170709 SBS Inkigayo

[juhli.livejournal.com]

Winners Announcement

	Apink 'Five'	Heize 'Don't Know You'	Blackpink 'As If It's Your Last'
Album Sales (음반)	500	20	0
SNS	1088	433	3500
Viewers Advance Votes (시청자전투표)	122	0	80
ON-AIR	1000	0	864
Digital Sales (음원)	3286	5469	4208
Final Total	5996	5922	8652

COMEBACK STAGES

REGULAR STAGES

TEASERS

OTHER CUTS

sources: SBS Inkigayo, Korean Music Shows, jenchu not jensoo

☚ previous week next week☛

Comments

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

IDK man but I really feel like Cherry Bomb promotion cycle is exposing a lot of weaknesses in NCT 127 in a way I didn't feel w/Limitless & Fire Truck. There are too many members who are charisma black holes/zero stage presence & awkward. Just seems like there's too much dead weight in the group, performance-wise. I think this concept -- even tho it doesn't actually seem like a departure from their previous ones -- only really suits like 3 or 4 of them. I'm a fan but I'm finding the Cherry Bomb perfs boring and hard to sit through, and the styling is just awful. :/

[jillyjellly.livejournal.com]

who are you thinking of? they do look really tired here

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

WinWin, Jaehyun (which makes me sad bc I usually think he's prob one of the better performers), Doyoung, Taeil. Only Taeyong and Haechan are serving it this promo cycle. Johnny, Yuta, & Mark are ok, kind of in the middle.

But you're right, they do all look tired. I saw the perf videos from KCON NY and Taeyong looked really under the weather.

[jillyjellly.livejournal.com]

that's kinda brutal :P but i agree with you except i think the group started looking awkward even at top form during limitless. if i had to be really critical, only taeyong, haechan, mark, jaehyun should've made the cut for nct 127. maybe johnny too bc he knows how to flirt with the camera. i enjoyed taeil's parts in firetruck but he's not very 'hip hop' (ala bobby) and doesn't have that flashy, swaggy (hate that word) edge. he's starting to look increasingly out of place in the group and as if he might burnout right quick.

yuta's performance level is kinda neither here nor there for me. i thought he looked good in the cherry bomb mv and while his presence has improved since firetruck (when he couldn't even lipsync) and limitless, he can't rap nor sing very well so he's just like... a dancer, but not even the best dancer in the group. doyoung and winwin, like taeil, straight up don't suit the hip hop concept at all AND doyoung/taeil should probably be in separate groups.

i'm a fan too and i want them to do well, but sm didn't think this thru. it's too late now and i just hope they can figure out how to optimize the traits/skills of each member and make the best out of it.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

Yeah I actually completely agree that the group should only be Taeyong, Haechan, Mark, Jaehyun and maybe Johnny (maybe also Ten). Taeil, WinWin, and Doyoung stick out like sore thumbs -- they don't fit the group and the kind of concepts SM has the group doing. I thought Doyoung fit NCT U a bit better. Taeil should be in a group like CN Blue style. WinWin...he's a nice kid but I really don't think he's idol material, unless he's doing his Chinese traditional dancing, he's like a blank as far as performance quality. Yuta is blah, I love his personality and I think he's terrific on variety shows, but I don't think he seems to suit being a singing/dancing idol.

[jillyjellly.livejournal.com]

winwin...yep. he's mentioned several times that he wants to get into acting (in china) so i don't really know what he's doing in the seoul unit. sm should've swapped winwin out for johnny and put winwin in the chinese group. i'm starting to think sm signed onto too many kids and they're just putting them into groups out of contractual obligation. then again, i never understood why some exo members were initially able to debut either lol

doyoung's voice harmonizes with jaehyun's really well and that's likely one of the reasons why people enjoyed nct u so much. but (super unpopular opinion here) i think cherry bomb would've been a better song overall had they scrapped out the vocal parts. they felt tacked on and disrupted the overall balance of a supposedly all hip hop song. nct needs a separate vocal based group.

another thing, what is sm going to have in plan for the dream kids once they get older? they're cute and all but half of them can't really sing/rap that well. backup dancers?! ...

