daebakwhovian/ July 12, 2020/ ICYMI/ 0 comments

Chungha Invites Summer Fun in “Play”

Solo artist Chungha dropped a second pre-release single “Play (feat. Changmo).” Both this release and her first pre-release single “Stay Tonight” are leading up to her first full-length album.

Review (daebakwhovian): One of the top K-pop solo artists, and arguably the most successful post- Produce series participant, Chungha is really just the full package: she can sing, she can dance, she has a cute dog (not a requirement, but it is a definite plus). She is one of my favorite performers because her stage presence and chemistry with her dancers is almost electric. For this reason, I often prefer her performance videos to the official music videos, because you can tell how much she enjoys it. This song is definitely an opportunity for that. While “Stay Tonight” was a glam aesthetic anthem, “Play” is outright fun. Even though it’s not a ballad, all of her stable high notes give us a chance to be impressed by her vocals. I also thought Changmo’s rap fit right in with the song, and I loved the little references he dropped for some of Chungha’s previous songs (mentioning “Remedy”, “Gotta Go (12 o’clock)”, and “Stay tonight”). Fun fact: her partner for the dance break is Hongbin of the Boys24 competition show (check out his Instagram here). While I don’t think this is as iconic as her “Gotta Go” or “Snapping”, if what we have now is just her pre-releases, I can’t wait for her title track to come out. Overall: 🎶 “I’mma play you on repeat”~~

Other Headlines:

• EXO-Ls are you okay? This has been a good week for fans of EXO:
  • EXO-SC (Sehun and Chanyeol’s sub-unit) released three MVs for their upcoming first album: “Telephone (Feat. 10CM)”, Chanyeol’s “Nothin”, and Sehun’s dog Vivi Sehun’s first solo track “On Me”. My favorite so far is the cute and catchy “Telephone”, which showed off the duo’s rapping and smooth singing styles. Their album “1 Billion Views” drops on July 13.
  • EXO member Kai was confirmed to be working on his solo debut album, though no schedule or release date has been finalized yet.
  • Lay released his new single “Boom” (and of course a TikTok challenge for it).

• SF9 released their eighth mini album “9loryUS” (one way to say ‘9’ in Korean is pronounced “gu”, so I’m guessing it’s pronounced like ‘glorious’ and not how I was saying it in my head). I honestly only noticed this group after seeing member Rowoon in the K-drama Extraordinary You, but I definitely think that they are underrated. The title track “Summer Breeze” makes you feel like rolling down the windows on a road trip (and there’s a riff in there which reminds me of Charlie Puth’s “Attention” for some reason).

• The long-awaited first mini album from Red Velvet sub-unit Irene & Seulgi released this week with the title track “Monster”. Long-awaited because not only was their original debut date pushed back, but when expectant fans geared up for the MV scheduled to be released on July 6, they were met with… silence. While the album was made available on time, their was no announcements about the delayed music video for about six hours. Finally, SM Entertainment announced on Twitter that the MV would be released the following day. Not only was this strange because they had already postponed the debut for a month, seemingly to make sure everything was ready, but it also seems that Irene and Seulgi weren’t aware of the delay, as they were doing a live countdown soon before the scheduled time. Needless to say, fans weren’t happy:

• Day6 member Jae, who goes by eaJ for his solo projects, released the short but solid track “Pacman”. If you want to hear more from Jae, you can check out his podcast “How Did I Get Here.”

