open discussion

Open Discussion (October 2, 2022)

Posted on by 48 Comments

Open DiscussionIt’s Sunday, which means it’s time to end the week with an open discussion post!

To keep things civil, there are a few rules:

  1. Be kind and respectful to one another. Any harassing language will be deleted.
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  3. Video/gif/image embedding is totally fine. Just try to limit yourself to a couple per comment. Otherwise my moderation filter goes crazy.

Each week, I’ll open with a question to get the conversation going. Feel free to chat about anything, but if you’re not sure what to write you can use this question as a starting point.

This week’s question:

Sometimes, a certain song or album will have you going back and reassessing an artist’s back catalog – even if you’ve never been a big fan before. These “entry point” songs have become pretty common for me. What are some “entry point” songs that have turned you into a big fan of an artist long after their debut?

48 thoughts on “Open Discussion (October 2, 2022)”

  1. As far as more recent tracks, my mind goes immediately to OnlyOneOf’s libidO. I’d always found the group’s music interesting and really liked Angel up to that point, but libidO had me going back and listening to (and buying!) all their albums, as well as seeking out their variety. Now I’m a huge fan.

    This year, standout tracks by Tempest and IVE have me giving their (small) discographies more love. CRAVITY’s new album has me going back and re-listening to past albums with fresh ears. TO1’s Drummin’ has made me a big fan, though that’s a tricky one since it’s almost a re-debut with new members.

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    • I hope this upcoming comeback will let you re-evaluate Kingdom’s discography and singles. I just know that ‘Karma’, ‘Black Crown’ and ‘Ascension’ deserve to be slotted at least in the 8-ish scores for ratings.

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    • OnlyOneOf came to mind for me as well, except the “song of entry” was Be Free. I’d enjoyed libidO and its accompanying album but that one sparked a deep dive into their discography.

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    • Ive’s After like made me obsessed with their whole discography, and especially Eleven. I did not love it that much on release day but became strictly obsessed with it when I relistened to it after After like release. It felt very strange, but it’s something that happens to me a lot in kpop haha.

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  2. I have the perfect answer for this one – Seventeen!! 😀

    I have always known this group by name and some of the regular trivia about them – they are actually 13 members, known for synchronization etc. The first song of theirs I heard was actually a vocaloid cover of Thanks long back. Though I liked it I wasn’t into kpop then. In 2020 after I rediscovered kpop – I heard the actual Seventeen for the first time with Home Run which I loved but still didn’t dive into the group. Rock With You, Hoshi Spider, Hot – I saw everything but it was with World that it finally hit me “Hey! I really like this group and their songs!”

    And then I went back to their old discography and found everything from titles to bsides I enjoyed! And as poetic justice I finally listened to the original Thanks and I was blown away lol! 😀

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  3. This would be another instance of me posting 30+ items as I count off which entry songs got me into which group, so I’ll narrow the focus. I’ll only list the groups that I knew existed but continued to pass on. This disinterest could’ve been for several reasons, such as: a poor first experience with the group, I was already juggling several active groups and taking on another didn’t seem necessary, they seemed like a group that was just copying what better groups were already doing, or.. ..something petty.

    So.. ..groups that I knew existed, saw them releasing new songs/MVs but didn’t even bother to listen/watch, but then that one song came along and……

    Woo!Ah! – “Bing Bing Bing” – After hearing this song, I went back and checked out everything they had previously released and instantly fell in love with the majority of their drops.
    Ref (WA:BBB): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3dHrpsWseA

    fromis_9 – “Feel Good (Secret Code)” – Unlike Woo!Ah!, whom I completely ignored, I kept a semi-eye on f9 but never really took them seriously. Then “Feel Good” dropped and I was sold on the group. Almost everything they’ve released since then has found a home in my playlists.
    Ref (f9:FG): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLmJhjCzOTw

    IZ*ONE – “Violeta” – For reasons (see next paragraph), I passed on this group and had no interest in them. But then I heard “Violeta” and despite my spite, it sank its hooks in. However, unlike the other groups I list here, it didn’t draw me into the rest of the groups song. For “reasons”, I still wanted nothing to do with them.
    Ref (I*O:V): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eEZ7DJMzuk

