Sunday, January 31, 2016

Kpop Breaking news 2016 Jan

             Starts from 2016 January, I will update my blog a bit different. Instead of kpop girl group update, I will write something which is more relevant to general public., which is kpop breaking news for each month. And this is the first blog about that topic. (I would like to get the feedback from my new  blog for the first time, if it is good, I will continue this topic, otherwise I will go back kpop girl group update again).



                        Pink MEMORY: Apink North American Tour 2016




              Everyone will know the first topic I will write. Yes, it is Pink Memory: APink North American tour. APink had a concert at Vancouver at Jan 5th 2016. I was so exited for this concert that I couldn't sleep the night before the concert. I still feel so lucky to get meet & greet ticket for this concert and also for one of my friend. (the M&G Ticket sold out very fast online) Even though it's a bit expensive like almost 300 CAD, it's a once in life time opportunity, and it really worth it...
             So before the concert, M&G ticket fans actually got chance to have High-Touch and take picture with APink. It's like very first time to get so close to my fav idols. And I was just so lucky to get hug from one of my bias Yoon Bomi from APink during the meet& greet session.



(I was standing right behind Bomi when taking the picture with APink and other Pink Pandas, it's still kinda funny...also I am glad some other fans could stand besides their fav member in APink as well like Eunji, NaEun, Chorong panda)....
        The concert is really amazing, I will probably never forget this concert in my life. It's just amazing. I sit in the 3rd row, every fans are like cheering like crazy....



        After that, APink held concert at Dallas, San Francisco and LA, they had a very successful tour in North America...

      Also, I cannot sleep again after the APink concert as well, sigh....

                                   My ultimate bias Eunji or Bomi ?

          I start to listen to APink songs since 2011 when My My just came out, since then Eunji became my bias, and I actually watched the whole Reply 1997 drama partially because of Eunji as well. For people who actually follow my blog, my blog is called EunjiPanda before as well until May last year. When remember came out, Bomi's Pink hair, OMG....and also I start to watch a lot of Bomi stuff in various shows.... I would say both Eunji and Bomi are my bias, I am just more focus on Bomi these days than Eunji...I am glad Eunji and Bomi are actually good friends in APink, yes, Eunmi !!!.








                         Infinite Effect World Tour

                               
          
     Similar to APink, the current hot boy group Infinite also has their own world tour. They performed in Vancouver 2 days after APink. After that, they will perform in Vancouver, LA, Mexico City and New York. 
      I'm not a big fan of Infinite,but they are one of the boy group who is currently in trend right now. And before my graduation, me and 6 members actually perform their BTD in front of around 200 people at school. Their dance is pretty hard, I would say.






        after talking about the concert and feel so excited about APink, now let's see what's the real breaking news in Kpop at Jan 2016......



                              Disband of KARA (2007 - 2016)


                                  
          On Jan 5th 2016, on the same day when APink have concert in Vancouver, one of the biggest kpop girl group in the past KARA officially announced disbanding from DSP Media. So member
Gyuri, Seungyeon and Hara, 3 members contract expired, and another member YoungJi will still stay in DSP Media, but promote without the name KARA. 

  Reports are saying that KARA hasn't had promotions since this past fall with their Japanese tour. It's also being said that Hara, Seungyeon and Gyuri have already decided to leave

         In speaking of KARA, since 2007, they are one of the biggest competitor with SNSD and Wonder Girls. They also break into Japanese market and became one of the most popular kpop girl group in Japan along with SNSD. However in recent years,

        Early KARA pretty girl period....


  KARA's 2011 single "Step", immediately topped various music charts in South Korea hours after its release. So from 2007 until 2011, KARA was one of the most popular kpop girl group, and definitely ranked top 3...

         Also KARA had one of the biggest impact on kpop in Japan since 2011. They are actually the best selling kpop girl group of all time in Japan. 
             
