LOUD’s format surprised all the way up to its grand finale. The line-up for its two boy groups was actually revealed in the penultimate episode, with the finale devoted to a festival-like series of performances. It was nice to watch an episode without stressing over votes and eliminations, and I’m super excited about both groups spawned from the series.
Neither act has a name yet, so we’re still awkwardly calling them Team JYP and Team P Nation. Based on the momentum of the show, it seems we can expect a debut fairly soon – maybe even within the year.
As part of the series finale, each team unveiled a pre-debut track – their first original song. Only JYP’s has been released in its studio version, but I still want to share my thoughts about both.
Team JYP – Get Loud
I thought I preferred LOUD’s P Nation team, but as the episodes went on and JYP became an unlikely underdog, I found myself rooting for these guys. Depending on the style of music they’re given after debut, they could easily end up as my favorite act. After all, they’ve got a pair of killer vocalists (Amaru, Yoon Min), which is a quality that really appeals to me. And, their youth suggests a bright, upbeat concept that could set them apart from past JYP boy groups.
Get Loud sets their career off on the right track. When stacked against other competition series songs, I’m surprised how great this is. The rollicking energy reminds me of past K-pop generations. I love how every segment is tethered to that high-octane, club-ready instrumental, peaking with a super fun chorus. But for me, it’s that post-chorus chant-along that steals the show. The production and delivery reminds me of old Teen Top songs like Rocking. The guys pull everything off with flair, showcasing tremendous potential.
And as much as I bristled at LOUD‘s unnecessary eliminations, I’ll always appreciate a 5-member group configuration.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 8.75 |
Team P Nation – 180 Seconds
Listening to this song makes me hopeful that P Nation will bring the funk for their very first boy group. In fact, I want their music to be a blender of influences – just like PSY’s. With seven members and the controversial inclusion of a (very talented, but very young) twelve-year-old, this team feels more rag-tag than JYP. I’m genuinely interested to see how they make it all work. I think they’re really banking on Koki having a sudden growth spurt before debut.
This team has some serious firepower. Junhyuk was my favorite contestant from round one, and I predict he’ll blossom into a real driving force behind the group’s success. 180 Seconds is a bit too disjointed to show off the guys’ strengths, and without a studio version (yet), it’s hard to fully gather my thoughts about the song itself. I like the funk verses, though they occasionally veer close to pastiche.
I’ll never love the lurching, half-tempo drop that makes up 180 Seconds’ chorus, but the approach works reasonably well here. Yes, it’s jarring and halts momentum, but the instrumental quickly regains its drive and everything comes together in the end. I’m so eager to hear their actual title track.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
This may be part of my personal bias with the members from JYP, Donghyeon and Amaru were favorites of mine almost from the start and its hard to not sympathize with Gyehun’s journey and Keiju’s charisma, but i got a much stronger sense of unity and identity coming from them – which put together with JYPe resources and their small member configuration makes me think they will blowup quickly
PNation’s team got the benefit of being their first and, surely PSY will want to promote them in the best way possible – if they can get through the rough start because of Koki (which is immensely talented, just too young and sure to draw undesired attention), then i can see a positive future for them as well.
All in all, i really enjoyed the journey of the series, the overall production and the very much godly combination of JYPSY charisma displayed in full – all things which i definetely didn’t expected to like as much as i did.
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I hope either one of these guys soon end up to be the next current-gen idol group I get excited about. 2019-Era ATEEZ seems to not be coming back, ONF might get less frequent comebacks and Golden Child still stays at the top for me but I think that they might get a bit of a slowdown.
Let’s see the music they put out! I AM EXCITED!
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I haven’t been watching, and I couldn’t find the time to watch Nick’s earlier post from a prior week. They are both solid songs, solid groups. I am glad both will be debuting.
The kid. There are talented kids in entertainment since forever, Shirley Temple, Michael Jackson. Taemin debuted at 16, as did Jungkook. I think as long as his hyungs look out for him, he =should= be OK. I’d rather see him debut now, than to hang around in the trainee system for years just marking time. Mho, I don’t think all that trainee time did Bang Yedam much good other than being older and (much) taller.
The Get Loud is as if Teen top did a kpop mashup of Rocking with Le Chic’s Freak out. ‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXgSHL7efKg
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I mean, yeah, there have been very young kids in show business forever, and a lot of them had really messed up experiences. Maybe it’s past time to say “hey, maybe it’s not a good idea to allow adults to make money off of children making shoes or music or anything else”. Every year of experiencing basically anything at all makes a big difference when you’re in your teens, and maybe that time spent at least semi-sheltered from the spotlight could make the difference between being able to handle the pressures of fame or not.
I really try not to be overly judgmental of the “idol group as a family” dynamic since there are clearly cultural elements at play that I don’t fully understand, but I really don’t see how this situation leads to anything other than resentment. If a Michael Jackson outcome is the best one can hope for, that’s setting the bar awfully low.
