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2022: year of the girl group
Mar. 25th, 2023 07:29 pmlate to the party as always. but it is seriously the golden age for ggs which is very exciting to me, gg stan, so here is a little summary of my opinions on how 2022 went for each group as well as any other thoughts i have about them ^___^ also i have a massive headache right now so sorry if this does not make sense < says this as if any of their dw posts ever make sense.
also in the interest of posting this before 2024, i'm skipping over soloists as a whole and certain groups who made good music but i don't know enough about to really talk about. if you want just a summary of songs i liked, here's my 2022 kpop playlist that even has a few bgs added in for good measure.
my beautiful chaewon who is finally back in the industry... <3 truly though even with the chaewon influence i did not expect to like lesserafim as much as i have. i think i made a tweet pre-debut or very early into their run, back when i was much more jaded and bitter towards kpop and had not received the healing light of 2022 gg excellency, that i was considering just 1pick stanning chaewon and mayb kazuha and not really paying attention to anyone else. Which Did Not Happen.
they kind of have the perfect lineup and it is very pleasing to me just how good of a group they are. like they could've done nothing but release palatable music and look good and i would've been fine with it (crazy chaewon stan) but instead they release bangers and look good and perform like kpop veterans and it is like Have you seen these girls!!!! watching them absolutely slay on every end of the year award show was so giddy delight inspiring. they're crazy. they're crazy good...
speaking of crazy it is Also crazy how much content they have. well first of all Thank god for a rookie girl group releasing Actual Albums with more than two songs and not just singles right off the bat... yg set a terrible precedent with blackpink. but this isn't about them. this is about my beautiful girls who released two banger minis back to back with zero misses. i think anti-fragile has better songs overall, but fearless feels like a more coherent album. But Both Are Good and also both have really insane intros... the hydra mayb one of my favorite kpop album intro songs ever actually.
beyond music though they also have so much variety and other promotional content. from leniverse to day off to weverse interviews to the world is my oyster aka an entire fucking documentary... which was seriously fascinating in its insight as to what the fuck actually goes into a debut. i think it was extra crazy to see sakura and chaewon go back to ground zero, especially with the knowledge that neither really had proper training periods. you can tell how much they care about this idol shit and how full of ambition they are... jjangsserafim....
all of their moments where they talk about how all of them being in a group together was almost like destiny T_____T chaewon and sakura debuting again in the same group despite the odds... yunjin almost giving up on kpop and going to Business School and then saying when she got the call her heart was already in korea... kazuha feeling anxious about how all she had left was ballet and sending in an audition all the way from europe anyways... eunchae having a dream about joining their team the night before she got called in to be the most maknae maknae to ever maknae... my fimmies......... hul.
anyways i luv all of the members and i'm forever cheering them on ^____^ i could go on for a few more paragraphs but well Just look at my twitter for elaboration.
nearly named them messiest group of the year but then um. jinni left nmixx (depression). anyways i think kep1er's biggest problem is momentum, and how they've been stumbling right out the gate: debut delayed because of people catching covid, instantly thrown into a survival show a month afterwards with two songs to their name, constant comebacks w no rest period by virtue of being wake one's cash cow... list goes on. i was watching a kpop video essay once and the op said that mnet ran gp999 as an experiment to see if they could still make successful survival shows, but failed to consider that an actual group would be coming out of it, and i think that sentiment echoes in every decision made with kep1er.
it's extra apparent though in their musical direction, or rather lack thereof. if you ask someone what kep1er's signature sound is they will not be able to give you an answer, but that's okay because neither can their company. wadada feels emblematic of weird momentum in and of itself, what with the out of place second chorus and how the song doesn't really go anywhere. and also as a side bar it has quite possibly the world's most annoying guitar riff for a chorus ever... which makes it even more upsetting that mayb the best part of the instrumental, the backing to hikaru's rap, Literally never comes back ever again.
moving on. up! is kep1er at their best, and the song that really sold me on them, but it's a quintessential summer song and summer songs can't sustain a group year-round, especially not with how many cb's their management crams into their schedule. and then we fresh feels like a regression, not picking up on any of up!'s charm and also not shaking off any of wadada's clumsiness. as a personal note, i personally still like we fresh, but i think that's purely because i have a fondness for music that sounds like it could be a video game soundtrack... which was also another one of up!'s many strengths if you cared.
