We all talk about BTS, BLACKPINK, Stray Kids, NewJeans, and whatever K-Pop group that’s currently trending in the early 2020s. But let’s go back… way back… back into time when things were simpler. Let me talk about 90s K-Pop with you.
(more…)
On October 29th, 2015, Star1 Entertainment held the 90s KPOP Superstars Concert in the Metro Atlanta area at Wild Bill’s nightclub (now known as Atlanta Coliseum) in Duluth, GA, which was a surprise treat (pun intended because of the eve Halloween Eve) for K-Pop fans who live in the Southeast.
(more…)![Read more about the article Ivy – Sonata of Temptation [Music Spotlight]](https://centakumedia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ffvii-ac_20200405_001.png)
K-Pop solo artist Ivy released a music video for her song “Sonata of Temptation” a little over a decade ago (which I originally talked about back in 2009 on the blog before the relaunch), and it was quite the topic–not just around K-Pop communities, but around Final Fantasy fan circles as well…
(more…)
If you are into J-Pop, including K-Pop, then you may be wondering why you don’t see enough content outside of Japan of your favorite artists without having to go to great lengths to obtain the latest release. It might be due to a generational issue of complicated, and possibly financial, reasons. I was originally going to just Tweet about this, but this needs more than 280 characters. So I am going to just write about this in a form of a blog post. It’s about the reasons why K-Pop is as global as it is, with even a handful of male J-Pop bands embracing the style of K-Pop. And it all falls back to an interest in music from another country that is right across from South Korea.
This week’s Music Spotlight highlights a song from Korean solo artist Kim Sarang. I discovered one of his songs over a decade ago, thanks to being a regular player of World of Warcraft. However, this song has no direct connection to WoW itself, but it was used in a fan made video of a fellow player of the Horde, an Undead Warlock rocking it out and killing everything in sight.
For this edition of Music Spotlight, here is an indie K-Pop artist that I came across a couple of years back during my personal hunts to fill my phone with a plethora of Korean Music. One of the songs I came across was by Kay-G (케이지), who previously released his debut track back in 2017.
I came across a video the other day that was created by YouTube user “just a black guy who likes j-pop” featuring the latest of what Japan has to offer when it comes to Male J-Pop Groups. As someone who has been exposed to K-Pop for more than 15 years, this is familiar territory.
Watching the video, I couldn’t help but notice the familiar soundscape of each group presented in the video. What I heard in the video sounds–and looks–like a modern K-Pop group. Only if I pay attention to what I hear, it’s what modern J-Pop sounds like in the sound of many groups on the way of becoming global superstars, such as BTS, or even NCT 127.
It was in 2015 when Korean Hip-Hop group Epik High held their first ever North American tour, and boy, was I so excited when they announced Atlanta as a stop! Just two months shy of the fourth anniversary of their first tour, in 2019, the group is returning for a sold out show in Atlanta. And the way I heard about it their potential stop for their first show was a situation where I was at the right place, at the right time!
