State Champ Radio K-Pop
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Jimin unveiled the first teaser for his “Set Me Free Pt.2” music video on Tuesday (March 14) via HYBE LABELS.
In the 30-second clip, the BTS member eyes the camera before wandering slowly through a troupe of backup dancers. The squad bursts into explosive choreography in a circular room ringed in giant squares of flashing light as the song’s chords come booming through the speakers. As the screen cuts to black, it reveals the song’s title and Friday release date at midnight ET/1 p.m. KST as Jimin can be heard crowing, “Set me free.”
“Set Me Free” will mark the first song from Jimin’s forthcoming debut solo album FACE, which is slated for release March 24. The same day the full-length drops, the K-pop idol will also share the music video for second single “Like Crazy,” which was co-written by Jimin’s BTS bandmate RM. Last week, Jimin also shared the first set of concept photos for the studio effort, showing off his titular face with sleek silver studs running down each side of his neck.
Most recently, Jimin scored his first solo entry on the Billboard Hot 100 by joining Taeyang for the BIGBANG member’s new single “Vibe.” Earlier this month, the singer also gave ARMY an early gift by uploading his solo tracks “Promise” and “Christmas Love” to streaming services for the very first time. (The pair of songs had previously only been available to listen to on the official BTS Soundcloud or YouTube accounts.)
Watch Jimin’s “Set Me Free Pt.2” music video teaser below.
The ladies of TWICE are making their debut on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and in the Tuesday (March 14) interview, talked about their second English-language single, “Moonlight Sunrise.”
The host asks lead dancer Tzuyu about the meaning behind the K-pop nontet’s latest single — but only after making sure she knows how to pronounce Tzuyu’s name correctly. (“So Tzuyu, I think I said it right. I’m trying!” the American Idol quipped candidly.)
“So ‘Moonlight Sunrise’ is a song about wanting to know the other person’s heart,” Tzuyu told Clarkson through an interpreter. “And they use the metaphor of moonlight and sunrise to parallel that fluttering-heart feeling when you’re in love.”
The sparkling single is featured on the idols’ new mini-album, Ready to Be, which also contains fan favorite tracks such as “Set Me Free,” “Got the Thrills” and “Blame It on Me.” The full-length’s release marks the first time TWICE has been in the U.S. for a comeback, and they’ve spent the week promoting the project with a performance of “Set Me Free” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and a trip to the Empire State Building, where they lit up the landmark in apricot and magenta lights to celebrate Musicians on Call’s “Healing Power of Music” mission.
On March 2, TWICE was also honored with the Breakthrough Artist Award at Billboard’s Women in Music event. After receiving the award from Sabrina Carpenter and giving a sweet acceptance speech, the girl group hit the stage to perform “Moonlight Sunrise.”
Watch Tzuyu explain the meaning of the song to Clarkson above.
“Smoke Sprite” has finally arrived. On Tuesday (March 14), So!YoON! — Hwang So-yoon of South Korean indie rock band SE SO NEON — released the video for her newest single featuring RM of BTS, in which the pair straddles the fine line between dreams and reality.
In the visual, the singer finds herself in a series of distorted scenarios: She lies in a pool full of water surrounded by strangers, runs through a snow-covered mountain plain while sporting a sunburn and even shoots herself with a bow an arrow. “Take on my knees/ Stuck with you in your dreams/ Tell me more I could die/ Take on like a beast/ Fire to the low, low/ Don’t run away, run away yeah,” she sings on the chorus.
RM chimes in on the latter half of the song, first sitting in front of an upside-down car and rapping about a lover he wishes to devour. “Honey, what you doing in my bed? Yeah/ Uh baby welcome to my favorite place/ The rules of space and time, the ethics of humans/ It doesn’t matter even if I close my eyes now,” he sensually raps. “Show your dance tonight so I could kill you alright/ I swear to god you don’t need to be mine just hit you right/ Take you next level, next level/ Just give me your best level, that space level.”
The new release comes following the release of RM’s solo album, Indigo. The project arrived in December, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and allowed RM to become the highest-charting K-pop soloist, as well as the only K-pop soloist ever to reach the top five of the all-genre albums chart.
Watch the “Smoke Sprite” music video above.
CARATs, are you ready? SEVENTEEN is gearing up to release new music sometime next month, the K-pop group’s label, Pledis Entertainment, confirmed in a statement Monday (March 13).
“K-pop stage-breakers SEVENTEEN hinted at yet another grand year ahead as they wrapped up their three-day fan meet ‘2023 SVT 7TH FAN MEETING,’” the statement read. “In celebration of the close bond between SEVENTEEN and their fans — CARATs — the band delivered for-hour shows dedicated to the fans and revealed plans for their next album set to drop in April.”
The confirmation from Pledis about SEVENTEEN’s forthcoming music comes after group member S.Coups revealed the news during the first of three nights in the 2023 SEVENTEEN in Carat Land fan meeting in Seoul. “Some day in April, we will be back with a great album. We will be back to make your April great,” he said during a break in the set in a fan-captured video.