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

I think acting in cdramas and taiwanese dramas would be a great fit for WinWin. I could even see him in Chinese movies bc I think he's got a kind of classically Chinese handsomeness that the China market really likes, particularly in dramas that take place during the dynastic times.

I honestly don't know why foreigners sign w/SM other than that it's SM -- SM doesn't know what to do w/non-Koreans and they always fuck them over. I don't really think SM gives a crap about foreign idols except as a weak attempt to curry favor w/the Chinese, Thai, and Japanese markets.

Yeah, imo EXO is another bloated group that could use a good culling.

I agree with your unpopular opinion, Cherry Bomb would be much better as just straight rap/hip hop, no singing. If I had my wish NCT would be divided into a purely rap/hip hop group and a vocal group, and tbh altho I love Jaehyun for shallow reasons, I would then be able to ignore vocal group completely and just focus on the rap group bc that's where NCT's strength is. I think Taeyong is the best rapper SM has right now (tbf, SM has always been really weak w/rappers), even tho I know his style/the style SM makes him do is not everyone's taste, and Mark is decent and has a lot of potential.

IDK man, I ignore NCT Dream altogether bc they're so young and like you said half of them seem talentless other than being cute. I'm guessing a good number of them will get injured, get sick of idol life, and drop out or else end up in the SM dungeon forever. Sad but that's what happens when you're with SM -- this company has more idols and trainees than it knows what to do with and I don't know why they keep on so many ppl they don't promote, don't allow to do activities, and keep them in their dungeon, SM can't be making any money from that.

[jillyjellly.livejournal.com]

winwin can do it. i like to think he must have some kind of acting talent if he's enrolled at the highly competitive central academy of drama, tho you don't really need much acting talent at all to be a star *cough*kris*cough* chinese kids sign with sm because they want to be another kris/luhan. but realistically speaking kris/luhan had the advantage of being china's first real idol stars, that's why they're able to secure the top spots. han hong is supposedly involved in the chinese operations side of nct, so it may not the be the worst thing ever for the chinese idols bc she does have some clout in the industry.

i guess i was trying so say that exo didn't look cohesive as a group either but they've found their groove and some members have improved their singing/dancing/stage presence over time. plus fans will always find a way to get attached to idols they think are cute/handsome whether they're (objectively speaking) the most talented or not and sm knows this. 127 has already surpassed their previous sales and will continue to grow. nct definitely has the best choreography, most outlandish styling and unique music in kpop right now. whether they can be a top group idk because what we're currently noticing are problems with execution and delivery especially with 127 (hip hop) being pushed as the representative group (concept) for nct... but fans will choose to ignore whatever they don't want to see, or maybe they just can't see it at all. members like ten, yuta and johnny may look like deadweight to some during performances but they're stan attractors and inject a lot of spark into the group variety wise.

nct dream actually looks really tight as a group, stylistically and visually, more so than 127. but the members won't stay young forever and i can't see them doing 127 style hip hop. perhaps some will go into acting/variety. or there may be an older nct unit that does mainstream pop. you mention the dungeon but sadly that's potentially a part of any idol's life :/

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

LMAO at that Kris shade. I can't say I disagree though. And I also think you're right that Kris and Luhan's career trajectories will be difficult for future Chinese trainees to emulate bc I think a lot of what benefited Kris & Luhan was the timing and like you said, getting in there first. It's like those youtube stars who really probably wouldn't be so successful had they started later but they managed to get in on the ground floor.

To be honest, the last promotions I really followed for EXO was Call Me Baby and I always felt like the group was very over-hyped, their performance quality was very spotty and quite a few members already looked totally over it. There's like 3 or 4 members doing the most and the rest just look like they're going through the motions. I totally lost interest in the group after that promo cycle, I just didn't feel like they were going to have anything interesting to offer in the future either.

