Episode 52: What’s the word for when you’re Jumping and Popping?
This episode had lingered as an unfinished draft for almost a year but the third anniversary of SuperM seemed like a good time to just finally finish it. As I lay out in the episode, despite being only a time limited “super group” their impact lingers on today. The backlash campaign from certain pockets of “fan journalists” was intense but ultimately meaningless. The article I reference from Buzzfeed is linked here and fed into the emerging BTS stan belief that “bundles” (i.e. the standard at the time industry practice of giving away an album with a concert ticket or purchase of merch) was sinful and dirty. While there were certainly problems with bundling (I’ll send people again to the Black Keys’ appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience discussing it) this idea that it was sinful and not just another industry marketing tactic points to something different and far darker in that fandom and two years later they would find themselves in the hot seat from actual music journalists for their own charting tactics.
The idea of the K-Pop kayfabe is something I’ve discussed on here before in Episode 29. The term has been adopted outside of wrestling fans but for those who are not familiar with it, “kayfabe” is essentially the creation and maintaining of a fictional “reality” for fan entertainment. For example, two wrestlers may be good friends in private but have an on-going in-ring rivalry where they hate each other. The fairytale world of the Big Three and Perfect All Kills and music show competitions is about as real as Donald Trump jumping in the ring to fight Vince McMahon but that doesn’t make it less fun to follow. The real problems with the American K-Pop sidequest have all stemmed from this mixing of stan kayfabe with industry reality. While Korea has managed to more or less quarantine K-Pop to its own corner of the industry, America was unprepared for the onslaught and that has led to a lot of conflict between fans trying to play the game by the rules they’ve been sold (i.e. calling radio stations incessantly to get them to play their favorite’s track) and the realities of how the music industry functions here (i.e. conglomerate-owned Top 40 format radio stations play songs from set playlists) and the people caught in the middle, like radio DJs and music journalists, have been the ones who’ve paid the price.
Lastly, the “noise music” tag is one I’ve found extremely funny. I remember when the SuperM mini-album came out and I thought the crisp production such a treat after the soggy mixes with buried vocals that we’d been hearing from the dominant K-Pop boy group. I was genuinely confused about where the “noise” was. In retrospect I think the “urban”-influenced sound was probably just very unfamiliar and discordant to stans who hadn’t been listening to songs like Rihanna’s “Cockiness” or Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade”. Songs like NCT 127’s “Sticker” or NMIXX’s “Tank” (both from Dem Jointz) are a polished up version of this sound.
I remain genuinely fond of SuperM and would love to see a reunion. For the completely unfamiliar, just dial up any of their tracks on YouTube for some entertaining MVs and performances but here’s one of my favorites, the pandemic performance for “With You”:
And “Jopping” live from Capitol Records:
And the songs played in the episode are:
“Jopping” by SuperM (fancam audio)
“Sugar Sugar” by the Archies
“나홀로 춤을 추긴 너무 외로워” by Kim Wan-Sun
“담다디” by Lee Sang-Eun
“The Story of Last Night” by Sobangcha
“Nan Arrayo” by Seo Taiji and Boyz
“Jingle Bells” by SMTown
The Marvel Super Heroes (Theme Song, 1966)
“Energetic” by Wanna One
“Flash” by X1
“Fiance” by MINO
“Fake Love” by BTS
“Replay” by SHINee
“WANT” by Taemin
“Growl” by EXO
“KoKoBop” by EXO
“Love Shot” by EXO (famous Kai fancam)
“The 7th Sense” by NCT U
“Boss” by NCT U
“UN Village” by Baekhyun
“Heaven” by Taemin
“Mmmm” by Kai
“Swimming Pools” by Taeyong
“Dream in a Dream” by Ten
“Bass Go Boom” by Lucas
“Child” by Mark Lee
“Jopping” by SuperM
“Sorry Sorry” by Super Junior
“Gee” by Girls Generation
“Ring Ding Dong” by SHINee
“Bang Bang Bang” by BigBang
“Don’t Call Me” by SHINee
“2 Baddies” by NCT 127
“Woodpecker No. 1” by Merzbow
“A Milli” by Lil Wayne
“Obsession” by EXO
“Timelapse” by NCT 127
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Welcome to the Idol Cast. Hit it!