According to a press release, the band also confirmed by telling fans, “We are releasing our next album in April. We’re proud of our work, and we promise it will be a month to remember.”
SEVENTEEN has not released music as a group since July, with the re-released version Face the Sun, the K-pop stars’ repackaged album SECTOR 17. Face the Sun peaked at No. 7 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and peaked three spots higher at No. 4.
While fans will have to wait for details regarding SEVENTEEN’s next album release, there are a few events in the works for the group later in spring. The SEVENTEEN 2023 JAPAN FAN MEETING ‘LOVE’ will hit Japan in May, taking over Kyocera Dome Osaka and Tokyo Dome across four dates.
SEOUL — K-pop juggernaut HYBE has withdrawn its bid to control rival agency SM Entertainment and has instead decided to collaborate with SM as well as rival bidder Kakao, marking a sudden détente. Announced early Sunday, the resolution paves the way for K-pop agencies to not only bury the hatchet but also continue their push to monetize fandom with idol-related online content.
“Proceeding with a higher tender offer [to beat Kakao’s bid] may have in turn caused a negative impact on our shareholders and we also judged it may have further overheated the market,” HYBE said in a statement. The agency of boy band BTS had secured about 15% of SM, a former market leader, mostly by acquiring shares from SM founder Lee Soo-man, who was recently pushed out from the agency. A previous tender offer to increase HYBE’s stake in SM didn’t move the needle and a counteroffer by Kakao remains outstanding until March 26.
On Monday, the market reacted by dragging SM stock down more than 23% to 113,000 Korean won, making Kakao’s current offer at 150,000 won more attractive. A HYBE representative said Monday it has not decided whether to sell the SM shares. He added that it was studying possible avenues for collaboration with SM and/or Kakao but declined to comment further. HYBE and Kakao shares have jumped 3.21% and 4.65%, respectively.
SM, which has played a key role in K-pop’s popularity and overseas expansion, has resisted HYBE’s acquisition, slamming it as “anticompetitive.” The two agencies in recent years have dominated the charts, together accounting for nearly half of all albums sold in 2022, according to Korean chart company Circle Chart. But despite its success, shareholders have been calling for changes to the Lee-controlled single-pipeline structure, as rival agencies grew larger by delegating creative direction to mostly autonomous teams. Lee was also being paid millions of dollars a year in producer fees, though he held no managerial position there, an arrangement that shareholders have scrutinized in recent years.
In a drive for reform, SM’s management in February said it would issue new shares to be sold to Kakao as part of a wide-ranging partnership. Lee, then-the biggest shareholder, protested but management overrode him. Lee then offloaded most of his shares to HYBE, which in turn tried to up its stake with a tender offer. Lee successfully challenged the Kakao deal in court, prompting the latter to issue a higher counteroffer.
“Kakao vows to guarantee operational independence at SM, respecting its strongest asset and impetus, the employees, artists and fans,” said Kakao chief investment officer Bae Jae-hyun in a statement on Sunday. Bae added that Kakao and SM would “create new synergies, based on SM Entertainment’s global IP and production system as well as Kakao’s IT expertise and IP value-chain business capacity.”
HYBE, SM and other rivals have in recent years pushed proprietary platforms like Weverse and Beyond Live to foster online fan communities for all fan activities, free or for-pay. Kakao’s platform and search-engine rival Naver in 2017 also inked a deal with YG Entertainment, home to girl group Blackpink, to push YG artists’ content.
SM did not return calls for comment.
TWICE‘s Ready to Be has topped this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (March 10) on Billboard, choosing the group’s latest project as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Ready to Be brought in more than 58% of the vote, beating out new music from Miley Cyrus, Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, and more.
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K-pop stars TWICE dropped Ready to Be, their 12th mini album, on March 10, after receiving the Breakthrough Artist honor at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards on March 1.
“We are ready to show more of our beautiful inner side to the world and ready to show more of ourselves,” Tzuyu shared with Billboard on the red carpet, chatting about Ready to Be. TWICE will be embarking on a world tour in April.
Trailing behind Ready to Be on the fan-voted poll is Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation, with 29% of the vote, and Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding’s “Miracle,” with 9% of the vote.
See the final results of this week’s poll below.
When Suga announced his Agust D tour in February, Japan was notably the only country on the trek whose dates were labeled “to be updated.” Now, BTS fans in the island country have a chance to catch the rapper on his global trek, as the BTS official fan club announced on Friday (March 10) how fans in the country can secure tickets.
Suga will perform a series of three dates — June 2-4 — at the Pia Arena MM in Kanagawa. Fans who secure tickets through the BTS Japan official fan club presale advance will pay 15,400 yen including tax ($114.33 USD), while non advance tickets will cost 16,500 yen including tax ($122.50 USD). VIP seats for the Japan dates will cost 26,400 yen ($195.99 USD).