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Wish the kid the best. I get Myma’s point of him just wasting in trainee limbo when skill-wise he’s debut ready. We’ve seen how that has changed the trajectory of some young idols ala Somi. But I still think he should get the chance to be a kid honestly. Man is just TOO YOUNG. Hope that everything goes by with no hiccups
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For sure, and to be clear, I 100% wish him (and all of these kids!) personally all the best. But I won’t be putting my eyeballs or $ in their direction and view this as a small but real black mark against the k-pop industry as a whole. I accepted a while ago that trying to change the world through being a “responsible consumer” is an impossible trap designed to shift responsibility for ethical behavior from industry to customer. But I still have lines I don’t want to cross and still feel good about myself, and it turns out the difference between pre- and post-pubescent is one of them.
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As a mom, I wouldn’t send my kids into kpop, but if I were to and if I had a kid this talented presented with an opportunity to debut pretty soon with a decent company, it would be yes. He does his seven years, and if at the end he is done with the entertainment industry, he would still be only 19 and a young man. Still college age. Bird in hand is worth much more the uncertainty of the trainee system.
My line is that I just can’t stan teenagers. I can admire and buy their music perhaps, but the googly eyed stuff is just wrong. Unless that person is Lee Dae Hwi. He’s now 20 so its almost OK now.
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If I ruled the world, I’d say that no one can enter the trainee system until they’re at least 14, no one can debut younger than 18, and contracts would be about half the length they currently are. And honestly, if I had kids, I would hope that they weren’t that talented at anything that young. But thankfully I don’t rule the world or have kids, which leaves me much more free time all around!
I hear you on stanning teenagers – I generally don’t watch non-musical content with teenage trainees or idols, although that also has to do with the fact that survival/audition series stress me out and I find people in their 20s and older generally more entertaining than most teenagers anyhow. I only recently accidentally figured out which of MCND’s vocalists is which and I’m kind of salty about it.
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I think I view it somewhere along these lines:
If someone had the choice between debuting or not debuting at 12, I would say not to debut.
However, that’s not the choice being presented. The choice is between debuting at 12 vs. staying in the trainee system for another 4-5 years or so, and given that, I *might* push for debut. Not at 12, but sooner rather than later. The trainee system is pretty grueling, and at least he has the option of potentially making money now.
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Ethical concerns aside, I can’t be the only one who just finds Koki’s presence incredibly distracting. For good or for ill, there’s an expectation that members of dance-based groups should be able to stand out AND blend back into their groups as needed, and while I think it’s important to push for more diversity in dance groups so that even minor physical differences aren’t so glaringly obvious, the fact is that Koki cannot blend with the rest of the group right now and so will always be in the spotlight, which loops right back around to those ethical issues.
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I would have been perfectly happy with Loud had the casting round been the last episode. Alas it was not to be and at least for me Loud really shot itself in the foot with those extra elimination rounds.
Across the board from the first episode to the last the talent level on this show was insane. JYP and PSY were both very entertaining and good mentors. And I guess I would still say that show wasn’t unnecessarily mean, but it was unnecessarily stupid. Those Live eliminations were straight up torturous and even though it has been on my mind for over two weeks straight I still can’t fathom why they used the god-awful system they did.
Firstly, fan votes will forever remain an absolutely abysmal method of judging a performance. While both groups put on amazing stages across all three live rounds it almost felt like it didn’t even matter because it all came down to popularity anyway.
As If the fan vote eliminations weren’t enough each producer picked an additional person to eliminate from both groups for each of the live rounds. Therefore, even the team that won that round was still essentially punished by being stripped of another member. I didn’t know who to feel worse for the group that lost the round and had two members eliminated based on stupid fan votes or the group that supposedly won but still had a member eliminated anyway. So, in total they eliminated 7 people after the casting round which is enough to have made a whole third group. I’ll never understand why they choose to do it this way or why they felt the need to throw away so much hard-earned talent at the end.
I think I will forever be sad about JYP’s line up. Sure, the five of them are fantastic and more than talented enough to make a group on their own. But I will forever think they would have been better off as seven or even the full nine. I fully believe all nine of the contestants he initially casted would’ve been great given the chance.
Yeah so, I guess in spite of the fact that I would still have to concede that LOUD was indeed awesome at times and probably still the best survival show I have watched I still can’t help but feel bitter about the whole thing. Jokes on me for once again caring far too much about a survival show.
I am still looking forward to the two groups and I am sure they will be great, but I am not sure I’ll ever be able to watch them without wishing for what could have been. I also really hope we see some of the eliminated contestant’s debut elsewhere as long at it still what they want. I guess I can only hope they will all find their own place wherever that is.
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Ignoring Koki, both groups still seem super young. I think some laws are needed for one to not become an idol until 18 with strict exceptions.
Both songs are pretty good. Looking forward to the groups!
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When I was in high school, a friend’s dad got fined because he paid his 13-year-old to wash dishes at the family restaurant, and yet the entertainment industry can make $$$ of of kids of any age and it’s no big deal . I’m not sure why this is an area that pushes a bunch of my buttons but it surely is.
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the fact they’re debuting a freakin 12 year old in the group is disgusting as fuck. like, koki’s not even a teenager, and there are no child labor laws preventing this??? wtf?
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