    At the start, I listed one of the reasons why I would pass on a group as “petty”. Well, here’s an example. I was so upset with how Produce 48 ended that I wanted nothing to do with the final group. Watching Kaeun’s face as she was passed over in the final round tore my heart out. Dropped simply because she didn’t look “juvenile” enough for this sham project. If she never stood a chance, then why let her compete? She wasn’t the only one that I felt was left out for shady reasons. For example, they billed this show as a joint Korean/Japanese project, yet the final lineup had fewer foreign members (9 Korean/3 Japanese) than TWICE (5 Korean/3 Japanese/1 Taiwanese).

    There are other groups that apply to this weeks theme, but now I’m in a bad mood thinking about IZ*ONE, so I’m going to end here.

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  4. Every now and then, I have a “who the heck are these people and why have I not heard of them before”.

    Ulala Session. Been around for a decade or so, somehow never hit my radar or suggested feed. This song “I am fine” is like alt-SuJu unit for me, and its all mighty fine. So of course now I have more than a few of their back catalog.

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  5. For me into Shinee it was Everybody! at the point in time I did hear about Shinee from their megahits like ring ding dong and replay but they never stuck in my head for too long as I was on a mass spree of discovering even more artists. When that died down, one of their Japan concert performances (Everybody!) popped into my recommended and I was instantly hooked with the energy of the song ! Fell deep into their discography and variety videos and never looked back since ahahaha

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  7. This happens to me all the time because I tend to be quick to dismiss things.

    SHINee:
    I started off as a huge Taemin fan. When I first decided to dive into SHINee’s discography, I couldn’t get past the huge differences. When the Don’t Call Me Album came out, Code and I Really Want You snapped me out of it. They are now my ult 🙂

    Enhypen:
    I thought Given-Taken was only OK and while Drunk-Dazed was catchy, I couldn’t get past the heavy vocal processing. But Tamed-Dashed was so catchy, I listened to the rest of the album. Go Big or Go Home is what sold me. Now I’m a huge Enhypen fan with mild frustration that HYBE doesn’t do their vocals justice.

    NCT Dream:
    The first song I experienced by them was Hot Sauce, and my mind immediately wrote them off as a “younger, brighter, more-blatantly-gen-Z” version of their obnoxiously chanty older brothers NCT 127. I’d say Hello Future changed my mind, but I still wasn’t sold. It wasn’t until my friend forced me to listen to a b-side (Rocket) that I gave their discog a proper chance. By the time Beatbox came out, I decided I was a huge fan 🙂 (and Hot Sauce / Glitch Mode have grown on me)

    Honorable mentions:
    Taemin — Criminal
    Treasure — MMM (I know, why THAT one?)
    Seventeen — Good to Me
    BTS — Pied Piper (my entry point into K-pop in general — I had heard some k-pop and had 0 interest before then)
    IVE — Love Dive

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  8. A few weeks ago a friend sent me Seventeen’s Heaven’s Cloud saying that I would love it and that got me to start properly listening to their discography-I had known of their existence beforehand and had generally liked what I heard but I’d never really sat down to listen to their music. Needless to say I’m having a pretty good time discovering songs of theirs, almost all of their title tracks are on my October playlist already! (if anyone has other bsides of theirs that are especially good I’d gladly take recommendations!!)

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    • I love heaven’s cloud. I love Seventeen. Boy do I have recommendations 😀

      Shadow
      Healing
      Flower
      Swimming Fool
      Crazy in Love
      Moonwalker
      Our dawn is hotter than day
      All My Love
      Good to Me
      Shhh
      Domino
      Wave
      Anyone

      Ok there’s too many, I’ll shut up now

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  9. For me it was “Crossroads” by GFriend. Never really listened to them at all, but that song really opened my eyes, so I started to go through their back catalog which is outstanding. And then…..

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    • Wow! That’s so surprising because Crossroads is one of my least favorite GFriend singles. It just goes to show that every comeback is someone’s first comeback and sometimes switching sounds or producers really does bring in new fans!

      I’m curious is Crossroads is still a personal favorite of yours or if you now prefer different eras?