Our opening song today is SuperM’s “Jopping” performed live on their 2019 North American tour with audio from a fancam that I will link to in the show notes. I liked this fancam in particular because you really feel the excitement level in the crowd ramp up for Mark’s verse--which was also what happened in the concert date I attended. The now immortal words:
Uh, you think ya big boi, throwing three stacks
I'ma show you how to ball, you a mismatch
Opinionated but I'm always spitting straight facts
Throwback, I might throw this on an eight track
Watching those concert fancams now is like receiving a postcard from a much happier and much simpler era.
I have to admit that I was hesitant to take on SuperM for a podcast topic even though they were a great group. Despite the overwhelmingly positive response to SuperM from Kpop fans around the world, the conversation around the group in English has been obscenely toxic. I am still getting nasty comments from some K-Pop fans because of a post I wrote about SuperM three years ago and it’s exactly this response that fascinates me. Why on Earth did these good-time-boys, these cartoon “Avengers of Kpop '' spark such Sturm und Drang? What was the goal of SuperM? Did they flop or, well, Jop? Put on your jumping and popping shoes and let's jop it out.
SuperM was a joint project between Capitol Records in the United States and Korea’s SM Entertainment that dates from about 2018, according to interviews with people like Chris Lee, A&R Executive for SM Entertainment. The seven member boy group was a time-limited super group that seems to have been created to do two things: 1. Prove SM’s ability in the current American K-Pop market and 2. Get fans of SM Entertainment’s older boy groups interested in and also to build hype for SM Entertainment’s newest boy group project: the NCT collective--part of which just so happened to be signed to Capitol Records.
But to really understand where SuperM comes from, we need to first look at Mr. Lee Soo-Man, Mr. SM himself, the man behind SM Entertainment, and his forward-thinking approach to both branding and cultural technology.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that all pop music is manufactured. At least I hope that’s not controversial, I’ve misjudged this line in the past.
Pop music around the world is two parts craft and one part marketing with a sprinkle of artistic inspiration. As pop fans, we wouldn’t have it any other way. The enduring popularity of 1960s cartoon bands voiced by legendary session singer Ron Dante is proof enough of that. What’s remarkable about Korea’s Kpop industry is not that they manufacture pop music nor that it relies so heavily on idols. These things are true for other countries as well. What I find so fascinating about Kpop is the way the industry has created this walled garden, this mythos, out of nothing and has successfully exported it globally. This magical fairy tale world of a Big Three and “perfect all kills” and music show voting that for the most part exists parallel to the popular music consumed domestically in Korea but which has become deeply infused with meaning for Kpop fans. And SM Entertainment has played a big role in shaping this Kpop kayfabe.
Long story (very) short (my speciality) during the run up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics when Korea began to shake off the dreary image of violent dictatorship and military rule, one of the new signposts of this new Korea was a cheerful, modern, trendy, teen-oriented middle class pop music that sprung up in Seoul. You could hear the national optimism in the voices of singers like Kim Wan-Sun or Lee Sang-Eun. They worked mainly with Korean songwriters and producers from the trot and rock genres who essentially had to come up with a Korean pop sound overnight. The results were mixed but generally listenable, the new format was sort of a trot melody set to a fast disco beat. This new gayo echoed the kayoukyoku soaked pops coming from Japanese idols of the same era due in large part, I suspect, to the geographic and cultural closeness of the two countries. These teen gayo singers wore spangly outfits and had cool looks and backup dancers just like those Japanese idols did. I mean a song like boy group Sobangcha’s 1987 hit “어젯밤 이야기” or “The Story of Last Night” is a good example of the burgeoning teen pop genre. Written by the late great Lee Ho-Jun, best known for his work with the legendary trot/ballad singer Cho Yong-Pil, the song is essentially indistinguishable from something a Johnny’s & Associates’ group like Hikaru Genji might have sung.
