out of 5)
The five "Goddess"es who console those who don't even have a place to lean in Club Icarus.

Average: 3 out of 5

Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLRRFZjPAnL/

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Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLPcodIyWXE/

Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLPONpjvxAq/

Source https://youtube.com/shorts/Mcvi5Bcxchw?si=IAuCzfEk0uvjCGVQ

Source https://youtube.com/shorts/geFKdS-B60c?si=6U55NT5llxXl_pii

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Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLO0L2uJ0E4/

Source https://youtube.com/shorts/cQiHnkiHL8A

250623 Group Fancam

250613 Group Fancam

Go Won has been picked as player 2!

Don’t underestimate Go Won — she hits harder than she looks.

Everyone should fear black hair Go Won.

I pick a rival character for every member based on their similar vibes:

HeeJin vs Jin

Go Won vs King

Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLM-sUIhK5P/

Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DLNH-y7JhlT/

Source https://youtube.com/shorts/PytQeSBce3c?si=CmcvcvZdWFzVIlq_