kep1er's other big weakness, imo, is group cohesion. their management doesn't seem very interested in selecting concepts that work for All of the members (re: cash cow they are just throwing shit at a wall), and to be fair i don't think there are a lot of concepts that would fit the bill in the first place. up! and mvsk felt the closest they've come, but the problem of being a group that isn't rigged is that you don't end up with a clean lineup that all seem born for a certain concept the way izone was- [i am taken out by a sniper]. acknowledging that it is Very Shallow of me to say this, but kep1er even lack visual harmony in that their faces just don't feel like they belong in the same group. and it is very much like Oh this is why they handpicked the lineups for all of the previous produce groups...
also their fandom dynamics are terrible like whatever the fuck hiyyihlights have going on. i have nothing against bahiyyih btw like i think the hate she gets as a kid trying her best is way too intense, but at the same time. Well their fandom is just very messy. i'd have more to say if i actually participated in the larger kpop fandom but i do not bc i value my sanity, so i will leave it there.
favs: hikaru and chaehyun <3 especially hikaru who is just crazy good. my little slayer. luv her
winner of my personal messiest group of the year award... mayb i am biased since jinni was my 1pick but :| idk it is still crazy to me that a member who trained for that long would end up leaving less than a year after she finally debuted... something about jyp constantly losing a member super early into a group's career...
anyways music wise dice was so much better than o.o and it isn't even close. like dice feels like a refinement of o.o in every way, down to the concept. o.o's entire schtick is that it is a song about shock factor. its lyrics sing about making a surprised face with wide eyes and doesn't ever develop beyond there, unless you count some of the vaguest product placement ever...? it is a gimmicky song with a gimmicky hook that you need a serious case of stockholm syndrome to enjoy. Which Thankfully For Them i have in spades. in fact i even have the unpopular opinion that the watch out baila baila baila section is better than the funky rock section... with enough relistens it seriously grows on you. and it also helps that nmixx are insanely talented... hearing them perform it live i think does half the selling of the song.
and then dice takes the nmixx song skeletal structure and gives it an actual soul... you're a real song Pinocchio... etc. etc. i guess i'm biased because the wonderland/weird fucked up performance concept is Mayb one of my favorites ever (average wonderland enthusiast) but like. it's not my fault not all of us used to loop cirque du soleil soundtracks... like dice is about something and even if it wasn't a better song than o.o, i would still like it more by virtue of that fact alone.
as for All the other shit. i haven't seen enough of their variety/behind the scenes content to really speak but word on the street is that their group dynamic is Fucked. which is fascinating because i feel like jyp groups tend to have, at least on camera, very good and idolsona-full relations. like genuinely where did they find these girls. why do they sing so much better than anyone else in their company as rookies and why do they also have such crazy fucked up tensions more than anyone else in their company...
and re: singing Why are they so good at singing. are we sure this is a jyp group. Actually, to echo hui, nmixx is like if jyp made an sm boy group but with a girl group. i was sold on nmixx the moment i heard dice, but even if i wasn't i think eventually their talents would've gotten me Shout out to their very nice stage.
but then back to their Messiest group of 2022 isms, it then baffles me how their company is choosing to go a more ive route in member presence distribution and not a lesserafim route. by which i mean they are Really hamfisting some members into the spotlight and giving them a lot of lines/centers/screentime despite the fact that they do not have a wonyoung. instead of letting everyone have their moment a la lesserafim, which they very well could do considering everyone is talented enough to hold their own. Like it is so strange to me that they had a roll-out the way they did and then only utilized mayb two members to their full potential Yes i am still mildly bitter that jinni didn't get more exposure in the short time she was in the group Anyways it's like... you have slayers that aren't kyujin. i have nothing against kyujin But You Have Members Other Than Her.
if they did go the wonyoung/karina to an extent extremely pushed center star member i still think it could've been a member that isn't kyujin. Like Jinni For Examp- [i am taken out by a sniper] for real though i think her and sullyoon had the most buzzfactor and between the two of them jinni fit the original nmixx concept like a glove... she was the nmixx change up girl for a reason... okay i'll pack up now but i had to air out my grievances at some point.
anyways. kep1er and nmixx, to me, are like. groups that despite it all manage to slay and that i am invested in both for their crazy trainwreck circumstances And their crazy overflowing talents... in very different ways but yes. i am rooting for them even if the above doesn't give off that impression.
favs: jinni. [stares into camera]
had a cut-and-dry Very Good year. like nothing was more satisfying than watching my entire tl catch love dive disease after getting it first listen the day it dropped and making it a two part voice tweet talking about how much i got it... grinch grin fr. i'm realizing after those previous two massive sections that i have way less to say about groups that just Did Well nothing more nothing less but like. You Know.
i think love dive > after like but i could see how you might argue otherwise and tbh i have been listening to after like A Lot Lately. love dive's concept is much more up my alley though and Not to be extremely shallow but seriously why did they switch gaeul and liz's hair colors for after like Society when kpop stops trying to constantly re-invent the wheel and just stick to styling that is already good and perfect... reject change embrace tradition... etc. etc.
there have been allegations on twitter that ive is a group of dozens which first of all. Dozen should've never breached ncity containment People throw it around without a spare thought and no one ever uses it appropriately. second of all while i do not think they are a group of hexagon idols, i do still think all of them are at least competent enough to do their jobs at minimum which is more than fine considering how good their music is. And In Fact a lot of them do slay... well mayb i am biased as a wizone but between wonyoung produce winner and izone center and ahn yujin part of izone's ace line... like the foundational talent is already there. sorry if you guys don't see it i guess.
favs: yujin, rei
jk i'm not talking about them. i haven't seen a single one of their mvs and have only heard their songs by chance when they end up on my twitter page Which unfortunately is very frequently. actually All i will say is truly i think their music is a little overrated and somehow saps the kpop charm out of kpop :^)
bro fuck sm for literally only giving them one comeback in 2022... girls fucked hard though. and everyone who thinks illusion was better/should've been the title track is Wrong. even beyond my deep dislike of the world yummy, girls is a thousand times more dramatic and convincing and anthemic and dare i say aespa's best title yet... in general i think aespa have been getting better title track wise every comeback, and while savage has higher highs aka banger pre-chorus, girls is stronger overall. though album wise it is in fact the other way around where girls has the better title but savage is stronger overall and it isn't even close...
also. this is anachronistic but their performance at the circle chart music awards which i am 99% sure was live was soo good. like imagine that sm... when you let your artists do the thing your company is best at they give a much more compelling performance... winter my little hexagon idol who was slaying so hard Like when you let a yoo youngjin trainee Sing it's over... anyways i really hope this become a pattern because they sound good live and have the potential to sound even better live with more experience aka giselle whose mic was way too far from her mouth
fav: winter armamenter ^____^
also in the interest of posting this before 2024, i'm skipping over soloists as a whole and certain groups who made good music but i don't know enough about to really talk about. if you want just a summary of songs i liked, here's my 2022 kpop playlist that even has a few bgs added in for good measure.
LE SSERAFIM
my beautiful chaewon who is finally back in the industry... <3 truly though even with the chaewon influence i did not expect to like lesserafim as much as i have. i think i made a tweet pre-debut or very early into their run, back when i was much more jaded and bitter towards kpop and had not received the healing light of 2022 gg excellency, that i was considering just 1pick stanning chaewon and mayb kazuha and not really paying attention to anyone else. Which Did Not Happen.
they kind of have the perfect lineup and it is very pleasing to me just how good of a group they are. like they could've done nothing but release palatable music and look good and i would've been fine with it (crazy chaewon stan) but instead they release bangers and look good and perform like kpop veterans and it is like Have you seen these girls!!!! watching them absolutely slay on every end of the year award show was so giddy delight inspiring. they're crazy. they're crazy good...
speaking of crazy it is Also crazy how much content they have. well first of all Thank god for a rookie girl group releasing Actual Albums with more than two songs and not just singles right off the bat... yg set a terrible precedent with blackpink. but this isn't about them. this is about my beautiful girls who released two banger minis back to back with zero misses. i think anti-fragile has better songs overall, but fearless feels like a more coherent album. But Both Are Good and also both have really insane intros... the hydra mayb one of my favorite kpop album intro songs ever actually.
beyond music though they also have so much variety and other promotional content. from leniverse to day off to weverse interviews to the world is my oyster aka an entire fucking documentary... which was seriously fascinating in its insight as to what the fuck actually goes into a debut. i think it was extra crazy to see sakura and chaewon go back to ground zero, especially with the knowledge that neither really had proper training periods. you can tell how much they care about this idol shit and how full of ambition they are... jjangsserafim....
all of their moments where they talk about how all of them being in a group together was almost like destiny T_____T chaewon and sakura debuting again in the same group despite the odds... yunjin almost giving up on kpop and going to Business School and then saying when she got the call her heart was already in korea... kazuha feeling anxious about how all she had left was ballet and sending in an audition all the way from europe anyways... eunchae having a dream about joining their team the night before she got called in to be the most maknae maknae to ever maknae... my fimmies......... hul.
anyways i luv all of the members and i'm forever cheering them on ^____^ i could go on for a few more paragraphs but well Just look at my twitter for elaboration.
Kep1er
nearly named them messiest group of the year but then um. jinni left nmixx (depression). anyways i think kep1er's biggest problem is momentum, and how they've been stumbling right out the gate: debut delayed because of people catching covid, instantly thrown into a survival show a month afterwards with two songs to their name, constant comebacks w no rest period by virtue of being wake one's cash cow... list goes on. i was watching a kpop video essay once and the op said that mnet ran gp999 as an experiment to see if they could still make successful survival shows, but failed to consider that an actual group would be coming out of it, and i think that sentiment echoes in every decision made with kep1er.
it's extra apparent though in their musical direction, or rather lack thereof. if you ask someone what kep1er's signature sound is they will not be able to give you an answer, but that's okay because neither can their company. wadada feels emblematic of weird momentum in and of itself, what with the out of place second chorus and how the song doesn't really go anywhere. and also as a side bar it has quite possibly the world's most annoying guitar riff for a chorus ever... which makes it even more upsetting that mayb the best part of the instrumental, the backing to hikaru's rap, Literally never comes back ever again.
moving on. up! is kep1er at their best, and the song that really sold me on them, but it's a quintessential summer song and summer songs can't sustain a group year-round, especially not with how many cb's their management crams into their schedule. and then we fresh feels like a regression, not picking up on any of up!'s charm and also not shaking off any of wadada's clumsiness. as a personal note, i personally still like we fresh, but i think that's purely because i have a fondness for music that sounds like it could be a video game soundtrack... which was also another one of up!'s many strengths if you cared.
kep1er's other big weakness, imo, is group cohesion. their management doesn't seem very interested in selecting concepts that work for All of the members (re: cash cow they are just throwing shit at a wall), and to be fair i don't think there are a lot of concepts that would fit the bill in the first place. up! and mvsk felt the closest they've come, but the problem of being a group that isn't rigged is that you don't end up with a clean lineup that all seem born for a certain concept the way izone was- [i am taken out by a sniper]. acknowledging that it is Very Shallow of me to say this, but kep1er even lack visual harmony in that their faces just don't feel like they belong in the same group. and it is very much like Oh this is why they handpicked the lineups for all of the previous produce groups...
also their fandom dynamics are terrible like whatever the fuck hiyyihlights have going on. i have nothing against bahiyyih btw like i think the hate she gets as a kid trying her best is way too intense, but at the same time. Well their fandom is just very messy. i'd have more to say if i actually participated in the larger kpop fandom but i do not bc i value my sanity, so i will leave it there.
favs: hikaru and chaehyun <3 especially hikaru who is just crazy good. my little slayer. luv her
NMIXX
winner of my personal messiest group of the year award... mayb i am biased since jinni was my 1pick but :| idk it is still crazy to me that a member who trained for that long would end up leaving less than a year after she finally debuted... something about jyp constantly losing a member super early into a group's career...
anyways music wise dice was so much better than o.o and it isn't even close. like dice feels like a refinement of o.o in every way, down to the concept. o.o's entire schtick is that it is a song about shock factor. its lyrics sing about making a surprised face with wide eyes and doesn't ever develop beyond there, unless you count some of the vaguest product placement ever...? it is a gimmicky song with a gimmicky hook that you need a serious case of stockholm syndrome to enjoy. Which Thankfully For Them i have in spades. in fact i even have the unpopular opinion that the watch out baila baila baila section is better than the funky rock section... with enough relistens it seriously grows on you. and it also helps that nmixx are insanely talented... hearing them perform it live i think does half the selling of the song.
and then dice takes the nmixx song skeletal structure and gives it an actual soul... you're a real song Pinocchio... etc. etc. i guess i'm biased because the wonderland/weird fucked up performance concept is Mayb one of my favorites ever (average wonderland enthusiast) but like. it's not my fault not all of us used to loop cirque du soleil soundtracks... like dice is about something and even if it wasn't a better song than o.o, i would still like it more by virtue of that fact alone.