I generally think SM sucks now and I wish NCT was with another company. I think SM had its heyday and now it's just coasting along a slow decline. But its groups will always have some measure of success bc it's a Big 3 company, it was one of the originators in the kpop industry and did help to shape the industry into what it is now for better and worse (with lots of funding from the SK govt tho at the beginning), and there's a suprising and amount of SM company stans -- ppl who will follow and like a group just bc it's from SM.

[jillyjellly.livejournal.com]

exo is totally overhyped hahah they look like robots and i've never ever been impressed with any of their live stages. i think nct, as a whole, is a much more vibrant/passionate group than exo. actually, exo is probably the dullest group sm's ever created. although i must admit that growl is a very good pop song.

which company would be a good fit for nct? sm is full of interesting ideas and talented idols, but their concepts more often than not aren't fully realised or well executed. or maybe i'm just getting too old and i'm picking at flaws. i still generally like what they put out, for now. i just wish they would further develop the 'dream' concept from 7th sense/ten's station song for nct instead of 127's hip hop. sm seems confused and nct's releases reflect that.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see NCT at Big Hit. I am a BTS stan but I'm not a BH company stan, I just think BH is really good at selling their idols' personalities, putting out tons of content showing off who their idols are so that the fanbase becomes extremely attached and invested in the idols as people (almost as though they are friends or family) instead of just pretty dolls that dance and sing up on a pedestal. I think NCT has members with some of the most fun and entertaining personalities SM has had in a long time, but SM still doesn't provide enough content and filter them too tightly in their variety shows like NCT Life -- what I have seen makes me think they are really fun and interesting guys, but SM is not giving me enough and it still seems too calculated and tightly reined.

I don't think it was that important with EXO bc I don't think most of the members have very engaging personalities and several of them are problematics so more exposure to their personalities would be a huge turn off.

[dynamite-state.livejournal.com]

I thought Limitless was waaaay worse in that aspect, I still feel there are 4 too many people on that stage when they perform it. Cherry Bomb choreo brought a lot more cohesiveness to the group for me but there is only so much stage presence one can show when in the background and with half a line.

Personally I hope SM debuts a new unit soon and some 127 members are transferred there.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

Limitless was bad, worse than Fire Truck imo, but Cherry Bomb is just already so tiresome and low energy with the exception of like 2 or 3 members. I like the choreo but I feel like only a couple of the members do it justice or even look right/good doing it.

there is only so much stage presence one can show when in the background and with half a line.
See, I'm an asshole and would argue that the reason why certain members are in the background with half a line is bc they don't have charisma or stage presence and it would be even more awkward if they were given more to do.

I think 127 needs to be made into a smaller group, and yes I agree with you that it would be better if SM debuted a new unit and moved some of the current 127 members there.

[dynamite-state.livejournal.com]

Yuta and WinWin impress me in their 3 seconds of screen time, I know they have it in them if given the opportunity. But are they the first people I'd wish to see in a different unit? Definitely. Preferably in the same unit as Ten <3

I've said this when it was first announced that 127 was gaining 2 members that I wish they'd lost 2 instead. We'll just have to see what happens with the new units whenever they come and if SM tries to fix 127 a bit, performance-wise (don't touch the music though!).

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

Yeah the constant lip syncing is not helping matters, makes everything look even more awkward and disjointed.

I sound like a hater when I actually I really like this group and if we were just talking about personalities, I like pretty much all the members, but when promoting and performing as an idol group (not talking about variety and such), I feel like stuff isn't right and almost like the performance quality is on a downward trajectory.

[juhli.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to drop by to say how interesting it was to read these discussions about things a group doesn't excel at yet/can improve on without it turning to bashing/hate.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

Glad you found it interesting and would love to see you and others participating in these kinds of discussions in the future! :)

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

I loved Stellar's outfits! Are they actually barefoot? I can't tell.