But what I want to emphasize is that this new genre had no real roots--it was just kind of dropped on top of the existing music culture--but it was cool and new and kind of exotic and my impression is that teens liked it just fine.
If you’ve listened to my idol history series you probably know this next part but it was into this rootless, spangly trot-pops music landscape that Seo Taiji and Boys exploded with their yearning, hip hop-influenced “Nan Arrayo” in 1992. The cultural impact of the song not only set the template for a more authentic domestic teen pop sound (songs by teens for teens) but also stoked the beginnings of what would become Korean idol fan culture both domestically and in the diaspora. This is the groundwork for what would eventually become “KPop.”
So, as you might remember, Lee Soo-Man, upon his return from America in 1985, had some minor successes and some big setbacks with artists like the hip hop dancing king Hyun Jin-Young. But in a story we will see play out again and again in KPop, Lee Soo-Man pivoted from producing artists to producing idols (although to give credit where it’s due, SM did and still does put a lot of emphasis on the crafts of singing and dancing which is not true of all companies.) And just about ten years after his return, in 1996, H.O.T., the very first modern Korean idol group, debuted and changed music history forever. While SM had already been sending out feelers to foreign markets with the mega-popular H.O.T., the ball really got rolling with a bump in official investment into the entertainment industry after the 1997 Asian financial crisis decimated the Korean economy, along with a mandate to export. This is the origin of the first Hallyu Wave and where we start to see this teen gayo start to turn into KPop.
Now the good part of building a pop music industry out of nothing was that there were a lot of existing best practices to look towards. With H.O.T., Lee Soo-Man didn’t invent the concept of the idol group but, rather, he saw what worked in other places and synthesized those pieces into something that could work in the Korean market. Group structure and idol marketing from Japan’s Johnny’s & Associates, musical influence from R&B vocal groups and hip hop in America, and new ways of organizing and mobilizing fans from Seo Taiji and Boys right there in Seoul. These were and are the building blocks of the modern Kpop group.
But here’s where SM Entertainment really starts to separate themselves from their domestic rivals. What SM Entertainment does is to start building its brand as “SM”, creating an umbrella under which all of its talents fall. While the other big company at the time--DSP, home to Sechs Kies--is being run more like a traditional talent agency, what SM does in 1999, almost the very second that they have a solid roster, is they release the first SMTown CD, featuring H.O.T., girl group S.E.S., R&B duo Fly to the Sky, and a brand new boy group called Shinhwa. This isn’t just a way to soak fans for more cash (although it was also that) but also a cross-marketing opportunity, exposing fans of one group to all of the other groups and creating a link in fans’ minds. Shinhwa wasn’t just a new boy group, they were an SM boy group and now that meant something concrete.
The brand name SM Entertainment meant something. The seeds of Kpop kayfabe started here and all other agencies would have to scramble to catch up.
The coming decades see Lee Soo-Man pushing his cultural technology agenda onto both fans and idols alike and those same fans and idols pushing back. The history of SM Entertainment would fill an entire book and goes well beyond the scope of a single episode of my podcast so what I’m going to focus on here, specifically, are the threads that lead us to super group SuperM debuting in 2019.
SuperM was sold with the explicit tag line the “Avengers of Kpop” and there’s a lot to unpack in that statement. Let’s start with the Avengers themselves, a rotating hodgepodge gang of superheroes pulled from various Marvel Comics properties. The Avengers was created as a response to rival DC Comics successful Justice League property, which united all the DC big guns under one title: Batman, Superman, and so on. When Marvel initially developed the Avengers in 1963, their superhero properties were lagging behind not just sales juggernauts like Archie Comics and Walt Disney Comics but also behind Marvel’s own top sellers like western comic The Rawhide Kid and girls comic Millie the Model. But, three years later, in 1966, Marvel superheroes were ranking into the top 20, with the Avengers itself averaging about a quarter of a million copies sold per issue.