A fan club lottery reception will be held on March 16 at 1 p.m. Japan standard time (11 p.m. ET March 15) through March 23 11:59 p.m. Japan standard time (10 a.m. ET). Tickets are not on a first-come, first-served basis; results of the lottery will be revealed March 31 through April 4. Fans are allowed up to two tickets per member, and applying for the same performance more than once will result in disqualification from the lottery.
See the full list of Suga’s Agust D tour dates, including Japan, below.
April 26 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
April 27 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
April 29 — Newark, N.J. @ Prudential Center
May 3 — Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena
May 5 — Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena
May 6 — Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena
May 10 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
May 11 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
May 14 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
May 16 — Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
May 17 — Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
May 26 — Jakarta, ID @ Indonesia Convention Exhibition Hall 5-6
May 27 — Jakarta, Indonesia @ Indonesia Convention Exhibition Hall 5-6
May 28 — Jakarta, Indonesia @ Indonesia Convention Exhibition Hall 5-6
June 2-4 — Kanagawa, Japan @ Pia Arena MM
June 10 — Bangkok, Thailand @ Impact Arena
June 11 — Bangkok, Thailand @ Impact Arena
June 17 — Singapore, SG @ Singapore Indoor Stadium
June 18 — Singapore, SG @ Singapore Indoor Stadium
June 24– Seoul, KR @ Jamsil Indoor Stadium
June 25 — Seoul, KR @ Jamsil Indoor Stadium
Since aespa‘s debut in 2020, the K-pop girl group has stood out from other global-pop stars with an innovative dedication to blending real and virtual worlds. Now, the quartet is expanding its reach by connecting with fans through a virtual-reality experience at SXSW 2023, and Billboard has your first look.
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K-pop super label SM Entertainment and virtual-reality concert platform AmazeVR have come together for the world premiere of the aespa VR Concert at KWANGYA later this month at SXSW. The showing joins a slate of extended-reality activations for the Austin, Texas, festival’s XR Experience program, including J Balvin‘s “Futurum” VR concert.
Members KARINA, WINTER, GISELLE and NINGNING will share their stories and perform “Black Mamba” and “Illusion,” both of which are included on the group’s Girls: The 2nd Mini Album, which hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart when it arrived in July 2022. to Aespa will take the stage in KWANGYA, the virtual world envisioned and developed by SM Entertainment that pops into song lyrics for aespa as well as other SM artists such as TVXQ!, EXO, NCT and more.
Ahead of the SXSW premiere, watch an exclusive message from the girls plus a behind-the-scenes peek at the experience below. And according to a press release, if you can’t make it to Austin, the concert will soon be released across all major VR headset platforms.
The aespa virtual-reality concert at KWANGYA at the SXSW XR Experience program runs from March 12 to 14, 2023, at the Austin Fairmont Hotel Congressional Ballroom from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.
ONCE, the day has arrived. TWICE unveiled their 12th mini-album, Ready to Be, on Friday (March 10).
The group’s previously released second English single “Moonlight Sunrise” is included in the seven-track set, in addition to songs like “Got the Thrills,” “Blame It on Me,” “Wallflower,” “Crazy Stupid Love” and “Set Me Free.” “Set Me Free” is the only track on the record that will receive a version in both English and Korean. “I think it’s the songs of ours that carry TWICE’s color rather than the language in which the song is sung,” Jihyo previously told Billboard. “I don’t think the language is that relevant in carrying out TWICE’s [identity].”
The K-pop group’s last mini-album, Between 1&2, was on the Billboard 200 for eight weeks and peaked at No. 3.
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TWICE was honored with the Breakthrough Award at Billboard’s Women in Music event on March 1, where they chatted with Billboard on the red carpet about the album. “We are ready to show more of our beautiful inner side to the world and ready to show more of ourselves,” Tzuyu shared of Ready to Be.
Listen to Ready to Be in full below.
While Anne-Marie is the English pop star known for massive collaborations with Marshmello and Clean Bandit, and Minnie is the Thailand-raised singer and producer in K-pop girl group (G)I-DLE, there are universal frustrations both pop stars can agree upon that get explored in “Expectations.”
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The new collaboration speaks to sticking to your guns and blazing your own path in life. The pair brush off unsolicited career advice, declare their past music doesn’t define them today (Minnie shouts out (G)I-DLE’s 2020 summer single “Dumdi Dumdi” while Anne-Marie throws back to her debut single “Karate” from 2015), and share a message with the Recording Academy, shouting, “F-ck that Grammy nomination/ Happiness cannot be bought!”
The pair show off their different personalities in the music video where both get rowdy and let loose while singing their stories in their own studios.
“Expectations” is Anne-Marie’s latest plug in the K-pop scene since jumping on a remix to boy band SEVENTEEN‘s single “_WORLD” last year. The U.K. starlet has become a favorite in South Korea after the remarkable local success of singles like “2002” and “Friends,” that’s led her to wins at Korean-music ceremonies including the V Live Awards, Gaon Chart Music Awards, Asia Artist Awards and more.
Watch Anne-Marie and Minnie challenge “Expectations” in their music video below:
