17 January 2023 – I’m Still Here

Today was work and music, in that order.

Workwise, I was trying to sort out my laptop, which had done funny things following a Microsoft update last week (basically all pinned apps disappeared and some are also gone from the start menu, making them almost impossible to find). Yesterday, I was too busy to sort it out as I could still access what I needed at the time (except Chrome, which was a bit of a pain but liveable with). Today, I knew I had to get it sorted or eventually it would really piss me off. I now have a bunch of black tiles in the start menu that I can’t get rid of (annoying for the part of my brain that needs them gone) and I still don’t have anything in the start menu for most of the missing stuff, but they are now pinned or have desktop shortcuts, which is good enough.

With the music, I was supposed to be focussing on soloists, but a few bands snuck in at the end, Jay B, Key, Zico, Kim Jae Hwan, Park Ji Hoon, Lee Jin Hyuk, Baekho, Woodz, Ha Sung Woon, Kino, Junny, Max Changmin, Onew, Woosung, Onewe, BDC, RoaD-B, Tan, Just B, Bandage, Tempest, TVXQ!, Kingdom and finally the mighty Pentagon while I was writing this. I calculate I’ve got 110 more albums from 2022 to listen to (assuming I haven’t forgotten any) before I can make my final lists – I really did listen to a lot of K-pop last year. Then, I’ll need to re-listen to the top 20 in each category to make sure my picks are correct. It’s unlikely the current top 5 albums overall will change as they’ve long been massive favourites, but there’s still everything to play for in the rest of the lists – yes, I am beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered, but it’s too late now 😂.

Funnily enough, it’s actually possible that the current number 1 album might end up at number 1 again this year too, as the singer has just announced that he’s releasing a repackaged version in February. Apologies, you can skip the next bit if you want, but I thought I should explain a bit more about K-pop and their amazing selling skills.

Show me the money

K-pop agencies are the masters of milking money from the fans. Just with the official releases, repackages, various extraneous goods, lightsticks and other merch, you need to be rich (or have really nice parents in the case of youngsters) to be able to afford it, and let’s not even discuss the price of tickets to see one of those bands in concert 🙈 (if they even remember where Europe is during their ‘world’ tours that only take in Asia, Japan and the US/Latin America/Canada 🤬). There is also a thriving industry outside of the official companies, where you can buy just about anything related to K-pop (which is how I ended up with this wooden spoon for Christmas – thanks, Jo 👍).

It really looks like them (BTS), too! 

Obviously, it doesn’t help that everything comes from South Korea, so there are extortionate shipping costs on top of the other extortionate costs, or you have to wait a million years for it to arrive. Japanese stuff is even more expensive, and Chinese is almost impossible to get unless it’s Lay (Zhang Yixing) from EXO (yes, of course I found a way to include them 😂). A select few bands are beginning to produce US versions too, so they can sell more copies for the Billboard Charts (they’re still expensive to ship to the UK, though, 😔 and often have different inserts to the original Korean versions). Check out the few K-pop albums available at HMV to see how much more expensive they are than western albums. Increasingly, bands are also producing original English language albums – Onewe will be releasing their first one, Gravity, on 28 January.

Albums – as I mentioned in a previous post, in K/J/C-pop all releases, regardless of type, are classified as an album, whether it contains one track or a dozen. This means they can be sold for the same (expensive) price, because you often don’t know the track list until release day (although some bands are getting better at this because they know their fans will buy it anyway), and you still have to pay the same shipping costs. If you’re unlucky you can pay £30+ for what turns out to be a single track and an instrumental version. Not that fans care about that, you just want to hold the physical copy of the album in your hands. They will also probably still buy the digital version too, as it will have an exclusive booklet (on iTunes), and helps contribute to sales and the many awards that K-pop gives away annually, where sales and streaming play a big part.   

Album packaging – the reason you want a physical copy rather than the planet-saving yet slightly soulless digital/streaming version is because agencies are extremely creative at producing enticing CD packaging. I’m not talking the standard cd case and lyric booklet combo that millions of western albums have (to be honest it’s been a long time since I bought an album by anyone other than Gary Numan and I never get the standard version, so they may also provide fantastic packaging, but they certainly never used to).

For every album that is released there is almost always at least 2 versions of it (and sometimes more – for instance, the album currently at number 1 in my overall list had 4 different versions. Confession: I bought 3 of them and have regretted not getting the other one ever since 😭). The CD itself will be identical, although it may have different printing on it depending on the concept, but the external packaging and the inserts will be different in some way – in the case of the aforementioned album, there was a 1980s style video case, a digipack that looked like a 3.5” floppy disk and 2 different ‘fan magazine’ type covers. Among the inserts were photocards in those foil packets that you get for things like football card albums, in keeping with the concept, which had begun with the previous album when 5 versions were released (including a cassette tape version). Others, use things like spine art to ensure you get a full set – if you only buy one of each album you only get half the picture/word.