• (G)I-DLE released a music video and lyric video for their new song “i’M THE TREND”. Members Minnie and Yuqi contributed to composing the track, which is full of references to previous (G)I-DLE hits and was first performed during their online concert “I-LAND: WHO AM I”.
• SM Entertainment confirmed that SHINee member Taemin would be postponing his July solo comeback due to a wrist injury.
• In other SHINee news, member Onew is being discharged from the military straight from his final leave on July 20 (due to COVID-19 protocols). He is the first member to be discharged.
• Nam Nation are you ready?! Solo artist Eric Nam will be making a comeback on July 30 with a mini album. Stream his last release, the all-English album “Before We Begin”or listen to his podcast K-Pop Daebak while you wait.
• OUI Entertainment revealed the name of their new boy group WEi (pronounced ‘we’ ‘I’). There’s already a lot of buzz around the group since it has former survival show contestants and members of RAINZ, JBJ, and X1. You can check out their official image film here and their Twitter here.
• Since Monsta X’s Shownu is still recovering from his eye literally falling apart!? (He’s fine, I’m just overreacting and realizing I’m too squeamish to ever be a surgeon), the live virtual concert “MONSTA X LIVE FROM SEOUL WITH LUV” has been postponed to August 8.

K-drama Corner:

• OCN sci-fi thriller Train premiered this weekend. Starring Yoon Shi Yoon (Flower Boy Next Door, Psychopath Diary) and Kyung Soo Jin (Joseon Survival), it’s a murder mystery drama- but the choices made on the night of the murder results in parallel universes. OCN dramas tend to be a bit too gritty for me sometimes, but the sci-fi nerd in me knows that I’ll end up checking it out. The drama is available on Viki.com.
• I feel personally attacked by this drama name: Can’t Be Bothered to Date, But Don’t Want to Be Lonely, MBC’s upcoming drama set its premiere date for August 11. Ji Hyun Woo (Queen In-Hyun’s Man, Awl) and Kim So Eun (Boys Over Flowers, Liar Game) star as young housemates avoiding serious relationships, but not wanting to end up lonely.
• Upcoming KBS 2TV drama Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol starring Go Ara (Reply 1994, Haechi) and Lee Jae Wook (Extraordinary You, I’ll Go To You When the Weather Is Nice) had its first script reading. After Go Ara’s pianist character hits rock bottom, she ends up at small town piano academy and meets Lee Jae Wook’s character, who is hiding secrets (aren’t they all?). The drama will air in August.

• tvN released a trailer for their upcoming drama Record of Youth. The drama will follow the lives of young people in the modeling industry and features top stars Park Bo Gum (Encounter, Reply 1988) and Park So Dam (Parasite, Cinderella and the Four Knights). Record of Youth will premiere in September.

• Currently Watching:
  • It’s Okay To Not Be Okay: I always tell myself to be cautious before giving my heart away to a new drama, but this is the first drama in months that I find myself refreshing the page for new episodes. In many series (K-dramas are notorious for it, but other genres are guilty too) characters with emotional, processing, or learning differences are simply used as a gimmick. I like that so far the main leads and the clinic residents are portrayed with dignity instead of stigma. I also like that this is very much a character-driven plot instead of random external forces making things occur for more episode filler. We want to know what happens next, but we mostly want to see how our characters will heal and grow. Also, shout out to the amazing child actors!
  • Was It Love: I’m a big Song Ji Hyo fan even though I’ve never seen/been interested in the plot of any of her dramas solely because of Running Man. I usually bail on love triangles (squares? Some type of shape), but I’m a sucker for strong mother-daughter duos. I like Song Ji Hyo’s character so far, and admire her way of seeming like everything is always fine even when it’s not- not just to be strong for her family, but because she’d determined to make everything fine by her skill and willpower alone. It’s still too early to see if I’ll continue the drama, but I’ll definitely be tuning in next week.
  • Men Are Men: So I know she’s like the ‘rom-com queen’, but I’m not a big Hwang Jung Eum fan. It’s not that I think she’s a bad actress, it’s that most of her roles require her to act completely over the top. But I find her character in this drama is a lot more relatable (and yells a lot less) and I love the idea that instead of searching for her ‘Mr. Right’, she’s completely satisfied with me, myself, and I thank-you-very-much. That being said, I have some complaints about the rest of the set-up: I already have major second lead syndrome, I find the first lead super creepy, I’m not a fan of the forced misunderstandings this early on, and I’m not really sold on the past lives angle. I know that sounds like a lot of negatives, but I actually liked the premiere, so I’ll see how I feel as the story unfolds.

What were your favorite headlines this week? Let us know in the comments!