K-Pop Nine: A New View on K-Entertainment

So if episode 1 of Produce 101 was boring in that it was just auditions, then episode 2 is just more of the same. It’s still decently entertaining though, so let’s jump into it. The episode starts off with the 98 trainees (because I think at this point 3 had already left) watching the first episode. It’s pretty standard, really. There’s a lot of them laughing at #ultimatememe Yoon Jisung and the MMO Gossip Squad. There’s some crying as the boys hear some of the other trainees talk about how difficult the training process is. And finally they show the ranking results after the first episode. Park Jihoon is first, Jang Moon Bok is second. And then it goes back into auditions, which is more of the same. I’ll discuss some of the auditions down below. One of my favourite sections of the audtion section of this episode is where Cheetah and Don Mills get to rate the rapper trainees. Some of them are good (like Woo Jinyoung, bless his smol soul), others less so. It’s just ente...

Twice generally delivers a bop of some kind or another. They're all strong hooks with upbeat tempos and even if the songs aren't necessarily fantastic, they're at least redeemable in some ways. Like "Cheer Up" made up for it's strange take on tempo by having one of the best hooks in the past few years, and "TT" made up for being "TT" by having easily the best choreos Twice has had thus far. "Signal" has, well, none of these. "Signal" lacks the punch that I have come to expect from a Twice song. While it follows the general pattern that hook songs tend to follow, this song just falls so exceptionally flat that I can't believe this is a full release. There's basically nothing to go on here.  "Signal" relies a lot on the quasi-rap that a lot of idol groups use, but it's not done well. While Chaeyoung and Dahyun are the best suited to this kind of thing, I found them underused while Mom...

Have you ever just watched a show that you know is trash but you have to keep watching it because you live for the mess? That’s Produce 101 for me. It’s a mess of a shit show and I absolutely adore it. Having watched season 1 (and promptly getting addicted to it and to IOI), I’ve been hyped for season 2 and the dudes. Now, I’ve already watched the first 5 episodes as of writing this, but I’m going to go back and review the episodes. God help me. Episode 1 is just trainees being introduced. That’s it. But it does have its moments of awesome and amazingness. And lameness. And cringe. If Produce 101 was a multiple choice test the answer for the question “How would you describe the show?” would be “D”: All of the above. Anyways, Episode 1 starts off with BoA (#Queen, the nation’s representative) talking about what the word ‘trainee’ means. It’s boring and doesn’t matter. The trainees all come in agency by agency. Yeah basically...