Remember when we were kids and there were all these popstars to adore (and adorn – your walls, that is)? Those days are long gone, but thankfully, these megastars still exist in South Korea.
K-pop idols, as the popstars of Korea are called, abound and they stretch far beyond the Oppa Gangnam stylings you’re familiar with.
It’s easy to see why Korean kids are obsessed with them: their songs are catchy, their dance moves are impressive, and they’re incredibly beautiful. With an ever-changing array of hair colors and wild outfits, these gals (and guys) never fail to please (and definitely smack of boy-band and power-group days gone by for us Yanks).
I myself am not immune to the hypnotic tug of these Asian songstresses. My favorite group is SNSD (also known as Girls Generation). I discovered them quite by accident searching YouTube when I found a ridiculous video entitled “Gee”:
…. What? Omg. I somehow love not understanding this.
Mesmerized by its combination of inexplicability and adorability (’cause those are both words), I had to find out more. I soon became aware that beyond this comparably massive girl group (8 [current] members would be unheard of by US pop standards), there lay a whole additional universe of K-poppers to discover and worship.
Here are a few quick-hit songs to get you hooked on your new guilty pleasure (you don’t have to tell anyone you like it — only my earbuds know at the gym) (crap, now the whole Internet knows…):
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The K-pop starlets of miss a appeared in Marie Claire magazine. 2NE1 – I Am The Best (you probably know this from that phone commercial)
- miss a – Hush
- SNSD – Oh!
- Hyuna – Red
There are many more fun ones – and let me caveat this whole thing by saying that yes, Korea has a wonderful world of deep, meaningful, powerful music to find and follow beyond this. This is pure bubblegum fun, but here at Sassy Dove we’re never ashamed of that.
K-pop idols are famous for going to extremes when it comes to their appearances: crazy beauty treatments, incredibly restrictive diets and workout regimens, and even plastic surgery abound. But there’s a glitz and glamour glaze on top of all the superficial lengths they’ll go to that somehow sends a happier, more innocent pop message than the current state of US pop (read: salacious yet disenchanted – oh, there your breasts are *yawn*).
Do you like K-pop? Who are some of your favorite idols?
They are so skinny… how is that possible, Koreans are so short they must weigh basically nothing to look that skinny.