as for All the other shit. i haven't seen enough of their variety/behind the scenes content to really speak but word on the street is that their group dynamic is Fucked. which is fascinating because i feel like jyp groups tend to have, at least on camera, very good and idolsona-full relations. like genuinely where did they find these girls. why do they sing so much better than anyone else in their company as rookies and why do they also have such crazy fucked up tensions more than anyone else in their company...
and re: singing Why are they so good at singing. are we sure this is a jyp group. Actually, to echo hui, nmixx is like if jyp made an sm boy group but with a girl group. i was sold on nmixx the moment i heard dice, but even if i wasn't i think eventually their talents would've gotten me Shout out to their very nice stage.
but then back to their Messiest group of 2022 isms, it then baffles me how their company is choosing to go a more ive route in member presence distribution and not a lesserafim route. by which i mean they are Really hamfisting some members into the spotlight and giving them a lot of lines/centers/screentime despite the fact that they do not have a wonyoung. instead of letting everyone have their moment a la lesserafim, which they very well could do considering everyone is talented enough to hold their own. Like it is so strange to me that they had a roll-out the way they did and then only utilized mayb two members to their full potential Yes i am still mildly bitter that jinni didn't get more exposure in the short time she was in the group Anyways it's like... you have slayers that aren't kyujin. i have nothing against kyujin But You Have Members Other Than Her.
if they did go the wonyoung/karina to an extent extremely pushed center star member i still think it could've been a member that isn't kyujin. Like Jinni For Examp- [i am taken out by a sniper] for real though i think her and sullyoon had the most buzzfactor and between the two of them jinni fit the original nmixx concept like a glove... she was the nmixx change up girl for a reason... okay i'll pack up now but i had to air out my grievances at some point.
anyways. kep1er and nmixx, to me, are like. groups that despite it all manage to slay and that i am invested in both for their crazy trainwreck circumstances And their crazy overflowing talents... in very different ways but yes. i am rooting for them even if the above doesn't give off that impression.
favs: jinni. [stares into camera]
IVE
had a cut-and-dry Very Good year. like nothing was more satisfying than watching my entire tl catch love dive disease after getting it first listen the day it dropped and making it a two part voice tweet talking about how much i got it... grinch grin fr. i'm realizing after those previous two massive sections that i have way less to say about groups that just Did Well nothing more nothing less but like. You Know.
i think love dive > after like but i could see how you might argue otherwise and tbh i have been listening to after like A Lot Lately. love dive's concept is much more up my alley though and Not to be extremely shallow but seriously why did they switch gaeul and liz's hair colors for after like Society when kpop stops trying to constantly re-invent the wheel and just stick to styling that is already good and perfect... reject change embrace tradition... etc. etc.
there have been allegations on twitter that ive is a group of dozens which first of all. Dozen should've never breached ncity containment People throw it around without a spare thought and no one ever uses it appropriately. second of all while i do not think they are a group of hexagon idols, i do still think all of them are at least competent enough to do their jobs at minimum which is more than fine considering how good their music is. And In Fact a lot of them do slay... well mayb i am biased as a wizone but between wonyoung produce winner and izone center and ahn yujin part of izone's ace line... like the foundational talent is already there. sorry if you guys don't see it i guess.
favs: yujin, rei
NewJeans
jk i'm not talking about them. i haven't seen a single one of their mvs and have only heard their songs by chance when they end up on my twitter page Which unfortunately is very frequently. actually All i will say is truly i think their music is a little overrated and somehow saps the kpop charm out of kpop :^)
aespa
bro fuck sm for literally only giving them one comeback in 2022... girls fucked hard though. and everyone who thinks illusion was better/should've been the title track is Wrong. even beyond my deep dislike of the world yummy, girls is a thousand times more dramatic and convincing and anthemic and dare i say aespa's best title yet... in general i think aespa have been getting better title track wise every comeback, and while savage has higher highs aka banger pre-chorus, girls is stronger overall. though album wise it is in fact the other way around where girls has the better title but savage is stronger overall and it isn't even close...
also. this is anachronistic but their performance at the circle chart music awards which i am 99% sure was live was soo good. like imagine that sm... when you let your artists do the thing your company is best at they give a much more compelling performance... winter my little hexagon idol who was slaying so hard Like when you let a yoo youngjin trainee Sing it's over... anyways i really hope this become a pattern because they sound good live and have the potential to sound even better live with more experience aka giselle whose mic was way too far from her mouth
fav: winter armamenter ^____^