          After the announcement, a lot of KARA fans feel very disappointed.  Even they didn't do very well in recent years after 2013, I still remember they were the biggest rival of my fav SNSD for the past few years. Even as a old SONE, I miss the days when argue with KARA fans.
         Such achievement reserve KARA a spot as one of top 10 of the most popular  kpop girl group of all time in the history of kpop.
         (I could write a separate article just talking about KARA if anyone request....)
     .





                          Tzuyu Incident and JYP 

               

           so let's start with who is Tzuyu?....Tzuyu was a Taiwanese member in  the new JYP girl group Twice. So before this incident happened, as a new kpop girl, Twice was one of the most popular new girl group at that time. And as the Visual of the group, Tzuyu draws attention from many fans as well.
           Just 2 weeks ago, actually one Taiwanese entertainer called Huang An report to the China authority that Tzuyu support "Taiwan Independance", and he also post some pics as evidence online, which is absolutely the ban from Chinese government without question.

           After that, Chinese government suspend all of her activity, and then expand to all JYP Entertainment activity in China.  As we all know, nearly 50% of JYP market is in China, and also 2pm, Miss A and all the JYP training center will be suspended as well in China, and their stock is dropped like 2% only in a day, and over 10% in a week.  Due to pressure, JYP Entertainment finally apologize to Chinese government with a statement, and also they forced Tzuyu to make a video to apologize as well.....
         
          For JYP Entertainment, they have to decide if they want the freedom of speech or their business and money. They chose the latter one, which they could survive from this incident and continue promote in China to make even more money. However, they lost a lot of respect from a lot of international kpop fans as well.
          And this thing just happened before the president election in Taiwan, so Tzuyu became the center of the media for many Chinese Media and Taiwanese Media as well.






And there are a few other big things happened in Jan 2016 as well.  I won't list here one by one.
Just a few of them for people who are interested to read.

1 Rapper B Free allegedly disses boy group BTS leading to fury of fans
Summary:  The old incident when Korean Rapper Free B disses BTS fired up again, which causes a lot of problems between Free B and BTS fans. This time is even worse.

Turbo celebrates 20th year anniversary with 6th album, 'Turbo Again
Summary: As one of the most popular kpop boy duo Turbo back in 90s , they made a comeback this Jan, and my uncle actually start to watch music core again because of them.

3 And I saw EXO fans try to boycott some other boy groups fandom on music core at the beginning of this year, forgot which group. As I expected, any fandom who are against EXO right now are probably will get into a lot of trouble.....








           

Sunday, January 3, 2016

A Brief History of APink

         Yeah, it's 2016 now....since it's Christmas and new years, there's not many girl groups comeback last month. Also the APink concert will come very soon. So I will write something related to APink this time....

         

          APink is a kpop girl group debut under ACube Entertainment at 2011. Acube announce their very first trainee Son Na Eun at Feb 2011.  And all the members are trainees under ACube Entertainment. The Original 7 members are: Park Chorong, 
Yoon Bo-mi, Jung Eun-ji ,Son Na-eun, Kim Nam-joo, .Oh Ha-young,, Hong Yoo Kyung.


                                        APink Debut

          APink officially debut at April 19th 2011. The group released their debut EP, Seven Springs of Apink and the music video for its lead single, "I Don't Know" (몰라요), on the same day. Apink made their debut stage performance with "몰라요"  and Wishlist on Mnet's M! Countdown on April 21 to promote their EP.

                      APink debut stage at April 21, 2011 (Bomi had very short hair at that time)
                         

                                       

                             
                             The song April 19th from APink first album indicates their debut date as well....(Lyrics written by group leader Park Chorong)





              Two month after that, at June 2011, APink start to promote "It Girl"  ,which is from the same EP with "I Don't Know" and "Wishlist".