Did the Avengers comic itself create the boom in sales? I’m not a comic book expert but I’m going to go ahead and say no. However, I do think that the Avengers probably did play a role in both generating interest across various Marvel superhero properties as well as shoring up the idea of an overarching, superhero-filled “Marvel Universe”. As Marvel has been reborn in the current century as a blockbuster film franchise, the Avengers films fill pretty much the same role as the comic books did, weaving together an extended “Marvel Universe” and building cross-property interest in fans. Say, you’re a Thor super fan who could not care less about Captain America. So, you watch the Avengers for Thor (because super fan) and then (hopefully) you start to think--“hey this Captain America guy is actually pretty cool”--and bingo. They have you.
The genius part is that the cross-property marketing is targeting an audience of people that the company knows already go for this stuff. They’re primed to become fans! It’s a lot easier to turn a fan of one Marvel superhero into a fan of another Marvel superhero than to reach somebody outside of the superhero fandom all together. There’s no need to explain the concept of superheroes or spell out how everything works. The audience already knows! And now the next time that Thor fan goes to the comic book store and there’s no new Thor, maybe he picks up an issue of Captain America instead of buying nothing. That was the idea behind the Avengers.
And that is exactly what happened with SuperM.
SuperM, a joint project between Capitol Records in America and SM Entertainment in Korea, was announced at the 2019 Capitol Congress in August 2019 to a decidedly mixed response. The initial line-up would pluck members from four of SM’s active boy groups--SHINee, EXO, NCT 127, and WAYV--spanning three generations of Kpop, four countries, and decent ability in something like seven languages between them. Korean, English, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese.
If we can rewind to those pre-pandemic days and think back to 2019, I think it’s pretty clear that SuperM and their American focus was probably a response to a few different factors playing out in the global Kpop market.
First of all, when BigBang went on hiatus in early 2018 for mandatory military enlistment, it meant that the biggest boy group in Kpop, unquestionably, globally and domestically, was now out of commission and there was no replacement ready to step in and immediately start filling those 60 thousand seat venues around the world. The field was open for a variety of challengers (except for Japan where the reliable 東方神起 reclaimed their spot as the most popular Kpop boy group in the island nation) and every agency was going to try to overtake BigBang but the buzz was already coalescing behind one group in particular, maybe you’ve heard of them: WannaOne.
WannaOne were the product of the second season of Produce 101, a competition show that ran on MNET in which the prize was a spot in a limited time, elite idol group under Korean entertainment juggernaut CJ ENM. I’ve mentioned these shows in passing on the podcast before but they are extremely popular. There’s also an audience participation element and viewers can vote to boost their favorite contestants, much like X Factor or American Idol. The contestants on Produce 101 are not complete unknowns but include trainees from various agencies as well as some debuted idols whose groups may have dissolved or are stuck on hiatus through no fault of their own. For example, the impact of the China market freeze from 2016 torpedoed the chances of some up and coming boy groups like UNIQ, among others, and some members of those groups ended up on these types of competition shows.
So, Season 2 of Produce 101 crushed it in the ratings in 2017 and then WannaOne went on to dominate domestic and global K-Pop while they were active from 2017 through the end of 2018. They caused hysteria at KCON. Their debut album ranked in as the highest selling debut boy group album ever and the sales numbers were up in the million copies zone, ranking in alongside the year’s heavy sales hitters EXO and BTS. And the fan engagement was off the charts.
I can personally attest to seeing WannaOne’s name everywhere when I went to Seoul in both 2018 and 2019. Scribbled wherever you’d expect to see teen girls doodling their crushes names in pen; prominently featured in idol goods stores. And the group hit global headlines for their fans’ insane antics like causing major flight delays so they could take pictures of the members.