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  10. I vaguely knew of B1A4, but in 2020 I decide to check out their discography. “what’s going on” and “beautiful target” definitely hooked me on them and I listen to a ton of their songs now even if I don’t listen to origine that much

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  11. Goblin (Favorite Boys) was my song of entry for A.C.E. I’m pretty sure I had seen the MV for Under Cover before but for some inexplicable reason it didn’t make a huge impression on me; now it’s my favorite song by them. Fortunately they don’t have a huge discog so it was easy to go back and catch up.

    For ONEUS I had heard Valkyrie and Twilight before but Lit was the song that really got me into them. I guess I have a thing for hanbok and traditional styling. Also, I saw a very funny video of them doing Twilight dressed up as fruit, which convinced me that they’re just adorable goofballs.

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  12. I’m relatively new to Kpop (SNSD in 2017, but I sought out nothing else until I stumbled across EXO in 2020), so this has been a phenomenon for nearly every group that I’ve done thorough discography listen-throughs for so far. For me, I like to randomly stumble across music in general, and I won’t typically go on a discography search unless I’ve heard at least two songs that I really like by a group. I’ve actually got a pretty long backlog of groups that I need to check out at this point – trying to catch up! Here’s a chronological (in order of when in time I found the group) list of the song that made me think, “Okay, I need to listen to ALL of this group’s music now.”

    SNSD – “Beep Beep” (in 2017)
    My two year old niece introduced me to this song because she liked to dance to it. It was my first K-pop song (because I don’t count PSY’s “Gangnam Style” since it was viral), and I was enamored with the choreo and all of the group members. Never had seen anything like it. Though it’s not my favorite SNSD song, I’ll always have warm and fuzzy feelings about it because it was my entry into Kpop.

    EXO – “Growl” (in 2020)
    First song was “Obsession” because it was the newest at the point I discovered them, and I was like, “Uhhhh…?” “Growl” was the one that hooked me though. Had to listen to all of the everything after that.

    Super Junior – “2YA2YAO!” (in 2021)
    Weirdly enough. I had heard several things by them, and D&E, and KRY – ‘Sorry, Sorry’, ‘Mr. Simple’, ‘Growing Pains’, ‘Dorothy’, ‘Devil’, and a few others. I was resisting going through their discography hard because I knew I knew it was huge and that felt overwhelming, but 2YA2YAO! and Kyuhyun’s voice was the tipping point for some unknown reason. Now they’re my absolute favorites.

    Shinee – “Tell Me What to Do” (this year!)
    Song’s a masterpiece. Shinee got backlogged until I was finished with Super Junior, but from the moment I heard “Tell Me What to Do” after listening to “I Want You” and loving both songs I knew I was going to have to listen to all of Shinee’s music.

    Looking forward to many more deep dives in the future!

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  13. Danger and Press your number by Taemin
    K-Pop is all about performance, and when I accidentally watched Taemin performed these 2 songs on an award show in 2015 (a Chinese award show to be exact) I was shocked and captivated. That kid (he’s a man now)’s move moved my heart. And I fell hard.
    I always familiar with K-Pop ever since I was a kid, like 2008, because of Hallyu wave is strong on Asian country back then. But I was so into US/UK music back then so I don’t particularly listen to any group. But Taemin’s performance in 2015 totally changed my path.

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  15. Mmm . Over the last couple years, I’m still a toddler K-pop fan and so far out of the whole loop, any song is going to send me backwards unless they are rookies. However – here are a few favorites from groups performers I was iffy about.
    Rain – Rainism
    Sent me back to his older stuff and I even bought his last one, Pieces, cause it’s pretty cool.
    E’Last – Dark Dream
    It sent me to some of their earlier stuff, and this year’s
    Roar, which is excellent (except for the title track).
    Billlie – The Rumor
    This album track was such a perfect blend of 60s girl group callout and current girl crush that it had me reassessing their first album to the point where I’m a fan.

