Everyone knows I’m a big fan of After School. They are one of the strong and fierce girl groups in K-Pop. I do find it annoying they keep adding members, but I back down when after they promoted the big group, they break off and promote as smaller sub-units. For a while there was talk of a new boy group and even possible sightings on After School / Son Dambi Music Videos and live performances. For a while these guys were just called the After School Boys or Pledis Boys. Well a couple weeks ago our FanBoy and FanGirl dreams came true with the debut of NU’EST.
So like all other K-Poppers we headed to YouTube to click on the video. I purposefully did not watch the teasers. I stopped watching those things, when JYP gave me a total “Mullard” moment when the Wonder Girls gave us a fierce 30 seconds of greatness and ended giving us a perky holiday-ish meets Beyonce’s Single ladies hit song “Be My Baby”. No I’m not your Baby… Blehhh.
What was I going to expect from Pledis? Was I going to be blown away or was I going to be disappointed? So I clicked the play button and then I stopped myself. I clicked the English subbed version instead. I figured why not, I need to know what they're singing about. So the music video opens with my new secret crush Baekho. Its obvious he’s going to have to do most of the singing. Then comes MinHyun , not bad actually pretty good. Then the OMG heard across the internet. Is that a Boy/Girl in this group. Yes I too had to do a double take. Is this following the F(X) Amber trend? I guess already expects the maknae to be the pretty one The rest is a bit of a blur because obviously I honed in on two the most interesting members of the group, who just so happen to be bleached blondes. JR takes care of the wrapping duties. Then I realized I missed Aron. I hope he doesn’t become the one that fades in the background. Then comes the K-pop trend of 2012 the dub step dance break. V formation, transition, popping, locking and tuting, some hip thrusting (ABDC anyone?). The video has a story to tell and thankfully there was no girl inserted randomly to make the video “straight” You know what I’m talking about Teen Top. The video ends with a rap sequence with JR and Aron. And then it hits me. I think Aron speaks English. Is he our boy version of Bekah?
So to Wikipedia I go. I look up their page and my jaw drops, these guys are babies. Baekho, Jr, MinHyun and Ren are 16 and Aron is 18. Of course they used their Korean age and so at years end they will be 18 and 20. While After School members all debuted past the age of 21 these guys still have to go to school.. (pun indented). When I was their age, the pop boy band backlash was in full effect and we all stopped showering and wore flannel. My high school days were filled with grunge music and indie bands. I love their sound. They describe themselves as Urban Electro. It has a very Ibiza , club, Miami , Saturday night getting read to go out sound. I would bet that if this song were to play in a club, nobody would notice that its not in English.
How do they stack up against After School? Based on the original 5 that debuted with AH. I would match them up as follows:
JR = Kahi Baekho = Jungah MinHyun = Soyoung *maybe more Uee
Aron = Bekah Ren = Jooyeon
I just hope they don’t add members every time they release a new song.