     
                 












                                   First Win : My, My

                APink's first success: The group released their second EP, Snow Pink, on November 22, 2011, featuring the lead single "My My", a song composed by Shinsadong Tiger. Promotions for "My My" began on November 25 on KBS' Music Bank.
                 Still in November, Apink received their first award, the "Female Rookie Award", at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards held in Singapore。In January 2012, they received three more "Rookie Awards", at the Korean Culture & Entertainment Awards and the Golden Disk Awards held in Osaka and the High 1 Seoul Music Awards in Seoul.
                  In January 2012, Apink won their first music show award on Mnet's M! Countdown for "My My". In February, they received the "Rookie of the Year" award at the 1st Gaon Chart Awards












Une Année and Bubibu

            Une Année is the first full-length studio album by  Apink, It was released on May 9, 2012, which includes singles such as "April 19th", "Hush" , "Cat" and "Bubibu". All the songs in this albums are so cute....



Chorong Baby fat during Bubibu performance



APink Hush MV

        During the recording, APink also introduce Cat project. and the project MV is so cute..
                              

                                  

Hong Yoo Kyung departure

           On April 23rd 2013, APink member Hong Yoo Kyung decided to leave APink to focus on her study. There's a lot of rumor's online, some says it's her dad's decision cuz her dad is the president of DSP Corp. And she's the richest member in APink as well. But those rumors got cleared very soon as well. It is her own decision. 
            After that, it affects APink's promotion. So at the beginning, ACube decided to recruit a new member to replace empty position, but they didn't do it finally. So APink became a 6 member girl group.
                               




Rise to Success :No No No

             APink released their third EP ,Secret Garden, and music for its title track, "NoNoNo", were released on July 5, 2013."NoNoNo" was the group's highest charting single, peaking at number 2 on Billboard's K-Pop Hot 100. In November 2013, at the 2013 Mnet Asian Music Awards, Apink received the Next Generation Global Star award

 APink No No No white outfit



APink No No No Pink Outfit, one of my fav....




No No No is the turning point for APink career, they rise from 2ed/3rd tier girl group to 1st tier girl group after the release of "No No No".









1000th day of debut and Mr Chu
On January 13, 2014, Apink released "Good Morning Baby", to celebrate the 1,000th day since the group's debut. The song peaked at number 6 on Gaon's weekly chart. Their fourth EP, Pink Blossom, and the music video for its title track, "Mr. Chu", were released on March 31. The song peaked at number 2 on Billboard's K-Pop Hot 100. Apink won six music show trophies for "Mr. Chu", and the song was the eighth best selling digital song in 2014, according to Gaon's year-end chart
                               











APink BnN
          In June 2014, Yoon Bomi and Kim Namjoo formed a sub-unit called Apink BnN,which released the single "My Darling"











Pink LUV

         In November 2014, the group released their fifth EP, Pink Luv, as well as the music video for its title song, "Luv", which was composed by Shinsadong Tiger. The song was Apink's first number 1 ranking on Gaon's weekly and monthly digital charts, and Pink Luv topped Gaon's weekly album chart in its first week of release The group won first place on all three major Korean music shows two weeks in a row, the only girl group to do so in 2014. Besides The Show and Music Core, they also won a triple crown on Inkigayo, which only allows three wins before removing a song from competition. They finished the year by winning all the music shows in December with "Luv".On Gaon's year-end ranking, Apink was the third best selling girl group in 2014














2015 Pink Paradise Tour and Promise U
         On January 10, 2015, Apink became the first group to win five consecutive awards on Music Core.The same month, the group received the "Digital Bonsang" and "Best Female Performance Group" awards at the 29th Golden Disk Awards in Beijing, "Bonsang" and "Popularity" awards at the Seoul Music Awards, "Best Female Group" at the Korean Culture and Entertainment Awards and "Best Single of December" at the Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards

                           

       
  Apink released a single entitled "Promise U" on April 19, written by Jung Eun-ji to commemorate the group's fourth anniversary.






                      Pink Memory And Remember
                  On July 16 2015, the group released their second full-length album, Pink Memory, along with the title track "Remember.

                                   


                             

In November 2015, Apink announced a January 2016 tour of North America and are scheduled to play Vancouver, Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles.......


As I am writing this blog, APink will arrive at Vancouver in less than 2 hours......hope to see them at the airport soon !!!


Side Question: what does Bomi eat on airplane?............