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  16. A.C.E’s Under Cover was a turning point for me. It introduced me to them and their back catalogue at that time, which I do love. However, it was also the release that made me realize groups I had never heard of, from small companies could drop absolute bangers. From that point on I tried my best to check out more material from small groups, groups I’d never heard of, and groups I had not previously liked.
    I am now a big A.C.E fan and I actively try to check out everyone’s title tracks at least once.

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  17. not kpop but until last year thanks to reading your blog, i didnt even know johnnys ever existed. but, as soon as listening to sexy zone’s “run,” kat-tun’s “rescue,” and kis my ft2’s “gravity,” i was instantly hooked and wanted to listen to more of these groups

    then i listened to news’ quartetto album, and i became a fan of news. they’re now my favorite jpop group and i have almost their entire discography on my phone

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  19. For me, It was CIX ‘Wave’ which I discovered a day or two before their most recent comeback. ‘Wave’ had me going through their whole discography and discovering amazing music. They were a group that I knew existed but didn’t really give a chance to. After I discovered ‘Wave’, the door to CIX became wide open and now nearly their whole discography is in my liked playlist haha.

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  20. Hmmmm, it happened a lot to me so I will narrow it down to the most recent rediscoveries:

    Pixy – Villain
    Lee Junho – Nobody else
    Day6 – Emergency (loved their title tracks before but went through all their albums after listening to this one)
    Verivery – O (the song took a while to grow on me, but unleashed a great deal of curiosity before turning into a Trigger obsession)
    Pentagon – Call my name (alongside One shot and The game)

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    • Junho!!! YES. Discovering his music was like unearthing a diamond mine for me. I actually got hooked through “Ice Cream” after seeing how fun and cute the MV was and then I just immediately listened through all his albums and was floored by how geared towards me all of it was. He’s now my fave male soloist outside of SHINee members lol. Absolutely need him to come back with new music PRONTO.

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  21. “The Feels” for me. Even though Twice was big during my entire time as a K-pop Stan, I was just never that interested. I still of course had heard their music up to that point(their choruses are inescapable, but I think the only full song I had heard from them was Dance the Night Away) , but it wasn’t until The Feels was released that I started to pay attention

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  22. Oddly enough, I don’t think a single song has ever turned me into a fan of a group; the closest I can get to that is keeping an eye on a group after they debut. Sonic consistency and growth are really important to me, so unless several of the group’s title tracks hit me and I also like the majority of their B-sides and entire music catalogue, I just can’t get into them. I’ll listen to some of their songs but not follow them or highly anticipate a comeback.

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  23. Idk how or why, but I get into groups at random times and not through actual comebacks. I usually go “hey this group exists” listen to some of their songs and go “hey this shit is good” That being said, I do have some entry points lol.

    Mirae’s juice made me actually pay attention to the members and become a now.
    Golden Child’s Pump It Up made me a fan a few months after the comeback.
    And if anything, Snsd’s paparazzi, which I only listened to this month, is already turning me into a sone!

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  24. TVXQ’s Break Out. While Mirotic was my first K-Pop song, I actually was pretty unimpressed by it at the time. Their other songs failed to impress me, and I was pretty much a Super Junior/SHINee fan while my family and friends entered a TVXQ phase. Then I heard Break Out and well, the rest is history.

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    • Breakout is a banger. I think it’s fair to call it one of their lesser-known singles, right? It’s cool that that’s the one that pulled you in! For me it was definitely Catch Me, but that’s mostly because I wasn’t following K-pop closely until that era.

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  26. Mago—Gfriend

    Beep Beep Beep—Rania

    23—late era IU
    Good Day—early era IU

    Heart Attack—AOA

    Ring the Alarm—KARD

    Maniac—Stray Kidz

    Between Us—Laboum

    So Crazy—T-ara

    Skip—Tahiti

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  27. Ra pam pam by golden child (I’m listening to it while typing this post.) I was like, vaguely aware that you biased them pretty hard on the blog, but then you posted about it and even though your post seemed a little disappointed, I decided to give it a try. And wow; it sits tall as my favorite Golcha title track and truly got me into their whole discography (ironic considering they don’t have many soundalike tracks, but i still love most of it!). I’ll always defend RPP to the end of my days and it really opened my eyes to how talented Golcha is (the vocals! the choreo! the showmanship!)

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