Graffiti in Seoul in 2018
And then when their contract ended December 31, 2018 it cleared the deck for the next boy group to emerge from Produce 101. Clean and easy, in theory… not letting the group get bigger than the “Produce” brand but that is a whole other story for a different episode.
So in 2018 you have WannaOne crushing the global K-Pop teen demographic and 2018 was also a fairly good year for YG Entertainment boy groups domestically in Korea with BigBang dropping hit song “Flower Road” before they went on hiatus; Winner still surging in popularity after their massive 2017 comeback “Really Really” with 2018’s hit “Everyday”; and iKon having the hands down number one song of the year in 2018 with “Love Scenario” and Winner’s Mino exploding into 2019 with the massive hit “Fiance”. And it’s possible things might have turned out differently in 2019 if the company hadn’t become tangled up in the Burning Sun scandal and which, again, another story for a different episode.
And then there was BigHit and their star brand BTS, who in 2018 were trying to leverage credulous mainstream American media coverage of BTS as the biggest band in KPop as a launching point to break into the mainstream American pop marketplace, except they were having only limited success with songs like the emo EDM droner, “Fake Love”. The group spent the latter half of 2018 into 2019 on a grinding world tour and then in March 2019 BigHit debuted a new boy group called TXT (Tomorrow x Together) who was swiftly sent on an American tour a couple of months later. There seems to have been some attempt to get these new American BTS fans to engage with the new group but to limited success and soon after TXT is put on hiatus and then sent off to Japan with a brand new look.
But while they may have had limited success in cracking the mainstream American pop market, it doesn’t mean that BTS and BigHit were just spinning their wheels over here across the Pacific. What they accomplished was to add a new side quest to the KPop kayfabe: America. Thanks to the relentless media coverage fueled in part by an emerging class of English-language BTS fan journalists and critics, KPop fans were introduced to a new round of challenges to complete--there was the Billboard album chart, the Hot 100, Western-based streaming platform Spotify, a swarm of music awards shows and talks shows, and the big one: GRAMMY. All of these industry metrics took on new life as BTS and BigHit “paved the way” leaving other companies scrambling to catch up. BTS may not have been the first KPop act to come to America but they were the first to mythologize success in the American market and make it a part of the KPop landscape.
Keeping allll that in mind, let’s take a look at who SM Entertainment had up on deck as 2017 rolled into 2018.
SHINee, who debuted in 2008, are considered a second generation K-Pop group and in 2018 were about a decade into their career with numerous hits in their catalog. They had broad name recognition and popularity not just with the Korean public but also among the Korean diaspora and K-Pop fans worldwide. But their core fandom was older and while they turned out for concerts and happily bought albums, they no longer brought the manic hype and buzz of younger teen fans. Complicating matters, at that point SHINee, as a group, were also deeply in crisis. Still, in the early summer of 2018, they released the excellent 3-disc Story of Light series (which I covered in episode 15) and then all of the members except the youngest, Taemin, enlisted in the military for their mandatory military service. This left the SHINee brand--a very valuable one--somewhat in limbo as 2018 ended.
Taemin was already an established solo act but his primary market was (and I think still is) Japan and he had completed a very successful solo hall tour of Japan from September to November 2018 in support of a Japanese solo album. This was followed by a successful Korean mini-album in early 2019, Want, and then another Japanese tour of even bigger venues in the summer of 2019 culminating in a Japanese mini-album in August with strong rumors of a solo Tokyo Dome performance to come in 2020.
So even though three members were enlisted, SHINee’s Taemin was booked and busy… but he was booked and busy in Japan, which is adjacent to the global Kpop market.
Meanwhile EXO, who debuted in 2012, only four years later than SHINee, are considered a third generation group and despite being not all that dissimilar in age to the SHINee members, their fandom and careers are built differently. One thing that I believe really separates third generation groups from the second generation groups is the emphasis on fandom hits rather than mainstream hits. In large part, I think this switch was a response to the shifting landscape of the music industry itself with the formalization and solidification of what was becoming an outward-facing English language KPop subculture. It’s no mistake that the creation of the global-focused “KCon” festivals and the incorporation of fan voting into the big music shows on television coincides with the start of third generation K-Pop. That’s not to say that third generation groups didn’t also have crossover hits but you start to see that divergence.
Anyways, EXO entered 2018 at the peak of their Kpop subculture popularity, riding high with the classic (and one of my all time favorites) “Ko Ko Bop” and even performing at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in February 2018. They were appointed to be Korean Tourism Ambassadors in the summer of 2018. And closed out the year with the fantastic “Tempo” and “Love Shot”, the latter of which went viral among KPop fans thanks in part to member Kai’s incredible red suit fan cam which I will definitely link to in the show notes.
As 2019 dawned, with WannaOne now disbanded, KPop fans were left with EXO and BTS battling it out for the position of dominant global boy group but there was just one small problem--EXO members were going to start enlisting in the military in 2019. Meaning that just as EXO was hitting their peak, they’d have to step back. Xiumin would go on to enlist in early summer of 2019 followed by D.O., who chose to go early. (BTS, their top competitors, would receive a special enlistment deferral from the government, artificially extending their lifespan.)
And then there was the NCT collective. NCT stands for Neo-Culture-Technology and in theory could have infinite members but has somewhere around 21-23 members split into different sub-units. NCT was first introduced in January 2016 as the next level of KPop boy groups. The idea is that under the NCT umbrella, members can be shuffled around, collaborate, and--importantly--rotated in and out without disrupting the brand. If a member enlists or has a scandal, instead of a valuable property getting put out of commission, NCT can continue on. And with multiple subunits, NCT can serve multiple markets at the same time.
If you’ve listened to my idol history series then you know that SM Entertainment has tried this before with H.O.T., Super Junior, and EXO and had the concept backfire spectacularly.
The first project announced for NCT was a subunit called NCT U, including some names we’ll definitely hear again later--Taeyong, Mark Lee, Ten, Doyoung, and Jaehyun--and a debut digital single called “The 7th Sense” on April 10, 2016. Later that year would see two new subunits debut (the hard-edged “cool” Seoul-based NCT 127 and the soft, fluffy NCT Dream). And at the end of 2018, a new Chinese unit called WAYV would debut.
The NCTs work hard through 2016, 2017, 2018 (I’m particularly fond of NCT U’s 2018 single “Boss”) but there’s a lot going on and the large number of shifting members is overwhelming. The subunits get lost in the shuffle and sales numbers and other metrics are stagnant and at about the same level as groups like Monsta X, Ateez, and Stray Kids. Which is good but not good enough for an SM flagship boy group.
NCT needed a boost--SM Entertainment desperately needed a boost with stockholders beginning to question how the company was being run--and at the same time SM Entertainment had established and popular brands sitting on the shelf.
Enter SuperM, which I contend turned out to be the ultimate NCT subunit.
Those members were, in age order:
Byun Baek-hyun from EXO, the eldest and leader of SuperM. Baekhyun is known for his vocals; his warm tenor can croon sexily in your ears or add punch to an uptempo song with his signature high notes.
Lee Tae-Min from SHINee, who is the most senior member of SuperM as he debuted with SHINee in 2008 when he was only 14 years old. Taemin has a distinctive, somewhat whispery voice that he has honed over the years into an amazing tool. Taemin is also known for excellent dance ability, both as part of SHINee and in his own very successful solo career.
Kim Jong-in, aka Kai, also from EXO, is best known for his fantastic dancing. Although I believe he was originally cast as one of the rappers in EXO, he’s moved away from that and towards a modest vocal role that suits his voice much better and he often ends up doing these kind of great sing-talky lines. Kai is also extremely good looking and has been a brand ambassador for global labels like Gucci.
Lee Tae-Yong from NCT U and NCT 127, was a long time SM Rookie before becoming NCT 127’s ace and leader. He’s a charismatic rapper and dancer known for his interest in writing music (he releases songs on his own SoundCloud).
Thai member Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, aka Ten, from NCT U and WAYV, was another long time SM Rookie and is known for his graceful dancing and his artistic personality. Ten often posts his drawings to social media.
Chinese member Lucas Wong aka Lucas, from NCT U and WAYV, is a long, tall, cool drink of water. He’s incredibly energetic and charming on stage with his long limbs, big eyes, and blinding smile. Lucas is a fine performer but his standout skill is that crucial Kpop role: the visual. I should probably add that last year some disgruntled fans revealed that Lucas was not just an idol but he was, in fact, a fuckboi. I know massive shock: handsome young idol sleeps around. But it was a big blow to the squeaky clean SM Entertainment image and Lucas has been on hiatus since then although technically he’s still part of the NCT universe as far as I know and I hope he does get to stage a comeback. His chaotic energy is sorely missed by me, at least.
And then the baby of the group, Canadian born Mark Lee from NCT 127 and NCT Dream. Like Taeyong, Mark is one of NCT’s star rappers although his background is much more traditional. Mark can also sing and play guitar and is also extremely funny--even if sometimes it’s unintentional.
SuperM made their big debut in October 2019 with a mini-album released on the 4th followed by a showcase performance held before a sea of excited fans on the 5th, outside the iconic Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, California. The title track, “Jopping”, spearheaded by LDN Noise, who are responsible for some of EXO’s biggest hits, was a shot of adrenaline to the American KPop fandom bringing together not just the disparate SM boy group fiefdoms but also bringing back more casual KPop fans who had drifted away in recent years as the tone of global KPop fandom had changed. The mini-album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart. Side quest complete!
So, “Jopping” is what the Japanese call a “hook song,” (フックソング) a staple of what I’ll call the Golden Era of KPop. A hook song is like it says on the box--a song featuring a phrase or word that gets repeated over and over until it hooks its tiny claws in your head and refuses to let go. Classics of the genre include Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry”, Girls Generation “Gee”, SHINee’s “Ring Ding Dong”, and that BigBang banger “Bang Bang Bang”.
These are the types of songs that form the core of what traditionally outsiders think about when they think of “KPop”. Catchy nonsense words and catchy choreography, something easy to sing along to and mimic. Turn your brain off and jop, ring ding dong, and bang bang bang…
And in October 2019, it was a type of song that had been missing from global KPop for a couple of years: a quality dumb swaggering boy group hype song with a supremely catchy hook and an over-the-top video. SuperM were cool. I’ll let Mark explain the concept.
But while normal, global KPop fans were jopping their hearts out, enjoying the new futuristic AR SuperM T-shirts (I have a Taemin one), and counting down the days until the SuperM concert dates, there was a puritanical and extremely online backlash from the Professional BTS Fan Industrial Complex, epitomized by a truly preposterous article in Buzzfeed by Ellie Bates and Ikran Dahir which scolded SuperM for allegedly cheating their way to a number one album by using quote “bundles” unquote, among other things. This was an attempt to stigmatize for KPop fans, within the KPop kayfabe, the standard-at-the-time American industry practice of giving fans an album with the purchase of a T-shirt or concert ticket with the aim of charting an album. It was a widely used marketing tactic, nothing more, nothing less. The fact that a laundry list of corrections had to be issued to the article has not killed the accusation of cheating that is still floating around KPop fan spaces online three years later.
To clear up any confusion: the Billboard chart is not an objective metric of merit or popularity; it’s an advertising tool. A record company may try for a place on it or they may not but there’s no real difference between a company giving away mp3s with a T-shirt and a company encouraging fans to buy multiple, duplicate mp3s except that at the end of the day, one fan has a T-shirt to show for the money spent and the other has dozens of duplicate files cluttering their desktop.