Kingdom's albums spine artwork

Inserts began with photocards, which quickly became extremely collectible, and are still one of the main reasons people buy physical copies. Often, the different versions have different photocards, so collecting a full set is big business – if your band has 9 members, you have to be lucky to get the card of the member you want (I never am lucky) and if you want both the full sets you’ll need to buy at least 18 copies of the album (and then swap/sell your extras) or buy them from photocard sellers. And then there are the 'rare' photocards (D.O.'s forehead card is the obvious example - I do not own, and alas will probably never own this card).

The infamous Universe card

But it isn’t just photocards. Normally they come with photobooks and posters (even digipacks) and a selection of bookmarks, polaroid photos, stickers, postcards and lyric sheets all furthering the concept. One of my favourite bands even produced a board game in one of their releases. The album covers look like hardback books. When you open them up and lay them flat, you can play the game – if you have both parts – the game pieces are miniature standees of a band member (one for each version).    

inserts for Xiumin's albums

Recently, agencies have started getting into NFT’s and releasing ‘albums’ through them too – yet again for the cost of a normal album, but all you (usually) get is a single digital track and possibly access to an online photo library. If you’re really lucky, you might also get sent a physical photocard. You also have to check carefully as these are often mixed in with the normal physical versions in the online store and they’re not always transparent in the description as to what they are.  

If you’re now thinking about all the landfill created by all these eventually discarded CDs (because apparently I’m the only person never to throw any of them away; which is why I own several thousand), so are the agencies. In fact, SM Entertainment dedicated a whole hour to an online sustainability forum on 1 January, just before their annual 4+ hour free online concert starring all their artists, where they discussed the steps they’re taking to make their products more sustainable and offset their carbon footprint – it was actually quite interesting (if you’re into that sort of thing).  

Repackaging – this is one of K-pop’s biggest scams in my opinion, although now I’m thinking about it and looking at my collection, I think it’s generally only SM Entertainment that does it. Basically, the same album is re-released a few months after the original version, but it has been renamed and has new covers and inserts. It also has a couple (or more if you’re lucky) of new tracks that can’t be bought in physical version anywhere else (so yes, you end up buying the same album twice – or more, if you’re like me who gets twitchy about not having complete sets). It’s a bit like that old favourite that they do in the UK of releasing a ‘Greatest Hits’ package and sticking a brand new track on that’s not available elsewhere, so even though you own every album and all the tracks, you have to buy it to get that one track.

Other agencies release Japanese versions of the albums as another way to make money from the fans – they usually have an extra, unreleased Korean song on there, that makes it a must-have. And let’s not forget all the goods available in the band’s store – everything from posters, right through to clothing, cuddly toys, jewellery and the concert staple, the band’s lightstick (I currently own 10, and will be buying the CIX one if I can get it). 

There isn’t just one version either, some bands have 2 or 3 different versions 9and special bags to transport them in); they generally get better quality (and more expensive) as the band becomes more popular. I actually like lightsticks at a concert as they give it a warm feeling and feel sad that western artists don’t get to experience the beautiful lights they create. Some of them are quite inventive, although increasingly, bands tend to go for the orb on a stick type, which are almost interchangeable (the band-related bit is what’s inside the orb).

these are some of the more unusual lightsticks

Before I move away from K-pop, today is the Chinese NCT unit WayV’s 4th anniversary, so congratulations to them! 🎉🎊🎉. Their leader, Kun, recently chose an unusual way to promote their latest album, Phantom. Rather him than me, then again he is a certified skydiver, and a pilot, and also a magician. He really is very cool!

Also, Baekhyun (EXO) posted his last video before his discharge from mandatory military service. Knowing we were going to miss him, he filmed a video for each month that he was away, and this final one talks about the fans (EXO-Ls) and his expectations for the future. It’s only 19 days until his discharge, and we know from what Suho (the leader) and other members have said, that once he’s back the band will be releasing a new album (I really hope it’s OT9 with Lay 🙏 even though he’s a busy boy with his own entertainment agency to run as well as everything else he does). D.O. also mentioned it at his birthday party, yesterday, and confirmed he will be releasing a new solo album shortly. We already know that Kai will be releasing his third solo album (probably shortly before he enlists 😭) and that Chanyeol has been working on his solo. Hopefully, our maknae, Sehun, will also grace us with an album (or a track at least), and maybe even an EXO-SC release before he, too, heads off for enlistment 😭.

If you’re still awake, or you just skipped the lecture, my most interesting post today was some fleece-lined ankle slipper socks (which I’m calling slocks) because my feet keep getting cold and with the weather dropping to potential snow levels, or even lower, I need to keep my toes warm. I’m pleased to report they’re working well so far – better than 2 pairs of fleecy socks – so I might buy more for when I put the current ones in the wash. The other thing I got was a bottle of peanut butter whiskey called Sheep Dog (it’s amazing what late night random Amazon searches bring up 😂). It smells and tastes exactly like peanut butter, with the bite of the whiskey coming through at the end. Definitely a 👍 from me.

I’m off to watch Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist 2 as Missing the Other Side 2 isn’t subbed yet. I haven’t yet decided about Unchained Love. I’ll probably watch another couple of episodes before I decide whether to drop it.

Oh look, I beat the midnight deadline. Well done, me! 😁🥇