Current Event 20/09/30

---- [Current Events are bi-weekly writing assignments for my junior year history class. The instructions are to find a recent article, summarize it, and describe your personal opinion on it.]

 https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/09/10052182/superm-kpop-new-album-super-one-music-video-review?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss

 

  A few days ago the supergroup project of SM Entertainment made their first comeback with a full album titled “Super One”.  This article takes us through a brief history of the group and describes their new album. Said group, called SuperM debuted with their first mini-album about a year ago. What’s so special about this group is the fact that the seven members are actually composed of the aces of the company’s previously debuted groups. It consists of our seasoned icon Taemin from the highly respected and esteemed SHINee, legends Baekhyun and Kai from the worldwide phenomenon EXO, aces Mark and Taeyong from the yet-still-rising leader of this generation’s sound NCT 127, and gems Ten and Lucas from WayV, the Chinese subunit of NCT that collected guaranteed success as soon as they were announced. SM, taking the most popular members of their most popular boy groups, put them together to form “the Avengers of K-Pop”. (I know I shouldn’t insert an opinion in this paragraph, but yes, you can laugh. It sounds a little dumb; we all went insane when they first said that, but we’ve accepted it now. SM’s shenanigans never cease, so what can we do.) After their debut and tour in 2019, the members returned to their individual or original group’s activities for a while, but earlier this week, they came back with three music videos and a banger album which brought upon infinite hype and, well, fifteen dubiously epic songs.

  So my opinion on it? Well, I planned on this being an album review, but I might voice my thoughts on this group first. SuperM was quite a questionable idea, but I’m not surprised, as it is SM Entertainment. My, along with a lot of people’s, main concern when this project was first leaked back in August 2019, was the overworking of members who were already very active with their original groups. Specifically, we were concerned about Mark and Taeyong, and we still are, as NCT are to have a comeback the second week of October. Lucas and Ten are also going to be in that comeback, but NCT 127 have been active for the majority of this year, having two comebacks and an online concert. And you know what, good for them! Good for them; they’re making that cash! But at the same time, SM clearly favors those two (understandably so, the talent they hold is wild) and has them marketing them to the maximum extent possible. It makes you think: how are they holding up? I don’t know, but I sincerely hope they’re not getting pushed too hard. They, as well as Lucas and Ten, are releasing a new album in the highly anticipated NCT 2020, so they likely won’t get to rest anytime soon for the next two months at least. Taemin also had a glorious, elegant solo comeback earlier this month. Baekhyun and Kai… well… Baekhyun got to sing an original soundtrack, a beautiful ballad, for a TV show recently and as for Kai… SM promised that he would have solo music before the end of this year, but haven’t mentioned it since. (EXO, please come home. We need you back.)

  Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: shall I move on to the new album review? “Super One”, I said it was called, and “dubious”, I described it. And “dubious” would be right because there is probably not a better word to describe it than that or “questionable”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fifteen-piece, no-skip masterpiece. But maybe that’s because my taste in music sucks, and I accept that. Either way as long as I can acknowledge that this music is objectively… not ideal, but we are Gen Z living in 2020; it’s all about breaking standards now amirite? 

  Starting off, the first song on this is the main title track “One (Monster & Infinity)”. See, this is an interesting concept, and I, personally, think it’s very innovative. The next two songs listed are titled “Infinity” and “Monster” respectively. “One (Monster & Infinity)” is essentially a mashup of those two songs, forming an amalgamated loud banger. SM Entertainment has done this before with an old renown classic of SHINee’s: “Sherlock”, which used this same idea, mashing up two songs which were both included after it on its mini-album, “Clue” and “Note”.

  Next up is my self-acclaimed best song on the album, “Wish You Were Here”. I loved it the moment I heard it, honestly. To be honest, I expected this entire album to be fairly noisy to stick with its theme, but oh, this song right here stood out immediately. It was smart of them to sequence this right after the three introductory songs. It brings in a new suave, elegant mood in its minor key that you wouldn’t have expected coming at all, especially after just finishing the energetic “Monster”. 

  Okay, Mr. Patterson, I’m going to cut it off here now because I don’t think you want a ten-page essay analyzing fifteen different newly released Korean songs. Or maybe you do. No, like, if you want to hear the rest I will gladly grind out an extended review of this full album for the next journal; literally, just tell me. I could do this with so many others if I had time, or a purpose--that you’re providing me with for making these mandatory, obviously.