And while a certain segment of professional fans may have been trying to discredit the group, the overall positive response in the American K-Pop market was enough to reverse the slide of SM Entertainment’s stock--at least until the pandemic came a few months later and crashed all K-Pop Entertainment company stock prices for the immediate future. SuperM proved that SM Entertainment could compete just as well in the new American K-Pop market as they had in the old one.
But the more important effect is what came next. While bearing in mind that sales numbers and other metrics are not an indicator of mainstream popularity, they are an indicator of how large and/or how engaged a fandom is.
NCT 127’s pre-SuperM October 2018 album Regulate had sold just under 350,000 copies. Post-SuperM, March 2020’s Neo-Zone sold just over a million.
WAYV’s Mandarin language debut in May 2019 did not sell enough copies among K-Pop fans to make any kind of chart. I don’t think it was even offered for sale in many global K-Pop retailers but their second mini-album, Take Over the Moon, released at the end of October 2019, sold over 100,000 copies to global K-Pop fans.
Baekhyun’s first solo album, released in July 2019, sold a very respectable 600,000 copies. But his second, released in May 2020, cracked a million.
Even Kai, not known for his vocal performance, saw his solo debut album in November 2020 get to over 350,000 copies sold.
Taemin was probably the member who gained the least from his association with SuperM, as he had been popular before and had only a mild boost of sales and streams but what was unexpected was that when SHINee came back from a two year hiatus in February 2021 with the glorious album Don’t Call Me, their sales were basically double what they’d been at their peak with over 300,000 albums sold.
SuperM not only injected life into SM’s boy group fandoms and the soggy global KPop market but their artistic impact has lingered long after SuperM’s indefinite hiatus.
Along with giving new fans an entry point into the various NCT groups by giving them a familiar face to latch onto, SuperM was also a gentle on-ramp into the dominant NCT sound, the so-called “noise music” or “construction music” of flagship unit NCT 127.
I’ll admit to being confused when I first heard the label thrown around because, as a long time music dork, my exposure to quote “noise music” unquote was stuff like Lou Reed’s 1975 album Metal Machine Music or the work of Japanese artist Merzbow. NCT 127, on the other hand, make pop music.
What KPop fans have termed “Noise Music” is drawn from a let’s say “urban” style of hip-hop beat making epitomized by producers like Atlanta-based Bangladesh and Compton’s own Dem Jointz. That… “urban” beat is then slathered with a thick and satisfying layer of KPop bubblegum. I find the combination extremely appealing. These tracks tend to feel like they’re tumbling forwards with the rhythm bumped up in the mix. The verses will feel nice and open but then you get hit by a gloriously schmaltzy belting bridge. Think of it as the new sound of the “Hook Song”.
Here’s Lil Wayne’s 2008 track “A Milli” produced by Bangladesh and here’s EXO’s 2019 track “Obsession” produced by Dem Jointz.
Fans needed an on-ramp and SuperM provided fans with a sound that was a mix of SHINee, EXO, and NCT, and which included songs like the noise-adjacent “Jopping.” And the K-Pop trend machine has picked it up and run with it…
And as for SuperM, alas, the pandemic cut short their debut tour and the group ended up having somewhat of an anticlimactic finish. They released the full album SuperOne in September 2020 and ended the project with the catchy April 2021 Prudential Insurance CM song “We Do”. A few weeks later the oldest member Baekhyun would enlist in the military followed not long after by Taemin. Kai has been busy with his solo work, as are Mark and Taeyong with their respective NCT units. WAYV has been more or less inactive as a full unit for a few reasons but Ten has been busy, even appearing as a judge on Street Dance of China 4.
SuperM may have only been a time limited group but their impact on the K-Pop market, especially the American K-Pop market, will live on.
We’ll go out with one of my favorite tracks from NCT 127’s latest album 2 Baddies, “Time Lapse” produced by Dem Jointz.