Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
With 2NE1 out of action while CL pursues her solo career in the US, there’s a spot open for a new K-pop girl group to win my heart. Fellow YG act Black Pink are obvious contenders, but I’m also impressed by a new group that I heard of more recently. Twice has more than twice as many members as 2NE1 or Black Pink (there’s nine of them – which is not actually unusual for a K-pop band) and have quickly become superstars since their debut only just over a year ago. They were formed on a reality show called Sixteen, and their first video was the most viewed debut for a K-pop act, gaining 50 million views in five months. That might sound impressive, but new single TT is currently at 58 million after less than a month – basically, these girls are huge. TT is a fantastic video, mixing the quality of a blockbuster film with cute outfits and immaculate choreography. As is traditional, the verses are in Korean while the chorus is in English, and therefore you need to watch with the subtitles on to get the full experience. I had to turn to Reddit to understand the meaning of TT, though – it actually represents the crying emoji (the vertical lines being the tears).