Aka the boyband that keeps on growing and growing and growing until we all are members of it.
Put simply, Super Junior is a Korean boyband whose current lineup has 13 members.
13 members, people.
That is not a boyband, that is an all-singing, all-dancing, all-male version of The Polyphonic Spree.
Now, Super Junior (I'm not calling them Suju, because that's just too twee and I'm too old), has recently released their latest album (their 3rd) called Sorry Sorry, and honestly, the title song is pretty catchy--even if the attending dance looks like an attack of sciatica.
I will give the SM choreography geniuses (or basically Shindong in Super Junior's case) credit because those 13 guys (hey, some of them are over 21, they aren't quite "boys") do fly around the stage with ease.
Now when you have such a huge amount of members, it makes sense to go and split them off into little subgroups to go conquer the wallets of young girls across Asia. The most recent spinoff is Super Junior-Happy, and happy they are...incessantly. Seriously, this is some of the most perkiest music you will come across this side of Sesame Street.
A prime example: Cooking? Cooking!
Personally, I prefer the absurd comedy of Super Junior-T, which was the Trot inspired subgroup that yielded the absurdist hit Rokuko, and more back pain inducing choreography.
But back (no pun intended) to the mothership. Super Junior's 2nd album was entitled Don't Don, with a title song that (to quote the publicity via Wikipedia) "send a message about how money, hypocrisy, and the change of society has made the world into a twisted and greedy place to live."
With liberal dance breaks.
Not that I disagree with the message, but is a manufactured boyband seemingly bent on regional domination the best choice of messenger? I don't quite think so.
Since this Super Junior retrospective is in reverse chronological order, it is only appropriate that it concludes (conveniently skipping the obsessive tone of U), with their debut single TWINS (Knock Out). TWINS is a rather interesting song and video, because the idea seems to be to turn the many members of Super Junior as the 12-part super-ego of a man in the midst of a mental breakdown brought on by relationship trouble.
And the back-breaking choreography, of course.
Deep stuff for a debut single, don't you think?
1 comment:
great post! i'd never heard of... ok, i'll say it... suju. but your post gives a nice introduction to the group.
and i love the irony of a boyband franchise offering a critique of capitalism.
Post a Comment